Chris Hinchliff MP

Chris Hinchliff MP

@chrishinchliff.bsky.social

Member of Parliament for North East Hertfordshire. 🌹 Member of the Environmental Audit Committee. chrishinchliff.co.uk

4.7K followers262 following411 posts

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This conference was a vindication for everyone who fought for a transformational Labour Government. A Prime Minister trying to make life better across our country. Decent housing. Fixing social care. Taking on water profiteers. The left was right to demand better. Keep pushing. 🌹

The Government must save Oaken Wood and protect all ancient woodland. We’re suffering from decades of environmental carelessness: our farmlands have been baked hard and cities are sweltering. Destroying habitats which store water in the ground and cool our landscape is bonkers!

Britain has been on the wrong path for 40+ years. Our economy is geared to boost profit for the richest, not meet people’s needs - leaving families exposed when climate shocks hit. El Niño is a wakeup call. A new climate will mean lower living standards. We must change course.

Britain must prepare for El Niño. The UK is built for a climate which no longer exists. We need to grow more of our own food and prepare towns and workplaces for extreme heat. When climate shocks hit, public power must protect people so profiteers can't exploit crises.

The absurdities of trying to get profit motivated developers to solve our housing crisis just keep growing. We've now got thousands of new flats lying empty because they are so expensive and come with so many strings attached with their leaseholds, no one wants them.

Environmental limits are real and we have to stop pretending we can avoid difficult choices about them. With the country already running short on water, new data centres should only be going ahead if they can prove they aren't going to make the situation worse. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.comNot enough water for UK’s datacentre plans, trade body saysIndustry says government’s failure to address cooling demands means AI growth plans are ‘fatally flawed’

🧵 The Prime Minister’s decision to prioritise lowering energy bills sends the right message to the country. Moving away from an unpopular vanity project like Digital ID and getting to work making life easier for families is a good place to start. 1/10

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We need to give people real power to shape the places they call home - deciding where homes are built, what infrastructure their communities need, and how neighbourhoods can grow in a way that reflects their hopes for the future. 9/10

🧵 The Prime Minister’s decision to prioritise lowering energy bills sends the right message to the country. Moving away from an unpopular vanity project like Digital ID and getting to work making life easier for families is a good place to start. 1/10

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Our countryside is dying, and our ability to provide for ourselves is being hollowed out. This leaves us less able to grow own food, produce essential medicines or protect future generations from climate breakdown. 7/10

Part of this journey is also trusting ordinary people with the power to improve their own lives. I welcome Andy Burnham’s commitment to empowering communities. It's time to stop treating people as a problem to be managed. 8/10

🧵 The Prime Minister’s decision to prioritise lowering energy bills sends the right message to the country. Moving away from an unpopular vanity project like Digital ID and getting to work making life easier for families is a good place to start. 1/10

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Turning around decades of decline means building the council homes our communities need, restoring nature so new development creates greener neighbourhoods with tree-lined streets, flowerbeds and thriving public spaces. 5/10

🧵 The Prime Minister’s decision to prioritise lowering energy bills sends the right message to the country. Moving away from an unpopular vanity project like Digital ID and getting to work making life easier for families is a good place to start. 1/10

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Keeping a roof over your head is too expensive, decent food is unaffordable for many, water bills endlessly rising, and the cost of a train ticket to work bears no relation to the dismal quality of the service. 3/10

🧵 The Prime Minister’s decision to prioritise lowering energy bills sends the right message to the country. Moving away from an unpopular vanity project like Digital ID and getting to work making life easier for families is a good place to start. 1/10

73 million birds gone. England's dawn chorus silenced. Our national inheritance squandered. Our daily lives impoverished. This is where "greed is good" leads. Time to face the truth: A society endlessly exponentially consuming more and more isn't just a con; it's a death cult.

theguardian.comListen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 yearsGuardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

Welcome honesty. 👀 Let's ban developer donations to politics and focus on genuinely progressive reforms. That means building 000s of council houses, strengthening democracy, recognising environmental limits, and delivering happy, healthy, beautiful communities.

