Companies would pay for damages caused by extreme weather such as floods

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

Fossil fuel companies must pay for the damage caused by extreme weather due to the climate emergency such as the floods devastating parts of England, the Labour leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey has said.

Long-Bailey, the most leftwing candidate in the contest, said she was calling for a “climate justice fund” to support affected households and communities, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies “responsible for knowingly heating our planet to dangerous levels”. This would include help towards affordable insurance for those suffering from repeated flooding, she said.

The leadership candidate made the pledge on a visit to the flood-hit Upper Calder Valley on Monday, as voting opened in the three-way contest between Long-Bailey, Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy.

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Starmer appears to be the frontrunner among party members, with the support of 374 local parties, compared with 164 for Long-Bailey and 72 for Nandy. However, Long-Bailey has strong support among trade unionists, who also get to vote, and is backed by Momentum, the well-organised Corbyn-supporting group of grassroots activists.

Speaking in Mytholmroyd, Long-Bailey attacked Boris Johnson’s “total indifference” to the suffering of communities hit by flooding, after he did not visit affected areas and spent last week in a grace-and-favour country home, Chevening.

Long-Bailey’s new proposal differs from Labour’s offering of a “just transition fund” at the election, which would have imposed a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to put £11bn towards helping fossil fuel industry workers make the transition to greener jobs.

She said her version of a tax on oil and gas companies would go directly to communities affected by the climate emergency.

“Fossil fuel executives have known for decades that their profiteering from the extraction of oil and gas would lead here: to dangerously high global temperatures and devastating weather events,” she said. “Fossil fuel companies must be made to pay for damage from the impacts they have already locked in.

“Flooding damage costs £2bn every year in England and Wales, and without deep cuts in emissions that could rise to £21bn after 2050. These costs are currently passed on to all homeowners in the form of higher insurance premiums, while properties built after 2009 and small businesses aren’t protected at all.

“With a climate justice fund, all households and businesses affected by flooding would be able to access affordable insurance, with the costs borne by the big polluters responsible for devastating climate impacts.”

Her team said taxing oil companies would not put prices up at the pump, as oil is a globally traded commodity.

She also called for the fire service to get a UK-wide statutory duty for flooding response and for firefighter numbers to be restored to pre-2010 levels. Unlike in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, firefighters in England do not have a responsibility in law to respond to flooding.