Graham Stuart MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament
Graham Stuart is the Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness.
We have identified 30 Parliamentary Votes Related to Climate since 2010 in which Graham Stuart could have voted.
Graham Stuart is rated for votes supporting action on climate. (Rating Methodology)
- In favour of action on climate: 1
- Against: 27
- Did not vote: 2
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Graham Stuart's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate
We've found 122 Parliamentary debates in which Graham Stuart has spoken about climate-related matters.
Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.
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19 May 2026: Energy Security
18:26
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He prioritises energy security, and of course the transition to cleaner energy and affordable energy is what we would all wish for. However, this country is going to burn through billions of barrels of oil and gas between now and 2050, even if we meet net zero in 2050. On what basis does he support Government proposals to stop us producing that oil and gas to the highest environmental standards here in the UK, and instead importing it from abroad, with much higher emissions attached?
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11 Feb 2026: Local Government Finance
17:27
The local government finance settlement will mean only one thing for families in Beverley and Holderness: higher council tax bills, at a time when every other bill is soaring—thanks, again, to this Government. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is signing up for the most expensive deals imaginable and putting up the price of energy, while the jobs tax—one of the most economically irrational taxes imaginable—taxes jobs and brings in no money, because employers simply employ fewer people. That is what that £26 billion hit on the economy comes down to.
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12 Nov 2025: Energy
17:23
The Minister talked about honesty, which is ironic given where he sits at the moment, in the Government of which he is a member. The Minister is better than this. He was talking specifically about renewables. Less than 7% of our electricity came from renewables in 2010, and by 2024 the figure was approximately 50%. To suggest that the Conservatives did not transform and improve our renewable energy is a falsehood, and because I know he is a better man than this, I am sure the Minister will now withdraw the allegation he made.
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18:00
The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. Under the last Conservative Government, we went from 7% to nearly 50% renewables. We cut emissions more than any other major economy on earth, but as has been said, we also saw electricity prices go very high. When I was the Minister responsible for net zero, we were looking at heat, transport and industry, and the fundamental way of decarbonising each of those is through electricity. How can we decarbonise them if we keep driving electricity prices ever higher? I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ideological fervour, but we have to get prices down if we are to take a balanced approach that looks after families and decarbonisation.
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18:52
The Minister is a thoughtful person, and I think he will share the concern about North sea oil and gas, for instance. On the specific topic of renewables, we are proud of what we did, but under the Climate Change Act—which has no cognisance of what happens to the economy; it is just decarbonisation or bust—we now have extraordinarily high electricity prices. We need to decarbonise heat, transport and industry, and the main way to do that is by electrification, which puts us in a bind. That is why I believe we are right to look at getting rid of the Climate Change Act and look at a new, balanced system that recognises that we must balance economics with the righteous move towards tackling climate change.
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3 Mar 2025: Finance Bill
This measure is vying with the national insurance contribution change to be the most absurd measure. I think that it wins by a head. The Prime Minister says that we must have energy security, and the Climate Change Committee that says we will still need oil and gas for 25% of our energy needs if we meet net zero in 2050, but the Government will have no more licences. We will lose tens of thousands of jobs, tens of billions of pounds in tax, and the engineering capability that we need for the transition. It is absurd on every single possible front.
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19:06
I said I would speak for six minutes and I have now spoken for six minutes, but interestingly I have not talked about the main topic I was going to touch on: oil and gas. I made my point in an earlier intervention, but I appeal to the Government because putting up taxes on oil and gas in the North sea will mean that there will be tens of thousands of job losses, and a loss of engineering and other capacity in this country, which is vital to the transition to net zero. In response to my interaction with the hon. Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan) earlier, no one expects the tax take from this sector to go up in the coming years as a result of the measure; the tax take will go down. The rate can be put up to such a level that it means there will be a lower tax take; the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) spoke powerfully about that as well.
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22 Jan 2025: Great British Energy
11:49
There are no clear plans for Great British Energy, but there are very clear plans to end new licences for oil and gas in the North sea. Gary Smith of the GMB has said that stopping new licences is “the employment equivalent of a Grangemouth refinery closing nearly every week from 2025 to 2030.” When will the Secretary of State stand up for Scotland, oppose the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, protect jobs and ensure that we do not have more imports with higher emissions?
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17 Dec 2024: National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill
16:03
There are so many places where the Government have spent it. Having claimed this £22 billion black hole, they promptly agreed a £10 billion pay rise for their trade union backers. Train drivers on more than £60,000 a year are getting £10,000 pay rises while in talks about a four-day week. Those train drivers are not available for the holiday season, because they are so awash with that backdated pay increase that nobody wants to do any overtime. There are so many other areas. We have GB Energy to invest in renewable energy. I was the Energy Minister until April, and there was no shortage of investment available for renewables in this country. Before anyone points to last year’s failure to get offshore wind, that was because of the price window that we imposed. We did not want to overpay for it. There was no shortage of appetite, as was shown this year. One reason why we moved to an annual programme was precisely to ensure that we did not overpay, but could bring on all the renewables we wanted. There are so many areas where the Government could instead not spend the money that they have chosen to spend.
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27 Nov 2024: Finance Bill
16:13
As well as farmers, oil and gas have been touched on today. When I was the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, it always struck me as absurd to look at the production of oil and gas rather than the consumption. It is the consumption that is the problem. We must change our factories, our vehicles, our buildings, so that they no longer need oil and gas if we are to move away from them. Attacking production when it is driven by demand is attacking the wrong end. In this measure, the Labour Government are raising the energy profits levy, on top of refusing to issue new licences. The net effect of that, notwithstanding the Liberal Democrats’ saying that they support the policy—I do not know why or how they can do so—
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25 Nov 2024: Speaker’s Statement
As has been remarked, he led our delegation to the COP at Kyoto in 1997, and was widely regarded as the key element in delivering its historic outcome, the first time an international agreement was made to recognise and cut climate emissions. The former US Vice-President Al Gore said that he had
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21 Nov 2024: G20 and COP29 Summits
11:31
John Prescott was a remarkable climate diplomat, and a funny, moving, and strangely mesmerising speaker, but he was also aware that while ambitious climate targets are necessary, climate action is essential. On that point, I understand that the hydrogen allocation round 1 agreements are ready to go. Can the Prime Minister commit to getting those agreements issued to companies, so that we can get the hydrogen economy going before Christmas, together with the jobs that go with it?
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5 Sep 2024: Great British Energy Bill
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is normally a fair man, but what he did not mention was the risible state of renewable energy when we took power in 2010. It accounted for less than 7% of electricity, and we increased the figure to nearly 50%. We are a country that has led the world in this area. It was the Conservatives who transformed our energy system to remove coal from the system. I am sure I am just setting up the Secretary of State, which I am happy to do, but what will state ownership do? Our system is arguably one of the most effective in the whole world at delivering green capacity, and has been the most successful in cutting emissions. What will state ownership do, other than simply put the state and its complicated mechanisms into programmes that need to be speeded up, not slowed down?
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My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Bill sets out huge powers for the Secretary of State—he will be like the slim controller of the energy system, as he tries to interfere. But he has a track record in such cluelessness—the 2030 decarbonisation target. “We need more ambition,” he said. We had therefore hoped that the self-confessed nerd would know how to do it, but we had the letter in August to Fintan Slye of the Electricity System Operator, which set out the fact that the Secretary of State did not have a clue about how to deliver 2030 decarbonisation. The answer from Fintan Slye, if he were not in such an impossible position, would have been short: “It can’t be done. You need to do your homework.”
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29 Jul 2024: Public Spending: Inheritance
The Chancellor committed to long-term planning for capital expenditure. Last March, the then Chancellor committed £20 billion to carbon capture, usage and storage, without which a net zero future cannot be delivered. In the light of the right hon. Lady’s review, can she set out for the House what commitment this Government will make to investment, including to that £20 billion for CCUS?
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13 Mar 2024: Gas-fired Power Stations
The second consultation of the review of electricity market arrangements was launched yesterday. It sets out the choices that we need to make to deliver a fully decarbonised electricity system by 2035. Since 2010, the Government have reduced emissions from power by 65% and thus made the UK the first major economy in the world to halve emissions overall. We have built record volumes of renewables, from less than 7% of electricity supply in 2010 to nearly 50% today, allowing us to remove coal altogether by October this year.
While low-carbon technologies scale up, we will extend the life of our existing gas assets, but a limited amount of new build gas capacity will also be required in the short term to replace expiring plants as it is the only mature technology capable of providing sustained flexible capacity. We remain committed to delivering a fully decarbonised electricity supply by 2035, subject to security of supply, and we expect most new gas capacity to be built net zero-ready. The Government have committed £20 billion to carbon capture, usage and storage, and are developing comprehensive support for hydrogen. In the future, unabated gas plants will run for only a limited number of hours a year, so emissions will be entirely in line with our legally binding carbon budgets.
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12:41
The hon. Lady is confused, as she often is, because she is so political. She would appear to set politics always ahead of climate. She struggles to recognise that that United Nations framework convention on climate change rules are about territorial emissions—countries own the emissions in the territory where they take place. Her numbers on embedded emissions are wrong, but she does not care about that; she just carries on with a political diatribe against the Government, who have done more than any other in any major economy on this Earth to decarbonise their economy. And we have done it not as the hon. Lady would have us do it—by being reduced to living in yurts—but while growing the economy by 82%. It is people like the hon. Lady who make people on my side of the Chamber at times think that we are perhaps engaged in some form of madness; we are not, but she doesn’t half make it sound like we are.
Can these new gas plants be consistent with the Government’s commitment to decarbonise the power sector by 2035? Our published net zero scenarios for the power sector—I invite the hon. Lady to read them—show that building new gas capacity is consistent with decarbonising electricity by 2035. From those scenarios we expect that, even with new gas capacity, rather than the 38% of electricity generation which in 2022 came from gas, that figure will be down to 1% by 2035—or, if we follow the scenario set out by the Climate Change Committee, perhaps 2%. We are going to have that as a back-up. It is sensible insurance; it is about keeping the lights on while we carry on the remarkable transformation this Government have achieved in moving from the appalling legacy of the Labour party of less than 7% of electricity coming from renewables to nearly 50% today.
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I would chide my right hon. Friend with the science and evidence that are emerging all the time. There is a climate challenge and emergency, which is why we are looking to reduce our emissions. He is quite right to challenge that by saying, “We are less than 1% of global emissions, so how does this make sense?” That is why we hosted COP26 and got the rest of the world to commit to following us. We are bringing in the carbon border adjustment mechanism from 2027 precisely to ensure that we create an economically rational system that supports jobs in this country, while meeting the climate challenge that needs to be met.
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12:49
We are a world leader, having announced £20 billion for CCUS. The hon. Gentleman will remember, because he has been around a long time, that in 2003 the then Labour Government said that carbon capture, utilisation and storage was urgent and that there was no route to 2050 without it, but then they proceeded to do nothing about it. This Government are getting on with it. We are putting our money where our mouth is and developing technologies such as carbon capture and hydrogen, in a way that the Labour Government failed to do—as they did with renewables, to boot. All they do is talk about climate, but the truth is that the greatest climate risk to this country is if the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) destroys the market and starts some state-run quango, which will wreck the renewables growth that we have seen.
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12:49
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I suggested, on different scenarios, about 1% or 2% of total generation coming from gas in future, compared with 38% in 2022, on an annualised basis. Clearly, as the hon. Gentleman should know better than anybody here with his deep knowledge of the subject, it is based on intermittency. It depends on how much the sun shines and how much the wind blows, but we will ensure we have a robust system. That is exactly what we are doing. I would love it if people could celebrate this country’s global leadership and the fact that we are driving this forward, especially those such as members of the Green party, who are supposed to care about climate change. We are doing this in a way that maintains security of supply and, by bringing in more and more renewables, with the lowest-cost and most flexible system to back it up, doing so in a more and more economical fashion.
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12:49
I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of hydrogen. Where I disagree with him is that, having seen the projects in hydrogen allocation round 1—eight projects, I think—I do not think there is any indication that we are slipping behind. The truth is that the whole world needs to do this, because everyone’s analysis, from the International Energy Agency to the Climate Change Committee to my own Department, suggests that hydrogen and carbon capture are necessary to bring about the decarbonised system we seek. He is absolutely right on the importance of hydrogen. He can expect more developments, because this country is leading on that, as it is on CCUS.
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12:49
I was with the hon. Gentleman nearly all the way. He is right: the whole world is looking at carbon capture and hydrogen, because that is what the science says. Everybody who analyses it says that we need it bur that it is not yet at a great level of maturity. Just as in so many other areas, this country is leading the way. We have cut emissions more than anyone else. He knows the dire legacy left by his party in 2010, with less than 7% of electricity from renewables, which was just appalling, and the real danger if we go back to that. That is why we have gas power as a back-up, so that we have a completely sound system. We will seek to deliver a decarbonised system by 2035. The biggest risk to that would be if the right hon. Member for Doncaster North were to come in and start to mess with a system that has lifted us from the back to the front of climate leadership. That is the real danger, and that is what we need to avoid.
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13:01
I meet representatives of the oil and gas industry a lot, because the truth is that even given our world leadership—and we have cut emissions by more than any other major economy on the planet—75% of our primary energy today is still from oil and gas. We will still be dependent on oil and gas in 2050, when we are at net zero. That is why it is so crazy that the Opposition parties, including that of the hon. Lady, believe in opposing licences when we are actually dependent on the product. All that ending licences would do is lead to the loss of British jobs and the import of higher-emission products from abroad. I really do hope that Opposition Members will think a bit more deeply and we can hear some common sense. I hear it in the Corridors from Back Benchers, but from the Front Benchers and the hon. Lady I hear nothing but nonsense.
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The right hon. Gentleman could not be more wrong: we have record levels of employment, and we overtook France recently to become the eighth largest manufacturer in the world. I would not expect him to join the dismal party opposite in talking this country down. In truth, we are leading the world in tackling climate change, and we have created more jobs than at any time in British history. Going forward into the 2030s, by harnessing more and more British low-carbon, renewable energy we will lower bills for families and increase our competitiveness. As I have said, in a world that is increasingly recognising the need for action and seeking to introduce measures such as the carbon border adjustment mechanism—effectively, carbon taxes at the border—the UK is in pole position to grow from its already strong economic position into an even stronger one as a result of the net zero policies of this Government.
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13:07
As I have said, further legislation will come forward in the not-too-distant future, and the hon. Lady will be able to scrutinise it—but it is extraordinary that she should say of a country whose renewable energy generation has risen from less than 7% to approaching 50% that we have gone slow on renewables. We have decarbonised our power system faster than any other major economy on the planet.
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13:05
Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am not primarily concerned with words—I am primarily concerned with action—but in fact I did use the “emergency” word. I do not know whether I broke some golden rule which says that Ministers should not use it, but I do treat this as an emergency. I see the world warming up, I see the negative impacts of climate change, and that is why I spend every single day feeling proud to be part of the Department that is decarbonising its country faster than any other in the world. The hon. Gentleman should get away from rhetoric and start to focus on action.
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13:09
The hon. Gentleman sometimes gives the impression that he would like me to be running the energy system in Northern Ireland, but it is devolved—and we have Ministers there again, which is a cause for celebration. I will work closely with Ministers in Northern Ireland, as I do with Ministers in other devolved Administrations, because if we are to meet our net zero targets, Northern Ireland must deliver its own targets. Scotland has to deliver its targets, as does Wales.
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27 Feb 2024: Topical Questions
Of course, my hon. Friend has a highly distinguished history in the marketing industry. We agree that it is important that the public get the information they need to save money on their bills, as we set out in the net zero growth plan. That is why last autumn we relaunched the “It All Adds Up” campaign, which helped British households save an estimated £120 million last winter. Whether it is elf on the shelf or other such routes, we will find ways to better communicate with the public, precisely to allow them to be well informed in doing their bit for net zero.
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12:30
The hon. Lady is right to salute the astonishing investments that we are seeing throughout the automotive sector, and I am delighted that the Government have been able to help to bring them about. As she knows, we are committed to spreading more and more charging across the United Kingdom, not least in motorway service areas, so that we have the infrastructure to facilitate the decarbonisation of transport alongside all our other emitters.
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right: CCUS has such an important role, and we are committed to those four clusters. As we announced in March last year, we have delivered £20 billion of investment to make sure that we carry on with the transformation and decarbonisation of this country that was so woefully lacking when we took power in 2010.
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27 Feb 2024: High-carbon Advertising
As I said, the ASA would be the key people to go to. Companies in the sector are, and should be, mindful of their net zero obligations. They are looking into making commitments to source all their electricity from renewable sources, which is a solid thing to do, as well as using digital technologies to minimise energy usage. The Net Zero Council is producing road maps for all industry sectors across the economy, to encourage businesses to do everything they can to minimise their environmental impact.
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22 Feb 2024: Energy Charter Treaty: UK Withdrawal
The energy charter treaty was signed in 1994 to promote international cooperation in the energy sector in eastern Europe and central Asia following the break-up of the Soviet Union, primarily to facilitate investment in fossil fuels. However, the failure of the modernisation process means the treaty is no longer fit for purpose. The treaty means British taxpayers could bear unfair financial risk as the Government implement the necessary policies to secure the UK’s energy supplies and decarbonise.
The UK has been a strong advocate for modernising the treaty to better align it with modern energy priorities, international treaty practice and commitments on climate change. However, over a year after contracting parties reached an agreement in principle on modernisation, following two years of negotiations, there is still no clear route for adopting the modernised treaty. I am clear that the UK cannot remain in an unmodernised treaty that does not align with our unwavering commitment to energy security and net zero.
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20 Feb 2024: Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill
15:10
Before I move on to specific amendments I will, if you allow me, Dame Rosie, briefly outline the importance of this Bill. The UK leads the world on tackling climate change, and is the first major economy to halve emissions. The Bill will protect jobs, tax receipts and sovereign capability, so that we can continue that world leadership. As one of the world’s most decarbonised major economies, the UK remains dependent on oil and gas and will continue to be, albeit in reducing amounts, according to the Climate Change Committee. Even when we are at net zero in 2050, we will require oil and gas. However, we are a net importer and, as has been discussed, UK production is falling fast.
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15:24
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He has taken a long and deep interest in this issue, for which I pay him respect. It is the burning of oil and gas that is the primary issue. He mentions 110%—we probably have 200%, 300% or 400%. There are countries setting out to massively increase their production. That is all driven by demand. If we—as a species, as a globe—are to get to net zero, we will have to cap wells all over the world. We will have to leave it in the ground. The most important thing is to ensure that the demand curve is going in the right direction. Despite all the issues, challenges and difficulties of maintaining our role as the leading major economy in cutting emissions, the UK’s biggest challenge in dealing with climate change is not domestic, despite the difficulty of that; it is to get others to join us on a net zero pathway. The idea of producing our own emissions to ever-lower standards and replacing them with higher-emission products from abroad is for the birds. It makes no sense.
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15:25
I turn to a series of amendments that seek to place conditions on when oil and gas licensing rounds are run. Amendment 15 relates to carbon capture, usage and storage, and the Grangemouth refinery. The oil and gas sector provides a significant portion of the investment that the UK needs to go into wind, CCUS and hydrogen, and I fear that the amendment would drive that investment elsewhere. It would also tie UK production of oil and natural gas to the refining activities of one refinery—Grangemouth—which I am sure Members across the House would agree is neither practical nor desirable.
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15:28
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the absurdity: ending licences will simply increase our imports. It will not change our consumption. If imports such as liquefied natural gas have higher emissions embedded in them, they are counter to our net zero aims.
Amendments 10, 11, 13 and 14 introduce additional just transition tests to the Bill. We are absolutely clear on the importance of achieving a net zero basin by 2050 and are on track to deliver that. We need the skills, expertise and resources of the oil and gas industry to support our transition to cleaner technologies, maintaining oil and gas jobs so that they are not lost before renewables and other clean technologies grow to take up those skills.
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16:04
The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill will give industry the certainty that it needs to continue to invest in the North sea, to strengthen our energy security and to support the transition to net zero. The UK is leading the world on our journey to net zero emissions. We have the fastest reduction in emissions of any major economy —of any member of the G20 on the planet. In fact, we recently celebrated not only fulfilling and even exceeding the targets of the sixth carbon budget coming out of the landmark Climate Change Act 2008, but officially halving our emissions since 1990; we are the first major economy on the planet to do so.
Even when we have reached net zero in 2050, oil and gas will still play an important part in meeting our energy needs, as data from the Climate Change Committee shows. As the most decarbonised major economy in the world, 75% of our primary energy comes from oil and gas. Those who work in the North sea producing oil and gas—there are 200,000 jobs supported by the industry—should not be ashamed of what they do. It is the demand end—our cars, our homes and our factories—that we need to change. We need to meet that challenge; like Don Quixote, we will be tilting at windmills if we, a net importer, try to make our production the problem, rather than demand. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who could not be with us earlier, but is very welcome now, asks me for the evidence of that. The evidence is that we have cut our emissions more than any other major economy.
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The Bill will give industry the certainty that it needs to continue investing in the North sea, to strengthen our energy security, and to support the transition to net zero. The Government’s position is clear: we should, as far as possible, seek to meet continued UK demand for oil and gas from the UK’s own sources. That means continuing to use the North sea—a UK success story that has contributed billions of pounds in tax revenue and supports an industry of around 200,000 workers. The oil and gas industry, with its strong supply chains, expertise and skills, is vital to driving forward the net zero transition and the investment in clean technologies that we need to meet our net zero targets.
We all want the energy transition delivered in an orderly way that does not risk thousands of those jobs. Artificially reducing our production from the North sea or banning new licensing would do just that and jeopardise the energy transition, our progress towards net zero and our climate leadership, not to mention the billions of pounds in lost tax revenue. The Bill is about ensuring a smooth and orderly transition. New licences awarded under the Bill will manage the decline in domestic oil and gas production, rather than increase production above current levels, and they will give industry certainty by sending a strong signal of support for continued investment in the sector—investment that is necessary both for our energy security and to help deliver the energy transition. I commend the Bill to the House.
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The data simply does not exist, as I think I set out. It does not exist and we cannot make a comparison if the data does not exist. We are world-leading in having that data; others do not have it. On the methane comparison, we are already below the internationally set goal; we have very low methane emissions in the North sea. On the comparison with LNG— which is the buffer fuel, which is why it is the true comparator, rather than Norwegian gas, which the hon. Gentleman is failing to admit—methane is emitted as it is shipped, so the methane story would make it even worse for LNG versus domestically produced fuel. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would put that into his argument.
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I hesitate to intervene again, but to suggest that this Bill has the assumption that our gas demand remains the same is absolute nonsense. Of course it is coming right down. We are on a net zero pathway. We are leading the world in that and our demand is falling fast; it is just that our production will fall even faster. The hon. Gentleman should not mislead the House, and I am sure he would not want to do so.
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22 Jan 2024: Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill
The UK is the global climate leader. It is under this Government that that position has been secured. How is it to be measured? Do we have objective measures? Of course we have. The central challenge is to reduce emissions, and under the Conservatives this country has reduced emissions by more than any major economy on earth. How have we done that? Has it been an accident? No, it has not.
It is the Conservative Government who have stayed laser-focused on delivering climate leadership, and it is in that light that this legislation comes before the House. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), asked why we have introduced the Bill. The Labour party, the Scottish National party and, of course, the Liberal Democrats say that we must have no new licensing in the North sea, even as our production is expected to halve over the next decade, and despite the fact that if we fulfil our world-leading ambitions for 2030 and 2035, which we will, production of oil and gas in the North sea will fall even faster in the country that is decarbonising more than any other major economy on earth. That is the reality; that is the context for the Bill, which brings in annual licensing.
