Peer who praised rising temperatures appointed to climate crisis committee
David Frost, the influential Conservative peer who has been criticised for claiming that rising global temperatures could be beneficial to the UK, is being appointed to a key parliamentary committee on the climate crisis.
The appointment showed that “wacky, fringe views on climate” were no longer confined to the Tory party’s extremes, Labour said.
Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, will be appointed at the end of the month to the House of Lords select committee on environment and climate change.
The former diplomat, who became a peer in 2020, is also a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which opposes a number of net zero environmental policies and which is funded by wealthy Tory donors. He describes the foundation as an “educational charity in this area”.
In a debate in the House of Lords last year, Frost said that rising global temperatures due to the climate crisis were “likely to be beneficial” in the UK, because it would mean fewer people would die from cold temperatures.
“At the moment, seven times as many people die from cold as from heat in Britain. Rising temperatures are likely to be beneficial,” he said.
More recently, he has been issuing veiled criticisms of Rishi Sunak from the right of the party.
A YouGov mega-poll that last week projected an election wipeout for the Tories was commissioned by Frost in collaboration with Conservative Britain Alliance, a previously unknown organisation described only as a “group of Conservative donors”, which covered the estimated £70,000 cost.
Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state of climate change and net zero, said Frost’s appointment showed that Sunak was trying to keep those seeking to oust him onside.
“Rishi Sunak is so weak that he has allowed this key position to go to someone who thinks the climate crisis is a good thing,” he said.
“The truth is that wacky, fringe views on climate are no longer resigned to the extreme wing of the Conservative party – they are now the official position of Rishi Sunak’s flailing government.
“By trying to keep happy those in his own party who want to oust him, Sunak is putting party above country. The result is a disastrous energy policy that will leave Britain with high energy bills, energy insecurity, and Britain left lagging behind other countries.”
Downing Street has been for a comment. approached
recognised that if you just do it in the cheapest way … that’s going to be Chinese,” he said. “This [the act] has been a huge disruptor, sucking away from Europe a whole range of exciting companies and technologies.”
Reynolds said the precise sum mattered less than what it was being spent on. “We’ve the same view as Rachel [Reeves] and the [shadow] Treasury on this,” he added.
His words echo the recommendations of a group of leading economists, who said in a paper on Monday that Britain should invest £26bn a year in the low-carbon economy rather than using the money for tax cuts.
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, said over the weekend the party was sticking to the policy, after a report in the Sun that it would be dropped. But he added it would not spend the full £28bn if economic circumstances did not allow it.
Matt Wrack, the head of the Fire Brigades Union, told the Guardian the public would be at risk if a Labour government did not follow through on its investment promises, given the increasing number of floods and wildfires to which his members are having to respond.
“If Labour doesn’t spend this money, it will put our members at risk. But it will also put communities at risk, especially in areas which are at risk of wildfires or major floods,” he said. “It will increase the strain on the fire service and the risk to firefighters.”
Among those making the decision over the party’s green policies are two shadow cabinet ministers whom Starmer has asked to “bomb-proof” the manifesto so that it does not fall apart in an election campaign.
The Labour leader has asked Jonathan Ashworth to see how the proposals will withstand media and opposition attacks, and Lucy Powell to check whether they will be able to form coherent legislation.
Their roles mirror that played by David Miliband for Tony Blair before the 1997 election, when the young policy chief was tasked with making sure that the party had not made any promises that it could not defend from opposition criticism.
If Powell and Ashworth sign off individual policies, they will be checked by Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, to see if they have been costed, before getting the final signoff from Starmer. Ravinder Athwal, the Labour leader’s policy director, is in charge of writing the manifesto.
Shadow cabinet ministers have been told to have their headline policy proposals ready by 8 February, even if finer details need to be ironed out at a later date.
As policy officials continue to wrangle over the fate of the £28bn green plan, Reynolds said the party remained committed to “a degree of public investment and bringing in private investment”.
But he also warned against making short-term decisions that could have negative long-term consequences. “Growing up in the north-east in the 1980s, I know what getting a transition wrong looks like. This is about getting it right,” he said.