David Lawrence@davidlawrenceuk.bsky.social

YIMBYism promised to be the next big thing in progressive politics. But a couple of years after the PM declared himself a YIMBY, housebuilding has stalled, and YIMBYs have found themselves on the side of killing newts. Where did 'build baby build' go wrong? 🧵

We need the Government focused on improving lives. Developers donate millions to UK politics and lobby against decent energy efficiency standards. They shouldn't be able to buy influence to lower living standards. Think we should ban developer donations? Sign my petition. 👇

MPs in a side‑room just voted to strip back democracy. Elected councillors and local people will be side-lined in shaping their own future. Nobody voted Labour to lose power over shaping the place they live. We promised to empower people - this does the opposite.

Local democracy is under threat. Elected councillors are about to lose their say over the communities they represent. More decisions behind closed doors. Less say for local people. This Labour Government should be giving communities more power, not taking it away.

The Government needs to get the basics right, including regular, affordable bus services. We spend too much on expensive low-value vanity projects. Spend £3 BILLION on a road and you’d expect it to be lined with gold. Imagine if that went into thousands of buses for rural England. 🚏

Feeling the heat? Climate change is a threat to our way of life. If a hostile state was posturing toward wrecking our infrastructure and ecosystems, the Government would find billions overnight. Treat climate change as a national security risk.

There’s a BIG hole in water policy. It’s our small waters. Ponds, streams and small lakes are teeming with life - yet ignored. I’m backing action to properly protect these vital ecosystems. My letter to the Minister for Water and Flooding. 👇

There’s a nature-loving majority in this country. Those in power must listen and stop trashing our environment. There are far more of us than there are developer lobbyists. They have the millionaires. We are the millions. We need a bold campaign to get our nature back.

Anti-nature policies are a dead end for Labour. You don’t secure lasting growth by risking long-term harm to the ecosystems we rely on. The public knows this. There’s no need for the Government to pick a fight with voters on nature. It’s bad policy and bad politics.

Justice by the people, for the people. Juries are the cornerstone of democracy and the rule of law. Last night I joined legal experts to hear concerns about proposals to limit the right to trial by jury. We must improve the criminal justice system without compromising justice.

No backwards steps for nature! We can't build homes or infrastructure because Tory cuts bled our planning system dry. Putting our Habitats Regulations through a shredder isn't the answer. I've tabled a Parliamentary Motion asking the Government to rethink its plans.

The global energy transition is progressing too slowly: 1️⃣ Record high CO₂ emissions from energy in 2024. 2️⃣ Fossil fuel use reached a new peak. 3️⃣ Demand is still growing faster than renewable supply. We have to find a better way to secure a prosperous future for everyone.

Labour promised a council housing revolution. Many housing associations are becoming too corporate and forgetting their roots. Our Government must grab the bull by the horns and get local authorities building again. Council housing means council housing.

Environmental limits on river water abstraction exist. Pretending they don’t for developers to boost profits won't magic away reality. It means dirtier water, water shortages, and failing crops. Developers profit. The rest of us pay the price. See how it works yet?

Flowing Chalk Streams have been turned into shallow dribbles. They're irreplaceable habitats. Once gone, they’re gone. Companies over-abstracted our rivers. Our inheritance vandalised for money. Our planning system must protect the nature people love over short-term profit.

Water scarcity is a major challenge. New reservoirs alone won’t solve it. Our projected deficit is 5 BILLION litres a day. A sustainable water system for drinking, agriculture and thriving rivers must come before tech giants’ quenchless thirst for their data centres.

I'm deeply sceptical about the proposals around Digital ID, and I share the concerns of many of my constituents. This week I raised these concerns in Parliament and said the Government must prepare to drop the plans in response to public feedback from its consultation.

Trashing nature is wrong and hugely unpopular. The public are right, too many politicians are out of touch and failing our environment. England’s biodiversity is in serious danger. Blaming nature for market failures won't help build anything—it will ruin precious habitats.

Wildlife is at risk. Habitats disappearing. Species declining. Ancient Woodlands threatened. This is the result of political choices over decades. It's time to bin off spurious anti-nature narratives peddled by terminally online lobbyists.

Hospices are being forced to cut services due to lack of funds. They don't just offer medical care—they provide dignity at life's hardest moments. That support must be safeguarded. Tomorrow's Budget must deliver sustainable funding—no more papering over the cracks.

Israel is blocking a million bottles of baby formula from entering Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—including children, face imminent starvation. Our Government’s action must match the urgency of this moment. Immediate, widespread sanctions on Israel.

Today, Labour is putting passengers before profit. For the first time in 30 years, rail fares are to be frozen—saving commuters hundreds and easing the cost of living. Public ownership of our train services will put an end to extortionate price hikes.