Britain needs a National Nature Service - not another failed gamble on the private sector, writes Carla Denyer MP

These numbers underline what people up and down the country see and feel every day: our economy just isn’t working.

Government ministers like Pat McFadden are right to highlight the problem that large numbers of young people are out of training, education or work. But they’re absolutely wrong to stubbornly bet all their cards on private sector growth to solve our unemployment crisis.

This is the same economic approach - government stepping back and turning our economy over to private companies - that has filled our rivers with sewage, hollowed out high streets, and seen wealth and jobs drain away from communities.

It hasn’t worked for the last 40 years - and it won’t work today.

We need new and bold solutions. Solutions like a National Nature Service: a government-created ‘nature and climate corps’ that would create thousands of meaningful public-sector jobs for young people across the country who are struggling to find work.

At the same time, it would restore our precious but declining natural environment, make our communities more resilient to climate disasters like flooding, and build the skills and experience necessary to support the longer-term green transition.

The idea for a British National Nature Service, being put forward by Green New Deal Rising, the Youth Environmental Service and Wildlife and Countryside Link, is modelled on current and former initiatives around the world, like New Zealand’s Jobs for Nature programme, and the Civilian Conservation Corps of 1930s America.

In fact, I have met someone who’s benefited from a similar programme already – until 2011 the German government conscripted men into mandatory military service but there was an ‘alternative national service’ where conscientious objectors could work in socially beneficial jobs like in hospitals, or doing environmental protection work. One of my old colleagues in the renewable energy industry had spent his ‘Zivildienst’ 5 years earlier doing conservation work in a national park - a formative experience for him.

These programmes show that with the right investment and political will, public service models can successfully combine action on climate and nature, youth employment, and skills development.

We know Reform UK is benefiting from the deep economic pain and sense of being left behind after decades of government underinvestment. If Labour wants to beat Reform, it must hear and answer that pain - not by ramping up their anti-immigration rhetoric as the latest Reform tribute act, but with positive, bold economic change. That means doing things differently and taking a more active role in bringing jobs, dignity and economic renewal back to communities.

Let’s not forget: from Roosevelt’s New Deal to our NHS, many of the most celebrated political achievements in modern history involved the state stepping up with a bold new idea, and creating thousands of new jobs to advance the public good, not private shareholder profit.

Today, we face a sluggish economy, a raging climate and nature emergency, and a youth mental health and unemployment crisis set to worsen rapidly as AI threatens the entry-level jobs young people rely on to get a foothold in the labour market. A National Nature Service is exactly the kind of bold, innovative policy solution that would address each of these challenges, finally delivering real change and security for the communities rapidly losing faith in this timid government.

The Budget is perhaps the final opportunity for Starmer and Reeves to show the public they are on their side, by delivering a bold economic alternative to the broken economic status quo they have thus far defended. A final chance to implement meaningful public investment, focused on good green jobs across the country - funded by making the super-rich pay up with wealth taxes on their booming fortunes. People deserve a better future - a National Nature Service would give it to them.

____________________

Carla Denyer is the Green Party MP for Bristol Central

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk