Uma Kumaran MP
Kumaran comes to Westminster fresh from C40, the international network of nearly 100 cities and their climate-conscious mayors, all pushing for stronger action on global warming. And she has exemplary Labour backroom credentials, as a former adviser to London Mayor Sadiq Khan (until 2020) and as Keir Starmer’s deputy director of parliamentary affairs (2020 to 2022.)
Huw Irranca-Davies MS
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Huw Irranca-Davies (L) | Matthew Horwood/Getty Images |
Possibly the busiest politician in Cardiff’s Senedd, Irranca-Davies is Wales’ deputy first minister and cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs. He has a serious job on his hands — not least finding a way to deliver long-delayed agriculture policies which can steer the region to net zero without alienating swathes of rural Welsh voters. The Climate Change Committee is breathing down Irranca-Davies’s neck, too — “low ambition” on his side of the Severn threatens U.K.-wide green targets, they warn.
Melanie Onn MP
The Labour MP for Great Grimsby, who regained her seat this summer after losing it in 2019, Onn will be well known to energy wonks from her time as deputy chief executive of the industry body Renewable UK. She narrowly missed out in a bid to become chair of parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, but ministers can expect a vocal, well-informed and immaculately connected voice from the backbenchers.
The influencers
Gary Smith
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Gary Smith | Leon Neal/Getty Images |
It is entirely possible that when Labour’s energy team have nightmares, they feature Gary Smith. As head of the GMB union, which represents thousands of oil and gas workers in the North Sea, Smith has led fierce resistance to Labour plans to pull back from new drilling. And he is not shy to share his view of the keynote policy of clean power by 2030: “impossible.”
Emma Pinchbeck
Boss of the influential trade body Energy UK, and once senior at RenewablesUK and conservation charity the WWF, Pinchbeck is rarely far away if major debates about energy policy are being had. And if she has the ear of Whitehall now, Pinchbeck may yet end up commanding even more influence in political circles — rumors and media stories about her filling the vacant position at the top of the Climate Change Committee have never quite gone away.
The scrutineers
Bill Esterson MP
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Bill Esterson | John Phillips/Getty Images for The Eve Appeal |
Esterson became the Commons’ chief energy policy watcher this month when he bagged the chair of parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. The former shadow minister for business, energy and industrial strategy told POLITICO that he wanted to use the role to “scrutinize just how we can make the most of the opportunities which the transition to a low carbon economy can offer.” He, too, will doubtless have ministers and officials before his committee shortly for a going over.
Toby Perkins MP
When ministers’ pet projects have an impact on the environment, Toby Perkins is the MP to whom they will have to answer. A former shadow rural affairs minister under Keir Starmer, he is the new chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, where he will — if he is anything like his respected predecessor, Tory MP Philip Dunne — enjoy the chance to drag in ministers and experts for interrogation.