Toby Perkins MP addressed the Environmental Services & Solutions Expo at the NEC in Birmingham on Thursday 18 September.
The Environmental Services & Solutions Expo is an annual conference for the environment services and industry sector, with 16,000 attendees across the resource and waste management, water, wastewater and environmental management, energy, fuels and decarbonisation, contamination and land remediation, geotechnical engineering and operations, and air quality and emissions sectors.
Toby spoke about green skills and about PFAS or forever chemicals. The full transcript of his speeches are below.
Why the Future Needs Green Skills: Policy, Workforce and Economic Growth
Good afternoon everyone. It is great to be here.
I am Toby Perkins, the Labour MP for Chesterfield and Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.
Though I am elected as a Labour MP, my role as chair of the EAC and as Chair of the All Party group on apprenticeships mean I am there to assess the performance of the government rather than simply to sell it.
Today I want to talk to you about how the nation’s need for green skills will help drive the government’s agenda; how our broader education system must adapt to provide the skills we’ll need; and how an integrated system can help employers and learners to access the skills and opportunities they need.
Green skills is also a nice intersection of my interest in the environment and in skills and employment, and so I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak to you today on this topic.
The government’s ambitions for both economic growth and environmental sustainability will stand or fall on one critical factor: the ability to attract the right people and skills.
We often talk about ‘green skills’, but anyone who looks around this vast exhibition will see the breadth of the sector.
There are the technical skills for jobs that will play a major role in reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and reversing nature’s decline by 2042, such as heat pump installation, and the implementation of biodiversity net gain.
There are skills like engineering and ecology, for which we will have to get additional people into the workforce, to ensure we have the capacity to design and build additional flood defences, prepare our national infrastructure for the impacts of climate change, and establish and maintain forests, wetlands, and peatlands.
Already, the Office for National Statistics estimated that there were just over 650,000 full-time equivalents in UK green jobs in 2024, in sectors from energy efficiency, waste management, renewable energy, low carbon transport, grid infrastructure, forest management, nature protection and restoration, and water treatment.
Whilst I do think that every job has the potential to become ‘green’ as the world moves to combat climate change, so we must never forget or fail to promote the importance of attracting people into decarbonising or greening sectors that have historically been polluting.
An engineer who helps to decarbonise aviation, steel making or pottery will be playing every bit as crucial an environmental role as an ecologist or forester.
However, today I will focus primarily on the technical green skills and jobs in low carbon and environmental industries.
I believe that vocational education must be at the heart of Britain’s green transition, but both policy change and a cultural shift is needed to create a skills system fit for the future.
We are living in a world that is increasingly uncertain and unstable. Climate impacts are here and impacting our communities and environment.
We are fortunate in the UK to have had the previous and the current government committed to taking action to tackle the climate emergency, restore the natural environment, and move to a circular economy.
But these changes will require fundamental shifts in our economy. The green transition is fundamentally an industrial transition. All sectors, but especially energy, manufacturing, and construction are already experiencing, and will continue to go through that transformation.
These are enormous challenges, but they are also opportunities.
The potential economic benefits of the transition to a low carbon economy are becoming clearer, with domestic and global markets in low carbon technologies estimated to be worth billions of pounds to the UK economy over the coming decades.
Investments in these sectors are expected to drive funding and jobs across the UK, from electric vehicle manufacture in the midlands, to construction and installation of offshore wind farms around the coast, and the retrofitting of homes across the country.
To me, there is a clear synergy between the government’s net zero and environmental targets, and its ambition to create growth in every postcode.
It is also important to recognise that many young people are passionate about making a difference to the planet and working in the environment sector. By playing a part in the global energy transition, they are not only supporting our energy and environment (and national security) but helping us to win the battle to decarbonise and restore our natural world while they are doing it.
We must never underestimate the passion there is amongst the next generation of workers for employment that is meaningful and contributing towards a safer planet and so the opportunity the sector has to excite young people is one of our greatest assets.
I do believe that the government is beginning to recognise the importance of green skills.
The Carbon Budget Delivery and Growth Plan published last year identified green skills and workforce development as a critical cross-cutting enabler. In particular in areas like low-carbon heating installation, electrical and grid infrastructure, and clean energy technologies.
The most recent Environmental Improvement Plan, identifies green skills as essential, especially in horticulture and forestry, sustainable farming, and land management and planning. As a result, the government committed to expanding T levels in agriculture, land management, and animal care, which is very welcome.
Another fundamental strategic driver is the Industrial Strategy. It identifies eight growth sectors, which each have a ‘Jobs Plan’. One is clean energy industries. Another is construction, a sector which will be key to the green transition.