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The Labour party will support oil and gas jobs—just not in this country. Not having new licences here will make no difference whatsoever to our consumption, but it will make a difference to how much we have to import, and our import dependency will go up. Worse than that for those of us who care about the environment, and to put in their place the pieties that we heard from Opposition parties, it will actually lead to imports with higher emissions than production here, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North and other Labour Members know, and will worsen our ability to move to net zero in the short term. That is not to mention the 200,000 jobs supported throughout the country, 90,000-plus of which are in the north-east of Scotland and being abandoned by the Scottish National party.
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20:44
The estimate from the North Sea Transition Authority is that a billion of barrels of oil equivalent, including gas, would be lost if we did not have new licences. That is lost tax revenue for this country, on top of the 200,000 jobs and lower emissions— [ Interruption. ] So far, I have not mentioned the tens of billions of pounds of tax. [ Interruption. ] It is not surprising, given how comprehensively easy it is to destroy the Labour party’s arguments, that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North keeps up his constant chuntering. He cannot win the argument while he is on his feet, so he sits there and tries interrupting those who can. If we do not have new licensing, which is Labour’s policy, we will see emissions go up in the short term; 200,000 jobs undermined; tens of billions in tax not brought into the public Exchequer; and—for those who care about dealing with the climate emergency—we will lose the very engineering skills and talent that we need to retain in this country in order to make the transition.
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20:44
My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney highlighted the commitment of oil and gas companies to net zero. Oil and gas businesses are funding clean energy work. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) picked on one such business, and it turned out that it was investing heavily in our clean energy transition. My hon. Friend the Member for Moray talked about fighting for those 90,000 Scottish workers. I have already mentioned the hon. Member for Llanelli and her rather risible attempt to suggest that Labour had any sort of record on renewables. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central emphasised the importance of oil and gas workers to CCUS, which is absolutely essential.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan said that we are reducing production at twice the rate required internationally. That is true, and it is why new licensing in the North sea is fully aligned with net zero; those emissions are part of that. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) talked about oil and gas being essential to deliver renewables, and supported new licensing. I thank him for that. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland said that what we use is what counts—that is so true. The most important thing is to look at demand: removing and changing vehicles, factories and homes so that they no longer use oil and gas is absolutely central.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford rightly said how important it was that we present this policy correctly. Of course, if only the Labour party was playing a proper and honest part in that, we would be able to champion the tremendous performance of this country in tackling climate change. I really do appreciate the speech that my right hon. Friend made.
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20:46
I fundamentally disagree with the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) about net zero, but he correctly highlighted that we would just be sacrificing well-paid jobs without making any difference to our emissions, apart from putting them up.
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The Bill is designed to send a signal to the industry that we have its back. It is all about ensuring that we get to net zero in the most efficient and effective manner possible, and it will underpin this Government’s continued leadership on climate now and for many years to come. I urge the House to support the Bill.
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16 Jan 2024: Oil and Gas Sector
12:25
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a declining basin, and it is so important as we go through the transition that we do not lose the skills and jobs of those people who are providing the oil and gas on which we currently rely. No country is doing more to decarbonise than we are, but we will continue to use oil and gas for decades to come. As our production falls even more quickly than our demand, and even more quickly than is required globally, it is essential that we support the industry, send the signal that my right hon. Friend suggested, and rebut the attitude of the Labour party, which would destroy those jobs, lose the tax and put up emissions.
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16 Jan 2024: Onshore Wind Farm Cables
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. As he will be aware, in the last contracts for difference round, a great deal of onshore wind was successfully brought forward and it still constitutes the largest single form of renewable energy in the United Kingdom—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) will correct me if I have got that wrong. I share with the hon. Gentleman a frustration in making sure that we see that pulled forward, so that we see more projects in England as well as in the rest of the UK.
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12:04
It should be noted that the reason overhead lines are preferred is the cost of undergrounding. Not only is it vastly disruptive, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) said; either undergrounding or offshore is five to ten times more expensive than having overhead infrastructure, and sometimes even more than that. That is why it is the starting presumption. We want to power Britain from Britain and in a low-cost manner, so that when we get to the 2030s and we have decarbonised our electricity system, we have a low-cost electricity system, while ensuring that we install the infrastructure in a way that is friendly and supportive to communities.
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16 Jan 2024: Topical Questions
The UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions. Since the Prime Minister’s speech in September, we have announced the £960 million green industries growth accelerator, helped to deliver the first global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels at COP28, acted to protect motorists from unfair prices at petrol stations, announced backing for 11 major projects to produce green hydrogen, and committed to the biggest nuclear expansion in 70 years. We have a plan. Our plan is working and it will get us to net zero. It will guarantee our energy security and bring consumers and the British people with us.
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The right hon. Gentleman would love to think that was the case, but the Conservative party is united in driving this forward and in delivering. We are powering up Britain from Britain. We have taken ourselves from the abject position left by him when he was in government, which so many of my colleagues have described. We must not go back to that, because it would put bills up, it would put emissions up, and it would stop us being the global net zero leader that we are.
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I agree with my hon. Friend and the Prime Minister on the importance of Bacton, which, like all gas terminals across the country, has the potential to play a crucial role in our energy security. The decarbonisation of these terminals is vital to delivering both economic growth and net zero. The Hewett field, 20 km offshore from Bacton, was awarded a licence for carbon sea storage by the North Sea Transition Authority in 2023. I hear his loud voice—it will be heard on the Government Benches—about its potential to be a hydrogen hub as well.
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16 Jan 2024: Net Zero Targets: Businesses
I meet regularly with business leaders and chair several groups bringing together Government and industry so that we can drive progress towards net zero. That includes the Net Zero Council, which is meeting next week and includes members from right across the economy. Like me, they are delighted that the UK is leading the world in tackling climate change. We are the first major economy to halve its emissions, ahead of every other major economy, and we have one of the most ambitious decarbonisation targets in the world.
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which has a sort of comic element given Labour’s monumental failure to deliver renewables when it was in power, coupled with the fact that it wants to bring forward GB Energy. That, as his left-wing colleague, the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) just said, would be public investment. It would drive out private investment and destroy the transformation of the UK energy system that has happened under the Conservatives—it had flatlined under Labour. We have led the world and have now decarbonised more than any other major economy on the planet. Under the policies of this Conservative Government, which major world economy is predicted to decarbonise fastest by 2030? This one.
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I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her work on the Committee in holding the Government to account. Of course, we have realised £198 billion of investment into clean energy since 2010, and we have a plan, which we set out in “Powering Up Britain”. The Labour party has only an intention to borrow £28 billion a year, putting up families’ taxes, putting up bills and destroying the most investable market in Europe that we have had to date. We will have another £100 billion of private investment by 2030, and the Conservatives will carry on our work leading the world in transforming our energy system so that we have lower-cost, home-produced energy while also delivering on net zero—things that signally did not happen under Labour.
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12:14
My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the benefits and attractions of South Ribble, and indeed the wider UK economy. It is not just that the areas that have those services will attract business within the United Kingdom: by rewiring and leading the world in delivering a low-cost, low-carbon energy system, we can attract more investment from abroad and have a renaissance, not least in the north of England but also in Wales and Scotland—all around the country. That is a result of the net zero policies that, uniquely, this country is managing to lead the world on following so many years of Labour failure.
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12:15
Given the hon. Lady’s lifelong passion for this subject, I find it extraordinary that she never, ever recognises the unique achievement of this country in halving emissions. I would have thought she would celebrate that. As the hon. Lady will know, the Climate Change Committee’s chair is not just a matter for the UK Government. The appointment of the chair of that committee has to be agreed by the devolved Administrations as well, and we are moving as quickly as we can.
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9 Jan 2024: Long-Duration Electricity Storage: Consultation
Long-duration electricity storage technologies will be central to a secure, cost-effective and low-carbon energy system. External analysis indicates that deploying long-duration electricity storage could save billions of pounds for consumers, making sure that we reach net zero in a proportionate and pragmatic way.
Pumped hydro storage is the most mature example of long-duration energy storage. Novel technologies including hydrogen, liquid air and compressed air storage, are also emerging. The Government’s £69 million longer-duration energy storage competition, part of the £1billion net zero innovation portfolio, is supporting the commercialisation of these technologies.
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9 Jan 2024: Grangemouth Oil Refinery: Energy Security
19:39
I also want to acknowledge that the announcement of the conversion will be concerning to the refinery’s employees and their families. We remain in close contact with the Scottish Government to mitigate impacts on jobs and the local economy. As part of our commitment to levelling up, the UK Government are already supporting the Falkirk Council area through the UK shared prosperity fund. Its allocation of more than £6.1 million will deliver a range of interventions that support local businesses, communities, people and skills. We are also supporting Falkirk Council with £40 million of UK Government investment through the Falkirk city and regional growth deal, which is supporting a range of locally driven projects that will create high-value jobs to help boost the local economy. We are working with the Scottish Government to deliver the Forth Green freeport, which covers the area. The freeport aims to drive a transition to net zero by 2045 by attracting up to £6 billion-worth of investment and creating approximately 50,000 jobs, generating an estimated £4.2 billion in gross value added in the first five years.
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19:41
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, through contracts for difference and many other policy announcements from the UK Government, we are driving enormous growth in jobs in the green sectors. We expect them to grow to 480,000 jobs by the end of this decade. As I say, as a global leader in decarbonisation, Scotland, and that area in particular, has an enormous amount to offer and there are huge opportunities coming forward. We will publish next year a green jobs plan, working with industry to identify the pressure points and the opportunities going forward.
I assure the House that the Government will continue to back North sea production by granting licences for new projects, such as the Rosebank field development. Developments such as Rosebank will continue to strengthen our energy security, support the transition to net zero, and create new jobs and opportunities. Rosebank, for example, is expected to be significantly less emissions-intensive than previous developments, which will help the UK to reach its ambitious targets for net zero. Its operator, Equinor, estimates that it will produce oil at around 12 kg of carbon dioxide per barrel, compared with an offshore production average of more than 20 kg of carbon dioxide per barrel. So it is already a much more efficient production. If electrification were to go ahead, it would be significantly lower again. In addition, the Rosebank project will provide investment of £6.3 billion in UK-based businesses, support around 400 UK-based jobs, and add around £24 billion to the UK economy across the project’s lifetime, according to its operator. Yet that licence finds itself opposed by the Labour party, even if it supports jobs and helps us to green the basin.
The UK Government will continue to work closely with the Scottish Government on this issue to ensure that when the time comes, there is a just transition of Grangemouth into an import terminal—if that is the decision made—and to ensure that fuel supplies for Scotland and the UK are maintained. The Government will also continue to support economic development in the local area to ensure that there is a just transition for the workforce.
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14 Dec 2023: COP28
12:02
It was a privilege to attend the summit in Dubai over the past two weeks. I was proud to represent a country that has cut greenhouse gas emissions more than any other major economy since 1990; that has boosted our share of renewable electricity from a rather dismal 7% in 2010 to almost half today, while almost entirely phasing out coal power; that has led the world in mobilising green finance; and that is now ensuring that we bring the British public with us on the transition to net zero, thanks to the Prime Minister’s plans to protect families from unnecessary costs and give people more time to adapt to changes.
While we are on track, the world is not. The global stocktake confirmed that emissions need to peak by 2025 and fall by 43% between 2019 and 2030 to achieve the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. The current pace of global decarbonisation is well behind that trajectory, and the urgency of the climate challenge means that we cannot delay any further.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has underlined the importance of transitioning towards renewables, which are less vulnerable to price shocks. That is why our objectives throughout COP28 were clear: we needed to agree urgent action to ensure 1.5° remains viable as a ceiling, including trebling global renewables, doubling energy efficiency and phasing out unabated fossil fuels; and we needed to reform international finance to unlock the trillions required in climate funding.
Today I am delighted to say that we have secured a final agreement that supports those goals. For the first time ever, we have a global agreement on a transition away from fossil fuels. The agreement on fossil fuels builds and expands on the UK’s leadership at COP26, which had the first reference to phasing down coal power, secured agreements behind efforts to decarbonise key sectors of the global economy and, most notably, saw the proportion of global GDP covered by net zero targets increase from around 30% to 90% during our presidency.
This week’s COP28 agreement is not perfect. We wanted to see more action on coal, and on ending the construction of new coal power plants in particular. Like some of the small island states, we wanted greater clarity and fewer loopholes in the agreement. None the less, this is a turning point. We are unifying the world around a common commitment, listening to the islanders of the Pacific and elsewhere, whose voices must be heard, and showing that we are responding to the science by moving away from fossil fuels and raising a torch to inspire action.
Throughout the summit, the UK made significant progress on delivering that action, building on our legacy from COP26. We were pleased to be one of over 130 countries to support the global pledge to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030. As co-chair of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, I was delighted to welcome 13 new members, including the United States of America and the United Arab Emirates—all committing to phase out unabated coal power. Through the Energy Transition Council, we are working with developing countries via our rapid response facility to help support them through the energy transition.
We also announced £1.6 billion-worth of new international climate finance projects, which will support developing countries to transition to net zero and adapt to the impacts of climate change, while also expanding green industries on a global scale. We joined the UAE’s climate finance framework, which sets out new principles to reform the global financial system, and we announced plans to launch the climate investment funds capital market mechanism to raise up to £7.5 billion over the next decade for green projects.
However, we recognise that keeping global warming to less than 1.5° is impossible without urgent action to protect, sustainably manage and restore forests. Following the historic agreement at Glasgow to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, the Prime Minister made forests and nature a top priority for COP28. We agreed £576 million to safeguard 10 million hectares of forests and help half a million people in poor, rural communities, which are the most vulnerable to deforestation. I joined Brazil’s Environment Minister, Marina Silva, to welcome the Prime Minister’s pledge of a further £35 million for Brazil’s Amazon fund. That is on top of the £80 million we announced earlier this year, making the UK one of the scheme’s top three contributors. Finally, the new forest risk commodity measures in the Environment Act 2021 will ensure that there is no space on our supermarket shelves for products linked to deforestation.
However, that is not all. We secured the expansion of the breakthrough agenda—our clean technology accelerator—to cover 57 members and seven economic sectors, representing 60% of global emissions. Up to £185 million was announced for a first-of-a-kind, UK-led facility to help countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America to commercialise green technologies. Essential commitments to support resilience included up to £60 million of UK funding for loss and damage—a significant outcome of Sharm el-Sheikh, now carried forward into operation—an agreement on the framework for the global goal on adaptation, and an international green public procurement pledge to boost the use of green steel, cement and concrete. The UK endorsed a bold plan to triple nuclear power capacity globally, mirroring our domestic strategy for nuclear to make up a quarter of electricity production by 2050. There were also new partnerships with Brazil supporting industrial decarbonisation and hydrogen transitions, and a roadmap for the expansion of zero-emission vehicles in the developing world, backed by major donor countries. The great news is that British businesses will benefit hugely from all that, because as the world decarbonises it will use British expertise and skills as a springboard to realise the net zero transition.
I pay tribute to the UAE presidency and Dr Sultan al-Jaber, who acted as COP President, as well as a host of others, including the High Ambition Coalition for its leadership jointly to deliver this result. I was delighted that the UK was able to support a strong delegation of international parliamentarians at this COP, including the first ever pavilion dedicated to parliamentarians. Despite this landmark agreement, and however successful the UK’s record to date, we still have such a long way to go to finance the transition and achieve our global ambitions, so the UK will continue to encourage others to join the UK on a net zero pathway in this critical decade and help deliver a just, prosperous and secure future for all the peoples of the planet.
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12:14
The right hon. Gentleman has focused on performance, and I am pleased to say that this Government have met every single carbon budget to date. The only major targets set on climate change in this country that have been failed were—let me think—the target of 10% renewables by 2010, set by the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member. The target of a 20% reduction in emissions by 2010, again set by the Government in which the right hon. Gentleman served, was also failed. Every single carbon budget for which this Government have been responsible since my then party leader became the first leader to call for the Climate Change Act 2008 has been met. Our record is without parallel, and I will not have it trash-talked down by the right hon. Gentleman, whose record in government is so at odds with the words he uses.
On oil and gas, we are a net importer. We are transitioning; as I have set out, we are reducing our emissions faster than any other major economy on this planet. None the less, according to the Climate Change Committee, about 25% of our power will come from oil and gas even in 2050. We will be using mitigation technologies to offset that, but the idea that we should replace domestically produced gas with imported gas with four times the embedded emissions, when it will make no difference to our consumption, is environmental nonsense. That is why we are standing up for the 200,000 people who work in our oil and gas industry as it transitions; it is why we support the £50 billion in taxes that comes from that industry; and it is why we must retain the expertise of people in the sector going forward. The Labour party puts at risk our net zero transition—a transition that it did not set out on properly when it was in government, and that this Government are delivering on. As I said, we have met all our carbon budgets to date.
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s point about loss and damage. I assure him and the House that we will meet our target of £11.6 billion in climate finance on the original timetable set out by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister came to COP, personally committed and passionate about ensuring that nature and forests—on which we have been a leader—were championed at that COP. Hopefully, I will be able to give more detail about that when answering other questions. As we move into the coming year ahead of the Baku COP, we will focus on a new, collective, quantified financial goal. The Prime Minister, with his focus and expertise, will ensure that the UK is an absolute leader in getting that right, amplifying the billions we have today into the trillions we need tomorrow.
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12:29
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his efforts at COP26 in Glasgow, including the significant measure on phasing down coal. [ Interruption. ] Could the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) be quiet for one second? He did so little in government, and he has so much to say now—it is quite a contrast, is it not?
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12:21
My right hon. Friend mentioned the presence of MPs. My first COP was in 2005 in Montreal, and I remember feeling then that the elected parliamentarians, who make the political weather, were not properly accounted for. When I look back to that historic Climate Change Act 2008, I am proud of the fact that my then party leader, the noble Lord Cameron, was the first party leader to support it— [ Interruption. ] If the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) could just be quiet for a moment, I was talking about parliamentarians. It was a combination of Friends of the Earth working with Back-Bench parliamentarians and a new green Conservative party, and an early-day motion—an instrument here that is often looked at askance—that triggered the Climate Change Act, which has been significant not only for the UK, but for the world.
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12:26
Again, the UAE can be very proud of the fact that, among so many other things, it really made sure that food was seen as an important part of this COP. He is right that land-use issues, agriculture and more sustainable agriculture are fundamental to delivering net zero. Under both my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and her successor, we are working very hard to do that at home, but we were also able to announce at COP support for more sustainable agriculture and land use abroad. He is absolutely right that this is an area on which we must keep complete focus. We must make sure that we deliver in that area, as in so many others, to pull together and maintain our net zero pathway.
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12:28
I thank my right hon. Friend, and it was good to see her out in Dubai following up on so many of the issues, not least in recognising the needs of the most vulnerable and the poorest communities and countries around the world to ensure that they are not left behind and that we do have a just transition.
My right hon. Friend highlights the fact that she was a parliamentary delegate there, and we were proud to support GLOBE International UK, of which the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and I were previous chairs, to provide the first ever parliamentary pavilion at COP28. I pay tribute to Malini Mehra, who has headed up GLOBE. She came in when it was in a troubled position for a promised maximum of six months, and she is still there. She is committed to ensuring that parliamentarians are armed with the information they need.
The answer to my right hon. Friend’s specific question is, yes, absolutely. When we consider that the country that has decarbonised most over the 31 years from 1990 to 2021 has reduced its emissions by 48%—namely, us—and that the world, on a 2019 basis, has to cut by 43% by 2030, with many large emitters pointing in the wrong direction, we can see that the challenge and the gap are not to be underestimated. COP28, with the UAE consensus, is significant, but there is so much more to do, and it has to convert into real change if we are to bend the curve further.
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12:31
On the coalitions of the willing, the world is changing, and the EU has already legislated for a carbon border adjustment mechanism for selected parts of industry, which will put up a carbon tax or a carbon price at the border. There is a certain intellectual inevitability about that if costs of production in one country are not reflected in others, and ensuring that that is done in a just manner is important. I would hate to look back at COP28 and find that it was one of the last times that countries around the world were able, on the basis of mutual trust, to talk to each other and come to a common agreement. The hon. Gentleman, who is highly experienced in this area, knows just how tender—I am sure there is a better word. The hon. Gentleman knows just how fragile the process could be if we do not all step carefully and ensure that we carry people with us.
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12:33
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and her energetic, continual and well-informed—not least by marriage—understanding of the nuclear industry and its importance. I remember being at Sharm El Sheikh and it seemed that the only people talking about nuclear were 95 youngsters from some tiny pavilion at the back, who were going around promoting its importance. The science says that we cannot get to net zero without nuclear, in the appropriate places and with all the caveats. I remember saying to the incoming UAE presidency that, given their success with their Barakah reactors, and given the need to deliver nuclear and the UK’s determination for a renaissance, surely all countries involved need to come together and send a signal to the world, so that we are not leaving teenagers alone to champion the importance of nuclear. We as a country should step up loud and proud, and face down those who oppose nuclear from an ideological perspective, because it is so important not only to delivering net zero, but to delivering so many jobs in constituencies such as that of my hon. Friend around this country.
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12:36
Interestingly, my right hon. Friend takes us back to the days before the Climate Change Act 2008 when, if I remember correctly, Friends of the Earth was arguing for annual targets, and that was the Conservative party position. Once the Labour Government agreed to take the legislation forward, they realised, as did the civil servants involved, that there needs to be a period over which these things can be balanced out. I think their thinking was right and that the five-year carbon budgets were right. We do provide an annual report on our performance to date, but overall we have to allow for things such as the pandemic and all sorts of crises that come along. I think the architecture was right—I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Doncaster North and his Government at the time—and it has withstood the test of time.
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12:39
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which is a good one. Our nationally determined contribution and emissions promise for 2030 is for a 68% cut from the 1990 basis—far more than any of our peers. We can be proud of that. It was set precisely because it was, on the advice of the Climate Change Committee, aligned with a pathway to net zero 2050. None the less, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we keep our policies under review, and as that committee pointed out this year, there are still gaps that need to be made up to ensure we deliver on that. We have always managed to do so before, and I am confident we will do so again. He is right to say that we should continually look at our policies to ensure that they keep us there, whether or not that deals specifically with fossil fuels. We are trying to move to zero-emission vehicles. Today we have made an announcement on hydrogen, with 11 projects being funded to produce green hydrogen around the country. We are, step by step, across the piece, putting in place the required policies. That means doing everything within the window to keep ourselves in our world-leading position, which is cutting emissions more than any other major economy.
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My hon. Friend, as always, is well informed and insightful. We were pleased, along with 21 other countries, to join NetZero Nuclear, because nuclear has such an important part to play. As I said in a previous answer, we need literally everything, and we are pushing the envelope across the piece. By doing so, we are developing technological solutions that will not only serve our needs, but can be exported around the world for many years to come.
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12:41
As delightful and pleasant as the hon. Lady is outside the Chamber, she is always challenging within it. The Prime Minister remains committed. He has insisted on our commitment to net zero and our 2030 nationally determined contribution, while ensuring that we carry people with us. He was delighted to announce £1.6 billion of UK funding for new climate projects while at COP, including £887.8 million of new and additional financing, with other announcements focused on driving forward climate action on forests, finance and net zero transitions. This Government are walking the walk while ensuring and making no apology for the fact that we seek to maintain the national consensus and carry people up and down the country with us as we continue to lead. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Doncaster North insists on giggling, but we are leading in the way his Government singly failed to do before 2010.
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In maintaining the public commitment to net zero, it was important to say to people in my rural east Yorkshire constituency, for example, who are off the gas grid and fearful concerning heat pumps, that they would not see their boilers ripped out when they did not think there was an affordable and deliverable alternative. As the Prime Minister announced, we combined that with a 50% increase in the heat pump subsidy level to £7,500, and we saw a tripling of interest in the following week. Words do matter, but there are many constituencies to talk to. I look to the hon. Gentleman to help provide the proper balanced and nuanced view. This country has cut its emissions more than any other major economy on earth and we have more ambitious plans going forward. The Prime Minister is behind net zero. We must have a balanced discussion to show that we are not inflexible. We are prepared to work with people and ensure we do it in the right way.
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The hon. Lady is right to highlight children, who will inherit the planet we leave behind. In the meantime, they are peculiarly vulnerable to the negative impacts we are already seeing this year, let alone those we will see if we get to 1.5°C or beyond. She is right to highlight that. I cannot comment on the specific question she raises, but I will make sure that it is heard on the Treasury Bench and let her know as and when a decision is made by the Government. She is right to say that, just as we must ensure that the voices of the small Pacific island states and others are heard, because they are so much on the frontline, the voice of youth must be heard. I was pleased to meet youth representatives at COP28. We must ensure that we look to the people who will inherit the policies that we of a slightly greater age make in this Chamber.
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his as ever gracious question. One of our disappointments—there were things we were disappointed with in the UAE consensus—was the watering down of elements we would have liked to see on human rights. He is right to highlight that. We have always wanted loss and damage to focus on the most vulnerable. The least financeable of all are people in an already parlous economic position, often at low scale, who are under threat from climate change. We hope that the funding that has been created for loss and damage can complement adaptation funding as well as mitigation work, and have climate justice at its heart. We have to look after the weakest and poorest on the planet. However unsympathetic the science, we have to ensure that policy recognises the realities for people all over the world.
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6 Dec 2023: Energy Security Plan: Gas Supply
Energy security is a priority for this Government as we transition to net zero. While we expect UK gas demand to decline as part of this transition, natural gas will continue to play a critical role in our energy system for decades to come. Alongside this reduced demand we are facing reduced domestic supply. With declining domestic gas production from the UK’s continental shelf, the UK will become more dependent on gas imports, including from global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies. As the gas storage and flexibility update highlights, natural gas LNG and interconnector imports are estimated to be approximately 11% of our total gas demand in 2023, rising to just
To slow this increasing dependence on gas imports and the risk of higher embedded emissions in them, the Government are backing the North sea oil and gas industry—so as to make Britain more energy independent. That is why we have introduced the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill to give industry certainty as to the future of licensing rounds. The continuing award of new oil and gas licences is essential to the UK’s energy security, further investment in moving the basin to net zero and in retaining the supply chain required for the transition. It will help slow the decline in the UK’s domestic production of gas as we consider the ongoing role of flexibility in the UK’s gas supply for the coming decades.
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30 Nov 2023: UK Priorities for COP28
The UK is committed to tackling climate change and restoring nature. We have reduced our emissions by more than any other major economy since 1990 and, going forward, have one of the most ambitious targets for 2030. Our emissions are down 48% compared to 1990 and we have grown the economy by 70% over the same period.
We brought the world together at the COP26 Glasgow summit to speed up the global net zero transition, as well as brokering a historic deal to end deforestation and kickstart new green finance markets. However, limiting global temperature increases to 1.5° will only be possible if countries around the world commit to join the UK on a net zero pathway. The science is clear that global emissions need to peak by 2025 and must be reduced by 43% in 2030 compared to 2019 in order to achieve this.
The upcoming 28th conference of the parties under the UNFCCC (COP28), to be hosted by the UAE in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, will mark an important moment to get to net zero. Amid record global temperatures, the first global stocktake of progress against the Paris agreement will show that the world is currently off track and urgent action is needed to keep the 1.5° goal within reach. The world needs to take a hard look at what is working and where we are failing to deliver, focusing our resources on practical, deliverable solutions. This COP must deliver the framework and targets already agreed, including in Glasgow, and set out the long-term decisions that are needed to bring everyone with us, from rural communities to the countries most impacted by climate change.
His Majesty the King will attend the opening ceremony of the world climate action summit at COP28 at the invitation of the UAE and at the request of HMG, and will deliver an opening address. The Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Environment Secretary and other Ministers will attend the summit. I will lead the negotiations for the UK.
The Prime Minister’s focus will be on forests, finance and net zero transitions. These are areas where the UK can lead global progress, building on our track record, and working with the UAE presidency, other countries, business and civil society.
Overall at COP28 the UK wants to see progress in five priority areas:
New commitments and action to keep 1.5 alive. Coming out of the global stocktake, we need renewed leader-level political consensus and increased ambition to keep 1.5 in reach. We need commitment to peak global emissions by 2025 and clear guidance for the next round of NDCs. And we need a clear, forward-looking road map with global targets in key sectors and commitment to action including through the breakthrough agenda, on forests, and through the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbons. Since 2010 the UK has seen nearly £200 billion of public and private finance investment in low carbon energy sectors. We will use this domestic experience to spearhead efforts to accelerate decarbonisation of key sectors of the global economy.
An outcome on finance that helps deliver the trillions needed to accelerate the transition. This includes reform of international financial institutions, delivery this year of the collective goal of $100 billion climate finance per year for developing economies, and progress on the post-2025 climate finance goal with contributions from a broader range of donors. Based on preliminary data, the OECD has stated that it is likely that the $100 billion goal was met in 2022. The UK will play its part. We are fully committed to delivering on our £11.6 billion of international climate finance and we are a world leader in green finance. We will work with partners to realign financial flows with the Paris agreement and global biodiversity framework.
Progress on building resilience to climate impacts—demonstrating progress on the Glasgow commitment to double adaptation finance by 2025 and establishing an effective loss and damage fund to support countries that are particularly vulnerable. We are pleased that the loss and damage transitional committee, mandated by COP27, has put forward a recommendation on the fund. The UK was instrumental in securing that recommendation and we hope it will be agreed at COP28. We will continue to advocate for the priorities of the most vulnerable. I co-chaired a third climate and development ministerial alongside the UAE, Malawi and Vanuatu at pre-COP last month. This focused on enhancing access and delivery of adaptation finance, the equitable delivery of high-quality grant-based finance and concessional finance.
Real progress towards protecting, restoring and sustainably managing nature, on land and in the ocean, which is crucial to delivering on net zero and building resilience. We need COP28 to maintain momentum on the implementation of the global biodiversity framework agreed at CBD COP15 last year, to make concrete progress on the historic agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We want to see forests prioritised in the global stocktake and to use the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership as the vehicle to drive accelerated delivery of the Glasgow leaders declaration on forests and land use. To date UK International Climate Finance has avoided over 410,000 hectares of ecosystem loss.
We will continue to deliver ambitious reductions, embracing innovation and green finance opportunities. The UK will go into COP28 with a strong record at home and internationally. We recently committed $2 billion to the green climate fund second replenishment, the biggest single international funding commitment the UK has made to help tackle climate change, making us the top contributor cumulatively to the world’s most prominent international climate fund.
In his recent net zero speech, the Prime Minister set out the long-term decisions to enable a just transition to net zero while maintaining public support. We are absolutely clear that net zero is the right thing to do for our long- term national security, economic prosperity and the future of our children.
All countries around the world need to do more to keep 1.5 alive. The UK is delivering significant progress, and following the clear framework and targets agreed at Glasgow COP, we saw 90% of global GDP committed to net zero. We must now drive progress and support other nations constituting 99% of emissions to grasp the benefits of green growth.
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28 Nov 2023: Onshore Wind Farms
11:54
My hon. Friend has championed, does champion and, I am sure, will continue for many years to champion the good people of Kettering, and the fact that they are providing such leadership on net zero and the delivery of renewables after our parlous inheritance from the Labour party. Let us make sure that we never go back to a system in which renewables are not brought on to our grid in the way they are today.
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28 Nov 2023: Net Zero Targets: Businesses
21:19
I meet regularly with business leaders and organisations. I chair or co-chair, among others: the Offshore Wind Industry Council, which I will be going straight to after questions; the solar taskforce; the green jobs delivery group, which met yesterday; the North sea transition forum, which I will attend tomorrow; and, from a strategic cross-cutting point of view, the Net Zero Council. Of course, the Secretary of State and I met global leaders yesterday.
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The hon. Gentleman has a well-founded and highly esteemed reputation for anger. Under this Government, this country has cut its emissions more than any other major economy on the planet, and we have the most ambitious plans for 2030. When I attend COP28 next week, we will be inviting and supporting others to join the UK, which under this Conservative Government has led the way on a pathway to net zero.
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21:19
My hon. Friend is a stout champion not only of the pathway to net zero but of the jobs and prosperity that come with it. It is with great alacrity that I accept on behalf of my hon. Friend the Minister.
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28 Nov 2023: Topical Questions
The hypocrisy and the ignorance coming from the Labour party is extraordinary. We have decarbonised more than any major economy on this earth and we will decarbonise more to 2030, and we are doing it by unlocking a level of investment into renewable energy double that we have seen in the United States. So, Labour can take its selective facts and put them where the sun don’t shine.
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12:31
The hon. Lady is right to highlight loss and damage as we approach COP28. We were pleased to play our part on the transitional committee in getting a recommendation to COP, and we look forward to its being operationalised in the near future. I agree with her that, if we are to get the scale of finance that is required, particularly for the most vulnerable countries at the front end, we need to look at innovative ways of adding to that finance.
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12:35
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the EU has already legislated for a carbon border adjustment mechanism. Following our hosting of COP26, 90% of global wealth was covered by net zero pledges. At the beginning of that conference, the figure was just 30%. The right hon. Gentleman may not see it, but this is the direction the world is going in, and if he wants to future-proof British jobs he will get with the decarbonisation programme. Opposing it is to oppose the interests of his constituents and the sustainability of their of their jobs.
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21 Nov 2023: Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2023
14:30
That the Committee has considered the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2023.
The UK emissions trading scheme—the UK ETS— was established under the Climate Change Act 2008 by the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020 as a UK-wide greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme to encourage cost-effective emissions reductions, contributing to the UK’s emissions reduction targets and net zero goal. The scheme is run by the UK ETS Authority, a joint body comprising the UK Government and the devolved Governments—we are all in this together. Our aim is to be predictable and responsible guardians of the scheme and its markets. In so doing, we will ensure that the scheme remains a cornerstone of our ambitious climate policy.
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14:37
A consultation was not carried out for the CCS free allocation amendment as that is a clarification of existing policy intention and not a change to the policy.
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14:54
On the overall position of the UK carbon market, the UK ETS is of course a market mechanism. The price of carbon allowances in the UK ETS is set by the market. In line with the net zero cap we announced in July, the supply of emissions allowances entering the market will fall significantly every year from 2024. We are committed to continuing to deliver on these changes, as we have shown, by legislating to amend the supply of allowances over the coming years and publishing an auction calendar.
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14:56
The UK ETS is a cornerstone of UK climate policy. It is worth noting, to look momentarily at the bigger picture, that since 1990, the UK has cut its emissions by more than any other major economy on the planet. The Government put net zero into law for the first time, and the former Conservative leader, now the Foreign Secretary, was the first leader of a major party to call for a climate Act, which was introduced in 2008. I was proud to serve on the Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill under the excellent chairmanship of Lord Puttnam.
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14:58
Yes. The SI sets a cap on emissions in the sectors covered—currently a quarter of the UK’s emissions. In doing that, it guarantees that those sectors will reduce their emissions in line with our world-leading net zero target,
In July, the UK Government and the devolved Governments, as the joint UK ETS Authority, set out a comprehensive package of reforms to the scheme. It increased the ambition of the UK ETS and set it on a path to net zero. As that package set out, a wide range of changes is required to ensure that the UK ETS remains a key part of the UK’s approach to achieving net zero.
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16 Nov 2023: COP28
10:59
That this House has considered COP28.
I am glad to come to the House today to discuss this important subject. We discussed COP28 at a recent reception hosted by the all-party parliamentary group for climate change last month, and also at a recent meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee. I welcome the interest of colleagues from across the Chamber. I note that the all-party parliamentary group on the environment has just released its report on the subject, including nine recommended priorities for COP28. That, too, is a welcome contribution to the debate.
The upcoming conference of the parties, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, comes at a really important moment in tackling the climate crisis. Amid record temperatures and emissions, the first comprehensive stocktake of progress against the Paris agreement at COP28 will show that the world is badly off track. We have made significant progress through the Paris agreement, with temperature projections shifting from a 4° increase before Paris to an increase of between 2.4° and 2.7° after Glasgow, thanks to the nationally determined contributions that countries have said they will make.
But we know that is not enough. In Glasgow, we cemented the goal of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 1.5° and made that our north star, and that has been carried forward by the UAE presidency. The latest science, and the impact that we see even at 1.1°, shows us why that is so important. A top priority for the UK is to leave COP28 with a clear road map to keep a ceiling of 1.5° in reach.
The UK heads to COP28 with a record at home and internationally that is second to none. The Prime Minister recently reaffirmed our commitment to net zero and set out a new approach to get there. This will make it easier for businesses, supply chains and households to adapt to the new normal. We will build on our previous successes and continue to lead.
I am not sure that we are always as good as we should be at sharing this story, of which the nation can be proud. At home, we have decarbonised more than any major economy on this planet, cutting our emissions by 48% since 1990. Not only have we decarbonised faster than any major economy on the planet to date, but we have the most ambitious plans and the most ambitious nationally determined contribution for 2030 of any major economy. Our commitment is to a 68% reduction by 2030. By comparison, the EU, which has been a genuine force for good in this space, has an NDC of 55% by 2030, although it hopes and expects to exceed that. How have we done that? Our inheritance was not a great one. As recently as 2012, nearly 40% of our electricity came from coal. Next year, thanks to the policies of this Government, it will be zero.
We inherited in 2010 an electricity system in which, almost unbelievably, less than 7% of our generation came from renewables. In the first quarter of this year, it was nearly 48%. We have transformed our renewables base. We have eliminated coal. I am aware of no country anywhere that has done more and gone further, faster, but leading in that way is not enough for us, as a country that produces less than 1% of global emissions, right though it is that we should do so. We also have to lead the global conversation, and that is exactly what we did at COP26. When we took on the presidency of COP26, 30% of global GDP was covered by net zero pledges. When we handed on to Egypt, it was over 90%, and I am proud to say that this country led that conversation.
Not only are we leading, but the rest of the world is accepting the need to act, even if nationally determined contributions and national plans do not yet match what is needed to meet the net zero challenge, but I am pleased to say that ours do. We have ambitious targets, and we will deliver on them. As I said, we have to make sure that the other 99% of global emissions start to follow the same trajectory, so our offer and engagement will be all about encouraging the rest of the world to join the UK on a net zero pathway.
Two years on from Glasgow, the need to accelerate action is more urgent than ever. The world needs to decarbonise more than five times faster than we did in the last two decades. The country in the world that has cut its emissions more than any major economy, namely the UK, has reduced them by 48% in 31 years, but according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific body that advises us on this, the world needs to cut its emissions by 43% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline to keep net zero alive. That shows us the challenge. We need to be peaking globally by 2025.
The latest United Nations framework convention on climate change nationally determined contributions synthesis report shows that emissions are set to be 2% below the 2019 level by 2030 if all the commitments made so far are met—2%, when the science says that we need a 43% reduction. The latest “State of Climate Action” report from the World Resources Institute carries a similarly stark message: we need to accelerate the transition rapidly. Only one of its 42 indicators for the progress needed by 2030 was on track.
We also have to be up front about the fact that we face significant challenges coming into this COP: geopolitical tension, conflict and a challenging macroeconomic context in which Governments are battling inflation and debt. G20 relations are strained, as I witnessed at first hand when I went to the Climate Ministers G20 meeting in Chennai. Some countries are seeking to stoke divisions, to deflect from their own responsibility to take action. At the same time, record temperatures and widespread climate impacts are increasing the need to act on adaptation, loss and damage, as well as reduce emissions. We need broad-based progress across all pillars of the Paris agreement at COP28.
Finance will be a critical part of the transition. Developed economies need to deliver on their promise to mobilise $100 billion in climate finance for developing countries. We all know that we were due to deliver this in 2020 and, collectively, we fell behind. In Glasgow, we set a course correction to meet the goal by 2023. I am pleased that today’s report from the OECD shows that we are ahead of the projections we set out in Glasgow. We delivered $89.6 billion in 2021, and the OECD has indicated that it is likely—not definite, but likely —that the $100 billion goal was in fact met in 2022. Delivery of that commitment is something that the UK has championed, and I am pleased to say that we recently made our biggest ever climate finance commitment through our $2 billion contribution to the green climate fund.
At COP28, we want to see progress across five areas, the first of which is commitments to keep 1.5° alive. Coming out of the global stocktake, we need renewed consensus and increased ambition to keep 1.5° within reach. We also need a clear, forward-looking road map with a commitment to peak global emissions by 2025; global targets for key sectors, particularly those that are hard to decarbonise; and commitment to action, including through initiatives such as the breakthrough agenda and in other key areas such as forests, the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbons and clear guidance for the next round of NDCs, which will be a central feature of the Belém COP in the Amazon in two years’ time.
The second area is clear progress towards a clean energy future, including a commitment to triple global renewable energy deployment and double energy efficiency by 2030. That sits alongside a clear commitment on phasing out unabated fossil fuels—our position on that issue is unchanged since the G7 commitment that the UK helped to deliver earlier this year—and to phase out coal power, building on COP26 outcomes.
The third area is reform of the international financial institutions to unlock trillions for global challenges including development and climate action, and delivery of our existing commitments, alongside $100 billion per year in climate finance for developing economies. As I have mentioned previously, the OECD’s latest report on 2021 figures shows that developed countries are on track to meet that goal.
The fourth area is improving adaptation to climate change, delivering on our Glasgow commitment to double adaptation finance by 2025, and establishing an effective loss and damage fund to support countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. We are pleased that the transitional committee that was set up to reach agreement on what that loss and damage fund should look like has put forward a recommendation to COP28. The UK was instrumental in securing that recommendation, and we hope it will be agreed by all parties at COP28. We will continue to advocate for the priorities of the most vulnerable: we held a third climate and development ministerial at the pre-COP event last month in Abu Dhabi, which I co-chaired, to do just that.
Action to deliver net zero is not just a matter of doing the right thing, or of avoiding harm: it is crucial to our security and prosperity here in the UK, both now and in the future. The global net zero transition could be worth £1 trillion to UK businesses between 2021 and 2030. UK businesses are in the vanguard of recognising the opportunity that springs from net zero: over two thirds of FTSE 100 companies and thousands of small businesses have pledged to reduce their emissions in line with the 1.5° target under the Race To Zero campaign. Over half of the signatories to that campaign are from the UK.
Net zero is already an engine for growth and revitalisation of formerly deindustrialised areas in the UK. We are a leader across a number of areas: we have the world’s five largest offshore wind farm projects and the world’s No. 1 ranked green finance centre, and we are leading the way in developing an approach to carbon capture and storage, to name a few examples. Action on climate and nature is also crucial for our energy security and to reduce exposure to future global shocks, such as those caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The North sea’s transition to a clean energy powerhouse with 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 will reduce exposure to volatile international energy markets and be an engine for clean energy exports. Action on adaptation and nature is crucial in a world where food security is increasingly under threat.
However, we need everyone with us on this journey. The opportunities are huge: in 2023, we will see a record $1.8 trillion invested in clean energy alone. According to the International Energy Agency, electric vehicles are on track to account for two thirds of new car sales globally by 2030; the transition to clean energy and electric vehicles is taking off, and it will spread to other sectors quickly. At COP28, we need to show progress on delivering the historic agreement we landed in Glasgow. We must use UK expertise to scale green finance, support others to accelerate the transition in key sectors of the global economy, and set a clear pathway to 1.5°. At this point, I am happy to hear from other Members.
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If the hon. Lady wants to have a history lesson—and we did, indeed, come in together—she will remember that it was David Cameron, as the leader of the Conservatives, who was the first leader of a major party in this country to call for a climate Act. I think the Liberal Democrats leader followed suit a few hours later, and the Labour Government then eventually did so. I served on the Joint Committee, chaired by the brilliant David Puttnam, that put this into place, so I will not take any lectures from her. It was the Conservatives who led the charge to get that going—the first major party to support it—and I was pleased to see it put on the statute book. We were of course the first major economy in the world, and the first Government, to legislate for net zero overall.
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This is a really important topic, and it is important that we get our language right. The Government have not scaled back our net zero ambitions for either our NDC in 2030 or net zero by 2050. The hon. Lady can make lots of points, partisan or otherwise, but it would be great if she acknowledged that this country has, under this Conservative Government, cut emissions by more than any other major economy on earth and has the most ambitious plans for 2030.
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13:28
Some 85% of our climate finance is grant-based.
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13:42
I congratulate all the Members who have spoken in the debate, which is an important one ahead of COP28. Further to the other interactions that I mentioned in my opening speech, we will be making a written ministerial statement on our priorities for COP before we go, and I will be responsible for the negotiations there.
A couple of Members mentioned the Climate Change Committee in the context of the Prime Minister’s speech in September. It is worth noting that the Climate Change Committee’s analysis shows that there is “no material difference” in our progress in cutting emissions since its last report in June. We are tacking, as I would put it. However, our destination remains exactly the same. We are reassuring people in rural areas who were fearful that they could neither afford heat pumps nor be sure of their functionality, while increasing the subsidy for them by 50%, and working to build the system and drive the cost curve down, so that more and more homes can have them. That is right the way to ensure that we maintain public support for delivering net zero.
The same applies to zero-emission vehicles. Manufacturers have a ZEV mandate—an obligation to “green” their fleet up to 2030. That builds on our successful record to date; we are ahead of the Climate Change Committee’s and our own projections. We are maintaining that ZEV mandate. The Climate Change Committee spoke of “no material difference” in progress on particular changes, but the focus on grid and other aspects of the Prime Minister’s speech are all about turbocharging our efforts to deliver not only the nationally determined contribution in 2030, but net zero by 2050.
Methane was mentioned, and it is an important issue. The global methane pledge is a collective commitment intended to mobilise international action on methane. I am pleased to say that UK methane emissions between 1990 and 2021 dropped by 62%, one of the largest reductions in any OECD country, but I should also to highlight the fact that methane represents one of our biggest opportunities—the opportunity to ensure that that pledge is delivered not only domestically but internationally. It should also be noted that we are the only major economy to set a legally binding emissions reduction target, of 77%, for 2035 as part of carbon budget 6. We will see what happens at the 2025 COP in Brazil—10 years on from Paris—but the expectation is that new NDCs will come forward for 2035.
Finance was touched on in the debate. We remain one of the largest and most active donors in international climate finance, and we are making record commitments. With the aim of helping the world to adapt to the inevitable climate change impacts that we can already see, at COP27 the Prime Minister made a commitment to triple UK adaptation finance from £500 million in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2025. The UK is also committed to maintaining a balance between mitigation and adaptation spending, and to providing at least £3 billion of UK climate finance for the purpose of protecting and restoring nature. We provide the majority of our climate finance in the form of much-needed grants rather than loans—which I think compares well with what is provided by some other donor countries—and we prioritise our contributions for the biggest challenges faced by the poorest and most vulnerable.
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13:50
Since 2011, The UK’s climate finance has supported more than 100 million people to cope with the effects of climate change, improved the climate resilience of more than 32 million people and reduced or avoided more than 86 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
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13:51
To promote improved and responsible governance, we are also looking for a commitment to support the forest and climate leaders partnership at the world climate action summit at the beginning of COP. We also want to see partnership on water resources at all levels. Donor countries and the private sector need to be involved, too.
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13:54
I enjoyed the hon. Lady’s speech. Unsurprisingly, when I was in the middle east recently, water was right at the top of the agenda, reflecting its importance. I attended the Net Zero Council meeting in Manchester last Thursday, and it was my pleasure on the following day to go to the Severn Trent water treatment works in Stoke. By the end of next year, it is expected to be the world’s first carbon-neutral water treatment works, for which I pay tribute to Severn Trent. Again, it shows the importance of water, which is so often forgotten. Water is one of the workstreams of the Net Zero Council, which was established this year to bring together the Government and business to develop road maps for each sector of our economy.
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14:03
I will not stumble into another Department’s area of responsibility. We work collectively across Government to share the burden of making sure we meet our net zero targets.
In wrapping up the debate, I assure hon. and right hon. Members of the Government’s commitment to delivering on net zero at home and internationally. Although there is evidence that a peak in global emissions is within sight this decade, we need emissions to peak by 2025 and to reduce by 43% by 2030. The sobering reality is that, this year, global emissions are likely to reach a new peak, as Members across the House have said. Keeping 1.5° within reach requires nothing less than a paradigm shift.
The lesson we should draw here is clear: rapid, large-scale transformation is possible. The challenge is that we need to replicate this success across all sectors of the economy. There will be no single silver bullet to driving the transformational systemic change that we need on a global scale. We will deploy every important lever we have to accelerate action in this critical decade, building on the framework we put forward in the Glasgow pact and our 2030 strategic framework. That includes working through the United Nations framework convention on climate change, bilaterally and through other channels. Working with others who are like-minded, and others, we need to see countries upgrading their climate targets. There is no point in having a global stocktake eight years after the Paris agreement if it does not lead to a ratcheting up of the nationally determined contributions to match the requirements that we find from the science. In particular, we need the major emitters to do that. Countries representing more than 90% of global GDP are covered, as I have said, by some form of net zero target. Those countries now need to align their near-term targets with the commitments that they have made. We will harness our global diplomatic network, international development offer and partnerships to drive forward action.
We will also be taking action to realign financial flows in line with the Paris agreement and a nature-positive future. We will use our strengths as a global green finance centre and role as a shareholder of key financial institutions to reorientate finance flows and tap the power of markets to make progress towards unlocking the trillions required. We will accelerate transitions globally through targeted collaboration with others, focusing on the most important, highest-emitting sectors, through initiatives such as the breakthrough agenda, so that we can reach positive tipping points and avoid negative ones, and so that clean tech is affordable and accessible across all sectors of the global economy. We will also continue to push to accelerate the global energy transition, for example, through our long-standing leadership on phasing out coal in the Powering Past Coal Alliance. We will also champion the need to phase out unabated fossil fuels and at the same time transition the North sea into a clean energy powerhouse here at home.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) raised the issue of a just transition. There is a true transition to be made, and opposing new oil and gas licences in this country when we are a net importer of both, and when the emissions that will come from imports such as liquified natural gas would be higher, makes the Opposition parties friends of oil and gas workers, but just not those in this country. The approach of those parties will not make any difference to how much we consume, but it will make a difference to our emissions, and not in a good way, and it will lose the very engineering capability we need to deliver the transition, as well as a very material contribution to our ability to make that change, which is of course the £50 billion of taxes that we expect to get from the sector over the next five years. The Opposition parties are in entirely the wrong place. They have put optics ahead of doing the right thing, and it does not take a lot of reflection or analysis to come to the conclusion that we are doing the right thing.
That this House has considered COP28.
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15 Nov 2023: Energy Infrastructure Planning Projects
This statement concerns an application for development consent made under the Planning Act 2008 by North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park Ltd for development consent for the North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park project, located in Flixborough, Scunthorpe.
Under section 107(1)(b) of the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State must make a decision on an application within three months of the receipt of the Examining Authority’s report, unless exercising the power under section 107(3) of the Act to set a new deadline. Where a new deadline is set, the Secretary of State must make a statement to Parliament to announce it. The current statutory deadline for the decision on the North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park project is 15 November 2023.
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19 Oct 2023: Contracts for Difference Scheme
16:04
The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill highlighted the broader point that the UK, alone among major economies, has halved its emissions since 1990. It can be argued that it is alone among major economies on its path to reach net zero. It is important to note that if we are to stay on track to net zero, which is one of the reasons why the hon. Member for Strangford is so passionate, and he knows this, we need Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland alongside England to make the appropriate changes. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill may or may not be aware, given that this is not his day job, that Scotland is behind the curve on performance. It is high on ambition, low on delivery relative to England, and he might want to bear that in mind and have slightly more—
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16:04
I will turn to the main focus of the debate for the hon. Member for Strangford: the GB CfD scheme being extended to Northern Ireland. When the CfD scheme was being developed around 10 years ago, it was originally intended that it should extend to Northern Ireland as well as GB. For various reasons, which I will not go into here, that did not happen. In December 2021, the Northern Ireland Executive published their energy strategy, the “Path to Net Zero Energy”, in which they set out the intention to implement a support scheme to bring forward investment in renewable electricity generation in Northern Ireland. The strategy indicated that the Northern Ireland Executive were, at that time, exploring with the UK Government the possibility of extending the GB CfD scheme to Northern Ireland, with a view to the inclusion of projects from Northern Ireland in the 2023 allocation round. If that was not possible, the strategy said that the Executive would seek to put in place an alternative support mechanism for investors.
In January 2022, the Northern Ireland Executive published the first of their two action plans, outlining progress towards implementing their net zero strategy. In it, the Executive said that they would consult on proposals for a renewable electricity support scheme for Northern Ireland. In February this year, the Executive made good on that commitment and published a consultation inviting views on design considerations for a renewable electricity support scheme for Northern Ireland. The consultation closed in April, and the Northern Ireland Executive are currently undertaking follow-up work on the scheme’s design, informed by the consultation responses they received.
I do not believe that integrating Northern Ireland into the GB CfD scheme is viable. There are several significant challenges to integration, including systemic and technical barriers incorporating the characteristics of the single electricity market into the GB CfD model, as well as the reforms being considered in the GB review of electricity market arrangements. Furthermore, integration would require complex changes to the CfD payment mechanism, secondary legislation and industry codes, and would likely take several years to complete. Integration therefore would not lead to faster delivery of renewable energy in Northern Ireland, which I know the hon. Member for Strangford so fervently hopes for.
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16:12
The hon. Gentleman always makes an extremely plausible and effective advocate for the ideas that he espouses. I—and the Government, I am sure—will remain open to discussions with those in Northern Ireland and with the hon. Gentleman to find solutions. We talked about some of the challenges of staying on the overall net zero pathway. Of the four Administrations, Northern Ireland is potentially the most off track, so there is a real need to find solutions and we always stand ready to work constructively to find the best way forward.
I continue to believe, however, that the development of a bespoke support scheme offers the best and quickest way for Northern Ireland to secure the investment in renewable electricity generation that it needs to achieve its net zero goals. I have not said it explicitly but, of course, energy is devolved, so we are looking to the institutions in Northern Ireland, on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, to take this on. That is what we would profoundly like to see. I commend the work done by the hon. Gentleman and the Department for the Economy so far, and I encourage us all to support their efforts.
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16:19
The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington, talked a little about being able to bring hope to oil and gas communities around the United Kingdom. That is ironic considering the ambition of any Labour Administration, were one to be elected, would be to strangle that industry. Even though, as of last year, we are the most decarbonised major economy on earth, we are still 77% dependent on oil and gas for our primary energy needs.
It is absolutely crazy to have an Opposition spokesman saying he is here on the side of oil and gas communities—he absolutely is not. We have an integrated energy system encapsulated within a legal framework in the Climate Change Act 2008, which means we are making the transition. We are leading the world on making that transition, but we will not speed it or help it, but in fact weaken it, if we do not support new oil and gas licences in order to minimise the necessary inevitable reduction in oil and gas production in our waters. It is bad for jobs, for the environment, for the economy and for tax. On no front does it make any sense at all.
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18 Oct 2023: Green Energy: Ports
15:49
As has been said by everyone here today, ports are so important to unlocking the green revolution. As colleague after colleague have highlighted, from the Humber to Wales to Scotland, the southern North sea and Northern Ireland, ports have an enormous contribution to make to economic regeneration. The fact that we are blessed with this phenomenal renewable energy opportunity in the UK—which this Government, uniquely and unlike the previous, are committed to unlocking—means that we can turn levelling up from an excellent concept into genuine delivery. The previously highly carbon-dependent areas of this country are the very areas that genuinely need that, and they are best set to benefit from it. Their ports are what will make that possible.
The right port infrastructure is vital to deliver offshore wind and other renewables, as part of our transition to net zero. Big though the energy business, carbon capture and related things are, perhaps the biggest opportunity here is what all this will facilitate. When we took on the COP presidency, just 30% of global GDP had made net zero pledges. By the time the presidency was handed on by the UK to Egypt, that figure stood at more than 90%. The world is following. If we create among the world’s first genuine net zero industrial clusters, the inward investment that will come—into non-directly energy-related, yet still energy-dependent businesses, as every business is—could be quite phenomenal. That is why colleagues are right to share their excitement and why my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire is right, again and again—alongside, as always, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—to come here and enthuse about the importance of this and the opportunity it brings.
The Government’s policies, as set out in the British energy security strategy and endorsed in “Powering Up Britain” earlier this year, include bold new commitments, so that we can supercharge clean energy and accelerate renewable energy deployment. The Government set an ambition of 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030, up from just 14 GW today. The UK has the largest offshore wind sector in Europe and is home to all four of the largest offshore wind farms in the world. As part of that ambition, we are aiming for up to 5 GW of floating offshore wind. Colleagues have rightly highlighted the importance of ports to that, given the gargantuan scale of the products that will be required. Ports will play a vital part.
[Source]
15:58
The offshore renewable energy catapult has estimated that floating offshore wind could deliver more than £40 billion for our economy by 2050, creating about 30,000 jobs in the process. We are moving at pace to deliver those benefits, with more than 25 GW of floating wind projects with confirmed seabed exclusivity—the most in the world. The last thing we need to introduce into the excellent track record and system for bringing in private sector investment from all over the world—which we are proud of—is Labour’s plans for Great British Energy clunking into a carefully calibrated set of market mechanisms. That will have exactly the opposite effect of the objectives that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington, set out.
The Government recognise the critical role that ports will play in achieving our green energy ambitions and the importance of securing investment in the infrastructure. They will also be a big enabler for offshore wind and a catalyst for wider supply chain development.
[Source]
16:04
As I said, ports are not just important for offshore wind. They will also play a key role for carbon capture and storage, supporting the decarbonisation of emitters. Maritime shipping will play a key role, linking emissions captured from the dispersed sites with offshore CO 2 storage sites. Import and export ports across the UK that can handle large volumes of CO 2 will be required to facilitate the transport and storage of CO 2 via ships. We heard about the plans for the Humber and elsewhere, indeed including on the south coast as mentioned in the brilliant, albeit short, speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith).
[Source]
16:07
I was asked about meetings. Notwithstanding any transport and logistical challenges, I would be delighted to come to Wales. I must pay tribute once again to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, who is relentless, albeit always cheerful and well-considered, in promoting the need for understanding and engagement with his part of the world and the opportunities that offers for the whole of the UK in contributing to the global challenge on climate change and, most importantly, in delivering a more prosperous and better future for constituents in his part of the world. Thank you, Mrs Cummins, for chairing the debate.
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19 Sep 2023: Climate Change Committee: 2023 Progress Report
11:48
I am grateful for the work of the Climate Change Committee, and I pay tribute in particular to the commitment of its outgoing chair, Lord Deben. The Government will respond to the committee’s report in October.
[Source]
11:49
Our climate leadership is measurable and real. We have reduced emissions by more than any other major economy since 1990. We were the first to legislate for net zero. We have eliminated coal, which as late as 2012 produced nearly 40% of our electricity supply—the legacy of the Labour party—and we have lifted renewables from 7% to 48%. We have cut emissions by more than others, transforming our energy system, and we are leading on this issue internationally and domestically. That is exactly what the Government rely on in fulfilling their aspiration to climate leadership.
[Source]
China has even greater offshore wind capacity than ourselves—it has the largest wind and largest solar capacity in the world—and it has a significant level of production. We recognise that we will need technology from all over the world, including China, if we are to meet our net zero aspirations.
[Source]
Yet another unfunded spending commitment from the Labour party—the party that left us with less than 7% of our electricity coming from renewables and that left us reliant on coal; a party that wants to nationalise the industry and drive out all those companies that have transformed the North Sea basin, led the world in cutting the cost of offshore wind, and made us the European leader in offshore wind and the global leader in cutting emissions. The Labour party is the biggest enemy of net zero and the biggest enemy of the private investment in this country that will help us get there.
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19 Sep 2023: Topical Questions
The zero-emission vehicles mandate supports our commitment to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans. By setting it many years in advance and giving clear notice to the market, it provides appropriate stimulus to industry in a way that the ultra low emission zone singularly fails to do, as my hon. Friend will have noted.
[Source]
I stand corrected. On that issue, we have infrastructure, some of which dates from the 1970s, and we are moving at the maximum possible speed. It is technologically and economically challenging to make this change, and yet, as I set out earlier, we are already showing significant efforts, and of course we are champions of the methane pledge, which we plan to exceed. When I am at COP28, I will be urging other countries to follow us in agreeing and supporting that World Bank methane pledge.
[Source]
12:30
We have, of course, met all our carbon budgets to date. In the progress report, the Climate Change Committee said it had increased confidence in our meeting carbon budget 4 and, yes, this country will meet its net zero targets by 2050. It will do so in line with the advice that we are given, and I am proud of the fact—the hon. Gentleman could share this with his constituents, who may be concerned otherwise—that this country has cut its emissions by more than any other major economy on earth, thanks to the policies of this Government.
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19 Sep 2023: Onshore Wind Industry
11:53
More than 15 GW of onshore wind are deployed in the UK. In our allocation round 5 just the other day, we secured 1.7 GW of onshore wind capacity; allocation round 4 secured 1.5 GW. It is extraordinary: an industry—domestic UK oil and gas—has lower emissions than the alternative from abroad and employs 200,000 people, every one of whose jobs is at risk if the Labour party ever gets into power. Labour Members are suggesting that there is a negative fiscal impact, when that industry is expected to contribute £50 billion over the next five years. The Labour party is an enemy of the transition to net zero and of British jobs and prosperity.
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19 Sep 2023: Methane Leaks from Oil and Gas Production
11:45
The Government have ambitious plans to tackle methane emissions from oil and gas production. With support from Government and key regulators, industry is on track to end routine flaring and venting prior to 2030, in line with the World Bank’s initiative.
[Source]
11:47
The North Sea Transition Authority already expects methane emissions to be as low as possible and all new developments to be developed on the basis of zero routine flaring and venting, and that they should be electrified or electrification-ready. Of course, what is required and will help facilitate that is new investment in the North sea facilitated by licences, without which we are unlikely to see the reduction in emissions that we have so successfully driven so far.
[Source]
11:48
Unusually, the hon. Lady has got her facts wrong: I do not think that amendment was even selected for debate that day. According to the North Sea Transition Authority, flaring was reduced by more than 10% just last year, contributing to a reduction of nearly 50% between 2018 and 2022. As I have said, the North Sea Transition Authority estimates that methane emissions have fallen by more than 40% to fewer than 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent—a record low. We have old existing infrastructure and are moving with a maximum of ambition to reduce emissions, and we have a successful track record to date.
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19 Sep 2023: Boiler Replacement Guidance
As the hon. Member doubtless knows, we have conducted a consultation on the use of HVO in heating, and we are determined to ensure that we decarbonise heat in homes, including off-grid homes, in a way that is practical and aligned with minimising any negative impacts on those families.
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13 Sep 2023: Residential Co-operative Power Production
16:19
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) on securing this important debate, and thank him for sharing his thoughts during the conversation that we were able to have ahead of it. As we heard in his moving and well-thought-out speech, he has continued to be a champion in this regard. I want to begin by assuring him that the Government recognise the importance of empowering local communities to come together to deliver renewable energy projects for their areas, be that putting solar panels on school roofs, setting up electric vehicle chargers in local communities or developing residential power production using hydro, say, to power a village.
My hon. Friend has raised a concern that people who invest in their own renewable energy are still required to pay the green levies that are part of their energy bills and he made an appeal that they should cease to do so. Levies more than pay for themselves by driving investment in renewables. He mentioned the fact that large-scale renewables have driven down costs enormously over the last decade or so, not least through our contracts for difference scheme, which this Government are very proud of. These levies provide vital support to low-income and vulnerable households and, because of the way they have been used in the system, they have saved consumers money on their energy bills overall over the past 10 years.
The Government are committed to ensuring that the cost of the UK’s transition to net zero is fair and affordable for all energy consumers and, over the past decade, environmental and social schemes have been instrumental in driving the decarbonisation of the system. It is fair that all consumers should contribute towards the cost of these schemes, as the UK’s transition to abundant low-carbon energy over the coming decades will bring benefits to households and businesses everywhere. Our recent exposure to volatile global gas prices underscores the importance of our plan to build a strong home-grown renewable energy sector in order further to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, but one that, importantly, ensures that everyone everywhere, whether or not they can invest in their own local renewable energy, is protected and looked after.
Some billpayer-funded schemes are important for tackling fuel poverty by providing financial support or home upgrades to low income and vulnerable households. We do not wish to see a system in which people can withdraw from supporting that. Ofgem, the energy regulator in Great Britain, administers renewable energy and social schemes on behalf of the Government and ensures that policy targets are met in as economical and consumer-friendly a way as possible. A list of the current environmental and social schemes that are funded through those bills can be found on Ofgem’s website.
In response to my hon. Friend’s point about changing the tax rules specifically on bill savings from off-site renewable ownership—he will know what is coming—I have no choice but to comment that taxation is a matter not for me but for the Chancellor. However, I would like to reassure him that we see value in, and support, community energy, including co-operatives that come together to create community energy projects such as Graig Fatha, which he mentioned. They play a role in our efforts to eliminate our contribution to climate change.
The Government offer a range of support to that type of project, perhaps just slightly different in nature to the ones that he has so passionately espoused today. They include the brilliant new £10 million community energy fund. This enables both rural and urban communities across England to access grant funding to develop local renewable energy projects for investment. The community energy fund follows on from the success of the rural community energy fund, which was delivered through our local net zero hubs and has funded several innovative projects. An example is Swaffham Prior in east Cambridgeshire, a pioneering project in a village of around 300 homes. It is one of the first villages in the UK to install a heating network into the existing infrastructure. In order to get more brilliant projects such as Swaffham Prior set up, we are aiming to launch applications to the community energy fund as soon as possible.
I recognise that the community energy fund is open only to communities in England. This is because the devolved nations have their own support schemes for community energy. For instance, the Welsh Government have the Energy Service, which works with both the public sector and community enterprises to reduce energy use, to generate locally owned renewable energy and to reduce carbon emissions. Similarly, the Scottish Government’s community and renewable energy scheme supports communities across Scotland to engage with, participate in and benefit from the energy transition to net zero.
Community energy funding is available alongside UK-wide growth funding, and we encourage community energy groups and residential co-operatives to work closely with their local authority to support the development of community energy projects within these schemes. The UK shared prosperity fund supports interventions that reinforce our commitment to reach net zero, and that includes £2.6 billion of funding for investment in places, including for community infrastructure projects. An example of that is West Devon District Council, which has been among the local areas to benefit from this type of UK growth funding. It received £1.1 million under the shared prosperity fund, which includes provisions to support community energy groups, helping them to bring projects forward and to access funds to support their goals. I entirely share the vision and the aspiration set out by my hon. Friend, and we have measures in place to ensure that can be brought to reality.
Beyond this, Ofgem also supports community energy projects and is now welcoming applications from community interest groups, co-operative societies and community benefit societies to the industry voluntary redress scheme, which is much more helpful than its name suggests. This allows groups to apply for funds to deliver energy-related projects that support energy consumers in vulnerable situations, that support decarbonisation and that benefit people in England, Scotland and Wales.
I close by thanking my hon. Friend for securing this important debate and for the manner in which he opened it. I am proud of the wide range of support that the Government offer to community energy groups across the country. This support enables local community groups to come together to deliver renewable energy projects for their area, including in residential co-operatives. I share the vision that my hon. Friend set out, and I look forward to working closely with him, in Wales, Scotland, England and right across the United Kingdom, to see that vision made even more of a reality than it is today.
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12 Sep 2023: Offshore Wind: Public Ownership
11:16
Where the hon. Gentleman and I differ is on how best to exploit that opportunity from where we start. This Government believe that a state-owned model is not the best approach. I am sure that, if we had allowed some new state company to come in and dominate our offshore wind sector, we would never have seen the 70% reduction in the cost of offshore wind that we have seen over recent years. It was the contracts for difference framework that we created, which allowed companies from all over the world, state or non-state, to come in, that transformed the economics of offshore wind and opened up the potential for not only the UK but the whole world of this important technology in tackling net zero.
[Source]
11:19
Our free market approach means that we have a highly competitive offshore wind market, which benefits from the expertise and experience of developers from all over the globe. It has enabled significant decarbonisation of our energy system, with dramatic drops in the cost of renewables. In 2010, when Labour left power, this country had a paltry 6.7% of its electricity coming from renewables. That was shameful. In the first quarter of this year, nearly 48% of our electricity came from renewables. Ten or 11 years ago, nearly 40% of our electricity came from coal. Next year, that will be zero, again because of our market-friendly policies, which would be at risk were His Majesty’s Opposition to have their ideas for state-run energy companies wrecking one of the most successful markets in the world. All over the country people are benefiting from the growth of the sector, and the cheap, secure, low-carbon electricity it produces.
[Source]
11:23
Government backing attracts the private investment needed to deliver net zero. That includes research and development, where we are supporting innovation in floating wind technology through the floating offshore wind demonstration programme. That uses £31 million of Government funding, alongside £30 million from industry, to keep the UK at the cutting edge of offshore wind innovation. We are not stopping there. Just two weeks ago, applications closed for the Government’s floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme, which will provide up to £160 million to kick-start investment in port infrastructure projects needed to deliver our floating offshore wind ambitions.
The hon. Member for East Lothian gave a passionate speech effectively opposing the world’s investing in our renewable energy, and in offshore wind in particular. I caution him to think again, send out a more positive line to the world and recognise the huge investment opportunities here.
[Source]
11:29
Denmark’s situation, size and industrial history are very different from the UK’s. What I am saying is that the UK is a European and, indeed, a world leader. We have decarbonised more than any other major economy on earth, and we believe that it is making us the best possible investment environment. We do not see the advantages of taking the state stakes that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
We also want communities and individual families that are not involved directly in the industry to see benefits. That is why we have recently consulted on proposals for community benefits for transmission network infrastructure, including in Scotland, because we are essentially rewiring the whole UK economy as we make this transition. We must do it at speed, but in a way that has community support and in which we recognise the impact on host communities. Developing transmission infrastructure, particularly between Scotland and England, will be key for unlocking the full potential of renewable energy, and offshore wind in particular. It will mean that we can get electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed.
This Government have made real progress in delivering the ambitions set out in the British energy security strategy and our “Powering up Britain” plan. We are committed to achieving our ambition of 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030. It has a vital role to play in delivering a decarbonised power system by 2035, subject to security of supply, and achieving our legally binding 2050 net zero commitments. We need to celebrate what we have done to date and recognise that most of the growth is not in the past, but in the future. The opportunities for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England are immense, and we should work collectively to ensure that we attract investment and create as many jobs as possible in this country supporting the transformation of our energy system and our spearheading of the global move to net zero, which is so important to us and future generations.
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12 Sep 2023: Offshore Wind Contracts
12:36
The Government also remain committed to our target of decarbonising the power system by 2035 and our ambitions for 50 GW of offshore wind, including up to 5 GW of floating offshore wind. Our trajectory for meeting these aims, as well as our legally binding carbon budget 6 targets, is not linear. The outcome for one technology in one auction does not prevent us from reaching those goals.
[Source]
12:49
We have to set the parameters based on the best information we have. As I say, one reason for moving to an annual round is to allow us quickly to learn the lessons of each round. We did not get the wind on this occasion, which I regret, and we will put the real-world prices and learnings from that into the next round. That is the system we have, because we are always trying to make sure that we get the parameters right so that we balance the need to generate additional green energy with the cost to the taxpayer. Understandably, given their carelessness with the public finances and with consumers, the Opposition do not seem to care about that. My job is to balance it, ensuring that we get the generation, and we have 77 GW in the pipeline. We are in position and on track to meet our ambitions, which lead Europe—not that we would know that to listen to the hon. Lady.
