Fareham MP Watch

5th January 2024

Dear Ms Braverman,

We are writing to you as a group of Fareham constituents, who are increasingly concerned about a lack of action from our elected representatives on the issues of both climate change and wider environmental degradation. As a result of these concerns we have decided to align ourselves with the organisation MP Watch (www.mpwatch.org), a national, non-party political group which empowers constituents to scrutinise their MP’s words and actions on environment and climate issues, with the aim of holding to account those who are wilfully uninformed, who spread disinformation or who seek to block progress on environmental and climate action. We will also be celebrating and amplifying those of our elected representatives who demonstrate good practice and/or a  willingness to become better informed in these areas. 

This is therefore firstly a courtesy letter to inform you of the creation of Fareham MP Watch for this very purpose. We will be launching officially over the next few weeks and would be very happy if you would agree to work with us to ensure a better environment both for our constituency and beyond. We are nonpartisan and although your work until now hasn’t focused on climate we warmly invite you to consider making it a priority going forward. As an influential member of parliament and former minister you could do a lot of good in this area.

As a secondary point, we understand that there is due to be a Second Reading of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill in Parliament on Monday 8th January. If passed into law, this Bill will set-up a requirement to give out North Sea oil and gas exploration licenses every year. We would like to take this opportunity to ask you to vote against this proposed Bill, and to take a stand against any proposed new oil and gas drilling in the future. Science clearly tells us that in order to achieve the ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5^O  C there should be no new oil and gas drilling. Even the government itself admits that further exploitation of North Sea oil and gas will have no impact on our energy security, and also no impact on UK energy prices as these are set on the world market. Their desire to pursue this line in the face of all scientific advice and in a time of climate crisis is folly and only serves to more seriously threaten ours and our childrens’ futures.

May we take this opportunity to wish you a very happy New Year,

Yours Sincerely,

Lisa, Alison, James and Jess, on behalf of Fareham MP Watch