The first Climate Matters meeting of 2025
This was the January Climate Matters meeting with our MP Charlie Maynard in full flood and Hugo in the chair. Almost 50 people attended, and it was a warm, rewarding and lively meeting. St Mary’s church once again provided the venue. We’re very grateful to Kate Banks, churchwarden, for her ongoing support and active assistance.
We put the advantages of free, unwhipped, parliamentary votes up for discussion, in view of the remarkably positive and open debate parliament had recently on the assisted dying Bill, with a free vote allowed by party leaders. Charlie weighed the pros and cons of whipping, which was interesting coming from one who is himself a Lib Dem whip. Everyone seemed to agree that a voting system which requires MPs to be physically present in the House and to walk though one of two lobby entrances to vote is archaic in an electronic, work-from-home, bank online world. Many seemed to agree that free votes might be better votes, in that issues can thereby be considered, and decisions made, based on real-world understandings rather than party demands.
Charlie produced real-world examples of whipping affecting votes. He’s on the Water Bill committee charged with line-by-line examination of the Bill passing though parliament. Perfectly sensible amendments may be voted down because they don’t exactly suit the immediate political ambitions of larger parties.
This issue will be debated again at Climate Matters meetings, and a modernisation committee is presently looking into procedures and management of parliamentary business, so the iron may be hot right now. Anyone interested in such debate should make a diary note - the next Climate Matters meeting is on April 12th: booking details are here.
The second part of the meeting was dedicated to transport and Charlie spoke to his interesting ideas on the Carterton-Witney-Eynsham-Oxford rail link. Track line and station sites are feasibly identified (Eynsham station would use the new park & ride site with car park already laid). Costs could be at least partly addressed by contracting with developers such that densest build would be close to new station sites and improved profits shared with the costs of building the railway. Charlie told us that this was what the Victorians did and what other countries do today. It’s doable.
The CAN Bill (the Climate and Nature Bill) – a private member’s Bill brought by Roz Savage, MP for Cotswold North - was to receive its second reading on Friday 24th January, when it needs 102 votes to survive. It’s difficult for MPs to attend on a Friday when they mostly have work in the constituency, but Charlie was working to push MPs to attend, and undertook to do this and vote positively himself on the day.
We (the MP Watch Witney steering group) feel that a block of 72 ‘progressive’ MPs in a parliament like today’s is a real opportunity to address some of the political structures and behaviours which mitigate against urgently necessary climate action. In particular, we seek to pursue the idea of taking the whip off the neck of MPs more often, and especially when an issue is existentially important, and we need speed and well-informed and intentioned consensus rather than partisanship. And we wonder why MPs can’t vote remotely, on their phones, from their constituencies, even on a Friday!