[Source]
The right hon. Gentleman and I do not see eye to eye on net zero or on the economic benefits of the wind industry. It does offer cost-effectiveness. It has been amazing to see how as it is scaled, it has been able to bring the price down. It was not obvious when we went out into the North sea that we would be able to bring the price crashing down, yet this country led the world in doing that. If he looks at the numbers, I hope he will find that the whole of this House can agree on one thing: offshore wind is an economic way of producing energy, and one that all of us should support.
[Source]
I thank the hon. Lady for pulling back the veil on Labour’s real policy, which is that it hates private capital, it hates private investment and it would destroy the phenomenal success of this country in generating that. [Interruption.] The Front Benchers can heckle all they like, but that is what their Back Benchers want. That is the policy that threatens the British people and threatens our path to net zero. We must make sure that people such as the hon. Lady never have power in this country.
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4 Sep 2023: Energy Charter Treaty: Review of UK Membership
The UK has been a strong advocate for modernising the ECT, recognising that the existing treaty is not aligned with modern energy priorities, international treaty practice and commitments on climate change. The UK and other contracting parties spent two years negotiating a modernised ECT and amendments were agreed in principle on 24 June 2022.
If adopted, the modernised treaty would have a stronger focus on promoting clean, affordable energy, including technologies like carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), hydrogen and other renewables. Modernised terms would also strengthen the UK Government’s sovereign right to change their energy system to reach net zero.
The UK’s preference has been to modernise the ECT, but we must now prepare for the possibility that this will not be achieved. The UK is reviewing its membership, recognising its long-standing position that the unmodernised ECT is out of step with modern treaty practice and the UK’s energy priorities. This reflects our unwavering focus on energy security and net zero. The review will conclude by November and will carefully consider the views of stakeholders in business, civil society and Parliament to inform the UK’s approach.
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18 Jul 2023: Draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment) Regulations 2023
09:28
The capacity market continues to support low-carbon technologies, with growing participation of demand-side response and storage technologies. In line with the broad support for greater alignment of the capacity market with net zero, the Government remain committed to introducing an emissions limit reduction for new build and refurbishing plants into the capacity market and exploring options to address barriers to low-carbon technologies to help drive the transition to a net zero power system by 2035, subject to security of supply. Further analysis is required to understand the impact that the proposals will have on energy security.
Through developments to the capacity market and the review of the electricity market arrangements programme, we are confident that the right market signals will be in place to ensure that we meet our 2035 decarbonisation target, subject to security of supply. As has been highlighted, we have also made a number of technical amendments to the capacity market rules, which were laid before the House on 12 July. Rule changes will be introduced to reduce administrative burdens for prospective capacity providers and clarify how auctions are operated for the benefit of participants.
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11 Jul 2023: Renewable Energy in the East of England
11:16
In the limited time that I have left, I will try to briefly review some of the points that my hon. Friend made and consider whether I can make any reasonable response to them. He mentioned the revolution, and that is what is going on; indeed, we need to tell the story to the nation about how we are rewiring this country. If people look around even the most beautiful landscapes, they will see things that they usually do not notice because they are just so used to them—major pieces of industrial infrastructure that were required to create the foundations for the wealthy and successful country that we are. Nevertheless, we will need to rewire things. Even with the best will in the world and strategic planning, co-ordination and minimisation of impacts, as well as a real focus on good design principles, there will be impacts, and we need to let people know that delivering net zero will require them.
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4 Jul 2023: Topical Questions
12:27
I am aware of proposals on the shipping and possible piping of hydrogen and the important part that must play. If we are to decarbonise all of British industry, we will need shipping as well as piping. I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what further we can do.
[Source]
12:28
We are moving at top speed to drive forward CCUS. We are in a world-leading position. The opportunity is enormous in the Tees, the Humber and areas in the north-west as we seek to get that right and embed those industries in this country.
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4 Jul 2023: Clean Energy Technology: Private Sector Investment
Our “Powering up Britain” plan seizes opportunities from the transition to a decarbonised energy system. Our policies, backed by billions of pounds of Government funding—but more importantly, leveraging in about £100 billion of private investment—will support up to 480,000 jobs in 2030.
[Source]
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and she is right to be frustrated because of the enormous potential both to decarbonise and to unlock industrial benefits for the area. We are moving as quickly as possible. I have already said that the Viking project and the Scottish cluster are in the favoured position, and the team is moving as quickly as possible this year to provide more certainty and unlock further investment.
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4 Jul 2023: Energy Intensive Industries: Decarbonisation
The Government are investing billions to support the development and deployment of carbon capture, utilisation and storage, hydrogen and other decarbonisation technologies, and have a range of policies supporting industrial decarbonisation, such as the industrial energy transformation fund and local industrial decarbonisation plans.
[Source]
As the hon. Gentleman knows well, this Government do support the UK steel industry. On his broader point, which he mentioned in his original question, UK industrial emissions have fallen 65% since 1990, and we are making significant investments in industrial decarbonisation, not least the £20 billion announced at the end of March, which will contribute to decarbonisation through CCUS and help the steel industry.
[Source]
I thank the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. He is right that as well as top-down Government policy, we must unlock the huge public desire of people to play their part and make sure we have the right information in place. That will be provided and produced as soon as possible.
[Source]
My hon. Friend is right, and he is right to champion those industries that are working so hard to decarbonise already. As my hon. Friend says, we have the net zero hydrogen fund, which will provide up to £240 million by 2025 to support the development and construction of new low-carbon hydrogen production plants, which will be able to assist in cement as well as other industries.
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4 Jul 2023: Floating Offshore Wind: Supply Chain
My hon. Friend puts it so well. It is so true: whatever the generation, if we cannot get the electrons where they need to go, we are frustrated. That is why we are determined to speed up the connections. That is why, from the Pick report on offshore wind to the Nick Winser review, this Government, led by the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie)—this is the first time that this country has had a networks Minister—are absolutely focused, in a laser-like way, on making sure that we speed up and get the delivery of the infrastructure that we need to deliver the green transition.
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4 Jul 2023: Net Zero Target: Population Increases
12:00
Population growth is taken into account when setting our decarbonisation goals. Specifically, it is accounted for in our baseline emissions projections, which help determine the effort required to meet our carbon targets.
[Source]
12:01
As my hon. Friend knows, the Prime Minister is absolutely determined to bring net migration down to sustainable levels. I would also point out to him that the UK does not set decarbonisation targets per capita, because all countries need to reduce emissions in absolute terms. We are determined to play our part in doing that—to move to net zero, but in a pro-growth, pro-business manner.
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3 Jul 2023: Road Fuel Prices
As the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, that perhaps stretches slightly beyond my brief, but, as those on Treasury Bench will have heard my hon. Friend’s question, I am sure that he will be able follow up with others who have direct responsibility.
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28 Jun 2023: Rosebank Oilfield: Environmental Impacts
11:18
The hon. Lady made reference to the Climate Change Committee. Lord Deben is coming to the end of a distinguished 10 years as chairman of that committee, which was set up in the Climate Change Act 2008 precisely to challenge Government, critique what we do and encourage further ambitious action. It is in no small part thanks to his leadership and his being waspish— I think his friends would say he was often waspish—from beginning to end that Governments have been challenged and driven to do what they should to deliver on climate. It is thanks to the Climate Change Committee and his leadership that this country has cut its emissions by more than any other major economy in the world since 1990. It is partly thanks to him that we have gone from the risible position, left by the Opposition when they left power in 2010, of generating less than 7% of our electricity from renewables to now generating well over 40%. As recently as 2012, nearly 40% of our electricity came from coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels. Next year, it will be 0%.
To move away from the specifics of the Rosebank development, I am proud to say that, unlike those of most other countries, the UK’s climate commitments are set in law. Of course, it was this Conservative Government who not only transformed the parlous state that we inherited from the previous Labour Administration, but set in law that we should move to net zero by 2050—we were the first major economy to do so. The UK is unswerving in its determination to meet its climate commitments, and has one of the most ambitious 2030 targets in the world. Between 1990 and 2021, we cut our emissions by 48% while growing the economy by 65%—we decarbonised faster than any other G7 or major economy. As we rapidly transition our energy systems, we are supporting emerging economies to do the same. We are advocating the phase-out of coal power and ending unabated fossil fuel use.
The reality is very different from the picture painted by the hon. Lady and those who intervened on her. This country, the most decarbonised major economy in the world, is more than 75% dependent on fossil fuels for its energy right now; that is the basis of this civilisation. Our aim is to accelerate the reduction in oil and gas use, but we recognise that they are essential to modern life, and will remain so for many years to come, including in the production of cement, steel, plastics, chemicals, medicines and fertilisers. We are a net importer of oil and gas, and a fast-declining producer, so I ask the hon. Lady not to use words such as “expansion”. By supporting new licences, we are moderating the savage decline in domestic production, and that is the right thing to do.
[Source]
11:26
We cannot make out that new projects would somehow cost the taxpayer, or be subsidised by the taxpayer. North sea production brings tens of billions of pounds into the UK Exchequer. It makes a material difference to our energy security because we produce it here at home. It also supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, which His Majesty’s Opposition and the Scottish National party have turned their faces against—and for what? Will there be an environmental gain? There will not be. It will not make a difference, by a single barrel of oil, to how much we consume. What it will do is lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, lose tens of billions of pounds for the Exchequer and lead to higher emissions. And it is worth the House recognising this killer point: it will remove the very supply chain that we need for the transition. The Climate Change Committee and every international body looking at this issue say that we need carbon capture, usage and storage, and we need hydrogen. Which companies, capabilities or engineering capacities are going to deliver those? It will be the jobs, people, balance sheets and skills that are vested in the traditional oil and gas companies, all of which are now involved in delivering the transition.
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6 Jun 2023: Net Zero: 2050 Target
17:19
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and to listen to this excellent and important debate. I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on securing it. Of course, I come to this debate with some trepidation, as I am facing someone who did my job previously and then, unlike me—yet, anyway—went on to be Secretary of State at what was then the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He made immense progress on our path to net zero and energy security
My right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne oversaw the publication of the landmark, world-leading net zero strategy. The independent Climate Change Committee described it as
“the world’s most comprehensive plan to reach net zero”.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne oversaw COP26, which was the biggest summit that this country has ever hosted. It brought together 120 world leaders and over 38,000 key figures from Governments, civil society, businesses, youth and more, in order to tackle the urgent challenge of climate change. It is also worth noting that we have met all our carbon budgets to date and that we are the first major economy to legislate for net zero—done under this Government. So this country is more on track than almost any other country and certainly more than any major economy on earth. That is the context that people could be forgiven for not realising was in fact the case from the rather adolescent contribution of the Scottish National party spokesman. I will leave to one side any comments that the chairman of the Climate Change Committee has made about the Scottish Government’s performance in meeting their climate targets, because doing otherwise would be to descend to the level that the SNP spokesman stayed at throughout his speech.
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17:23
That is an excellent question—we have exceeded every carbon budget to date. We not only have the net zero strategy but we had the net zero plan on 30 March, setting out how we will do it. Of course that stretches through to 2037. Not every aspect of the way in which we will fulfil that aim has been set out to date—people would not expect them to be 14 years before that date—but we are on track. What we have to do is make sure we stay on track. I would not try to represent to the House today anything other than the fact that it is an extremely challenging business to ensure that we continue on track. That is what we are working on flat-out.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne oversaw the publication of the British energy security strategy, which raised greatly the ambition set out in the net zero strategy, and since those documents came out the Government have continued to progress. In March, we published the Powering Up Britain package, which demonstrates that we are on track to reach net zero, and in the net zero growth plan we are bolstering delivery. That plan responds to the expert recommendations made in Mission Zero, the independent review of net zero, to which there has been reference in the debate, which explored how we can achieve net zero in the most pro-growth, pro-business way.
Our net zero ambition needs strong public and private partnership, and we are forging these links in a number of ways. Government policy and funding commitments are already leading to real outcomes, and we are leading the world in so many ways, not just on offshore wind.
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17:27
I thank the hon. Member for that question. It is a good question because the grid constraints, transmission and local connection are the biggest barriers standing in the way of decarbonising our electricity system by 2035. That is why the networks commissioner was asked to investigate that and will be reporting to us this month. That is why the Prime Minister appointed for the first time a Minister for Nuclear and Networks, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), who is working on that. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North is absolutely right to point out that the transformation we have seen in renewables, the change in our generation system and the requirement to grow our electricity capacity going forward puts enormous strain on that and creates not only supply chain, financing and deployment challenges in that space, but political ones because of the infrastructure impact on communities. A lot of work is going on in that space, and I am working closely with Scottish Government colleagues and other colleagues to try to ensure that we work in the most coherent manner possible.
We have heard mention in the debate of the need to improve the energy performance of homes across the country. Notwithstanding the transformation we have brought about—it is not enough—that is why we have established a new energy efficiency taskforce to drive forward improvements. That is why we are spending £12.6 billion over this Parliament and up to 2028 to support and provide long-term funding and certainty, supporting the growth of supply chains and ensuring that we can scale up delivery over time. Only yesterday I visited Octopus Energy’s centre, looking at how that company is trying to design heat pumps to be cheaper to install and more efficient, so they can drive the cost down and speed up the time it takes to install them, thus making the decarbonisation of heat in homes, which is a thorny and challenging subject, more realistic and deliverable.
The delivery of net zero relies on strong business action. That is why we brought together senior business and finance leaders into a new strategic net zero council co-chaired, alongside myself, by Co-op Group CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq. It includes Carl Ennis, CEO of Siemens; Ian Stuart, UK CEO of HSBC; Chris Hulatt, the co-founder of Octopus Investments, and others from UK business. The full membership reflects the cross-cutting nature of our net zero challenge. The next meeting is planned to be held in No. 10. We are mapping all the various business and sectoral organisations focused on net zero, looking to ensure that we have the most coherent architecture and that we can develop road maps for each sector, so that we can take the cross-cutting nature of Government in other policies and put it into something that people in particular sectors can more easily adjust to and adapt and that investors can invest in. The green jobs delivery group was formed after the publication of the net zero strategy and followed work by my right hon. Friend—
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23 May 2023: Oil and Gas Exploration: Subsidies
The Government do not subsidise fossil fuels exploration, and support international efforts to eradicate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and deliver net zero objectives. In addition, since 2021 no Government support has been provided to the sector overseas, including from UK Export Finance.
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Of course, we are a net importer of oil and gas and, if we do not produce domestic gas, for example, we will have more tankers— [ Interruption. ] We will have more tankers with higher emissions coming into this country. We will undermine a sector— [ Interruption. ] Oil, gas and renewables is effectively one sector— [ Interruption. ] It is very hard to get through my answer with all this enthusiastic barracking. It will undermine the energy security of this country if we do not produce oil and gas here while we are burning that. Thanks to the legislation of this Government, we can be confident that it is compatible with net zero because we have carbon budgets that are taking us there.
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23 May 2023: Net Zero Goals: Local Authorities
12:14
As a distinguished member of the Environmental Audit Committee, my hon. Friend has recently returned from the Arctic, where he saw the impacts of climate change. We recognise the importance of enabling local areas to play their part in delivering net zero. The net zero strategy and net zero growth plan set out our commitments on how we would help them to do exactly that.
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The Government invest £5 million a year in the local net zero hub programme. We have established the UK Infrastructure Bank, with an initial £12 billion of capital, for the twin goals of tackling climate change and levelling up, and it includes a specific loan facility for local government to deliver net zero. We are looking at other ways of enabling and encouraging local authorities to do more. The details of a devolution deal for retrofit pilots in Manchester and the west midlands will soon be worked out, and I look forward to that being pioneered.
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23 May 2023: Polluter Pays: Policy
11:51
I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the agreement at COP27 to establish funding arrangements for loss and damage under the Paris agreement. The main step that we are taking to help deliver that is the doubling of our climate finance to £11.6 billion between 2021-22 and 2025-26.
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The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that. Those on the frontline suffering the impact of climate change often have done least to contribute to it. It is important that we fulfil the pledges we have made, from Paris to the breakthrough agreement on loss and damage agreed at Sharm last year.
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23 May 2023: Green Industries: Jobs
11:45
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is quite right to highlight the need for innovation and for keeping us at the cutting edge of science. We committed £4.2 billion to net zero research and innovation over the period from 2022 to 2025. Just last week it was my privilege to open, up in Blyth, the Digital, Autonomous and Robotics Engineering Centre. In his area, and all over the country, green jobs offer a tremendous opportunity.
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11:45
What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the Government are working flat out to deliver that. I am looking to ensure that we strengthen the UK automotive industry as we move to zero-emissions vehicles.
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18 Apr 2023: Topical Questions
12:25
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the technical challenges. The Labour Government said in 2003 that CCUS implementation was urgent. No one thinks there is a route to 2050 without CCUS and, as she says, it is important not only that we make the investments we are making, but that we do so in a way that is compatible with the highest possible capture percentage.
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18 Apr 2023: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Sixth Assessment Report
We welcome the IPCC’s latest report. It is a synthesis of global scientific understanding and concludes that, in 2019, carbon dioxide levels were at their highest point in 2 million years, that rapid changes have occurred and that this has led to widespread adverse effects. It does also say that deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would lead to a discernible slowdown in warming within 20 years, but risks are increasing with each increment of warming. That is why we need the rest of the world to follow this country’s lead in cutting emissions and committing, as this Government have done, to net zero by 2050.
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I cannot comment on any specific measure, but what I can say is—the hon. Gentleman should recognise this—that we will be using oil and gas for decades to come as we move to net zero. It is estimated that we will require about a quarter of the gas we use today in 2050, and bringing it in from abroad in liquified natural gas tankers will simply mean much higher emissions than gas produced here, so it makes no sense. New licences will only go to slow the very fast decline we already have in North sea production; it will not see production overall increase. Even with continued exploration and development, oil and gas production is expected to decline in this country by 7% a year.
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I share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for the greening of British steel, as it is at the base of UK manufacture. I am sure he welcomed the “Powering up Britain” proposals, which I presented to the House just before the recess. Our plans for £20 billion of investment in carbon capture and pushing forward with the £240 million fund for hydrogen are exactly the measures we need to decarbonise British industry, and we are global leaders in that respect.
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18 Apr 2023: Clean Energy Technologies: Private Sector Investment
12:07
Our “Powering up Britain” plan seizes opportunities from our transition to a decarbonised energy system. Our policies, backed by billions of pounds of Government funding, will leverage around £100 billion of private investment and support up to 480,000 jobs in 2030. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of unlocking that private investment if we are to deliver our net zero ambitions.
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I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He shares my enthusiasm for leading the world in meeting our net zero challenge and, by doing so, developing technologies and then being able to export those solutions. He is right to highlight issues following the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, and making sure that in the negotiations with the US and other partners, critical minerals and other issues are dealt with. We are engaging solidly and I know my right hon. Friend was in Japan only last week, talking to Secretary Kerry about that point.
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The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the decarbonisation of heat remains a major challenge and we need to do more. With the launch of “Powering up Britain”, on which I made a statement to the House just before the recess, we are using £30 million of Government money to leverage £300 million in private investment, but I agree that we need to do more to change the trajectory if we are to meet the target of 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.
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30 Mar 2023: Powering Up Britain
The creation of a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in February was a clear statement of intent by this Prime Minister and this Government. Energy security and net zero are two sides of the same coin. Cheaper, cleaner, domestic sources of energy can break our link with reliance on imported fossil fuels, meet our long term energy needs, bring our bills down and keep them down.
“Powering Up Britain” announces the Government plans to diversify, decarbonise and domesticate energy production. The plans launched today will set out a blueprint for the future of energy in this country—boosting the UK’s energy security and energy independence—and help to achieve wholesale UK electricity prices that rank amongst the cheapest in Europe by 2035. It will underpin the UK’s clean energy transition, create new jobs and investment, protect consumers and businesses from volatile international energy markets, and drive us towards net zero by 2050. To meet this ambition, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will deliver:
Making a world-leading commitment to Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage : We are announcing the eight projects to progress to negotiations to form the first two CCUS clusters, in Wales, the North West and the East Coast of England, and that we will launch a process to enable expansion of those Track-1 clusters later this year. We are also launching the process for confirming the next clusters for deployment in Track-2. Our initial view is that Acorn and Viking are the leading contenders for Track-2 transport and storage systems.
Delivering a Hydrogen economy : Our 2030 hydrogen production ambition could generate enough clean electricity to power all of London for a year. We are announcing a suite of developments that get that ambition under way: confirming the first winning projects from the £240 million net zero hydrogen fund, naming the two CCUS-enabled hydrogen projects moving forward on the Track-1 clusters, publishing a shortlist of 20 projects we intend to enter due diligence with for the first electrolytic hydrogen allocation round (HAR1); and announcing our intention to open two further hydrogen funding rounds in 2023.
Accelerating deployment of renewables : Our goal is to develop up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 and to quintuple our solar power by 2035. We are opening the latest allocation round of the UK’s world leading contracts for difference (CfD) scheme to incentivise investment in renewable energy. UK levy funded support for renewable power since 2010 has totalled around £80 billion. The UK is a world leader in offshore wind and floating turbines represent the next frontier. We are launching £160 million of funding for pilots of the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme to build UK port infrastructure to further reduce the cost of offshore wind.
Reducing household bills by increasing energy efficiency : We are confirming plans for our new energy company obligation scheme the Great British insulation scheme, extending help to a wider group of households. This will mean that around 300,000 of the country’s least energy efficient homes could save £300 to £400 each year as part of a £1 billion energy efficiency programme by March 2026. This will form part of our work to meet our 15% demand reduction target by 2030 which will not only help lower bills, but also support our net zero objectives.
Decarbonising transport : We are signalling our long-term plans for decarbonising road and air travel, continuing to provide strong market signals and incentives to drive supply chain development. We are publishing a final consultation on the zero emission vehicle mandate: requiring that from 2024 an increasing percentage of manufacturers’ new car and van sales are zero emission. We are announcing more than £350 million investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. We are also consulting on a long-term trajectory for sustainable aviation fuel uptake in the UK through a mandate to be introduced from 2025.
Mobilising private investment : Our updated 2023 green finance strategy will strengthen the UK’s position at the forefront of the growing global green finance market while supporting the investment needed to meet our targets. This includes maximising the impact of the UK’s public financing institutions, for example through the UK Infrastructure Bank with its £22 billion of financial capital. It also sets out our pathway for the UK to become the world’s first net zero aligned financial centre, equipping the market with the information and tools necessary to meet this goal.
Supporting industry through the transition : The Government are exploring a package of potential carbon leakage measures to mitigate this risk at all stages of the UK’s net zero transition. Doing so will give industry confidence to invest in the UK in the knowledge their decarbonisation efforts will not be undermined. We are also announcing a new phase of the industrial energy transformation fund to support the development and deployment of technologies that enable businesses with high energy use transition.
Building on our COP26 Presidency : The UK will continue to lead internationally, building on our COP26 presidency. Two of the documents we are publishing today—the 2030 strategic framework for international climate and nature action and the HMG international climate finance strategy—show what this leadership will look like in practice. We are delivering on our commitments—including our £11.6 billion contribution from 2021-22 to 2025-26 to the $100 billion per year global climate finance goal for developing countries. Our international work delivers on the UK’s domestic agenda—improving energy security by accelerating the energy transition, bringing down costs of new technologies for our own net zero plans, and opening up huge economic opportunities for trade and investment.
Powering Up Britain—The Net Zero Growth Plan : which builds upon the plan laid out in the net zero strategy, strengthening delivery by focusing on the action we can take to ensure the UK remains a leader in the net zero transition, and meets our carbon budgets. We are also responding to the independent review of net zero, led by my right hon. Friend Chris Skidmore, and partly or fully acting on 23 of his 25 recommendations for 2025, demonstrating that the Government are committed to delivering our decarbonisation targets in a pro-growth way.
