Caroline Lucas makes her maiden speach in Parliament. Click here for full speech made on May 27th durning the debate on Energy and Climate Change.

” I have an additional responsibility, which is to speak not only as the new Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion, but also as the first representative of the Green Party to be elected to Westminster.

You have to go back several decades, to the election of the first Nationalist MPs in Scotland and Wales, to find the last maiden speech from a new national political party.

And perhaps a better comparison would be those first Socialist and Independent Labour MPs, over a century ago, whose arrival was seen as a sign of coming revolution. When Keir Hardie made his maiden speech to this House, after winning the seat of West Ham South in 1892, there was an outcry. Because instead of frock coat and top hat, he wore a tweed suit and deerstalker.

It’s hard to decide which of these choices would seem more inappropriate today. But what Keir Hardie stood for now seems much more mainstream…………………”