On the road for this year's party conference season: first stop Brighton with the Liberal Democrats

Party conference season is in full swing and over the next three weeks, the RSPB’s Westminster parliamentary team will be on the road heading for Brighton, Liverpool and Birmingham. 

The conference season has its own rhythm, marking the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.  Despite having been going for twenty years, I still enjoy the opportunity to encourage competition between the parties for the best environmental policies. 

Tomorrow, I am heading south to join the team at the Liberal Democrats’ conference.

The party is still languishing at around 6-8% in the polls although it will probably be feeling relatively chipper following a few particularly good by-election wins in recent weeks. 

Interestingly, the Lib Dems are still thought of as the most trusted of the main UK parties on the environment according to a Lord Ashcroft poll which came out earlier this month (see page 81 here if you’re interested). 33% of people trust Lib Dems the most on the issue.  Their next best issue is “improving schools” where they score just 13%.

Perhaps the yellowhammer should become the symbol for the Liberal Democrats?  This would encourage the party to forge a new agriculture policy that will aid its recovery (as its population has halved in 50 years).

Their leader, Tim Farron met us during the referendum campaign at Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s London Wetland Centre and reiterated the Liberal Democrat commitment to the environment.  However they have yet to make any major environmental interventions during this parliament.

We don’t want them to remain silent for long.  The Lib Dems did good things whilst in coalition – including agreeing the fourth carbon budget, supporting the first environment white paper in 20 years and defending the statutory conservation agencies.  They must now keep up the pressure on their former partners to ensure that the Conservatives keep their manifesto promises on biodiversity and climate change.

The parliamentary party, while small, does have politicians prepared to use their voice for nature. They have two species champions – Norman Lamb for the Fen Orchid and John Pugh for the natterjack toad while Tim Farron, Norman Lamb and John Pugh have also all signed our environment pledge.  We need them to establish a strong, radical, alternative agenda that will make the other parties sit up and take note.

This can start at this week's conference.  For, one of the key ways the Lib Dem conference differs from other parties is that they actually vote on policy motions. On the Monday of conference there is a motion entitled “Investing in the Green Economy”.  An amendment to the motion has been tabled which adds the line “Legislate to confirm the UK’s continued adherence to established EU environmental legislation and targets.” I hope that any Lib Dems reading that they might support this, if they are near the conference hall on Monday afternoon (it is amendment 1 to motion F29). 

And clearly, Brexit provides the most significant context for this year’s conferences and it will be the focus of the events that we are organising with the Wildlife Trusts and WWF.

We need big policy ideas to help us meet the three commitments we have written into our political pledge:

• Establish the UK as a world leader on the environment by committing to match or exceed current environmental, wildlife and habitat protections;
• Ensure the UK leads on climate change by publishing robust low carbon investment plans and ratifying the Paris Agreement this year;
• Create a countryside richer in nature by supporting farmers and landowners to deliver environmental benefits alongside a thriving farming sector.

As with all political parties, we are here to help, to share our experience and demonstrate how a healthy natural environment is crucial to our future prosperity. 

I'll let you know how we get on.