‘We want to turn Britain into the world’s first clean energy superpower’, says shadow environment secretaryLabour’s Steve Reed, who’s the shadow environment secretary, joins us in Westminster.Rebecca Pow was talking about nature there, not just the climate crisis. How would Labour reverse the terrible nature declines we face?You’re absolutely right to frame it in that way, because after 14 years of the Conservatives, this is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
What we’ll do is put the water companies under special measures, so that water bosses who allow that kind of pollution will face criminal charges, and will ban the payment of their bonuses until they clean up their toxic filth. We will ban the use of bee-killing pesticides…Steve Reed: We haven’t been elected yet. I’m going to have to talk to my colleagues about how the legislation should be put through parliament. But there are other parts of this nature restoration plan. We want to ban bee-killing pesticides that are destroying pollinators, who are such an important part of the ecosystem. Birds are dying off, in part because there aren’t insects for them to eat because of the use of these kinds of pesticides. We want to open up access to nature.