Humans have “possibly” impacted the climate, but only “modestly”, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice MP has told Sky News.

The position is a long way from the scientific consensus that humans have dramatically disrupted the climate.

But it marks a shift in comparison with earlier in the year, when he told Sky News man-made climate change is “garbage”.

Asked if humans have impacted the climate, he said: “Possibly, but if so, a very modest percentage.”

It comes as exclusive polling for Sky News finds belief in and concern about man-made climate change remain high, despite scepticism from elite political figures.

The Boston and Skegness MP also acknowledged the need to update infrastructure in Britain so that it can cope with a changing climate.

In an interview in London ahead of the COP30 climate summit, he said: “Climate change is real, right? Everything changes, you have to adapt to it, you have to maintain and update sea level defences.”

Read more: Why is COP30 so controversial?

He said he has “sea level issues”, in his constituency on the east coast, though would not specify whether they were rising.

Mr Tice maintained the sun and volcanoes were the “two main drivers” of climate change, and the climate has been changing for “millions of years, always will be”.

While the climate does consistently change, what worries scientists is that it is currently doing so at its fastest rate in at least a million years, making it hard for the natural world to adapt.

‘They’ve not got a clue’

Mr Tice would not be drawn on whether he accepted the climate was warming at an unprecedented rate.

“From the data that I’ve seen, from previous ice core data, I think the answer to that is questionable,” he said.

He said “thousands of scientists” agreed with him, and cited a statistical analysis published by Statistics Norway, the country’s statistics bureau, that concluded the impact of emissions from human activity “does not appear to be strong enough to cause systematic changes in the temperature fluctuations during the last 200 years”.

However, 99.9% of climate-related studies agree climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to a 2021 survey of 88,125 peer-reviewed papers in the IOP Science journal.

Science and space body NASA says “human activity is the principal cause” of unprecedentedly fast warming, while 234 UN scientists (the IPCC) call it “unequivocal” that humans have caused “widespread and rapid changes” – in a report signed off by 195 governments.

Mr Tice said: “The IPCC accepts that sea level rise will continue for between 200 and 1,000 years. In other words, they’ve not got a clue what they’re talking about.”

One of Britain’s most versatile and acclaimed character actors has said new performers now need to be backed by the “bank of mummy and daddy” to reach the big time.

Eddie Marsan, star of major blockbusters such as the Sherlock Holmes films and Mission: Impossible III, as well as TV series Ray Donovan, and Supacell, said one thing he’s come to notice a lot over the years is how few of his castmates tend to share his working-class roots.

“If you want to be an actor in this country, and you come from a disadvantaged background, you have to be exceptional to have a hope of a career,” he says. “If you come from a privileged background, you can be mediocre.”

Speaking after being named one of the new vice presidents of drama school Mountview, and meeting students at the establishment where he too first trained, Marsan is keen to stress why it’s so necessary to support young actors who can’t fund their careers.

“I came here when I was in my 20s… I was a bit lost, to be honest… I was serving an apprenticeship as a printer when Mountview offered me a place,” he says.

“There were no kinds of grants then, so for the first year an East End bookmaker paid my fees, then my mum and him got together and paid the second year, then Mountview gave me a scholarship for the third year, so I owe them everything.

“I didn’t earn a living as an actor for like six, seven years… years ago, actors could sign on and basically go on the dole while doing plays… now, in order to become an actor, you have to have the bank of mummy and daddy to bankroll you for those seven or eight years when you’re not going to earn a living.”

Marsan, Dame Elaine Paige and Hamilton actor Giles Terera are all taking on ambassadorial roles to mark Mountview’s 80th anniversary, joining Dame Judi Dench, who has been president of the school since 2006.

“The parties are fantastic,” he jokes. “The two dames, they get so half-cut, honestly, you have to get an Uber to get them home!”

But he’s rather more serious about TV and film’s “fashion for posh boys”.

“When I went to America and I did 21 Grams and Vera Drake. I remember thinking, ‘great I’m going to have a career now,’ but I wasn’t the idea of what Britain was selling of itself.

“Coming back from Hollywood, a publicist said to me ‘when we get to London and do publicity for the film 21 Grams we’re going to come to you’… but no one was interested… I remember coming to Waterloo station and looking up and seeing all these posh actors selling Burberry coats and posters, and they hadn’t done anything compared to what I’d done, and yet they were the image that we were pushing as a country.”

