Ending Climate Alarmism

There is no climate emergency. Carbon dioxide is a natural atmospheric gas; it is not a pollutant, nor is it harmful. Human activity contributes very little towards global warming, a phenomenon caused by naturally occurring gases in the atmosphere such as H₂O, CO₂ and CH₄. The adherence to green ideology is scientifically spurious and economically insane. We need to abandon the unnecessary commitment to ‘net-zero’ carbon dioxide emissions and ensure that we produce enough energy to keep the lights on and power our industry.

This can be achieved with our 7-point plan to energy security and self-sufficiency:

• We will repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 and end all carbon emissions targets, taxes, trading schemes. All restrictions on carbon dioxide production will be removed.

• We will immediately re-open mothballed coal power stations and stop the insane practice of burning wood pellets from North and South American forests in place of coal at our largest former coal power stations such as Drax.

• We will open new oil fields and gas fields in the North Sea which are already known about. In the medium term, we will develop the on-land shale gas industry for exclusive use in the UK. This will meet our natural gas needs for decades from domestic supply. 

• In the long term, we will commission 20 or more small nuclear power stations, each one providing a consistent supply of 600 – 800 MW. These are cheaper to construct than singular large nuclear power stations and will provide a significant proportion of supply to the National Grid reliably and cost-effectively. 

• We will divest from wind turbines and solar arrays on prime agricultural land. They are a blot on our landscape and they do not work when the wind stops blowing, blows too fast or the Sun doesn’t shine. Their intermittent nature means back-ups must be available at all times in case they stop producing electricity, which requires massive subsidies that increase the energy bills of every household. In addition, wind turbines kill vast numbers of birds and offshore wind farms ruin the sea bed, making them more harmful to the environment than if they were not used at all. We will begin the process of decommissioning wind farms and solar arrays, so that our scarce farming land is returned to producing crops and the sea bed is returned to marine life.

• We will support new energy production technologies that do not need government subsidies and can operate viably on the free market. To this end, we shall explore the possibility of harnessing the power in tidal rivers using discrete turbines.

• In addition, we will end the use of ‘biofuels’ made from crops or grown on plantations which should be used for growing food. It is wrong and immoral to use crops to make biofuels when the UK is not self-sufficient in food.

Paris Climate Agreement and Energy Freedom

To ensure sovereignty over our energy and environment policy, the UK must leave the Paris Climate Agreement which implements a significant portion of UN Agenda 21/2030 and demands that the UK government adheres to the false ideology of climate alarmism. It imposes restrictions on the nation’s energy policy and forces us to be bound by carbon trading systems from which other nations are exempt. It is already undermining our competitiveness and freedom. It will fundamentally alter our way of life as petrol cars, gas boilers and gas power stations are successively banned, and restrictions are placed on roads which prevent vehicles from travelling easily from one place to another. It is wrong to stay in such a far-reaching agreement whose effects were never explained to the British people.

UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement and Energy Freedom

To restore full control over our energy policy, we must leave the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement which requires our nation to adhere to the Paris Climate Agreement and EU rules, regulations and directives on climate, carbon dioxide emissions and energy.

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Traditional Buildings

The Heritage Party will require all new homes and commercial buildings to be constructed in keeping with the traditional and historic character of the area. We will also create renaissance zones in towns and cities whose character has been spoiled by the construction of depressing, densely built, dehumanising eyesores. In these zones we will restore and recreate the historic beauty of urban spaces which have been ruined.

Housing Market

Every young British family should be able to buy their own home. This means that the housing market must work for home buyers rather than big property developers or speculators.

Foreign nationals should not be allowed to buy land or property in the United Kingdom. Home ownership will become a privilege of British citizens who should have sole rights to buy and own land and property in their own country, as is the case in Thailand and New Zealand.

We will prohibit commercial banks, investment banks and hedge funds such as BlackRock from buying residential property to flip, hoard or rent, which artificially inflates both house and rental prices and prevents British citizens from being able to afford to buy or rent their own home.

We will terminate all contracts with Serco and other contractors to house migrants in the private rented sector.

Housing and Immigration

Demand for new housing has outstripped supply for over two decades now due to mass, rapid immigration, including through a rapid increase of student numbers in university cities. In 2023, over 1.4 million visas were granted for foreign nationals to come to the UK either to work, to live or to study, but there were just 230,000 completions of new homes. This is not even enough for all the new people being allowed to enter the country, let alone British families and is completely unsustainable.

Immigration numbers need to be slashed with strict caps on the number of student and work visas granted to foreign nationals. This will relieve the pressure on house prices by reducing demand. Only British citizens, not foreign nationals, should be permitted to buy residential property in the UK.

Council Homes

Schemes which interfere with the housing market and the ability of councils to provide council homes to local people who need them should be abolished. These include ‘Right to Buy’, ‘Help to Buy’ and government Home Equity Loans.

Housing Targets

All housing targets for local councils should be abolished, along with the practices of building large housing developments on prime agricultural land and ‘densification’ and ‘intensification’ where zones in town centres are turned into blocks of flats dozens of stories high to meet imposed targets for housing units. Regeneration schemes must work for the benefit of established communities and not destroy historic neighbourhoods and buildings. Such projects should be subject to a ballot of the residents who will be affected, and no residents should be forced to move against their will.

Planning 

We reject any easing of planning laws that would allow councils and newly created Regional Mayors to steamroller through rampant development plans without any consultation or right of appeal for local residents who want to maintain the character of their villages, towns and cities.

We will cap the powers of the Planning Inspectorate so they cannot override the decisions of local councils to refuse permission for housing developments, tower blocks, solar panel arrays, wind turbines or battery storage systems and the like. We will limit their powers to matters concerning infrastructure projects of national importance such as trunk roads, motorways, airports, railways and power stations.

Fire Regulations

Building regulations should ensure buildings are safe with adequate fire escapes. New buildings should not be taller than the height that can be reached by fire hoses.

Scrapping Climate Targets

Requirements to meet erroneous energy and ‘climate’ targets that disadvantage older buildings and their owners or construction in traditional styles should be scrapped. We will scrap Energy Performance Certificates (ECPs) for buildings.

Churches

Our 20,000 historic church buildings are a priceless part of the fabric of our nation and they must be maintained and cherished. We will scrap VAT on repairs to listed places of worship that has been imposed by Keir Starmer. We shall also reverse the spiteful cut to the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which is vital to churches being maintained, and increase it to a level at which all of our historic churches will be preserved for ourselves and our descendants. 

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Road

There should be open free-market competition between petrol, diesel and electric vehicles, The Heritage Party will overturn bans on petrol and diesel cars and end subsidies and vehicle tax exemptions for electric vehicles. Taxation of petrol and diesel should be simplified to comprise only fuel duty and not VAT or other ‘climate’ surpluses.

Our existing roads should be maintained adequately, with pothole repairs a priority for local councils. ‘Smart motorways’ that remove hard shoulders are dangerous and impose intrusive surveillance on road users. Hard shoulders should be re-opened as a matter of urgency, and they should not be used for continuous surveillance of vehicles akin to a police state. We oppose the introduction of pay-as-you-go road pricing nationally and locally.

The Heritage Party fully opposes Agenda 2030 and the war on cars. We will scrap ‘15-minute neighbourhoods’ as proposed in Oxford, Canterbury and other cities, ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhoods’, and any other type of road blockage whose purpose is to coerce citizens to give up their cars and slow down vehicles unnecessarily. Cycle lanes which cause traffic jams and congestion by narrowing road space for other vehicles should not be installed on trunk routes or any other roads, and those that currently cause congestion should be removed and returned to mixed usage.

We will also scrap charging schemes which impose exorbitant charges on vehicles for travelling in arbitrary zones set up by local councils and metro Mayors. These go under various names such as ‘Low Emission Zones’ (LEZ), ‘Ultra Low Emission Zones’ (ULEZ) and ‘Clean Air Zones’ (CAZ) but their effect is to coerce citizens to give up their cars and bankrupt small businesses who have no option but to drive in these zones but do not have the cashflow to upgrade their vehicles.

New technology allows vehicles to be remotely controlled and disabled. To ensure freedom, this must never be compulsory by law, and government should never have the power to remotely disable vehicles with ‘kill switches’.

The normal speed limit in urban areas should remain at 30 mph, and we will remove 20 mph speed limits where they have been implemented.

Rail

Rail franchises that need cash injections from government subsidies should be brought back into the public sector when they finish. It is not right that corporations that run rail franchises have guaranteed profits underwritten by British taxpayers. This is especially egregious when rail franchises are given to foreign state-owned corporations that use British taxpayers’ money to cross-subsidise rail fares abroad.

HS2 should be scrapped and the money saved put into improving the metro systems of our conurbations and the re-opening of old branch lines closed in the Beeching cuts where economically feasible.

Air

There should be no third runway at Heathrow. Regional airports should be allowed to expand and take more flights where appropriate.