How to have impactful conversations with your MP

This briefing will guide you through meeting your MP on The Climate Coalition’s Common Grounds Day of Action. It covers how to prepare for the meeting, offers advice on what to say, and provides tips for effective follow-up to ensure your voice is heard.

27 Sep 2024

Before your meeting

Get a sense of your MP before meeting them. Spend some time researching your MP to understand what makes them tick and how they might be persuaded to support the campaign. You’ll also want to make some practical preparations, like deciding what will be said and who can take notes and photos.

Remember, you’re meeting your MP because you’re concerned constituents not because you’re policy experts. Keep the conversations fairly "high level" and focus on the need for an ambitious, comprehensive and fair climate plan. If your MP tries to get into the detail of one issue, try to steer the conversation back to the need for a bold and fair plan. If they ask questions that you don’t know the answer to, say that you’ll get back to them – and ask us for help if you need it.

First time? For some of you, this could be the first time you have met your MP, or your first meeting with a new MP. If this is you, then we encourage you to sign up for a training session. This will help you develop a positive relationship with your MP, including how to secure a climate commitment from them. Sign up now.

During your meeting

Below is a suggested structure for your meeting. You can follow it to the letter or choose bits that feel right for you.

1. Introduce yourselves and explain why you’re here

Start the meeting by introducing yourselves and your group. Explain that you’re here as part of the Common Grounds national Day of Action for people, climate and nature.

We're your constituents: voters, local residents, ordinary people from all walks of life, united in wanting to see action for people, climate and nature. Together, we're already acting and leading on tackling climate and restoring nature. Look at all the amazing things already happening in your constituency.

We want you to make standing beside us on climate and nature your legacy. Building on the progress already made here in the UK, we need more projects which are good for us, good for nature and good for the climate. We want you to be able to tell the next generation, at home and abroad, that you helped create a better future than the one we currently face.

The urgency to act has never been greater. But we have hope, because the solutions for tackling the climate and restoring nature already exist. With you standing beside us, your constituents, as a champion of climate and nature, we can make a better future, together.

2. Introduce them to the campaign

Explain that you are here to discuss a specific opportunity, which will allow them to show their commitment to climate action today.

Set out the crucial opportunity of the new climate plan. Use your own words, but this might be along the following lines:

After a successful legal challenge by Friends of the Earth, the government has to write a new climate plan next year. This must set out how we will meet the UK’s international commitment to cut carbon emissions by over two-thirds by 2030. We’re currently dangerously off track and urgent action is needed. The plan must be ambitious, comprehensive and fair, with policies that add up and enough investment to deliver them. And it must make sure that everyone can have lower energy bills, warm homes, clean air, better public transport and well-paid green jobs. We want you to help us get the climate plan that the people of <constituency> and the planet need.

3. Talk about why an ambitious climate plan is so important

Wider benefits

It’s important to get across to your MP that what we’re calling for isn’t just about tackling the climate crisis, critical though that is. The climate plan we want the government to produce will also benefit people through lower energy bills, warm homes, clean air, better public transport and well-paid green jobs – it’s a win in many areas. Talking to your MP about how the action we want to see will bring all these other benefits will hopefully help get them to support the campaign.

Local benefits

It’s a truism that MPs represent their constituencies. They’ll want to know how a climate plan will benefit their constituents. You can find lots of useful information about your constituency by using Friends of the Earth’s Near You tool. This will provide you with examples you can use in your meeting (and print to hand to your MP) to illustrate the need for action, such as:

How many people are living in cold homes that need better insulation.
How many people suffer from respiratory problems, aggravated by air pollution.
How many people don’t have access to a car and so would benefit from better public transport and cycling and walking facilities.
How many people have good access to green spaces.

Tell stories

Facts are important but stories are vital in empathetically illustrating information that can otherwise be rather dry. Human stories help explain why what you’re talking about matters to you and why it should matter to your MP as well. So don’t just bombard your MP with facts and figures, weave in some stories too. These might be about how the lack of good public transport is stopping you doing what you want, or how traffic levels are aggravating your child’s asthma or how the local foodbank is seeing more people because of the rising cost of heating a cold home.

The Climate Coalition is running training sessions on how to tell stories to show what you care about and inspire action. Sign up now.

Persuading MPs from different parties

The government has 5 key missions that are at the heart of what Keir Starmer wants to deliver. These are around:

generating growth
improving opportunity
improving the NHS
making Britain a clean energy superpower
creating safer streets

You could say that the policies we’re asking for will help deliver the first four of these: generating growth by investing in industries of the future, improving opportunity by creating new jobs, helping the NHS by reducing the health costs of people living in cold homes.

Point out that it was the current Energy & Climate Secretary Ed Miliband who, the last time Labour were in power, got the Climate Change Act into law, following the "Big Ask" campaign led by Friends of the Earth. Getting a bold and fair climate plan is building on this legacy.

You could say that if there is one thing they can do for the climate, it’s lobbying and working with Ed Miliband to get as strong a climate plan as possible.

It was a Conservative government that set the UK’s net zero target. This is one of the party’s key environmental achievements, and they can help ensure it is properly delivered by holding Labour to account.

The Liberal Democrats have the right instincts on climate, as was recognised in our scoring of their manifesto. We need them to focus on this and call the government out if they don’t deliver.

They know why this is vital. Again, we need them to call the government out if they don’t deliver.

If your constituency was one of the 40 or so where the Greens were in second place in the General Election, then you could tell your MP that supporting a bold and fair climate plan is a great way of showing your constituents that you’re a "green champion".

4. Ask your MP to take action

If your MP reacts positively, ask them if they will support the campaign for a strong climate plan. We want MPs to do this by writing to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. We want MPs to ensure that his government writes an ambitious, comprehensive and fair climate plan. We want the letter to be copied to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Energy & Climate Secretary Ed Miliband.

We’ve got a short briefing which explains what we want to see in the climate plan. You can give this to your MP and they can use it if needed in drafting their letter. We have provided a template letter your MP can adapt if helpful to them, although many MPs may prefer to write their own. Ask your MP to send you a copy of the letter and any replies they receive.

If your MP won’t agree in the meeting to write a letter, then try to find out what’s stopping them: maybe they need more information, if they’re a new Labour MP then maybe they’re unwilling to put their head above the parapet, or maybe they just don’t agree with the campaign.

5. Take a photo for further awareness

Before you leave, ask your MP for a photo of you together, holding a campaign sign. You can use the photo on your website and social media. If you’re sending a press release about your meeting to the local media, ask your MP for a quote from them to include. If your MP agreed to your asks, you can use the "MP backs call for fair and ambitious climate action plan" press release template. If your MP did not agree to your asks, or you could not meet, you can use the "MP urged to back call for fair and ambitious climate plan" template instead.

Thank them for meeting you and get together afterwards to think through next steps. If you need advice, please get in touch.

After your meeting

Send your MP an email thanking them for their time and reiterating what they committed to. Include the MP briefing and the photo you took.

Post your photo on social media using the hashtag #CommonGrounds and tagging @friends_earth
Send a press release. Include your photo and quote from the MP to your local media.
Let us know how it went. We’d love to know what your MP said and any commitments they made.

If this is your first meeting with your MP, then think of it as not as a one-off but as the start of a relationship. Discuss as a group what your next steps are.

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