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A 2024 Creative Industries, Policy, and Evidence Centre report found 8% of British actors come from working class backgrounds, compared to 20% in the 70s and 80s.

“Even a gangster movie now, 40 years ago you would have something like The Long Good Friday or Get Carter with people like Michael Caine or Bob Hoskins who were real working-class actors playing those parts, now you have posh boys playing working-class characters.”

Within the last five or six years, he says there has at least been “more of an effort to include people of colour”.

‘They’re scared of a level-playing field’

“What I find really interesting is, I’ve been an actor for 34 years, and I remember for the first 20 years going on a set and very rarely within the crew and within the cast would you see a black face, very rarely.

“One of the saving graces really are things now like Top Boy and Supacell, where you have members of the black community making dramas about their communities, that can’t be co-opted by the middle classes.”

“People like Laurence Fox complaining that it’s unfair, I never heard them complain when you never saw a black face, never once did they say anything. Now that people are trying to address it, they think it’s unfair…because they’re scared of a level playing field.”

Now, more than ever, Marsan says he feels compelled to point out what needs to change within the industry he works in.

“Look, social media is destroying cultural discourse. It’s making people become very binary… acting and drama is an exercise in empathy and if there’s one thing that we need more of at the moment it’s that.”

The chief executive of Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv has denounced “falsehoods” and hatred being spewed about their supporters, leading to them being banned from Aston Villa, while accepting there is work to do to eradicate racism in the fan base.

Jack Angelides told Sky News there is a need for “toning down the incitement” ahead of tomorrow’s Europa League match at Villa Park, which will see more than 700 police officers deployed with protests anticipated outside by Palestinian and Israeli groups.

Mr Angelides revealed the club has not been given a specific reason for Birmingham authorities banning their supporters – a decision which the government pushed to be overturned before Maccabi said they would reject any fan allocation granted in any case.

“We feared for the safety of our fans and it’s a huge responsibility,” Mr Angelides said in an interview at Villa Park.

“[With] a lot of incitement, we didn’t feel comfortable in taking that allocation and that’s a sad day in football because things like that shouldn’t happen.

“People have the right to freedom of speech, absolutely, but people don’t have the right to spew hatred.”

Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) announced last month that visiting fans will be barred from attending the game at Villa Park amid public safety concerns.

West Midlands Police also classified the Europa League match “high risk” and said the ban was necessary due to “current intelligence and previous incidents”.

That was a reference to Maccabi’s match at Ajax last November when their fans were attacked by locals, leading to five convictions.

No Maccabi fans were prosecuted. They were seen tearing down Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Arab abuse.

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Mr Angelides said: “We have not been given a clear reason [for the ban], but I have seen people coming up with all sorts of stories of our fans, especially in Amsterdam, where there was, what the Amsterdam authorities themselves classified as ‘a Jew hunt’, being portrayed as organised fighters, soldiers, etc, etc.

“It’s just blatant falsehoods, and people who say those things know that they’re false and shame on them.”

Mr Angelides believes the decision has been kept private to leave open for people to form a conclusion and characterise his club as racist.

Ayoub Khan, the independent pro-Gaza MP whose constituency covers Villa Park, called for the ban because the club has “hooligans who have a long history of violence and vile racism”.

“Any club that tries to suggest that they don’t have any issues, whatever that may be, it’s untrue,” Mr Angelides said.

“We know we’ve got a long road ahead. There are elements in the club that are not in line with our values, our morals, and we do expend a lot of energy and have been for many, many years in trying to… eradicate that.

“But to malign thousands and thousands of good fans with the actions of a few, it’s a dangerous game because I think that’s something that is not conducive to toning down the incitement that’s actually going on now. It’s manipulation to my mind.”

Football focus

Mr Angelides did not discuss whether there was fear among the players going into a potentially hostile environment.

“We have Jewish players; we have Christian players; we have Muslim players – we’re a club that’s quite diverse,” he said.

“There is an understandable excitement of playing. They’re aware, … the last two years have taken a toll on Israeli society because of what’s been going on. So they’re very aware of the situation, but I think they’re prepared to focus on their football.”

The game is going ahead, after moves in European football to ban Israeli teams over the war in Gaza faded, as a peace deal was implemented.