Epigram participated in a Q&A session hosted by the Bristol Politics Society, where Carla Denyer addressed pressing student concerns about climate change and responded to a variety of questions related to her work and initiatives in this critical area.
By Rachel Shortall, Second Year English and Philosophy
A number of topics that are important to students were discussed during last week's event hosted by the University of Bristol's Politics Society, featuring Carla Denyer. The event addressed the ongoing housing crisis, climate change and the rise of Reform UK.
Climate
The University of Bristol declared a climate emergency in 2019, and a 2021 survey conducted by Epigram found that over 70% of Bristol University students suffer from ‘climate anxiety’. Since then, concerns have continued to mount, with 2024 seeing the publication of an eye-opening UOB-led report linking climate change to physical health implications from joint pain to dementia, as well as being cited by the UK Met Office as the fourth-warmest year since records began.
The need for a representative who gives the ever-developing climate catastrophe the priority it warrants has never been greater, so what has Bristol Central’s first ever Green Party MP been doing to address this issue since her July 2024 election?
In November 2018, Bristol City Council approved a motion, submitted by the then Councillor Carla Denyer, to have the mayor declare a climate emergency and pledge to make the city of Bristol carbon neutral by 2030. This initiated a kind of domino effect by which many councils including London and Edinburgh, made similar declarations, culminating in the UK Parliament becoming the world's first national parliament to declare a climate and ecological emergency in May 2019.
When asked if she retained her belief in the achievability of this fast-approaching target for carbon neutrality, Denyer conceded that, ‘too much time was lost for 2030 to now be possible’.
Despite declaring that Bristol City Council as a body is ‘quite a long way through its decarbonisation journey’, it has become plainly unattainable for the city of Bristol as a whole – as is the objective specified in the motion – to reach this target.
Denyer, in explanation of this, maintains that the delivery of this policy was ‘reliant on Labour', with Bristol City Council having had a Labour mayor from the motion's passing in 2018 until the election of the Green party's Tony Dyer in the re-established post of 'leader of the council' in 2024. Whilst the Labour Party did make some positive movement on climate-related matters, this, she professes, fell far short of being of ‘the scale that was needed’.
On the topic of this Climate Emergency motion, Denyer seized an opportunity to comment on the need for individuals and political bodies alike to show a willingness to pioneer change, as opposed to excusing themselves from the need to do so on the grounds of similar stagnancy being displayed elsewhere.
‘Being a climate leader’, she announced, ‘will encourage others to catch up’.
Despite having received copious praise for the motion, she views much of its expansion as owing to it being made ‘too politically embarrassing’ for other councils not to follow suit in light of ‘a combination of people inside the corridors of power and outside pushing for change’. This combined force, she notes, is how most major campaigns come to fruition, and it is for this reason that she emphasises the Green Party’s recognition of the ‘importance of the right to protest as being an essential part of a healthy democracy’.
Denyer also touched briefly on carbon colonialism, reinforcing her stance that the UK's carbon consumption ought to be included in the calculation of its overall carbon emissions, as opposed to this number representing only carbon production. This would mean that the nation could no longer get away with creating demand for and importing products from other countries, only to have the carbon output of such products added to the country of production’s overall emissions tally and absent from the UK's. It is hoped that amending this calculation could lead to greater ecological integrity, a better strategy in addressing a worldwide issue than passing blame around as the global situation continues to worsen.
Caesarean sections
When questioned on the recent controversy surrounding the Green Party’s advocacy of fewer caesarean sections and call for an increase in natural births, Denyer was quick to clarify that this was ‘not in the manifesto’ of the party. Instead, she framed the incident as a ‘fairly manufactured controversy’ spearheaded by some individuals who ‘didn’t want the Greens to do well’ and were ‘quoting out of context’.
She contended that this ‘fairly out of date policy’ had been voted for in the early 2000s, and was the product of a time when the ‘overmedicalisation’ of the birthing process had seen a trend towards c-sections being offered whether they were needed or not.
Despite subsequent information revealing that the delivery of frequent caesarean sections can, as Denyer put it, 'help with women’s health more than was previously understood', the policy remained in the Greens’ policy book – as do all policies the party has voted for in the absence of a motion being put forward to have them removed. Denyer then pressed that the ‘fundamental point is women’s right to choose the healthcare that suits them’, conceding that in light of the controversy she believes that the policy ‘has been or is going to be’ removed from the ultimate record.
Reform UK
When asked how she proposes to tackle the lack of media representation the Greens garner in comparison to Reform UK, a party who saw a similar number of MPs elected in the last election – five to the Green Party’s four – Denyer agreed that the amount of publicity attained by each is ‘disproportionate’. She remarked that Reform UK appear to be getting around the way that parliament ‘stifles smaller parties’ by essentially ‘abandoning the party political process’, noting that they are ‘rarely in the chamber’.
Despite noting wryly her frustration at Reform leader Nigel Farage’s party's priorities of ‘galivanting with Trump or doing social media videos’ instead of participating in parliamentary debate, she recognises that this is, at least in part, a way of responding to a structure in which their ability to make change by conventional means is limited. As such, she affirmed generally that she is ‘making an effort to do more outwards-facing stuff’.
Other current work
In terms of what she is working on presently, Denyer spoke of the private members bill she has put forward, describing it as ‘non-party political’ and ‘surely a no-brainer’.
At present, when an individual passes away after an interaction with the state - for example, after being discharged from prison or a mental health facility - an inquiry must be carried out with a report on how these circumstances can be learned from in order to prevent future deaths of the same kind.
Currently, the implementation of these measures is entirely in the hands of the institutions themselves and is not chased up from an outside source. This, says Denyer, 'is not working'. Her call is for an independent body – a National Oversight Mechanism – to be established for this purpose, ensuring that changes are monitored and demanded. This body could ensure also that trends can be analysed such that problems with the system may be rectified both for the specific institution in question and on a wider policy-related level.
The bill is currently in the form of an early day motion – EDM 867 – and Denyer encourages students who believe in this policy to get in touch with their home MPs and encourage them to sign in support of the motion, as it has an outside chance of gaining governmental attention if enough MPs do so.
Bristol's housing crisis
Finally, addressing how she intends to ameliorate Bristol’s housing crisis, Denyer recognised that merely ‘building homes… isn’t going to tackle the housing crisis’. Alongside this, there must be a focus on keeping the cost of these new developments down, as the issue is in fact more aptly characterised as a ‘housing affordability crisis’. She calls for rent controls to be placed under the jurisdiction of local councils, giving them the power to keep rent increases from spiralling out of proportion in high-rent areas. This is something which she supported in her time as a councillor and has carried forward into her post as an MP.
The talk was closed with a final reminder for students to register to vote not only at their home address but likewise in Bristol in advance of the election of the West of England Metro Mayor coming up on 1 May 2025.
Updates such as these are crucial in analysing the path to the greener future on which we depend, as well as the performance of those passing the legislation which shapes it.