The importance of this Department is clear. The aims of this Department are clear. We will deliver for amongst the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, powered primarily by renewables, domestically sourced, ensuring the security of our energy supply. We will maintain our position as a global leader on the net zero transition, ensuring we bring the world with us to meet this global challenge. Making Britain an energy secure, net zero nation, is one of the greatest opportunities of our time. This Department, and the plans we have outlined today, lay the roadmap to get us there.
I will place copies of “Powering Up Britain—The Energy Security Plan”, “Powering Up Britain—the Net Zero Growth Plan”, the 2023 green finance strategy, 2030 strategic framework and international climate finance strategy in the Libraries of both Houses.
Powering Up Britain–The Net Zero Growth Plan.
NZGP annex–Government response to Net Zero Review.
UK International Climate Finance Strategy.
Consultation on addressing carbon leakage risk to support decarbonisation.
Net Zero Research & Innovation Delivery Plan.
Cluster sequencing for Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS): Track-2 guidance.
Notice on gov.uk announcing the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF) strands 1&2 competition winners.
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30 Mar 2023: Powering Up Britain
12:39
The much bigger challenge long term is to bolster our energy resilience as a nation, so that a tyrant like Putin can never again hit the pockets of every family and business in Britain. We must diversify, decarbonise and domesticate our energy supplies to secure the cheap, clean power that Britain needs to prosper in the future. That is why last month the Prime Minister created the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to give these two closely entwined objectives—energy security and net zero—the full and dedicated attention within Government that they clearly merit. It was a statement of intent to put energy security among the Government’s top priorities. By doing so, we will bring wholesale electricity prices down to among the cheapest in Europe by 2035, drastically reduce carbon emissions and deliver the long-term boost that our economy needs, using Britain’s unique talents and assets to drive the energy transition.
Following the Department’s launch just 50 days ago, I am pleased to announce how the Government will be powering up Britain, including through our energy security plan, which sets out the steps we are taking to become more energy independent by powering Britain from Britain, and through our net zero growth plan, which builds on the measures laid out in the net zero strategy to keep us on track to achieve our carbon budgets. That plan meets our statutory obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008 to respond to the Climate Change Committee’s annual progress report from 2022, and sets out a package of proposals and policies that will enable carbon budgets to be met, to ensure that Britain remains the leader among the fastest decarbonising nations in the world.
Before starting on the announcements, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for his excellent work in this area, investigating how to deliver net zero in a way that is both pro-growth and pro-business. In January, he submitted his detailed report and recommendations to Government. I can confirm that we are partly or fully acting on 23 recommendations of the independent review of net zero report’s 25 recommendations for 2025. On behalf of the whole House, I thank my right hon. Friend again for his work.
To drive our hydrogen ambitions, we are announcing a shortlist and funding for the first round of electrolytic hydrogen allocation, with a second round to come, and setting out our longer-term hydrogen plans. We are providing an extra £1 billion for energy efficiency upgrades through the new great British insulation scheme, and we are investing to speed up the market for heat pump installation to decarbonise home heating and leverage up to £300 million of overall funding, including private funding.
This country is already ahead of the game when it comes to decarbonising its economy. We are a global leader in offshore wind power and currently have the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm project, named after a town in my constituency: Hornsea 2. We also have the second, third and fourth largest offshore wind farm projects, but the measures we are unveiling today will accelerate our transition, rolling out existing technologies and bringing transformative new technologies to market.
We are truly on the verge of a new industrial revolution, but just like the first industrial revolution, investment will be key to our success, delivering not just energy security and ambitious reductions in carbon but the jobs, exports and productivity gains of the future. With that in mind, we are publishing today a new green finance strategy, which sets out a range of measures to mobilise private investment into net zero. That will support the UK in maintaining its position as a world-leading centre for green finance, and it sets us on a pathway to becoming the world’s first net zero-aligned financial centre.
It is imperative that we do not just focus on reducing emissions at home. The UK will work with international partners through the green transition to share the benefits of an improved environment that is good for business, because all economies need to take decisive steps to reduce their emissions. Indeed, increased investment in net zero technologies globally will unlock innovation and drive costs down, as well as create opportunities for green UK exports—in carbon capture and hydrogen, for example.
As such, today we are publishing two additional documents. The first is the 2030 strategic framework for international climate and nature action, which outlines our vision to halve global emissions, halt and reverse nature loss, and build resilience to climate impacts this decade. The second is the international climate finance strategy, which details our commitment to £11.6 billion of international climate finance up to 2025-26, after we pledged to double it. Both reinforce our climate leadership during what is a critical decade for delivery, showing that Britain is credible and committed to meeting its promises.
It is no exaggeration to say that Britain’s prospects as a nation, our ability to compete as an economy, and our capacity to decarbonise and tackle climate change all depend on energy security. Now, with a dedicated Department to deliver that vital objective, we will not only wean ourselves off fossil fuel imports but deliver cheaper, cleaner energy from domestic renewables and nuclear, protecting British households from turbulent international energy markets and creating hundreds of thousands of green jobs to level up Britain in the process. Making Britain an energy secure, net zero nation is one of the greatest opportunities of our time. Today, we have shown how we will grasp that opportunity for the benefit of everyone in this country for generations to come.
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In response to what the right hon. Gentleman said at the end of his words, three quarters of the power of this country today comes from fossil fuels, and we are the most decarbonised country in the G7. The right hon. Gentleman, the Labour party and the Scottish National party do not have a plan to stop using fossil fuels. What they have a plan for—this is unbelievable—is to make sure that we do not produce our own, that we import energy from abroad at the cost of billions and billions, that we make ourselves less energy secure, that we lose the 120,000 jobs, most of which are in Scotland, in the oil and gas industry and that we lose their capability to help deliver the hydrogen and carbon capture and storage industries upon which our decarbonisation path depends. The Labour party failed when it was in power. Its analysis of what it needs to do now is failing, too, and the British people will not be fooled.
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I thank my right hon. Friend and again pay tribute to him for all his work. This is the economic opportunity. If we look at a map of Europe, we can see the opportunity around the British Isles, and we will capture that energy. We are also blessed with around a third of all carbon storage in Europe. We can operationalise that to decarbonise the UK and provide a service to Europe, and we will do so. It will lead to the reindustrialisation of the north-west, north-east, Wales and Scotland. The opportunities are immense, and colleagues have been fighting hard.
On the NDC, we have set that ambitious world-leading 2030 target, and we are committed to delivering our commitments, including the 2030 NDC. [ Interruption. ] The right hon. Member for Doncaster North is a little out of touch. Countries are not due to start reporting to the United Nations framework convention on climate change on progress towards meeting NDCs until 2024, but we have quantified proposals and policies already to cover 92%, and we will go further. Just as we have done with our carbon budgets, we will exceed, not fall short. It was the Labour party that fell short on insulation and renewables; this party has a record of delivery, and our policies are supplemented by others that we have not quantified yet as we work hard to roll out these things. We will meet that 2030 target. We will continue our leadership role as arguably the only major economy in the world that is on that net zero pathway to 2050.
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I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for being such an active campaigner for Drax and probably the foremost champion of power BECCS in this place. He is absolutely right that power BECCS and Drax are critically important to this country and the future of our net zero strategy. There are no power BECCS projects going ahead in the first phase of the track 1 process due to infrastructure constraints. We remain committed to our ambitious CCUS targets, which include 5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas removals by 2030, and power BECCS has a key role to play in that. That is why we have put so much emphasis on track 1 expansion and track 2, both of which will get further CCUS projects operationalised by 2030. To respond to the specific point my right hon. Friend made, the Department totally understands that we need to work with Drax on a bridging option between 2027 and 2030, and the Secretary of State has charged our officials with working with Drax on what those options look like.
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I thank the hon. Lady for her question. [ Interruption. ] I think I was disappearing like a mouse underneath the Dispatch Box there. We of course made major announcements in the Budget. What today is all about is giving the detail of how we are going to unlock that. She raises the question of carbon capture and storage. There is not a way for us to get to net zero without using carbon capture and storage. I remember that it was said by the Labour Government in 2003, if I recall correctly, that it was urgent. Here we are, 20 years later, but I am delighted to say— [ Interruption. ] I am delighted to say that, having had to come into government with nobody insulated and practically no renewables, and a note on a piece of paper saying there was no money left, we are coming forward with proposals to put that right.
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13:13
To decarbonise industry, we will need CCS and hydrogen. We are socialising the funding requirements across the piece to ensure that we deliver what is necessary to meet our carbon targets, at the lowest possible cost to consumers. This year we are also consulting on measures to prevent carbon leakage, ensure that we do not drive UK industry abroad, which I know my right hon. Friend is concerned about, and instead maintain our competitiveness as we move towards net zero.
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13:18
No policy decision has been made in this area. We have consulted and gone out and found ideas about the best way of doing this. My right hon. Friend is right to identify that any system needs to take account of the particularities of certain property types, and we will ensure we do that so that we both align with net zero and align with the reality of existing properties.
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13:19
My hon. Friend will understand that I cannot make policy commitments to Wylfa on the hoof. What I can tell her is that it has already been assessed as one of the best nuclear sites in the UK and that if the energy focus, determination and sheer drive of the Member of Parliament has anything to do with it, Wylfa has a very positive and strong nuclear future ahead of it. I look forward to working with her. I am sure that if he has not visited already, the new Minister for Nuclear and Networks—the first time this country has ever had a Minister with “nuclear” in their title—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), will visit her in her constituency.
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13:19
We are accelerating renewables as quickly as we possibly can. As I say, we have transformed the dire situation we inherited and we are moving as fast as we can on that, but we are going to need, and be dependent on, oil and gas for decades to come. Under net zero, we will still be using a quarter of the gas we use today. The hon. Gentleman is saying to his constituents, “Let’s pay billions to foreign, sometimes hostile, states, rather than producing our own.” That is economic madness. The gas we bring in on tankers has two and a half times the emissions of our domestically produced gas. On what planet would any rational and reasonable constituency MP want to propose that, unless they had some strange affinity with somewhere like Russia?
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13:19
I thank my right hon. Friend who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), is relentless in promoting and pursuing these interests. He can see that moving towards net zero and capitalising on the huge natural assets around Wales, can contribute to jobs, prosperity and industrial renaissance, as well as help us to deliver the transition. I would be delighted to visit him. In answer to his earlier question, we want to do that as soon as possible. We announced the opening of it today. We want to move forward. We have to accelerate everything we can do right across the piece.
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13:39
I thank the offshore wind champion Tim Pick for all his work, as well as Nick Winser. I also take the opportunity to thank officials in the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, who have put a huge amount of work into producing all these policies and are working hard to ensure that implementation can follow as fast as possible. Officials in my new Department have absolutely shone and I look forward to taking forward our work with their help.
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22 Mar 2023: Solar Rooftop Installations
11:18
Deploying commercial and domestic rooftop solar is a key priority for the Government, and it is one of the most popular and easily deployed renewable energy sources, with 1 million homes now having solar panels installed. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion graciously referred to the progress that has been made, and I was delighted to see that. There were 138,000 installations last year—nearly as many as in the previous three years combined. In addition, we have around the same level of solar capacity as they do in the sunshine-radiated country of Spain, and more than that of France, so, on a comparative basis, I think we have been doing pretty well. I have rehearsed this fact many times, but it is always worth sharing that just 7% of our electricity came from renewables in 2010, before we had a Conservative-led Government, and it is now heading towards half. I am proud of that.
However, I agree with the hon. Lady that that is not enough. If we are to fulfil our net zero pledges and Government aspirations in this area, we need to go further. Solar can benefit households and businesses by allowing them to reduce electricity bills significantly and receive payment for excess electricity generated. Warehouses, distribution centres and industrial buildings with high electricity demand can also offer significant potential for solar deployment, which can rapidly pay for itself through energy bill savings. Projects can be installed quickly and relatively cheaply, and that creates new local jobs and contributes to a green recovery.
The British energy security strategy affirms that the Government will aggressively explore renewable technologies, including rooftop solar, to contribute to a net zero-compliant future. As the hon. Lady said, the report out this week, which gives us the latest update on the science, shows even more starkly how important it is that we and others move in a net zero direction. We expect a fivefold increase in solar deployment to 70 GW by 2035. That builds on the 14.5 GW capacity already deployed across large-scale ground-mounted solar and rooftop installations in this country.
In 2022, the Government removed VAT on solar panels and on solar panel and storage packages installed in residential accommodation in Great Britain. We are also providing fiscal incentives to encourage businesses to install rooftop solar—for example, through tax relief and business rate exemptions for installing and generating solar power. We also have the Government’s energy efficiency schemes, such as the social housing decarbonisation fund, the home upgrade grant and the energy company obligation, all of which include solar panels as an eligible measure, subject to certain requirements. That all makes rooftop solar even more accessible.
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11:25
As I said, our record to date is pretty good comparably, but we must consider what we need to do. It is not enough to be in the lead. Looking at various assessments of policy, we may be just about the only economy that is aligned with net zero by 2050 at the moment, but to stay on track we have to move ever more ambitiously forward.
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11:26
As I said, we are under a legal obligation to meet our net zero obligations, and we have set a target of that fivefold increase by 2035. We are open to argument, but we want to get the policy right. It is not our position that mandating solar on all appropriate roofs is the right policy now, but we are very open, and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and others to discuss this further. I look forward to developing arguments to get this right, and I am sure that that is what we all want. It is not about an obsession with mandating; we want to do that which will most increase the take-up of solar in an appropriate way.
I understand that up-front costs of solar might prevent households from installing, which is why the Government are working to facilitate low-cost finance from retail lenders for homes and small business premises, aligning with the recommendations in the Skidmore review on net zero. I meet regularly with financial institutions that have signed up to net zero and that are looking to work with us to come up with the right methods to provide the answer to the finance question, which was one of the hon. Lady’s points.
In conclusion, the Government have already taken decisive action to encourage the deployment of rooftop solar. We will strive to push even further over the coming year to make sure that rooftop solar plays an even more active part in meeting our decarbonisation targets. It helps to alleviate energy costs at this time, when energy security is at the top of the public mind, and it reduces reliance on imported energy.
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28 Feb 2023: Topical Questions
Seventy-seven per cent. of our energy today comes from fossil fuels. We will be using about a quarter of the gas we do today in 2050 under net zero. The idea that importing that, with higher emissions attached to it, rather than producing our own, is ridiculous environmentally, ridiculous economically and ridiculous in terms of maintaining the skills in the North sea that we are going to need for the transition, with hydrogen, carbon capture and other industries coming forward. I ask the Labour party to change its mind.
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12:30
We are under a legal duty to ensure that we move to net zero, and I am delighted that we are continuing to make progress. The hon. Lady will see announcements from the Government by the end of March on our net zero plans.
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28 Feb 2023: Solar Power
12:06
Solar is a cheap and versatile technology. It is a key part of the Government’s strategy for net zero and I share the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm for it. We are aiming for up to 70 GW of installed solar capacity by 2035, and that represents a fivefold increase in our current capacity.
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The planning system is designed to seek that balance with the need to secure a clean, green energy system. It is worth noting that ground-mounted solar has probably the lowest levelised cost of any form of energy in this country. The Government have clarified the definition of “best and most versatile” agricultural land as constituting lands in grades 1, 2 and 3a, and we do everything we can to incentivise that solar should go on brownfield land or land of lower agricultural value.
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28 Feb 2023: Tees Freeport: Net Zero
I continue to discuss with colleagues the contribution that all parts of the country can make to help meet the UK’s net zero targets, including freeports. I was delighted to visit last year and see the transformation being delivered by Mayor Houchen. For instance, SeAH Wind’s £400 million factory investment for offshore wind monopiles will sit alongside the £107 million South Bank Quay on the Tees.
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24 Feb 2023: Electricity Transmission (Compensation) Bill
12:58
Once again, may I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for introducing this important legislation? I am afraid that I am not the historian of legislation that I ought to be, so I have no idea whether any Member in history has ever managed to get two private Members’ Bills in a row put into law, but my right hon. Friend is a remarkable man, and he has shown that once again by successfully steering this Bill through. The machine, as ever, always responds by trying to kill it, but such is his dexterity, insight and flexibility that no attempt to kill it is successful, and he finds a way through to deliver something that will be good for everyone. I am pleased that all the amendments were accepted in Committee on 25 January, and I am delighted to offer my support for the Bill as the Minister of State in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Although the name of my Department may have changed, the position of the Government has not, and I can confirm that the Government are fully supportive of the Bill. One key priority of the new Department is ensuring that the UK is on track to meet its legally binding net zero commitment and support economic growth by significantly speeding up delivery of electricity network infrastructure and domestic electricity generation.
The nation will have been grateful for the speech made by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), but it seemed clear from its tone that the Labour party prefers appropriation to the reasonable treatment of people in delivering this. Of course, failing to engage properly with communities will slow down the transformation we need. People thinking they can ride roughshod over communities because they scream, “Climate emergency and urgency” is not the way to do it; we have to go with the grain of communities. We have to explain the narrative. What is our narrative? As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set out, we have a vision of delivering the most competitive, lowest-cost clean energy in Europe by 2035. That will have a transformative effect, not only in terms of our leading the world in reducing emissions, as we have done to date under this Government, but in enabling the re-industrialisation of the north, Scotland and Wales, with all the economic benefits that come with that. It is this Government, not the Labour party, who have delivered. When Labour left power in 2010 only 7% of our electricity came from renewables, but now it is nearly half. We are going further and faster, but making sure we do it in a way that works with the grain of communities, because if we ride roughshod over them, they will come back and will slow us down. To answer the hon. Lady’s point, this Bill will not slow down what we are doing; it will enable us to move at the speed required and make sure that we do so in a way that retains community support.
The Bill is about the building of network infrastructure, and the planning and consenting process. I thought it would be helpful to set out the Government’s commitments in this area and the work that is already under way. It currently takes about 12 to 14 years to build or reinforce new onshore electricity transmission network infrastructure, from the initial planning to the final completion and commissioning. The development of new transmission infrastructure is often on the critical path for the connection of new generation. The wonderful and extraordinary new generation that we have helped bring about, and are going to bring about in the future, is of no use if we do not have the infrastructure to get the electrons to where they need to go. The current position offers an unacceptable timeline when the electricity network is a critical enabler of our domestic energy production targets and our decarbonisation targets. We committed in the British energy security strategy to significantly reduce the timelines by about three years for delivering onshore transmission network infrastructure. We aspire to halve this end-to-end process by the mid-2020s. So we are working with developers and supply chains to increase pipeline visibility and certainty, to help accelerate the procurement.
The Government announced a review of the energy national policy statements to ensure that they reflect the policies set out in the energy White Paper net zero strategy and the British energy security strategy, and that we continue to have a planning policy framework that can deliver the investment required to build the infrastructure needed to ensure an independent, secure energy supply as we transition to net zero. The draft energy national policy statements were subject to parliamentary scrutiny, including by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which published its report and recommendations on 25 February. When analysing the responses to that consultation, we will take account of those and of any other resolutions as we go forward.
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6 Feb 2023: Prepayment Meters: Ofgem Decision
16:28
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the windfall tax and loopholes. We are investing in our energy security. While we are importers of oil and gas, as we will be under net zero all the way to 2050, the absurd position set out by the Leader of the Opposition is that Labour will oppose any new oil and gas licences, meaning that we pay billions to other countries to import it. There is no magic bullet to stop us using fossil fuels immediately. This Government have accelerated the move to renewables as fast as possible and will continue to do so, but it is absurd to have a policy under which we pay billions to countries abroad to produce oil and gas that we could produce at home to ever higher carbon standards.
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16:52
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The cost of energy has gone up, and despite extraordinary interventions by the Government, families are none the less finding it harder as a function of the Ukraine war and of global energy prices. That is why this Government have gone so fast in moving ourselves to cheaper renewable energy and away from the—what was it?—just 7% of energy that came from renewables when the right hon. Member for Doncaster North left office. Now that figure is well over 40%. We are going to move to a cleaner, greener and cheaper system that will be better for consumers in Wales.
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6 Feb 2023: Draft Nuclear Regulated Asset Base Model (Revenue Collection) Regulations 2023
18:03
Since the passage of that legislation, the Government have taken the historic step of investing in Sizewell C —our first investment in a nuclear project for 35 years—and designated it as the first project to use the RAB funding model. The regulations implement the legislative framework behind the RAB revenue stream. Although they are not specific to Sizewell C, approving the draft instrument is a further step towards establishing a model that could support the development of the Sizewell C project and multiple nuclear projects in the future. That will ultimately contribute to a resilient, affordable and low-carbon electricity system, helping us to achieve our net zero ambitions and providing energy security for the British people.
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18:03
As the hon. Gentleman will know, Hinkley was done on a different basis, with a strike price that was agreed with EDF Energy, CGN Europe Energy and others. It is completely different. I would have thought the hon. Gentleman knew that, with the close interest that he takes in knocking nuclear at every effort without ever reading the science or seeing the importance of nuclear to delivering the net zero future that we all hope for.
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18:10
I will give the hon. Gentleman one more opportunity to justify his clearly unreasonable opposition to nuclear, even when it offers a clean, net zero-compliant future and lower bills for people up and down the country, including in Scotland.
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18:49
Let me reply to some of the numerous questions that have been asked. On the issue of investment in Sizewell C, we know from conversations with multiple investors that there is a strong interest in supporting infrastructure that delivers energy security and net zero. The importance of nuclear has been made even clearer by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and we are not exactly alone in holding that view. Among others, the Climate Change Committee, the International Energy Agency and the UN Economic Commission for Europe have all highlighted the role for new nuclear electricity-generating capacity. The UN Economic Commission was particularly clear—perhaps the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun will take it up with them—that
“the world’s climate objectives will not be met if nuclear technologies are excluded”
from decarbonisation policy solutions. His ideological opposition to nuclear flies in the face of the science, global opinion and the UN, among others.
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31 Jan 2023: Green Energy Potential: Scotland
19:28
Let me begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on securing this Adjournment debate. I agree with him that green energy in Scotland has a great future, and it plays a key role in bolstering the UK’s energy security and driving greater energy security for the nation as a whole. That will be important in ensuring a cost-efficient energy system consistent with net zero, while creating value for money for consumers and taxpayers. I am also grateful to the other Members who have contributed, through interventions, to the debate.
The right hon. Gentleman has made some interesting points. There was precious little praise from him for any Government policy. He said that some might regard him as taking normal trite separatist lines, which is true. The truth is that Scotland, which has a population lower than that of Yorkshire, disproportionately, per capita, is able to invest in green energy through the CfD system. It is able to do so because of the levy, effectively paid through the CfD, which is from all the bill payers of Great Britain. That is allowing the transformation of Scottish energy. Without that—without the base of all the electricity and gas bill payers across this country—Scotland would not be able to deliver the huge potential that it has. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that green energy is an argument for independence, I would say to him and his separatist colleagues that the absolute opposite is true. It is access to the whole of Great Britain, the integration with all the bill payers of Great Britain, that is allowing Scotland, as part of this United Kingdom, to lead the world. Of course, he talks in the way that, sadly, he and his separatist colleagues always have done. They are always talking down what we are doing. We have done more on offshore wind than any other country in Europe. We are second only to China in the world now and we transformed the economics of it. That was this UK Government, this Conservative Government.
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19:32
The right hon. Gentleman suggested in some way that the UK Government lacked ambition. This is a Government who hosted COP26, who led the world from 30% of GDP covered by net zero pledges to 90%, who were the first of any major economy to legislate through the Climate Change Act 2008 and to move to put net zero into law. Ambition is not something that this country lacks at all. The right hon. Gentleman did not reflect any of that progress. We have led Europe and we have led the world and people would not know that if they listened to the right hon. Gentleman.
The Government have committed fully to decarbonise the electricity system by 2035 subject to security of supply. Our carbon budget 6 trajectory suggests that we will need to build all low-carbon technologies at or close to their maximum technical limit to meet the twin challenge of accelerating decarbonisation and servicing increased demand.
