Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. We're the charity and think tank net is all about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.

I'm Joe Tecklo, senior political advisor at Green Alliance. This year's Conservative Party conference is taking place up in Manchester.

In previous years, Manchester has not felt like home territory for the Conservatives, but the political map has changed dramatically since the 2019 general election. Boris Johnson's first major speech as Prime Minister was made at the Manchester

Science and Industry Museum, and his government's focus on the red wall seats in the north of England

has been a clear theme of his political strategy to date. Following the result in Cheshem and Amisham

earlier this year, in which the Conservatives lost a by-election to the Liberal Democrats.

Some have questioned whether the electoral coalition between traditional Conservatives in the south of

England and the Red Wall in the North can hold. The recent Cabinet reshuffle feels like a mid-term

moment for Boris Johnson and his government. The comprehensive spending review at the end of October

will determine spending for the next three years,

and we have the net zero strategy, heat and building strategy, and net zero review, all to be published before COP26, to say nothing about the climate event itself. As we embark upon Conservative Party

conference, it feels like a defining period for the government. In this podcast, I'll be talking

to Bimapilami, a conservative backbencher with his finger on the pulse. He's been the MP for Hitchin and Harbenden since 2017.

He's the chair of the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, and has just been

appointed parliamentary private secretary to the Foreign Office.

As it gets closer, people are going to remember how important this is.

I'm pretty sure after party conferences, there'll be one thing, and that would be COP26.

We started by talking about conference season and the opposition the Conservatives are currently fighting.

I suppose to focus in on some of the policy announcements that Labour have made this week at conference,

one in particular stood out from a Green Alliance perspective, and that was Rachel Reeves, who's the shadow chancellor, setting out

her green agenda in the Labour Party, Green Agenda, and they've announced a commitment to 28 billion

annually on investments in climate-related policies. And she also said she was going to be the first

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