Thank you to everyone who contacted me calling for the UK to leave the Energy Charter Treaty.

I have long shared your concern that clauses in this outdated treaty enable fossil fuel companies to bring lawsuits against countries trying to decarbonise their economies, threatening our global effort to reach net zero as quickly as possible.

That’s why, in August 2021, when I was shadow international trade secretary, I wrote to the government to push for green reform in talks to reform the treaty. In the letter, I made clear that it was “disappointing to see the U.K. government sitting on the fence over the changes proposed by others to remove fossil fuels from the scope of the ECT’s investment protections, rather than advancing those changes ourselves… It is yet another example of the UK government failing to show leadership on the most urgent and topical debates around climate action.”

That was several years ago, but I am pleased that the government has now announced that the UK will be exiting the Treaty, in line with the decision to leave made by other European countries including France and the Netherlands. In my view that’s absolutely the right decision, because we simply cannot allow fossil fuel companies to stop democratically elected governments from taking strong climate action.