Exclusive:Meet Labour's rising star Katie White - who says the Yorkshire countryside helps with 'her best ideas'

But we are not in the old corridors of power in Westminster, but instead walking through the bracing winter air along the ridge of the Chevin.

Amidst the spectacular view over Wharfedale, the town of Otley pokes out through the morning mist.

This is at the northern end of Ms White’s constituency, which starts in Horsforth in Leeds, and she says she gets a lot of her “best ideas and best thinking” when out for walks.

“I try and do walking meetings as much as I can, but it’s not as much as I would like,” she tells me.

“Sometimes I just come on my own, sometimes you need that time to breathe.”

I ask her how she’s adjusted to the pressure and spotlight that comes with being an MP.

“Politics is intense,” Ms White says, as we wander through a copse of trees, “but everybody’s lives are intense these days.”

“Everybody I speak to pretty much is overwhelmed in some way.

“I think that’s the sort of society we are currently living in, and we are going to have to find ways of puncturing that.

“We’re lucky enough to be in a vast landscape like this,” she says, pointing out across the spectacular view, “you do feel - really we’re quite small”.

It feels quite appropriate to be interviewing Ms White in the middle of nature, given her background.

After leaving university, she worked for Friends of the Earth in Leeds and London - and co-led the charity’s campaign for the Climate Change Act.

It was passed in 2008 by Ed Miliband, who is now Energy Secretary again after a 14-year hiatus, and put in place legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It led to Ms White being awarded an OBE, and once again she is working with Mr Miliband as his parliamentary private secretary in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

After an interview, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who represents the constituency of Leeds West and Pudsey, told me her neighbouring MP was one to watch. High praise indeed.

I am fascinated to hear Ms White’s thoughts on the climate crisis and how the North can benefit from the opportunities that come with the transition to clean energy.

She led calls for the Government’s new National Wealth Fund to be based in Leeds, and believes her home city can be a leader in green finance.

“I see the green transition as a massive opportunity,” she says.

“This is a race that, frustratingly, China has picked up on more than anyone else and has been running with it.”

She’s angry at measures by Rishi Sunak to water down some of the commitments to get to net zero, describing it as “putting the handbrake on”.

“I don’t want a bloody handbrake on in a race, I want to win the race,” she says.

“Here in the UK we’re very well placed, not least because of our terrible weather.

“Our geography is great, we actually can, as an island, make the most of this.

“We’ve got a lot of advanced manufacturing and also we’re one of the leading green finance capitals in the world.”

Senior members of Government have spoken repeatedly about how the transition to clean energy is a huge opportunity for Yorkshire, particularly in former industrial areas.

From the potential of off-shore wind to carbon capture storage and solar, Ms White believes that Leeds can be the centre point of this as a green finance hub alongside the National Wealth Fund.

“I’m quite up for picking some areas and really specialising,” she says.

“If we’re not the leader in the world on green finance then we’re definitely second, it’s between us and the US.

“I’m thinking about where we want to be in 20 years time - not five years, but a decade or two from now.

“How are we setting ourselves up on that trajectory?”

Moving back to the present, I ask Ms White about some of the reaction to Labour’s first Budget in 14 years.

Ms Reeves announced big investments for certain public services, like the NHS, but has also felt the heat from business over increases in employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage.

“We all know that we’re in a real mess, it’s the worst inheritance of my lifetime,” she says.

“I think we’ve got to be honest with people to regain trust in people.

“You can’t give people false hope. I think the Chancellor was bold, she made some really big decisions.”

Ms White cites funding and reform for special educational needs and disabilities as one of her big priorities.

“The Send system is not working at all, and that’s from parents, teachers, everybody,” she says.

“The system is broken - so to hear our Education Secretary say exactly what I’ve been hearing from school leaders for months is great.”

She also references money that’s been set aside for potholes, saying the quality of roads are a “really good test of where a country is at”.

Ms White says that when she has been out knocking on doors across Leeds North West, voters have said: “We’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“I think Rachel [Reeves] has a lot of respect - she’s a serious politician,” she tells me.

“People know we need a change, they’re sort of holding their breath to see how this goes.

“They’re giving us the benefit of the doubt, we’ve got to make it work.

“It’s a big task, but part of that is really exciting.”