New Lib Dem MP Rejects "Binary" NIMBY VS YIMBY Debate
Ed Davey and Pippa Heylings posed for photographs at the Lib Dem general election campaign launch in South Cambridgeshire (Alamy)
5 min read
The new Liberal Democrat MP for South Cambridgeshire, Pippa Heylings, has said she rejects the concept of a “binary” fight between ‘YIMBYs’ and ‘NIMBYs'.
The Lib Dems have a record 72 MPs in the House of Commons, having won many seats across the south of England in particular at the 4 July General Election. In South Cambridgeshire, a new constituency created by the most recent boundary review, Heylings defeated Tory Chris Carter-Chapman by over 10,000 votes.
In their election manifesto the Lib Dems advocated for a “fair deal for the environment”, but have come under fire by some even within the party for courting the anti-development ‘NIMBY’ vote at a time when many voters — particularly younger people — want more houses to be built.
Leader Ed Davey might be hoping that with the inclusion of professional mediators such as Heylings in their parliamentary cohort, the party can begin to dispel this narrative.
“I don't like the binary stuff – you know, it's either you're a YIMBY or you're a NIMBY,” Heylings told PoliticsHome.
“We can absolutely find a way which is win-win on this.”
Heylings was recognised on the first ever ENDS Power List of political environmental champions earlier this year, alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan and former Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. The Power List recognised her career negotiating between national and local governments on climate issues, attending UN Climate and Nature summits, and spearheading the creation of the Galapagos Islands Marine Reserve. She also acted as a key mediator in the successful reintroduction of beavers to the UK.
Having been elected to South Cambridgeshire District Council in 2018 and now voted in as an MP, Heylings said she thought there should be more “conflict management” in politics. In her view, this approach would help to bridge the divide between the push for more infrastructure and housing developments and concern for environmental protections.
“The diversity that we have within this Parliament is really interesting, and part of that diversity is people who have had all different types of careers before coming into parliament,” she told PoliticsHome.
“I did about 20 years of international development work, living and working abroad, that was mainly on mediation around conflicts on environment and development.
“We've got lots of big infrastructure projects, big money interests, and how you line that up with local people and local communities, voices, and the rights of nature.
“I’ve led a big NGO doing that in South America… the big conflicts between big money tourism, industrial fishing, smaller fishing, top scientists. So it was about how do you get everyone around the table to agree on what the creation of the Marine Reserve, which at that time was the biggest in the world, and have all those interests represented well – not equally, but each has their say.”
Seals in the Galapagos Islands (Alamy)
Heylings said she now wanted to make the case in Parliament for the importance of local government in achieving this “conflict management”. Having attended every single international COP climate summit, she said it was “astounding” to see that compared to other countries, local government had “no voice” in the UK when it came to climate action.
While she said this was improved at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, there was still a long way to go: “That's why I've decided to stand for Parliament really.”
“With having 72 MPs, we can be absolutely a voice now within government, and we can be an effective voice of both supporting Labour but pushing them further,” she said.
“And where do I see that's pushing them further? Yes, we need to get building, but we can and should demand more in terms of the standards for that building.
“All my work has shown that the developers have said you can't have both, you can't have more houses and more standards. And what we've shown in South Cambridgeshire, is that you can have both. Since 2015, we've had the zero carbon homes standard ready to be adopted, and the Conservatives never adopted it.”
She added that she “welcomed” the Labour government’s proposals on multi-year funding settlements for local authorities after Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould told PoliticsHome that short-term bidding between councils has led to “massive waste”. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, said on Thursday the Labour Government would end "Dragon's Den style" local authority bidding for pots of cash.
“What we're pushing for is a framework between what's trying to be done nationally and locally,” Heylings said.
“And that's something that I'll be really pushing to ensure that that happens in that there is then accountability, and showing how local authorities can contribute to our national targets.”
Recalling her experience working internationally, Heylings said that it had been “really distressing” to see how the UK’s soft power when it came to climate action had been “eroded by the Conservative government over the last decade”.
“I talked with many, many ministers, many, many countries in negotiating… So what we need to do is rebuild our ability to play that role on the world stage,” she said.
“The Global Security Council said that climate change is a security threat and that links to water resources and natural resources, so when we're looking at issues where there is conflict and insecurity, often that comes back down to issues around lack of natural resources or fighting over either minerals, oil and gas, water, agriculture.
“So what we need to be doing is strengthening the multilateral organisations like the UN Biodiversity Convention: once those are stronger, and showing that it actually increases security, deals with issues around immigration, and also provides new economies, then I think we can easily start to challenge some of the other rhetoric.”
And does Heylings believe the Lib Dems are more ‘green’ than the Green Party themselves?
“The Lib Dems were the first environmental party, the first party that had environmentalism as part of its constitution and its values,” she said.
“Nobody has a patent on being green. What we need is every single party understanding that we've got to be green to our core, because that's the only way that we're actually going to be able to protect the future for generations.”
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