We are absolutely committed as a Government to the renewables industry across the UK. Scotland has benefited from, and will continue to benefit from, UK investment in energy and energy efficiency. The Secretary of State has received a letter from the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport outlining Scotland’s energy strategy proposals. The Secretary of State is considering those and will respond in due course.
Since we are talking about ambition, I note that this is about not just ambition, but delivery. The Climate Change Committee reported in December:
“Scotland’s lead in decarbonising over the rest of the UK has now been lost. Progress is now broadly the same as the UK as a whole. There are now glaring gaps in the Scottish Government’s climate plan and particular concerns about the achievement of the 2030 goal to cut emissions by 75%”.
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Hydrogen and carbon capture utilisation and storage will be critical to delivering UK energy security, highly-skilled jobs and economic growth, and will help the UK to reach net zero. That is why we have set an ambition of up to 10 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, including four—yes, four—CCUS clusters by 2030. Scotland has a key role to play in that and other areas. I must now come to a close, but I thank the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate.
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25 Jan 2023: Electricity and Gas Transmission (Compensation) Bill
09:31
The electricity network is fundamental to accelerate our ambitions for net zero and energy security. Since taking on my role and seeing the vast amount of technology we need to deploy, I return again and again to the same point: if we do not get the grid right, whatever we do is affected, whether that is space energy; small modular nuclear reactors; hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage; or floating offshore wind. Whatever it is, without the grid we will not have a transformation, which we have to do at a most remarkable pace.
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24 Jan 2023: Nuclear Power: Dungeness
11:12
Dungeness has a proud place in the UK’s nuclear history, with two nuclear power stations. As my hon. Friend said, Dungeness A opened in 1965, providing 40 years of operation, and Dungeness B was the first advanced gas-cooled reactor to be constructed in the UK, generating enough low-carbon energy to meet the needs of every home in Kent for more than 50 years. The Government recognise the important role that nuclear energy has to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, in ensuring our energy security—if the last year has shown us anything, it is the importance we need to put on energy security in the decades ahead—and, as my hon. Friend set out so well, in providing highly skilled jobs that underpin a clean and prosperous economic future. That is why we published the British energy security strategy in April 2022, making a firm commitment to new nuclear. The strategy set out a stretching programme with an ambition to deploy up to 24 GW of nuclear power by 2050, which would represent, on current estimates, around 25% of projected electricity demand in the UK economy.
More widely, we are providing greater funding to support future nuclear development, which includes the £120 million future nuclear enabling fund to support new nuclear projects, including SMRs, and the £75 million nuclear fuel fund, as we seek to get ourselves and our allies off dependence on Russian uranium. To reflect the changing technological and policy landscape, and to support the transition to net zero, the Government will develop a new national policy statement—NPS—for nuclear energy infrastructure deployable after 2025. That will be subject to the usual process of public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny in due course.
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11:21
In conclusion, the Government are putting in place a wide range of measures to help achieve our nuclear ambitions and support the transition to net zero. We look forward to continuing to engage with all interested parties, including from the Dungeness community, as we develop the new policy framework for the siting of new nuclear projects. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for securing this important debate and making a strong and early case—with the impeccable timing I expect from him—ahead of new siting policy and development. I look forward to continuing to engage with him on this important matter, and to meeting him and his local representatives in due course.
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18 Jan 2023: Electric Vehicle Battery Production
12:41
The automotive industry is a vital part of the UK economy, and it is integral to delivering on levelling up, net zero and advancing global Britain. We will continue to take steps to champion the UK as the best location in the world for automotive manufacturing as we transition to electric and zero-emission vehicles.
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12:45
The hon. Gentleman is right about one thing: there is a tremendous opportunity. That is why we have the automotive transformation fund. That is why we did thorough due diligence on Britishvolt. It is because we set conditions around milestones that it had to meet that not a penny of that fund was dispensed to Britishvolt. However, I make no apology for supporting companies that are going to be part of that opportunity. The idea from the Labour party is that, if it were in power, it would build these factories. That is not how the economy works. That is why, in 2010, after 13 years of Labour Government, we saw youth unemployment up by more than 40%. That is the truth. We saw communities such as Blyth left behind and ignored. We saw an economic strategy that did not work for our young people and did not contribute to net zero in the way that it should. On the underpinning energy system, a bit more than 7% of our electricity came from renewables when Labour left power. Now it is more than 40%.
The net zero strategy announced £350 million for the automotive transformation fund. That was in addition to the £500 million announced as part of the 10-point plan. That is why we are seeing investment. That is why we have nearly full employment. That is why we have factories and manufacturing going ahead in a way that would never happen under Labour.
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I thank my right hon. Friend, whose economic insights I always value and appreciate. However, we are committed to electric and zero-emission vehicles and we will not stimulate investment in those sectors by removing the mandates that drive consumer choice and have led to such a significant change in our road transport emissions. We are going to have even more ambitious steps.
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12:48
I share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for the opportunities that come from net zero. That is why we are moving so hard on nuclear, which of course anybody who is not a prisoner of some ideological opposition and is genuinely committed to green energy would support. We are supporting that across the piece. I do not think that Conservative Members will take lessons on industrial intervention from Scottish nationalists after their shipbuilding enterprises in the north.
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12:49
I thank my right hon. Friend, before whom I appeared this morning on the subject of delivering nuclear power, for which I noticed there were no Scottish nationalists present. He is absolutely right about the need to have those batteries in place and, as I have said, that is what the automotive transformation fund, among others, is designed to do. The automotive sector generated £58.7 billion in turnover and £14 billion in GVA in 2021 and we are committed to ensuring that it goes forward successfully. I look forward to working with the former Secretary of State to make sure that we do have those factories in this country, which is absolutely vital to make sure that, on British roads, there are zero-emission vehicles that are produced here and that jobs are created here as a result of that.
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12:49
The hon. Gentleman, who is himself a distinguished Chair of a Select Committee, is right to highlight some of the pressures from IRA in the United States and the response from the EU. We have to ensure that we have policies in place and I look forward— [ Interruption. ] In the coming weeks, we will be coming forward with our green finance strategy and our response to the Climate Change Committee. In hydrogen, carbon capture and so many of these industries, the UK is world leading. We are determined to ensure through a raft of different policies—I know his Select Committee will be scrutinising them—that we retain that position, which has transformed the UK from where it was in 2010, when there was higher unemployment and so little progress on net zero.
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12:49
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The Government have prioritised securing investment in battery cell gigafactories. As Members have been right to say, this is key in anchoring the mass manufacture of electric vehicles in the UK, safeguarding jobs and driving emissions to net zero by 2050. On 1 July 2021, Envision AESC announced investment in its gigafactory in Sunderland. On 18 July last year, Johnson Matthey confirmed investment in the construction of a factory for PEM—proton exchange membrane—fuel cell components for use in hydrogen vehicles to be located at its existing site in Royston, Hertfordshire. We have to keep on going with that and, as she says, build that investment and make sure we have the policies in place to bring that investment here.
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I would be delighted to have that meeting. As I say, as part of the green finance strategy, about which I had a cross-Whitehall ministerial meeting just this morning, we are determined to make sure that this is the most investable place on earth for the net zero transition and the best place for companies to build businesses, including gigafactories.
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11:30
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and his consistency, but if he looks at energy costs at the moment he will find that it is the sky-high prices of fossil fuels that are causing the problems. There is consensus across the House, of which he is not quite a part, that renewables and the Government policy of building them at scale are bringing the lowest cost energy to the grid. The contract for difference companies are paying hundreds of millions of pounds into subsidised bills because under the CfD mechanism, while they were guaranteed a figure with high prices that are driven by gas prices, they are now contributing and lowering bills. It is precisely more renewables and more green energy that we need in order to have a more affordable grid for our industry and our residents.
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11:30
In the net zero strategy it was announced that there would be £350 million of funding for the automotive transformation fund, in addition to the £500 million announced as part of the 10-point plan.
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13:09
We are engaging with the Department for International Trade—as I hope the presence in the Chamber of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade Policy indicates—to make that case to investors. We have the green finance strategy, as I say, and our response to the Climate Change Committee and to the judicial review are coming up in the coming weeks, sending a real signal of the investability of the UK in the green sectors. I know that the hon. Gentleman, perhaps unlike the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), is an enthusiast because he can see the economic opportunity; if the hon. Gentleman can use the few feet between the two of them to educate his right hon. Friend, he will be an even greater politician than I thought he was already.
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his—as ever—courteous question. He is right about the importance of Northern Ireland playing its part in the automotive industry as we move to zero-emissions vehicles. I look forward to having the opportunity to discuss this issue and others later this week when I visit Strangford lough with him to hear about that particularly successful technology.
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17 Jan 2023: Topical Questions
The levelling-up White Paper outlined that the new UK shared prosperity fund will support interventions that reinforce the Government’s commitment to net zero by 2050. That includes £2.6 billion of funding for investment in places, including for community infrastructure projects.
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12:26
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the need for skills and training if we are to meet our ambitious net zero targets. On 20 September, the Government launched the latest phase of the £9.2 million home decarbonisation skills training competition, which will fund training for people working in the energy efficiency, retrofit and low-carbon heating sectors in England. We are confident that there is enough training capacity to meet demand for heat pump upskilling as heat pump deployment increases.
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11 Jan 2023: Fossil Fuels and Cost of Living Increases
10:34
However, listening to quite a lot of the contributions to the debate, I felt as if we were in some sort of parallel universe, away from the reality of the world we live in today. Three quarters of our energy comes from fossil fuels. That is the reality now. The cost of living crisis is driven by a global shortage of fossil fuels, which is driving up their price. We are moving faster than any other G7 country to decarbonise, which no one would have understood from listening the contributions from those on the Opposition Benches. We led the world in passing legislation for net zero, and in putting in place the Climate Change Committee and the rest of it to keep the Government honest on the route to getting there, which is a tough one.
The reality is that this economy, like every developed economy, is dependent on fossil fuels today, and it will be all the way through to 2050 on net zero, when we will still be using a quarter of the gas that we use today and we will still need oil products. That is the context, which people just absolutely would not have got a glimpse of from the contributions by Members on the other side of the Chamber today. We heard them all pat each other on the back on their ideological opposition to nuclear and their objection to a source of baseload energy that is clean—for what reason? We heard an absurd world view, co-ordinated between the SNP, the Greens and His Majesty’s Opposition. Frankly, it is bizarre. Get real about where we are actually at.
To talk, as the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) did, about the crisis and its impact on the most vulnerable people in his constituency and not be honest about the context or the need for oil and gas in the meantime, and not to engage with the fact that producing oil and gas from our own waters with ever-higher efforts to reduce the emissions from that production, is simply wrong. And for the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) to say that it is laughable to suggest that burning domestically produced gas with much lower emissions attached to it, when we must burn gas and we will be doing so under net zero in 2050, is somehow not the right thing to do is, again, frankly absurd.
The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) totally condemned every action by this Government, as though nothing the Government have done has helped in the journey to net zero or in tackling climate change. This Government have done more than any other and taken action on the woeful situation on energy efficiency in homes. We are still way behind where we need to be, but where were we in 2010? I will tell people where we were: just 14% of homes had an energy performance certificate of C or above. If people want something risible or laughably poor, that is it. What is that figure today? Forty-six per cent. We heard nothing but condemnation from the hon. Member for Bristol East, who spoke for the Opposition, about the “shambles” of this Government’s policy. Well, under our policy, we have moved from 14% to 46%.
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The Government are driving a reduction in our demand for fossil fuels, and we have achieved a lot on our road to net zero already. Between 1990 and 2019 we grew the economy by 76% yet cut our emissions by 44%, decarbonising faster than any other G7 economy. But oil and gas will remain an important part of our energy mix, and that needs to be recognised. People should not suggest that there is some button that we are wilfully failing to press. We cannot switch off fossil fuels overnight and expect to have a functioning country. If we do not have a functioning country, we will have more people who cannot afford to heat their homes properly. That is the reality, and I do not think that has been properly reflected by Opposition Members today.
Supporting our domestic oil and gas sector is not incompatible with our efforts on decarbonisation when we know that we will need oil and gas for decades to come. What is laughable is to suggest that it is somehow morally superior to burn liquid natural gas imported from foreign countries, with much higher emissions around its transportation and production, than gas produced here. Why would we want to do that?
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There are 120,000 jobs, most of them in Scotland, dependent on oil and gas. I was delighted to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding with three major oil and gas companies looking to decarbonise their operations west of Shetland and bring down their production emissions. Emissions from oil and gas production in this country—remember how fast it is waning—are still around 4% of our overall emissions. The idea is to incentivise companies that are massively taxed to invest in electrification of their production. We need oil and gas for decades to come. If we can, we should produce it here rather than import it from somewhere else, and we should incentivise and ensure that production here is as green as possible. That is why it is not incompatible.
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10:50
Even when our net zero targets are met in 2050, we will still need a quarter of our current gas demand. As we have seen, constrained supply and dramatically increased prices do not eliminate demand for oil and gas. We will still need oil and gas, so it makes sense for our domestic resources to retain the economic and security benefits. Most importantly, hon. Members should look at what we are doing in the North sea basin. We are transitioning, but we will need all that offshore expertise. We need the engagement of the major oil players, which have now made commitments to their journey to net zero. We want them to produce the oil and gas that we will be burning for decades to come here in a green way.
We want to retain those 120,000 jobs. We want to retain the people with subsea and platform knowledge, because we will need that for carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and the transition to the green economy. Again, it is an absolute betrayal not only of the interests of those workers in Scotland and elsewhere but of our transition to suggest that there is a kind of brake. It is a transition, and we are moving through it. Thanks to the Climate Change Act and the carbon budgets, we are on track to reduce demand.
Through our COP presidency, we have encouraged the rest of the world to follow us. Just 30% of global GDP was covered by net zero pledges in 2019, when we took on the COP presidency, and it is now 90%, so the world is following us. We are leading on those policies. We are a world leader in tidal, which was mentioned. I am delighted that we have now been overtaken by China in offshore wind, but we are the leader in Europe. We transformed the economics of it thanks to our contracts for difference—the mechanisms that this Government put in place. The truth is that this country has done comparatively a fantastic job. The data shows—notwithstanding the sometime mis-steps in energy efficiency—that, overall, our performance compared to what came before has been transformative,
On so many fronts, this country—and this Government, I am proud to say—is doing a brilliant job in leading the world in understanding the importance of getting to net zero, in tackling the reality of the transition from our dependence on fossil fuels, and on the need to keep producing those things in the greenest manner possible while doing everything we can to drive down demand, because it is the demand signal that we need to eradicate, rather than worrying about whether Rosebank, Cambo or anything else goes ahead. We have ensured through the climate change checkpoint that we look closely at that, and I am confident that our approach is compatible with the journey to net zero.
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10:53
I will make a final point and then sit down before you force me to, Sir Robert. We need top-down, we need the high-level policy and we need the funding. We have that from His Majesty’s Treasury, and we have the commitment on the energy efficiency taskforce, which has a positive role to play, but it also needs to look at how we galvanise the real will and desire there is across different parties running councils across the country, in different communities, to have a bottom-up approach to empower and enable communities and regions to do their bit to tackle net zero. A big focus of their work will be energy efficiency, understanding and surveying their housing and other building stock to come up with plans to build the required skills base, ensuring a career for people who enter that world. Through that, we can make a real difference.
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10 Jan 2023: Strangford Lough: Tidal Wave Energy
19:19
As the hon. Gentleman rightly highlighted, we are here not just to think about the short term and this winter, but to look to next winter and all the winters to come, as we seek to build a secure energy supply that drives up growth, drives down bills and meets our net zero ambitions. The best way to do that is by investing in affordable, reliable, clean energy, because energy security and net zero go hand in hand.
The Government take their net zero commitment absolutely seriously. If we are to accelerate away from fossil fuels, rolling out renewable energy is fundamental. That is why, in last year’s British energy security strategy, we reaffirmed our commitment to renewables. That means making the absolute most of the opportunities that our geology and geography afford us to deploy transformative technologies, as the hon. Gentleman highlighted. Of course, tidal is an element of that. Tidal stream energy is a home-grown industry with considerable promise to deliver affordable, clean, secure energy for households and businesses across the country. I could not be more proud of the fact that we are leading the world in deploying offshore wind, which is another technology. Off the coast of my Beverley and Holderness constituency, there is the biggest wind farm in the world, joining the second, third and fourth largest windfarms in the world, with all of them generating energy from the high winds of the North sea.
Of course, with Britain being Britain, the weather can change from windy and sunny to still and cloudy in seconds. Even when that happens, we can still rely on the tides, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said. Tidal energy provides an opportunity to boost the resilience and diversity of our renewable energy system. It is an area where, with a raft of brilliant developers designing and building tidal stream devices in the UK, we currently lead the world. As he rightly said, let us not blow the opportunity that that provides us.
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19:26
Much of the success of tidal stream to date is down to contracts for difference, which the Government have produced and which I am delighted about. This is our flagship mechanism for supporting the cost-effective delivery of renewable energy, ensuring that the nation’s tidal stream innovators have the opportunity to bring down the costs of the technology and learn the lessons from being the first in the world to deploy it at scale. I am sure that Members were, like me, delighted that last year the Government established a ringfenced budget of £20 million for tidal stream developments in pot 2 of the fourth contracts for difference allocation round. This saw four tidal stream projects win contracts totalling 40 MW at a strike price of £178.54 per MWh. To put that into perspective, only 36 MW of tidal stream was deployed worldwide between 2010 and 2020. This is the first time that tidal stream power has been procured at this scale.
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19:28
The energy transition must involve each and every part of our United Kingdom. As an integral part of the UK, that of course means Northern Ireland where, energy being a devolved matter, contracts for difference do not actually operate. However, in the Northern Ireland energy strategy, Northern Ireland set out a path to net zero energy and to meet 70% of electricity consumption from a diverse mix of renewable sources by 2030. The Government are committed to supporting Northern Ireland to succeed in that. If we are to get it right, places like Strangford lough will be critical.
It is not just Strangford lough; we continue to invest in renewable energy across Northern Ireland. Through UK Research and Innovation, we have provided Artemis Technologies with £33 million from the Strength in Places fund to drive the decarbonisation of maritime transport. Last year, Wrightbus secured an £11.2 million investment from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to develop a low-cost hydrogen fuel cell technology and create a hydrogen centre of excellence—all part of a £54 million package.
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7 Dec 2022: Marine Renewables: Government Support
10:43
The British energy security strategy affirms that the Government will aggressively explore renewable technologies, including the potential of tidal power to contribute to a net zero-compliant future. Members will have been delighted that the Government established a ringfenced budget of £20 million for tidal stream developments in pot 2 of the fourth contracts for difference allocation round—AR 4—which has been referred to.
The CfD scheme is our flagship mechanism for supporting the cost-effective delivery of renewable energy. That support will ensure that the nation’s tidal stream innovators get the opportunity they need to bring their cost of energy down and learn the valuable and exportable —a point made by a number of hon. Members—lessons that come with being the first in the world to deploy a cutting-edge technology at scale.
The Government have delivered for the burgeoning tidal stream industry. It is now time for the developers to push on, to make good on their promises and their potential and to demonstrate the value for money and scalability that we need from our renewable energy technologies as we transition to an efficient and net zero-ready power sector.
We hope that other technologies can follow offshore wind in its remarkable reduction in price over just two auctions—from 2015 to 2019 it went from £120 per megawatt-hour to £39.50—but we cannot assume that just because it happened with offshore wind, it will happen with everything. We want to create genuine competitive tension between the technologies because we want not only to take an accelerated path to net zero but to do so in a way that, in the end, brings the UK the lowest and most competitive electricity costs as a base part of our energy system. That will put us in a position to be able to keep energy affordable for families but also make us industrially competitive. There is so much to play for. We have got to get the balance right, and CfDs have done a great job so far.
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10:55
There are two BEIS overseas funding streams that EMEC may be able to apply for in partnership with developers: the first is the £1 billion net zero innovation portfolio that provides support for research and development, and the second is the energy entrepreneurs fund, which provides small grants to developers of innovative energy technologies. In May this year, BEIS awarded a £5 million grant to a hydrogen technology developer based at EMEC. Two of the CfD AR4 projects are, of course, also based at EMEC, and will be paying lease fees to EMEC from 2026. There are a number of things there, but as I have said, I am happy to meet and discuss it.
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6 Dec 2022: Sustainable Energy Generation: Burning Trees
Policy decisions need to be based on facts and rigorous evidence gathering, not on inaccuracies and misconceptions. The use of biomass from sustainably managed forests in well supported by evidence and experts such as the International Energy Agency, which is the global authority on energy, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which I would have thought that Members present would regard as being particularly well placed to make judgments on the balances that need to be struck in coming up with policy, yet the tenor of today’s debate is to dismiss these global experts and the different organisations that have looked at this issue extensively and come to the conclusion that the use of biomass is sustainable and right.
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29 Nov 2022: Topical Questions
12:30
Our use of oil and gas in this country is falling as part of our pathway to net zero. It is usage that drives the burning of oil and gas, and it is on the downward pathway. Producing our own oil and gas when we will be burning it on our net zero pathway domestically is sensible. It is good for Scottish jobs—although sadly opposed by the Scottish nationalists—it is good for the British economy and it is entirely net zero compliant. That is why we will continue to manage the mature and declining basin that is the North sea.
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29 Nov 2022: Community Energy Sector
11:48
I thank the hon. Lady for her typically partisan contribution. [ Interruption. ] She is always consistent, and her Front-Bench colleagues rightly point out that I have some things in common with her. The rural community energy fund has provided £8.8 million in development grants for 208 projects focusing on a variety of technologies, which I am pleased to say include solar, wind, low-carbon heating and electric vehicle charging. The Government will be delighted to work with the devolved Administrations and others to drive forward our pathway to net zero.
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25 Nov 2022: COP27: UK Presidency
After COP26 we were able to say with credibility that we kept the pulse of 1.5°C alive. We welcome the progress made at COP27, but there is no cause for complacency.
We have seen progress since COP26 during our presidency year, and outstanding work is taking place to cement the gains of the Glasgow climate pact. A full breakdown of progress has been captured in the “Presidency’s Outcomes” publication, and I will place a copy in the Libraries of both Houses.
In the challenging geopolitical context and amidst a global energy crisis, the UK’s objective at COP27 was to secure continued delivery of the Glasgow climate pact, make further progress to keep 1.5° in reach and support those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pledged at COP27 to speed up the transition to renewables to create new high-wage jobs, protect UK energy security and deliver on net zero.
With regard to support for the most vulnerable, the Prime Minister reinforced that the UK is delivering on the commitment of £11.6 billion in international climate finance, and made a number of other financial announcements within this: the tripling of funding for climate adaptation from £500 million in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2025; recommitting to spend £1.5 billion on forests; £90 million for conservation programmes in the Congo basin; £65 million in funding for the nature, people and climate investment fund; and £65.5 million for the clean energy innovation facility.
In parallel to COP27, at the G20, leaders agreed to implement fully their Glasgow climate pact commitments to limit global warming to 1.5°C and accelerate coal phase-down and the transition to clean energy.
To demonstrate delivery on COP26 commitments, we hosted a series of high-level side events at COP27 which helped to drive progress on the key sectoral areas: the breakthrough agenda, forests and nature, energy transition and zero-emission vehicles. Events at the UK pavilion covered a range of topics, including finance, adaptation, indigenous leadership, youth and education, gender, forests and nature, energy and sustainable agriculture.
The deal in Egypt also preserves the historic commitments to keep 1.5° alive that countries agreed to last year in the Glasgow climate pact. The UK rallied nearly half the parties to push for further ambition, including on fossil fuels and peaking global emissions before 2025. Those were not taken up by the presidency, but we did secure a reiteration of the commitment made in Glasgow for countries to revisit their NDCs before the end of 2023 to ensure that they are aligned with the Paris agreement, as the UK has done. Progress was made on the work programmes on mitigation and adaptation agreed in Glasgow, on carbon markets and on the new post-2025 finance goal.
