Some time ago now I went to the Greenpeace offices in Canonbury to take part in a lobbying training day, I was rather nervous as I am much more of a hands on, practical sort of person but I understand the importance of lobbying and feel it's really important that we all claim back our part in the political process, after all, MPs are our elected representatives, not leaders in their own right and it is the responsibility of us all to hold them to account.
After my training, time passed, quite a lot of time, and, as I felt that there were much better suited people out there to do lobbying I allowed my fears to hold me back and did not engage in any lobbying at all, busying myself with more practical matters with Greenpeace, but with the Energy Bill being such an important piece of legislation at a critical time for our environment I realised that it was time to put away my fears and actually get on and do something, so....
Last Friday night Laura and I from the Waltham forest Greenpeace Group attended a meeting with David Lammy, our local MP to ask him to write to Ed Milliband, asking him to vote for a firm, legally-binding commitment to ‘decarbonise’ the UK’s electricity by 2030 in the Energy Bill, and if the Government does not include that commitment in the Energy Bill, to vote for amendments that commit the UK to decarbonising its electricity by 2030.
Before arriving at his office Laura and I discussed how we would practically raise our issues and conduct the meeting, and we decided that I should take notes and prompt the key points of our ask if needed, and at the end of the meeting, recap on what we had discussed.
We arrived at his office within the citizens advice centre in Tottenham, were signed in and asked if we had any documents we wished to handover and were then taken to David's office.
I have never been involved with anything like this before so was unsure of what to expect but as with all things Greenpeace, I knew we had all the information and training we needed and so felt confident I could trust in that, much like as when on an action.
We introduced ourselves and David and his two assistants did the same and we took our seats in his small office, David began by saying that he didn't know a great deal about the Energy Bill, that his main concern with is the cost of utility bills that his constituents face, and that he welcomed us telling him more about it. His opening statement allayed a lot of my initial fears about lobbying MPs namely that they would be ultra well versed with counter arguments and as an experienced, professional speaker it would be very hard to put our point across, so it immediately felt like I was talking to a normal person (and I remembered that this point was also made in the Greenpeace training) rather than a hardened sceptic with a lot of counter argument, although as an MP I was a little surprised that such matters as energy production, which to my mind forms the basics of what our representatives are responsible for overseeing, where not more at the forefront of his mind, but was pleased that he seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say, and listened attentively as Laura spoke about the specific points we were concerned about.
After talking through all our points in the briefing we were pleased to say that David agreed to write to Ed Milliband, asking him to vote for a firm, legally-binding commitment to ‘decarbonise’ the UK’s electricity by 2030 and also to speak at the reading of the Bill if he was in the House of Commons at that time.
Before I knew it we had asked our questions, had a good talk and it was all over, nothing to worry about at all in fact and I now feel confident in going to meet MPs again, even on my own if needs be.
You don't need to be an expert to lobby your MP, you just need good information and your passion for the environment and protecting it, just go and have your voice heard because those in the carbon heavy and nuclear energy industries are very vocal indeed and we have to ensure that our planet has a voice.
If you haven't been lobbying trained and would like to then drop an email to lobbying.uk@greenpeace.org
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