Report Overview
This report draws on nationally representative polling of 2,146 Britons, more than 200 of whom voted Lib Dem and further polling of more than 500 Lib Dem voters, creating a cumulative sample of 775 people who voted Liberal Democrat last July. We also held two focus groups in constituencies emblematic of the Liberal Democrats’ voter coalition, digging more deeply into the environmental attitudes of Lib Dem voters in Wokingham (the most affluent constituency in England and an archetypal Blue Wall constituency) and North Cornwall (the third most deprived constituency held by the Liberal Democrats and a constituency symbolic of the party’s traditional heartlands).
The research tested the extent to which Liberal Democrats care about the environment, the issues that are driving their environmental concerns and priorities as well as their perception of the Liberal Democrats’ performance on environmental issues.
Several key insights emerged from the research:
- Liberal Democrat voters are significantly more concerned about environmental issues than the British public as a whole - the proportion of Liberal Democrat voters selecting climate change and the environment as one of the top three issues facing Britain is nearly double the overall public.
- Concerns about challenges to the environment and nature at the local level play a particularly important role in shaping the environmental attitudes of Liberal Democrat voters.
- A desire for strong action on climate and the environment is a key reason why many Liberal Democrats voted for the party at the last election.
- Liberal Democrat voters want and expect strong action both from the government and their local MP to protect the environment.
- Public perceptions of the Conservative and Labour Governments’ record on the environment are poor but awareness of the Liberal Democrat environmental offer is also low, even among Liberal Democrat voters, restricting the party’s ability to benefit from the negative perception of the current and previous government.
- To address this, the Liberal Democrats will need to build a more distinctive offer on nature and climate issues by creating clear points of differences between themselves and the Labour Government. Of the Liberal Democrats’ current environmental policies, the ring-fencing of water company fines for nature improvements and the tightening of energy efficiency standards on new build homes through the mandatory installation of solar panels and heat pumps command the greatest public support, indicating they could be effective points of differentiation for the party.
The full report contains many further insights, from how local Lib Dem MPs should handle the development of energy infrastructure projects to the willingness of Liberal Democrat voters to bear the cost of the climate transition.
If you have any questions about this research then please email the report author Chris Annous at Chris@moreincommon.com