In the Clean Energy Jobs Plan, the government analysis is that the workforce will need to double from 440,000 in 2023 to around 860,000 jobs by 2030, across clean energy sectors and their supply chains. The majority of these new jobs will be in skilled construction and building trades, and skilled metal and electrical trades. The analysis shows that these trades will be in high demand across all regions of the UK by 2030.
Recognising that vocational education and apprenticeships will be central to ensuring the jobs and skills are available to achieve our clean energy and green ambitions, the government has invested over £100 million to support engineering skills including £10 million in engineering T levels.
They also established 5 clean energy technical excellence colleges and 10 construction technical excellence colleges, and announced a £625 million Construction Skills Package to support up to 60,000 additional skilled construction workers.
Alongside these sector-specific investments in skills development, there have been a spate of other reforms to the skills system.
The previous Apprenticeships Levy is now the Growth and Skills Levy and the adult skills budget has been devolved to local authorities.
The government has also announced that they will fully-fund the training costs for apprentices aged 16 – 24 taken on by SMEs, and even offering a £2000 hiring grant for small businesses who recruit a new young apprentice.
These are all important individual initiatives, but what is needed overall is an integrated and operational skills system. There is still a lack of join-up in the system between education, skills and training, employers, and government policy.
Just as one example of this lack of join-up causing skills gaps to be unidentified or unaddressed… In the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry last year into housing growth and environmental sustainability, we concluded that without a sufficiently skilled and resourced workforce in planning and ecology, the government will not achieve its target to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament.
Currently, only 26% of local authorities have in-house ecological expertise, to evaluate planning applications and biodiversity net gain plans. This holds up planning applications and leaves us vulnerable to failure in environmental commitments.
The Committee also heard concerns that the construction industry does not have the numbers, nor the skills, needed to deliver the volume or types of homes that will enable the government to meet its targets for housing, the environment, nature and net zero. The government has partially acknowledged this, and has put in place some investments, as I have mentioned before, to expand the construction workforce.
However, this alone will not be enough. We are concerned as to whether the Government has adequately demonstrated that the existing and future construction workforce will have the full range of skills needed to meet housing and environment targets.
These skills include the ability to work with new materials, install a range of technologies, maximise the productivity of brownfield sites, use the latest digital tools, and have the knowledge and skills to interact with planning professionals and ecologists.
In our report to government, we recommended that the government set out an analysis of the skill set that will be required in construction, sustainability, planning, and ecology, and consider how to address any significant gaps in the workforce or skills pipeline.
This is just one example of where the government needs to move beyond fragmented initiatives to create a more coherent system.
As our recent apprenticeships study found: Businesses and employers need certainty and clarity on the long-term direction and funding from government in order to invest in the future.
The Industrial Strategy and Clean Energy Jobs Plans do this well, in my view.
But decisions that send mixed policy signals, such as the EV pay per mile tax, for example, at a time when the EV transition is not yet past the tipping point, can undermine this.
We also unfortunately are living in a time where the previous political consensus for net zero and environmental action has been lost. This impacts how businesses plan and invest for the future – the risk of future policy change makes investment in some sectors less likely or more costly.
On the other hand, the global direction of travel is clear: low carbon technologies are the industries of the future. And if Britain is to remain competitive, we must invest in these industries and the supply chains supporting them.
Secondly, lots of government initiatives focus on increasing the workforce, but upskilling will be just as necessary in many sectors.
Some industries are also naturally declining, such as oil and gas in the North Sea. Providing retraining pathways, utilising the important skills that the workers in these industries already have, will be important both for the green transition and for supporting regional growth and prosperity.
Thirdly and finally, alongside structural skills reform, a cultural change is needed.
This government has rightly put a strong emphasis on apprenticeships – and the new Prime Minister is going even further to ensure technical skills are valued equally to academic qualifications.
It is necessary to elevate the prestige of vocational education so it is valued alongside higher education. This isn’t just about policy, it requires a fundamental shift in how institutions, employers, and society view vocational pathways.
We are fortunate in this country to have so many talented and hardworking people and a strong and world-leading clean energy sector.
Government and industry must all work together to ensure that we are identifying the skills needs, supporting people into these roles, and bringing the economic benefits of the energy transition into every region of the country.
Addressing the Risks from PFAS: What Government Action is Needed
Good afternoon everyone.
I am Toby Perkins, the Labour MP for Chesterfield. But more pertinently for today, I am Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, a role to which I was elected to by my colleagues after the general election in 2024.
I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak to you today about my and my Committee’s work on PFAS or forever chemicals.
Just a few years ago, the acronym PFAS might not have meant a lot to most people. But following an ITV and ENDS Report documentary, the work of tireless campaigners, the first ever government PFAS action plan, and, I would like to think, the recent inquiry by the Environmental Audit Committee into PFAS, there is now much more public awareness about PFAS or forever chemicals.
So as I think many of you will know, PFAS are used widely in consumer products and industrial processes for their water resistance. But it is this same quality – their resistance to breaking down – which means they accumulate in the environment and in the human body over time.
PFAS have been detected in UK rivers, soils, wildlife, and in the blood of most people. A growing body of evidence links high PFAS exposure to serious health and environmental risks, including certain cancers, immune suppression, and fertility and development impacts.
Addressing PFAS pollution is essential to protecting public health, preventing long-term environmental harm, and reducing future remediation costs.
Today my remarks will focus on what my colleagues and I on the EAC investigated and concluded on the topic of PFAS pollution in the UK, and what Government action is needed to tackle it.
Firstly, a quick introduction to the Environmental Audit Committee and our work. The EAC is one of several cross-party select committees in parliament. We examine the government’s environmental plans and policies, and hold them to account on their targets and commitments.
Over recent months, the Environmental Audit Committee and I have published reports on the compatibility of airport expansion with nature and climate targets, Environmental sustainability and housing growth, and the Seventh Carbon Budget.
We are currently holding evidence sessions and hearings on air pollution, the environmental impact of data centres, and the economics of climate and nature action.
Just last week we launched our newest inquiry and call for evidence into climate adaptation.
The EAC has the unique power to scrutinise any government department. The Committee has questioned Ministers from the Department for Transport on airport expansion, MHCLG on housing growth, and of course, DEFRA and DESNZ.
This is crucial, as you all here will understand, as the environment is a cross-cutting issue. Action from all sectors of society is needed to address climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.
But today I am speaking about the EAC’s recent inquiry into PFAS. Over the course of several months last year, we received written evidence from stakeholders, held oral evidence sessions with experts, and heard from government minister Emma Hardy. The Government published in February of this year a PFAS Action Plan, the first of its kind and a very welcome step. This allowed the Committee to examine the Government’s plan as part of our inquiry.
To hear firsthand how PFAS affects local communities, we visited Bentham in North Yorkshire. We also met with manufacturers to understand how they are managing and remediating PFAS pollution. On a visit to France, we learned about their forthcoming ban on PFAS and how that was affecting manufacturers and communities.
We published the EAC’s report and recommendations to government in April of this year. The government responded in July to each of our recommendations, as required by statute, and so my remarks today will also reflect on the government’s response.
The Committee’s inquiry found that the UK faces a growing legacy of PFAS pollution, alongside continued emissions.
Legacy PFAS contamination can be linked to industrial sites like waste management facilities, military bases, chemicals manufacturing, wastewater treatment plans, pulp and paper mills, and leather and textiles manufacturers. At a time when redevelopment and regeneration is needed, especially in former industrial areas, cleaning up legacy PFAS and reducing remediation costs is vital.
At the same time, we continue to emit PFAS. PFAS is manufactured and put into consumer products like non-stick cookware, food packaging, and waterproof clothing. PFAS is also a critical component in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, protective equipment, semi-conductors, and hydrogen technologies. Either at source or through disposal, the PFAS in these products can enter the environment, including into our soils, drinking water, and the wider food chain.
Even if all production and emissions of PFAS stopped tomorrow, these chemicals would still persist in the environment for generations to come. Unlike other chemicals pollutants, PFAS resist breakdown and accumulate across soil, groundwater and sediment, making removal costly and technically demanding.
This poses a substantial and long-term financial burden. The Environment Agency estimated remediation costs for the thousands of potential high-risk PFAS sites in the UK to be between £31 billion to £121 billion.
As I mentioned earlier, I was delighted that the Government published, during the course of our inquiry, the first ever PFAS Action Plan.
However, our inquiry found that the government’s plan is short on the decisive action needed to prevent the harmful build-up of these chemicals in the environment.
Work to monitor PFAS, prevent emissions, remediate contamination, and develop alternatives is already occurring. I know that many of you in this room will appreciate the scale and challenge of the PFAS problem, and perhaps even be working on one of these issues yourselves.
But the scale of the response in the UK does not yet match the scale of the challenge.
PFAS continues to be emitted today and the pollution continues to accumulate. The government’s plan focuses disproportionately on monitoring rather than prevention and remediation. It also suggests voluntary action and industry self-regulation, which in our view are insufficient to reduce PFAS emissions.
The longer action is delayed in addressing the risks of PFAS, the greater the health, economic and environmental burdens will become.
