Meet Lisa Nandy: Labour’s shadow cabinet member for climate change and energy

Nandy was born in Manchester to Luise Nandy (née Byers) and her then husband Dipak Nandy.^[5][6][7] Luise Byers’ father, Lord Byers, was a Liberal Party MP and held many offices in the party.^[8] Nandy grew up both in Manchester and in Bury, Greater Manchester, where her family later moved to. She graduated from Newcastle University, Tyne and Wear, in 2001 with a degree in politics and obtained a master’s degree in public policy from Birkbeck, University of London. She has worked in the voluntary sector, as a researcher at the homelessness charity Centrepoint from 2003 to 2005, and then as senior policy adviser at The Children’s Society from 2005,^[5][9] where she specialised in issues facing young refugees, also acting as adviser to the Children’s Commissioner for England and to the Independent Asylum Commission.^[10]

She knows little about climate change or energy and is mostly a mouthpiece for

Her shadow DECC team which includes:

Bryony Worthington, who was the lead author in the team which drafted the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act.^[9] This landmark piece of legislation, which requires the UK to reduce its carbon emissions to a level 80% lower than its emissions in 1990. At the time Worthington was working with Friends of the Earth working on their Big Ask campaign, but was seconded to government to help design the legislation.

Lady Worthington launched Sandbag in 2008^[10] to raise public awareness of and improve the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Initially Sandbag provided members of the public with a way of tackling climate change, enabling them to buy ETS permits and cancel them, meaning that European companies covered by the ETS would have to emit fewer greenhouse gasses. Since that time, Sandbag has changed and grown. With a general remit to ‘defend against climate risk’,^[11] Sandbag now focuses on researching and suggesting improvements to the ETS, how to phase out coal-fired power stations in Europe, and how governments and the EU can work to support Carbon Capture and Storage. Lady Worthington has been Sandbag’s Director since its foundation.^[12]

Barry Gardiner, who was appointed as Shadow Minister for the Natural Environment and Fisheries in July 2013. He had previously held the role of Minister for Biodiversity in the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs in 2006 and 2007, and had served as Ed Miliband‘s Special Envoy for Environment and Climate Change between 2011 to 2013.^[12]

In June 2013, Conservative MP Tim Yeo and Barry Gardiner jointly tabled an ammendment to the UK Energy Bill which proposed establishing by 2014 a decarbonisation target for the UK’s electricity generating sector, to be achieved by 2030. The ammendment was narrowly defeated.^[13]

In 2014 Gardiner gave his support to the first annual Hen Harrier Day demonstrations in Derbyshire to highlight the illegal persecution of UK raptors.^[14]

In January 2015 Gardiner admitted that the push by the previous Labour government to encourage car-buyers to opt for diesel vehicles in a bid to save the planet was “wrong”, identifying that a “massive problem for public health” had been created.^[15]

Dr Alan Whitehead, who has lobbied for the increased use of sustainable energy sources, particularly microgeneration. He criticised the results of the Energy Review,[2]^{[dead link]} and was the co-author of EDM 2204^[2] which states ‘the case for nuclear has not yet been made’ and urges the government to ‘recognise the enormous potential for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by energy efficiency and conservation, greater use of combined heat and power, and rapid investment in the full range of renewable technologies, including microgeneration.’

As leader of Southampton City Council in 1986, Dr Whitehead proposed that the city council take measures to become a ‘self sustaining city’ with regard to energy generation.[3]^{[dead link]} One such measure was the conversion of Southampton Civic Centre to being heated by local reservoirs of geothermal energy.

Dr Whitehead sits as a non-executive director of a non-profit making company called SSEL Ltd,^{[citation needed]} formed to deliver a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) project, which was partially funded by the Government as part of the regeneration of outer Shirley [4]^{[dead link]}. The CHP system recycles the by-product ‘low grade heat’ made during the electricity generation process and uses the by-product to heat water which is piped to local homes. This scheme has been criticised by the current Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Environment & Transport, Matthew Dean, for being unviable and the Council’s involvement in the project has now ended.^{[citation needed]}

Dr Whitehead’s Private Members Bill,^[3] was ‘talked out’ by Conservative backbenchers in 2005, but many of the Bill’s most important aspects were incorporated into the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006, sponsored by Mark Lazarowicz MP.

Dr Whitehead’s amendments to the bill^{[citation needed]} included:

• requiring better compliance of building regulations for energy efficiency
• the removal of planning permission for microgeneration in homes
• new regulations to ensure a minimum energy standard in new homes including microgeneration

Dr Whitehead is an outspoken supporter of action on anthropogenic climate change, and has called debate by Members of Parliament who reject the scientific view a “flat earth love-in”.^[4]

Clive Lewis who doesn’t seem to have any track record in the field of climate or energy, and is mostly famous for saying of his likelihood of victory in the 2015 election that he would only lose if he was “caught with [his] pants down behind a goat with Ed Miliband at the other end”.

Harry Harpham, who is the wild card here, having once been a NUM rep and striking Notts miner.