The internal race has begun for the Conservative Party to select their next leader - and our Prime Minister. And with the war in Ukraine, inflation, and the cost-of-living escalating, the incoming Prime Minister faces crises on multiple fronts.
How to tackle the challenges the UK faces is at the centre of the leadership race and, as former ministers Zac Goldsmith, Chris Skidmore and Michael Gove have argued, so is Net Zero.
With climate action under attack from some factions within the Conservative Party, a new Prime Minister needs to recommit to Net Zero as one of the quickest routes to ending our reliance on Russian oil and gas, reducing household bills and boosting local jobs and skills across the country.
As a local councillor, I know that my fellow local and regional leaders are the ones who are best placed to accelerate Net Zero action to reduce bills and improve lives. In fact, a report from PwC and Innovate UK recently revealed that local climate action delivers more cost-effectively than top-down national action.
For every £1 invested in local Net Zero, the analysis revealed energy costs are slashed by almost £2. At the same time, that £1 delivers more than £14 worth of community benefits. That's a lot of bang for your buck.
The researchers conclude that local Net Zero action: 'Will lead not just to energy savings but also wider social benefits that have potential to advance the levelling-up agenda'.
And, as the outgoing Prime Minister and several commentators have argued, levelling up is too precious a baton to be dropped by Boris Johnson's successor. What all this means, then, is that the next Prime Minister must prioritise local Net Zero action as a means to tackle regional inequality, the cost-of-living crisis, and the climate crisis - all while supporting Ukraine against Russia's brutal onslaught.
But a new UK100 report, billed as the local authority version of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) report to Parliament, lays bare the barriers councils face in delivering local Net Zero.
UK100 is the country's only network of local leaders committed to Net Zero and clean air, of which Cotswold District Council is proud to be a part. More than 100 UK100 members have pledged more ambitious Net Zero deadlines than the Government's current 2050 target.
The UK Local Net Zero Delivery progress report, building on the latest CCC publication, finds that the ambition of local councils has not been captured by the Government - presenting a significant risk to the national legally binding 2050 deadline.
In Cotswold, for example, we made a manifesto commitment to review our Local Plan to make it ‘Green to the Core’. In our recent consultation with residents, we proposed a radical new approach to accessibility of new development that, if enacted into local policy, aims to overcome traditional developer designs that inevitably leads to car-dependency, and will force developers to think differently about how people will move around their communities in a Net Zero future. Inspired by the 15-Minute City concept, we want to empower residents to make easy, climate-positive choices.
Also, for the first time in the Cotswolds, we have also developed a renewable energy opportunity study for the whole district to maximise the potential to deliver home-grown clean energy for our residents, asking challenging questions about how and where renewable energy infrastructure will be accommodated in our precious landscape.
But the planning system, ever the political football, is once again threatened by proposed changes, with the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill proposing the biggest centralisation of planning powers in decades, by introducing a mechanism that allows the Secretary of State to set planning policy in Whitehall that would trump any local plan, and no Parliamentary oversight on how the SoS uses those powers in the future. This is a further centralisation of power in a country that is already more centralised than almost any other in Europe, further undermining the single biggest weapon that many district councils have at their disposal to deliver genuinely sustainable places.
Local authorities are a hotbed for ambition. But, as the UK100 study makes clear, there is a need for far more support from and collaboration with the national Government; Whitehall simply must create opportunities for genuinely devolved powers and funding, and not just in a transactional relationship with large urban areas, negotiating their city deals in return for delivering the priorities of the government. Not all councils are the same. District, county, unitary and combined authorities have varying powers and funding deals. Local Net Zero should not be a postcode lottery dependent on the type of council you have representing you and the level of devolution and funding they have at their disposal.
The recently established Local Net Zero Forum - instituted following recommendations from UK100 and its members - is a way forward. But a new Prime Minister needs to give the body a clear direction and the power to deliver. It is also vital that the forum has strong local, regional, and devolved government representation and direct ministerial collaboration with local politicians, not just officers, and that it is not dominated by the voices of those representing large urban areas at the expense of rural districts and counties like mine.
One of the top jobs for the forum is the need to work with local authorities to provide clear and consistent guidance on Net Zero monitoring and reporting so we can track our progress.
At the same time, a new Prime Minister needs to continue to recognise the importance of Net Zero and its cross-cutting reach and formally embed it in the ministerial agendas of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The costs of inaction are incalculably large; government at all levels will find its resilience and ability to support communities tested to breaking point in the coming decades if we do not get serious about tackling the climate emergency now.
Central Government can't do this without local government, and we can't do it without the Government giving us the powers, duties and funding that we need. We need to do this together. The incoming Prime Minister is facing international and national crises that rely on local ambition and delivery. We're ready to collaborate to deliver Net Zero for people and planet. We hope those about to choose the new Prime Minister recognise that we can't afford for climate action to be a victim of a bruising internal Conservative Party battle.
Rachel Coxcoon is cabinet member for climate change and forward planning at Cotswold District Council
