SADLY, three of Yorkshire’s MEPs allowed their Euro-scepticism to get the better of them this week, blocking an EU proposal that David Cameron and British businesses had asked them to support.

UKIP’s Godfrey Bloom, Tory Timothy Kirkhope and ex-BNP Andrew Brons all voted against proposals to “backload” carbon permits, which would save the European Union’s flagship Emissions Trading Scheme from the brink of collapse.

Investments in green technology and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects that would have brought jobs and growth to our region will now be much harder to achieve as pumping emissions into the atmosphere is dirt cheap.

Bloom continued to embarrass the UK by claiming that climate change is “dead in the water” and Conservative MEPs rejected David Cameron’s calls to do what was right for Britain.

A sad day for British businesses and EU climate change policy.

Linda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber.