SERA was invited to write to Andy Burnham in the run up to his leadership nomination. Below is our letter, presenting our top priorities for his new government.
Dear Andy,
Labour’s Environment Campaign – SERA would like to congratulate you on your election as MP of Makerfield. You ran a highly effective campaign and drew significant support, including from many campaigning SERA members, showing what Labour can achieve when we come together. Your speech this week reinforced that hope can be put at the heart of our politics.
SERA is a member-led socialist society that has championed climate and nature leadership within the Labour movement for over 50 years. We are proud of our heritage, consistently advocating for ‘eco-socialism’, not ‘eco-populism’, highlighting that environmental change is only possible when combined with social justice and grassroots, ‘bottom-up’ participation and the collaborative politics you champion. Nationally, we have members across the UK, as well as active SERA devolved groups and political representatives in Scotland, Wales and regionally – rooting us in our communities and their needs. In Westminster, we work with our parliamentary executive who coordinate the support of 100 SERA MPs.
As Mayor of Manchester, we welcomed your environmental leadership, most notably on sustainable public transport. The national environmental context is challenging, with the UK being one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and the climate crisis worsening – as last week’s extreme heat underlined. This is compounded by the breakdown of the political consensus over climate action, with opposition parties spreading misinformation and seeking to undermine our switch to clean energy by arguing for a return to fossil fuels. Your environmental leadership will be critical in rebuilding people’s trust in collective action to protect and enhance our green and pleasant land.
In this letter, we set out SERA’s key policy priorities that we look forward to working with you to progress. Our priorities have come directly from our membership and stakeholders who we surveyed and engaged with this year to inform our submission to the National Policy Forum (see attached). This engagement reflects the fact that we a people-powered organisation. We would welcome the opportunity to share our wider policy platform and members’ views with you and to have a point person from your team who we could engage with this summer.
1. Strategic action on nature protection and restoration
Britons love nature and research repeatedly shows that they will vote for politicians who protect nature. We welcome your commitment to ‘protecting more green spaces from development’ and SERA advocates for the actions below to protect and restore nature.
- A Green Growth Plan: to build climate resilience and unlock good ‘green’ growth with £1bn a year investment to restore Britain’s critical natural infrastructure through Landscape Recovery and nature projects. This nature recovery plan would support your commitment to decent infrastructure in all parts of the UK by helping to fund nature-based solutions that protect homes and businesses from flooding and the wider impacts of climate change, and by accelerating a shift to nature-friendly farming supporting enhanced food security and biodiversity. It would also actively support the G20’s Bioeconomy Initiative and be a powerful proof point of green innovation as the UK assumes the G20 Presidency for 2027.
- A Public Nature Estate: to build a public legacy in nature protection by extending and restoring England’s protected wildlife sites, national parks and landscapes and protecting 30% of the land and sea for nature by 2030. This requires legal protections for ancient woodlands, wildflower grasslands, river corridors and chalk streams, an end to damaging industry in protected areas (intensive farming, unsustainable fisheries and shoots) and promised legislation to modernise national park purposes and governance.
- A Natural Health Service: to end nature postcode deprivation and environmental inequality and boost productivity, health and wellbeing, by bringing access to nature to millions more people and good (green) growth in every post code. This complementary ‘NHS’ would be achieved through an Access to Nature Bill that devolves powers regionally and locally to create new nature parks, guarantees natural greenspace in all developments, and targets environmental social prescribing in the most nature-deprived communities. It would match the spirit and impact of Atlee’s National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act in 1949.
2. Clean, affordable and secure energy
The speed at which the Secretary of State and his team at DESNZ are delivering meaningful and lasting policy change through rolling out clean energy, setting up GB Energy and delivering funding to retrofit British homes and businesses to reduce their emissions and energy bills is world leading and must continue. SERA’s priorities in this area are to:
- Stop Rosebank: to signal to voters, investors and our global partners that the UK is committed to the green transition and jobs to protect the UK from the global economic shocks and spirally energy prices. Despite UK taxpayers paying to develop the field, most oil and gas from Rosebank will be sold to the highest bidder on the international market so that it cannot make UK energy bills cheaper or more secure. Rejecting Rosebank also sends a message to young voters, anxious about their future, that Labour is serious about minimising climate harm and will not sanction decisions that make limiting global warming to safer temperatures impossible. SERA Executive members have recently written about Rosebank in Labourlist here and on North Sea oil here. Recent calls for ‘fossil fuel socialism’ is a political dead end and would steal our children’s future.
- Green jobs and skills: Your commitment to reforming our education system to better develop technical skills is welcome and this reform is vital to meet the opportunities of the green economy. The Government must drive a just transition and help solve the NEET crisis by creating visible pathways to good, secure green jobs. Young SERA has found that young people are enthusiastic about climate and nature action but often lack clear information about careers, vocational routes and opportunities beyond the energy sector. Embedding sustainability and nature skills across education and training would help ensure that the benefits of the transition are shared by every generation and every community. Labour has already pioneered this policy in Wales through the creation of the National Nature Service.
Environmental work like this has a proven benefit for young people’s wellbeing and can support your commitment to offer young people in-work mental health support. - The Local Power Plan: to disrupt the energy system and deliver profits to communities and put them at the centre of the energy transition. Southwest SERA member has recently written on the Local Power Plan here.
3. Public ownership of water companies and more resources for a tougher regulator
SERA led the Stop the Sh*t show campaign in the 2024 general election, taking it to over 60 constituents electing Labour MPs. This campaign arose from our members’ concerns but clearly resonated with voters across the country outraged by years of Conservative neglect, overseeing record pollution of our waterways, spiralling consumer costs, infrastructure underinvestment and huge payouts to water company shareholders. While this Labour Government is committed to fixing these issues, it has yet to take the decisive, urgent action to regain the confidence of local communities. Your commitment to ‘reform of essential utilities’ and taking ‘greater public control’ of water is welcome. SERA advocates for the following reforms to ensure our approach to water is people – not profit – centred:
- Public ownership of water companies: to restore public confidence, end the syphoning of profits required for critical water infrastructure by water companies and shareholders, and clean up our waterways. A five-year strategy is needed to bring all water companies into receivership at no cost to the government, with debt repayments and other losses to be extracted from investors.
- Polluters Pay Enforcement: to ensure that anyone that damages our rivers and seas pays clean-up costs, enforcing legal and financial deterrents. To effectively regulate this pledge, the new water regulator must have the teeth and funding and resources to effectively enforce it.