News / Politics
Miliband delivers stinging response to Denyer after her maiden speech
The traditional niceties during and after Carla Denyer’s maiden speech did not last long as Ed Miliband made a stinging critique against the Green Party.
In her maiden speech, the MP for Bristol Central and Green Party co-leader said that she “stand(s) ready to work across party lines to help to secure the ambitious changes we need for our climate and our natural world and to make the UK a fairer place”.
In her maiden speech, Denyer told the chamber her pronouns, thanked her new constituents, praised former mayor Marvin Rees for becoming the first directly elected Black mayor of a major European city, paid tribute to her predecessors Thangam Debbonaire and Stephen Williams, and gave a bit of a Bristol history lesson from slave ships to Banksy.
is needed now More than ever
On the theme of the climate emergency, Denyer said that the previous Tory government “sought to break the climate consensus, to weaponise culture wars and to spread lies and misinformation about what a net zero future will be like”.
Denyer said that she and the Greens intend to hold the government to account on its promises on green energy and climate commitments.
She said: “This government must reverse the damage and have the courage to show genuine climate leadership at this critical time in our planet’s history.
“I will stand with the government if they do that, but I will not be afraid to speak up where I think they might need to go a little faster.
“We have heard in the king’s speech a commitment to a cleaner energy transition and public ownership of public transport, and I hope more will be forthcoming across the weeks and months ahead of us.”
But Denyer soon got into the cut and thrust of debating in the House of Commons when asking a question to energy minister, Ed Miliband.
Denyer asked Miliband: “Will the secretary of state confirm that Great British Energy will invest in fully publicly owned, or at least majority publicly owned, renewable generation projects, and will not confine itself to taking minority stakes in private sector-led projects that would give it very little control?”
Miliband replied: “I can confirm that GB Energy will play a role in all kinds of ways, and that we are certainly not restricting it in the way that she suggests.
“Furthermore, in the constructive spirit of these exchanges, I would ask that the Green Party thinks about its commitment to tackling the climate crisis, which we all share, and then thinks about this question of infrastructure.
“If it wants to tackle the climate crisis, it should know that that simply will not happen if its leading members say no to new energy infrastructure.”
In response to the exchange between Miliband and Denyer, former Labour MP Thelma Walker said: “It’s so hard as a new MP when you first go into the chamber, so Ed Miliband going for @carla_denyer says so much about how threatened Labour are by the Green Party.”
Main photo: House of Commons TV
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