In the Committee’s view, tackling the scale of contamination requires a combined approach: firstly, preventing ongoing PFAS emissions at the source, secondly, managing continued PFAS emissions, and thirdly, addressing remediation and disposal of PFAS.
This must be supported by sustained research, funding, monitoring and public transparency.
I will briefly highlight some of the Committee’s recommendations to Government in these three areas.
We as the EAC advocated for the government to take a precautionary and preventative approach, to halt the continuing PFAS emissions now, to prevent future harm and protect public health.
This requires accelerating the reform of UK REACH, the domestic regulatory framework for chemicals, so that PFAS restrictions can be delivered more quickly. UK REACH is too slow to respond to emerging evidence. We have fallen behind the EU in restricting PFAS.
As well as risks to our environment and citizens, the recent lack of decisive action on PFAS also brings risks to our trade and economy. Unnecessary regulatory divergence from the EU could create trade barriers and impact UK manufacturing competitiveness.
The Committee called for the government to move swiftly to ban PFAS in non-essential consumer products, including food packaging, cookware, cosmetics, and coatings on school uniforms.
Where the use of PFAS is considered ‘essential’ to protect the health, safety and functioning of society, exemptions could be granted.
In phasing out PFAS, the regulatory system must shift from a substance‑by‑substance approach to group‑based regulation to prevent the replacement of banned PFAS with structurally similar and potentially harmful alternatives.
Without this broad, group-based restriction on PFAS, the Government risks a ‘whack-a-mole approach’ where new substances emerging faster than they can be evaluated.
At the same time, industry and government must work together to support the development of genuine and viable alternatives to PFAS for use in products or sectors where PFAS would be considered essential, such as pharmaceuticals, protective equipment and hydrogen technologies. On this, the EAC recommended the government consider establishing an industry-funded mechanism to invest in this sort of research and development.
In the government’s response to the EAC’s report, they recognised the need to reform UK REACH and committed to implementing reforms by the end of 2028.
The response also committed to closer UK-EU cooperation, including aligning UK REACH and drawing on future EU decisions around PFAS restrictions in non-essential consumer products and taking a group-based approach to PFAS regulation.
Whilst I welcome all these commitments, my Committee will continue urging the government to urgently implement these actions, to prevent harms from PFAS and future remediation costs.
Secondly, the EAC concluded that clear limits on the acceptable level of PFAS must be set by government, to enable enforcement and remediation.
The Government recently and rightly mandated the guidelines for the level of PFAS allowed in drinking water. We now need statutory limits of PFAS in food and in soils. In response to our report, the government said it would consider setting maximum levels of exposure with the scientific Committee on Toxicity.
Protecting public health also requires long-term investment in biomonitoring and epidemiological research. Some of this work is ongoing across the Committee on Toxicity, and the UK Health and Safety Agency, with some outputs expected by the end of this year.
Whilst monitoring is vital, it must not be used to delay action, and as this research continues, we will continue to urge the government to act on PFAS without delay.
Finally, there is an important set of questions around existing PFAS contamination: how to clean it up? And who should pay for it?
Where the government was not clear in their PFAS plan, the Committee was: based on the polluter pays principle, those who released PFAS into the environment should pay for it to be remediated. The taxpayer should not foot the bill.
The Committee recommended that the Government explore the implications of an emissions levy for PFAS, to deter ongoing environmental contamination and hold polluters responsible.
I would say the government’s response was lukewarm on this recommendation, but they did state in their response that there is ongoing consideration of additional mechanisms to support remediation, including both levies and funding.
In cases where the PFAS contamination is not attributable, central government must provide dedicated funding for local authorities to clean it up and provide clear guidance on remediation and destruction methodologies.
The government did recognise the technical challenges around remediation that the EAC’s report identified, including capacity constraints on high-temperature incineration facilities for disposing of PFAS, and the need to support industry in remediation and disposal.
In their response to us, they confirmed that they are considering the need for future PFAS disposal infrastructure, that the Environment Agency is developing PFAS remediation guidance, and that they will allocate further funding via UKRI for the development and deployment of PFAS remediation technologies and non-incineration PFAS destruction technologies.
I hope this has been a useful overview of the EAC’s inquiry into PFAS and areas where we think the government needs to go further in preventing emissions and supporting industry to remediate and dispose of PFAS.
Whilst the Committee’s inquiry into PFAS has officially concluded, we will continue to shine a spotlight on the PFAS problem and to urge the government to act on our recommendations.
The challenge of PFAS pollution is complex and at times technical – but in my view, the case to act is straightforward. Forever chemicals are still being emitted, they are building up in our bodies and in the environment, and we know they are harmful. Waiting will only make the problem worse. Now is the time to act.
Thank you.