About Fossil Free Parliament

Fossil Free Parliament is a UK-wide movement working to end the fossil fuel industry’s power over our democracy.

Up and down the country, people are demanding real action to address climate change. But so far, Parliament has failed to step up; opting instead to ignore, block, and often punish campaigners’ efforts instead.

What’s behind Parliament’s failure? The powerful influence of the fossil fuel industry. To protect their profits, fossil fuel companies are blocking action on climate change. They use donations, private lobbying meetings and lucrative job opportunities to pressure decision- makers to act in their favour.

Together, we can expose this influence and kick the polluters out of our politics.

Join the movement for a Fossil Free Parliament today – fill out this short form to let us know how you might like to get involved.

Our Asks

To free Parliament from the polluting influence of the the fossil fuel industry, the Fossil Free Parliament campaign is working with decision-makers on the following five asks:

Decision-makers must refuse donations, gifts and sponsorship deals, and any other benefits, from the fossil fuel industry and organisations representing fossil fuel industry interests.

Decision-makers must reject invitations to host or attend events run by the fossil fuel industry or promoting the fossil fuel industry’s interests, and they must prevent fossil fuel industry events from taking place on parliamentary premises and at party conferences.

Decision-makers must end lobbying meetings with the industry and organisations representing fossil fuel industry interests, unless the meeting is to discuss fossil fuel phase out, and exclude fossil fuel industry presence from public bodies.

Decision-makers must phase out the Parliament Contributory Pension Fund’s investments in fossil fuel companies and exclude them from future investment. Re-invest this money in ethical alternatives.

Decision-makers must not take on paid work for the fossil fuel industry during their time in Parliament, and they must put in place measures to restrict movement between jobs in parliament and in the fossil fuel industry.

Please see the Fossil Fuelled Parliament page to learn more about how these demands were developed in response to our understanding of fossil fuel industry political influence.

Notes:

• ‘Decision-makers’ include MPs, Peers and Parties, and various groupings and organisations within Parliament – such as APPGs. In future, the campaign will expand scope to consider how the fossil fuel industry exerts influence through relationships with civil servants, too.

• The ‘fossil fuel industry’ is defined as companies generating more than 10% of their revenue from the exploration, production, refining or processing of coal, oil and fossil gas.

• The ‘organisations representing fossil fuel industry interests’ may include lobbyists who are paid a fee to represent their interests or fossil fuel industry networks, pressure groups, or trade associations such as UKPIA. We are working on drawing up a list of such organisations for ease of identification.

The story so far

The Fossil Free Parliament movement was born out of Divest Parliament – the campaign to divest the MP pension fund (formally known as the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund, PCPF) from fossil fuels. Across five years, Divest Parliament successfully campaigned for more than 350 current and former MPs to support the divestment of their pension fund, which led to the fund significantly decreasing its investments in BP and Shell and transferring investments into ethical alternatives.

In spring 2022, despite a renewed call from more than 130 MPs to divest, it became clear that the Trustees of the PCPF would not be persuaded to make a full divestment commitment anytime soon – preferring instead to ‘engage’ with the fossil fuel industry as shareholders. So, the Divest Parliament campaign team stepped back and considered why it is that the MP pension fund could justify continuing to hold investments in the fossil fuel industry. The answer came to us quite quickly: the fossil fuel industry, despite all that is known about its critical role in the development of the climate crisis, continues to enjoy overall political approval as a result of the various and significant channels of influence it has within Parliament. In response to this, the Divest Parliament campaign team made the big decision to expand the scope of the campaign – from pension fund investments, to all ways in which the fossil fuel industry exerts influence within Parliament. So Fossil Free Parliament was born.

Fossil Free Parliament was formally launched in June 2023, and has since been focused on the development of the No Fossil Funding Pledge campaign – calling on MPs and Peers to reject any and all benefits from the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates. This is the first of many forms of action to come. If you would like to participate in the development of our campaign strategy and tactics by becoming a part of our volunteer team, please fill out this form to register your interest and we will be in touch soon.

Who is involved with Fossil Free Parliament?

Fossil Free Parliament is a partly grassroots, and partly staff-supported campaign.

It is hosted by Platform London, as part of UK Divest (which is jointly held with Friends of the Earth Scotland). Currently, two staff members at Platform work on UK Divest, and dedicate part of their time to Fossil Free Parliament. These staff members support a small team of volunteer campaigners with the development and implementation of Fossil Free Parliament actions.

If you’d like to join the team of volunteer campaigners, please complete this short form to let us know you are interested and we will be in touch as soon as possible.

Who funds Fossil Free Parliament?

Fossil Free Parliament is funded by a grant from the Climate Change Collaboration, a partnership between The Aurora Trust, The JJ Charitable Trust, and The Mark Leonard Trust, three of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts.