Rachel Reeves Aide Aims To Pull Green Agenda Away From The "Culture War"

Cross-party working and consensus is key in giving investors confidence in the UK’s green agenda, according to new chair of the Environment APPG, Alistair Strathern.

Strathern, who also serves as Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ PPS, told PoliticsHome that the Treasury and the government are “unwavering” on the importance of the green agenda, despite the downgrading of the promised £28bn green prosperity plan earlier this year. 

The Labour MP worked in climate at the Bank of England before being elected to Parliament for the first time last year. 

He thinks that the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) is “really important” in terms of policy thinking, but also in building a sense of cross-party ambition beyond parliaments and governments, that could help attract long-term investment. 

Strathern believes the group will be “leaning in behind the much more ambitious evidence-led approach this government is taking on climate and nature issues, but looking to do that in a way that builds out the cross party consensus needed to sustain ambition on it”.

Grateful to have the opportunity to carry on as PPS to @RachelReevesMP alongside the fantastic @imogenwalker.

Turning the page on years of chaos and getting our economy working again is a central mission for Labour, and I’m excited to get stuck in to playing my part. pic.twitter.com/ydM63Yzka6

He explained: “To deliver some of the really ambitious investments we want to see if we're going to get to net zero, that will only happen if investors have got confidence that this is going to be a multi-government and multi-party agenda, and this is a really useful forum for pushing that forwards.”

The MP for Hitchin said that cross-party ambition is important because in the run up to the last