Just energy transition partnerships were pioneered with UK leadership at COP26. At COP27, a joint statement on the South Africa investment plan was published during the world leaders’ summit, while the Prime Minister joined other world leaders announcing the Indonesia JETP at the G20 summit in Bali.
The Government are grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) and his team for their service and leadership as COP presidency over the past two and half years. The UK will continue to deliver net zero in the UK and to support other countries in their own transitions, ensuring we leave no communities behind and keep 1.5°C alive. We will use all our levers—including through the G7 and G20, our bilateral partnerships, our climate finance, trade and diplomacy, as well as our deep UK expertise and track record—to uphold the legacy of COP26, and we will continue to work with all countries through to COP28 in the UAE.
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7 Nov 2022: Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2022
18:00
That the Committee has considered the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2022.
The UK emissions trading scheme, the UK ETS, was established under the Climate Change Act 2008 by the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020 as a UK-wide greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme to encourage cost-effective emissions reductions, contributing to the UK’s emissions reduction targets and net zero goal. The scheme replaced the UK’s participation in the European Union ETS, and the 2020 order applied existing rules on the monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions, with modifications to ensure that they work for the UK ETS. The purpose of this order is to amend the 2020 order to enable the inclusion of flights from Great Britain to Switzerland within the scope of the UK ETS.
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As to why we cannot currently do so, legislation for the UK ETS is made under the Climate Change Act 2008. The powers are devolved, and therefore exercisable only by the Secretary of State for England and by the respective devolved Administrations for the other nations of the UK. Where all agree, joint legislation can be made for the whole of the UK by the Privy Council. The heart of the matter is that under the terms of that Act, scheme expansion requires an affirmative instrument. The Northern Ireland Assembly has not been able to debate and approve instruments, so it is not currently possible to make legislation that extends to Northern Ireland. The draft order has already been approved by the Scottish Parliament and by the Senedd. If approved by both Houses of Parliament, the order will be submitted to the Privy Council to be made covering Great Britain. Therefore, it is a function of the legislation.
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3 Nov 2022: Climate Change and Human Security
14:34
I do not want to be divisive, but I would gently say that if we were to compare the hon. Lady’s useful contribution with that of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), the spokesperson for His Majesty’s Opposition, it was more balanced. If one listened purely to the comments of the hon. Member for Bristol East, one would think the Government were a laggard and the country was far behind. One would not believe that we had invested more in renewables than any other European nation, that we had transformed the economics of offshore wind, hosted COP26 and led the global conversation—that my colleague, the COP26 President, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), had taken us from the beginning of our presidency, when just 30% of the world’s GDP was covered by net zero, to now, when that figure is 90%.
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14:37
The hon. Lady is right in that respect, but it is important to acknowledge where we are. We have gone further and faster than any major economy on Earth in reducing our emissions while also leading the global conversation. If we do not acknowledge those points, we do not create a properly contextualised conversation. That is all I have sought today, but I entirely agree with her; my job from the Prime Minister is precisely about accelerating this. We need clean baseload, and that is why we are seeking to do more on nuclear. It is a great shame that the Opposition parties—with some exceptions—do not support that. It is interesting to see that if Scotland were to have 100% renewable energy, it would be reliant on the baseload provided by nuclear in England.
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14:39
Onshore wind is our single largest renewable source, providing about 14 GW altogether, 3 GW of which are in England. In order to deliver, we need all these energy sources, but we need to do this in a way that works with the grain of communities, whether that is through ground-mounted or roof-mounted solar, onshore or offshore wind, nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture, utilisation and storage—without which it is hard to see how we can do industrial decarbonisation. We need all those things in order to deliver the targets, which, as the hon. Member for Bath suggested, are extremely challenging, but which we are on a firmer path toward than any other major economy on Earth.
The UK, and indeed the world, as colleagues have said, is facing unprecedented challenges. I and the Government agree with the picture that has been painted. The food and energy crises, the war in Europe, inflation and recovery from the covid-19 pandemic are all part of the context, but in all the short-term pressures, around energy bills and the like, we must not lose our focus on climate change and we must recognise that it has an impact on human security, precisely as the propagators of the debate have suggested.
These events serve to underscore the point that climate change and its impacts are being felt today, not in some distant future. It is driving food and water scarcity, displacement, migration and humanitarian and economic crises, while eroding resilience and reducing our capacity to respond. People, countries and regions will be impacted differently and over different timescales, but climate-related disruptions will increasingly strain international security arrangements globally, precisely as has been said today, causing a knock-on impact on human security worldwide in ways that we cannot always predict. Urgent action is needed to adapt and build the resilience of people, economies and ecosystems to current and future climate change and nature loss, and to the associated risks and impacts.
Climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities. It was acknowledged as a threat multiplier by the UN Security Council and the science is absolutely clear. A rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a significant scaling up of investment in climate change adaptation is needed to avert the most damaging impacts, but some of those impacts are already baked in, as has been said. That is why the integrated review identified tackling climate change and biodiversity loss as a leading priority over the coming decades—so it is in our national security strategy, in the form of the integrated review—and highlighted the inextricable links between climate change, nature and national security.
We were the first country to bring the security implications of climate issues to the UN Security Council in 2007, and the first to convene a leader-level debate on climate security in 2021. We have also convened workshops within NATO and we are seen as an international thought leader on the security implications of climate change—something to which hon. Members are contributing today. So we recognise and understand that human insecurity caused by climate change is a significant challenge.
The UK’s COP26 presidency helped us to continue our leadership in this area. COP27 starts on Monday in Egypt, and the Prime Minister’s attendance demonstrates the importance this Government attach to the climate agenda. An African COP, in a continent on the frontline of climate change, will rightly shine a light on the need to follow through and deliver on the commitments that have already been made, and scale up action on adaption and mitigation. COP26 secured many important commitments. Countries reaffirmed their commitment to keep 1.5°C alive, albeit on life support. Among many other important pledges, developed countries agreed at least to double their adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025. Those commitments must now be delivered.
To achieve human security in the face of climate change, the world must act. We need to reduce emissions faster than ever before. We need to seek to stop damage to nature and rebuild the biodiversity that is so central to human security, so we will continue to push for a landmark agreement to protect nature at COP15, the convention on biological diversity in Montreal in December—that is the other big COP, so we have COP27 and COP15. We need to enable countries and communities to avert and minimise losses and damages, while providing means to address impacts when they occur.
We estimate that, between April 2011 and March 2022, the UK’s international climate programmes directly supported 95 million people to adapt to the effects of climate change. We have pledged to double our international climate finance to £11.6 billion between 2021 and 2026, with the goal of mitigating climate change and supporting countries to adapt and build their resilience to its impacts, as well as protecting and restoring nature. Those investments directly support the improvement of human security.
We can and will do more. It is not just about the amount of money spent; the UK is making sure we spend smarter, plan more effective responses and utilise our world-class diplomatic service to support countries to be more resilient in the face of climate impacts. It is also about following through on our commitment to deliver net zero and nature action at home and internationally and to support the scaling up of adaptation globally as we build the legacy of our presidency and support Egypt to drive forward progress.
Hon. Members are right to challenge us to ensure that this takes place right across Government. I met the lead non-executive director of BEIS this afternoon, who leads on net zero. All Departments now have a non-executive member on their board with responsibility for net zero, because it is a matter for every Department. Through the Climate Action Implementation Committee and other Cabinet Sub-Committees, in my role as Minister for Energy and Climate Change I will be working to ensure that Ministers in every Department recognise the imperative to deliver net zero.
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14:47
The Climate Action Implementation Committee has up to now been chaired by the COP26 President, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West. He will cease to be President of COP in a few days, of course, but he will lead our negotiations through Sharm El Sheikh. It will be up to the Prime Minister, I guess, but I do not know. It is quite likely that it might be the Minister for Energy and Climate Change—I do not know. It will be a Minister who leads that Committee, which reviews carbon budgets, gets presentations from the Climate Change Committee and others and ensures that we stay on track, as we must if we are to deliver that.
The transition to a net zero economy presents job and export opportunities. McKinsey estimates that the low-carbon transition could present a £1 trillion opportunity for UK business by 2030; it is genuinely enormous. At Glasgow, we took steps to make London the first net-zero aligned financial centre. There are opportunities for the City of London and our industry in things such as hydrogen and carbon capture. Up in the north-west and right across the country, there is an appetite to see that happen. Taking a lead will drive prosperity here in the UK and globally, as global markets transform.
International action enables us to meet our own net zero target more efficiently and cost-effectively, while positioning ourselves to take advantage of the global economic opportunities that arise. If we engineer it right, we can come out not only with a net zero, emissions-free energy system, but one that is internationally competitive because we have helped to lead the global conversation and others are following us. We can use our natural resources—for example, the North sea basin—not just to get out the oil and gas for now. With ever higher environmental standards around production, that is the right thing to do while its production declines. We can also use it for offshore wind, storage of CCUS, and storage of hydrogen, which might be part of that whole hydrogen story. We have a European resource here by which we can help to serve the whole continent of Europe in a way that helps with the net zero challenge, and also helps with prosperity, not least in areas that otherwise would be left behind, because levelling up remains a central mission for us.
COP27—we will hand over the presidency next week, a year on from the brilliant COP26 hosted in Glasgow—is an opportunity for the world to come together to address climate change. With the Prime Minister at the helm and leading our delegation, the UK will be front and centre in driving forward meaningful action, without which the security of all humanity is at stake. I entirely agree with colleagues across the Chamber who have given such powerful speeches today in support of that positive objective.
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2 Nov 2022: Topical Questions
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We are absolutely committed to having zero-emission vehicles and I am pleased to say that we have led on that, with our 2030 and 2035 targets now, I notice, being copied by our European neighbours. We remain committed under the Prime Minister to continuing our leadership. We have reduced our emissions by more than any other major economy and we will continue to do so.
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I have said repeatedly that it is absurd to suggest that bringing in gas from abroad, for instance, with higher emissions attached to that and paying billions of pounds for it, is sensible when we can produce it at home. That is why we incentivise investment in the North sea. It is declining, it is a managed decline, and it is compatible with net zero. It is about time that the hon. Lady backed the British economy and British jobs, and did not play politics with this issue.
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2 Nov 2022: International Energy Self-sufficiency
11:39
Home-grown renewable and low-carbon energy are fundamental to meeting climate targets for every country and are key components of energy security and independence, as outlined by the International Energy Agency. The alignment of economic, climate and security priorities has already started a movement towards a better outcome for people and the planet.
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11:41
I thank the hon. Lady for what she said. Of course, it is important in this country to recognise that, given the Climate Change Act 2008, the fact that production here is from a declining basin, and that our production is expected to fall faster than is required for oil and gas around the world, producing that at home, with lower emissions for our gas than for liquefied natural gas, is a sensible way to go.
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2 Nov 2022: Net Zero Strategy and Carbon Budgets
11:43
Delivering net zero is essential to tackling the global challenges facing countries around the world, including the impact of climate change, threats to energy security, the decline of nature and slowing economic growth. Ministers from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and from across Government Departments, such as those represented on the Front Bench, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, are committed to that agenda.
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and his close interest in these issues. The net zero strategy is Government policy and it has certainly not been quashed. The judge in fact made no criticism about the substance of our plans, which are well on track, but he is right that it was about the information provided, and we will respond in due course. In fact, it is notable that the claimants themselves described our net zero plans as “laudable” during the proceedings.
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11:45
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I am delighted that, as has been announced today, the Prime Minister is going to be leading our delegation to the COP. We are working to ensure the speedy take-up of a whole range of technologies across the piece to ensure that we can deliver the net zero targets and stay on track.
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As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Government of which he was part had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the Conservative party to pass the Climate Change Act 2008 in the first place. Since he left office, this country has moved from renewables accounting for less than 7% of electricity to more than 40%, and seen the transformation of the energy efficiency of our housing stock. This Prime Minister will not only lead us at COP, but take us forward. We are on track to meet our net zero targets, and we will meet our carbon budgets. The Conservative party, and this Government, have a track record of action rather than rhetoric—although I have to admit the right hon. Gentleman is increasingly good at that.
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25 Oct 2022: Marine Energy
I am delighted to say that, on 7 July, we announced that 40 MW of new tidal stream power was secured in Scotland and Wales through the contracts for difference round, and analysis has confirmed the predictability, resilience and potential cost-effectiveness of marine energy, which can play a key role in delivering energy security and net zero.
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Rev. Andrew Langley sounds like a community hero. It is exactly that kind of grassroots approach that is at the heart of Conservative philosophy as we deliver these high-level targets, but we work with the whole community to see it delivered. Community groups have a big role to play in our efforts to eliminate our contribution to climate change, and of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his local hero, Rev. Andrew Langley.
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25 Oct 2022: Onshore Wind Farms
It was this Government who passed the net zero legislation. It was this party that was the first major party to call for the climate Act, which has driven this behaviour, and it was this party that took us from 6.8% electricity from renewables to more than 40% today. It is this party that brought in the contracts for difference, which have been copied all over the world, and which see tens of millions of pounds paid to reduce bills at the moment, with the last round driving 11 GW of additional clean energy into the system. It is this party that delivers on net zero and the environment and it is that party—the Labour party—that talks about it.
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25 Oct 2022: Climate Change
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I work closely with colleagues across the Government on the cross-Government challenge of net zero. Only yesterday, the Climate Action Implementation Committee met and discussed our progress on meeting our net zero targets and the carbon budgets.
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12:10
In 2021 alone, £24 billion of new investment was committed across low-carbon sectors in the UK. I share the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm for what that can do for the whole country, particularly the Humber area. We estimate that just over 69,000 green jobs have been supported in the UK since the launch of the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution in November 2020, many of which are in former industrial heartlands. It is important that Members on both sides of the House send out the message that the whole House is united in believing that net zero is the right place to go and the UK is the right place to invest. I am sure that hon. Members will send that message across the world.
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Perhaps it is the nature of being in Opposition that means that people misrepresent things, but it is of course this party and this Government who have driven the net zero strategy and are greening our economy. [ Interruption. ] The Opposition may grumble and they may not like it, but we can see it in all the numbers. Just 14% of homes had an energy performance certificate rating of C or above when Labour left office; that figure is 46% today. Whether on energy efficiency, renewables or low-emission gas, we are the party that has solutions.
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25 Oct 2022: Eastern Link Undersea Cable Electricity Generation
20:03
Scotland is home to Hywind Scotland and Kincardine—the world’s first and largest commercial floating wind farms, respectively—and Scotland’s plentiful supply of stormy skies holds vast promise. The Scotland Crown Estate’s recent ScotWind licensing round kick-started 20 new projects totalling around 28 GW of installed capacity—a frankly enormous figure. This is all sterling stuff, but increasing our renewable energy capacity is key for delivering on our net zero 2050 target, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) would strongly support. It is also crucial for guaranteeing security of supply at a time when Putin’s appalling invasion of Ukraine threatens to drive up prices and drive down thermostats, because wind energy is not just renewable, but secure and increasingly affordable.
However, installed capacity is only one part of the story. One of the challenges we have to address is how to get the electricity we are generating to the households who need it. The stakes are high, because it is not just households; it is schools, hospitals and businesses too. Right now, there are significant network constraints between Scotland and England, and no matter how many kettles are boiling across Yorkshire, when the network is at full capacity, Scottish renewable energy generation, as the hon. Member for East Lothian laid out, has to be curtailed.
With more projects coming online each year, it is all the more vital that we transform our electricity network to unlock Scotland’s potential. That is why transmission links on the east coast joining our two countries are so crucial, particularly for projects such as Berwick Bank, off the coast of the hon. Gentleman’s East Lothian constituency, with connections in both England and Scotland. In July, Ofgem approved two of these links in their final needs case—one between Torness in East Lothian and Hawthorn Pit in County Durham, and the other between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in north Yorkshire. These links will ensure that, before 2030, no Scottish renewable energy potential will go to waste, and they will reduce any potential constraint costs caused by limited capacity.
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25 Oct 2022: Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill
The Bill does not change the Environment Act 2021, and we remain committed to delivering our legally binding target to halt nature’s decline by 2030. It was us who put that into law. The hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) suggested that we are some sort of regulatory inferior to the US and the EU. It is this country that brought forward the Climate Change Act 2008. It is this country that brought forward contracts for difference for renewables, for instance. It is this country that has cut its emissions by more than any G7 nation. It is this country, this party and this Government who have delivered that, and I will not allow the hyperbole, the exaggerations, the mistruths and the untruths from Opposition Members to remove that fact.
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19 Oct 2022: Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill
18:52
I am proud to say that this Government have led the way in reducing emissions and moving towards net zero. When the right hon. Gentleman left power in 2010, not only was there that note that said there was no money left, but less than 7% of our electricity—around 6.8%—came from renewables. It is the Conservative party that has delivered the green revolution and will continue to do so. That means that more than 40%— [ Interruption. ] Madam Deputy Speaker, are they allowed to maintain this ridiculous stunt? It is bad enough—
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18:53
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It has brought calm to the Opposition to point out that only 7% of electricity came from renewables when they left power, but the figure is more than 40% today. If we look at energy efficiency and people who are struggling to heat their homes today, what percentage of houses had an energy performance certificate rating of C and above when Labour left power? [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) wants to tell me from a sedentary position, but I will tell him that it was 14%. What is it today? It is 46%. The Conservative party is moving this country towards net zero, and not only are we doing that at home but we are leading internationally as well.
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18:55
We will continue to lead the world and drive forward offshore and onshore wind and solar energy, we will have SMRs and gigawatt-level nuclear, as well as support for AMRs, and we will come forward with proposals to support hydrogen and CCUS. We are looking all across the piece to drive the green revolution, but as part of that work we need to secure the gas and oil we rely on at the moment as we manage and drive down our usage on the path to net zero.
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18:58
It is interesting to see on his feet the Liberal Democrat Member who in his speech suggested that not a drop more gas or oil should come out of the ground, forgetting that 75% of our energy needs today are met by fossil fuels. It is this Government who are leading the green transformation to take us away from fossil fuels. It is this Government who are driving forward net zero, not only here but, equally important, all around the world. It is my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) who, as President of COP26, has moved the world from having just 30% of global GDP covered by net zero pledges in 2019 to more than 90% today. It is that transformation of the global position on the pathway to net zero that has been critical, as well as the development of net zero at home.
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11 Oct 2022: Energy Costs in Wales
17:56
It is important to remember that our energy needs this year are 75% dependent on fossil fuels. We are driving forward on the path to net zero, more than any other major economy in the world. However, the idea that the market could be entirely decarbonised by 2030 is mad. It is crazy. That is the official policy of His Majesty’s Opposition. The poverty, bankruptcies and ruin that the Opposition’s policy would cause this country—and the impact that it would have on families and businesses in Wales—are incalculable. We need to ensure that our energy system is working to shield consumers in Wales and the whole of the UK from the worst impacts of a volatile international energy market, and to reap the benefits of our increasing cheap renewable electricity generation while reducing our dependence on imported fossil fuels.
As issues of energy efficiency, fuel poverty and heat are devolved, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have specific net zero strategies, and we work closely with our counterparts in the devolved authorities to ensure that our strategies align. Overall, the UK has a strong track record in making homes more energy-efficient, with 46% in England now achieving an energy performance certificate rating of C or better, compared with 14% in 2010. Again, it is the Conservatives who deliver and reduce energy costs, and it is Labour who produce hot air and nothing to help families with the cost of living. The energy performance of our buildings continues to improve, helping to reduce consumer bills and improve our energy security.
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17:58
We are doing an awful lot, and my job, when the Prime Minister appointed me to this position, was to accelerate the uptake of all of these energies to move us to net zero, and to do so in a way that supports families and does not impoverish them, which is sadly what the policy of the Labour party would bring about.
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22 Sep 2022: UK’s Updated 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution
The Glasgow climate pact, agreed by almost 200 countries at COP26 in November 2021, recognised the need for accelerated action to limit global warming to 1.5° C above pre-industrial temperatures. It called for all countries to “revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022, taking into account different national circumstances”.
During its COP presidency, the UK has been working with partner countries, non-state actors and civil society to encourage countries, particularly major emitters, to respond to this call. And the UK has shown leadership by revisiting its own NDC to ensure it remains a fair and ambitious contribution to global action on climate change. The latest science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—IPCC—published earlier this year highlighted the closing window for action to keep 1.5° C in reach and made clear the urgency of delivering on the Glasgow climate pact.
In revisiting the UK NDC, the Government considered a range of factors including the latest available science, expectations in the Paris agreement and the Glasgow climate pact, the UK’s existing 2050 net zero commitment, and energy security, as well as advice and evidence from the Climate Change Committee and other independent commentators.
The UK has strengthened its NDC by making the following updates to the accompanying information to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding—ICTU—in line with international best practice and the Paris agreement rulebook:
clarified how the target—which remains a commitment to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% by 2030 on 1990 levels—aligns with the Paris Agreement temperature goal;
included more, detail on levelling up, gender, green skills, public engagement, Just Transition and how the UK is supporting other countries with delivery of their NDCs.
The UK’s NDC requires the fastest rate of reduction in greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2030 of any major economy and is on a trajectory to net zero by 2050. The Government are committed to net zero by 2050 and looks forward to the review led by Chris Skidmore to ensure that it is delivered in a way that is pro-business and pro-growth.
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7 Sep 2022: Small Modular Reactors: Government Funding
19:14
As we make strides towards delivering net zero, the demands on our electricity system will increase. Electricity will be increasingly important, potentially providing around half of final energy demand as its use for heat and transport increases. That would require a fourfold increase in clean electricity generation, with the decarbonisation of electricity underpinning the delivery of that overall net zero target. Our analysis shows that all low-cost, low-emission solutions that will take us to this net zero-compliant electricity system are likely to require a combination of new nuclear, combined cycle gas turbines and carbon capture, utilisation and storage, in addition to growing levels of renewables. It is a complex piece, but we need all the bits to come together to meet the challenges that my right hon. Friend has set out.
Hon. Members will be aware that in April 2022 we announced the British energy security strategy. This set out our ambition to deploy up to 24 GW of civil nuclear power by 2050, which will meet around 25% of our projected 2050 electricity demand. New nuclear generating capacity is an important part of our plans to ensure greater energy resilience as well as having a crucial role to play in net zero. I am delighted that the British energy security strategy set out the Government’s intention to take a large-scale new project to final investment decision during this Parliament, and that two projects will reach that point in the next Parliament, subject to the necessary approvals.
In addition to investment in SMRs, the Government plan to invest in the AMR research, development and demonstration programme, which, as I say, should get something going by the early ’30s. It is focused on high-temperature gas reactors for low-carbon electricity generation and would allow the production of very high-temperature heat that could be used, for instance, for the increasingly efficient production of low-carbon hydrogen, to help to decarbonise industrial process heat, or even for synthetic fuel production.
I am pleased to remind Members that we launched the future nuclear enabling fund, or FNEF—I have realised, on my first day, that BEIS is full of acronyms galore—on 2 September 2022. The FNEF—they are never terribly well crafted—is a £120 million fund announced in the Government’s “Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener” in 2021. It aims to help mature potential nuclear projects ahead of any Government process to select future projects. We expect to make awards from the fund at the end of this year or at the start of 2023.
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I am determined that we shall not only deliver on our green obligations in this country, but build our industrial capability so that even the most sceptical person comes on board as we say, “Look, we are not just dealing with climate and not just cleaning up our domestic situation. We are developing major industrial capability so that we can sell that to the rest of the world, help it with the net zero challenge, and also produce jobs and prosperity here.” It is not a hairshirt that we want; we want to get the policy right so that we are part of a global solution, and to do so in a way that boosts jobs and prosperity and carries the support of everyone, regardless of their views on climate-related matters.
We fully support the development of small modular reactors and the exciting opportunities that they can offer the UK in energy security and reaching net zero. We have demonstrated our intent to build new nuclear capacity in the UK over the past year, and we have made the decisions that we believe will provide the confidence needed for investors and businesses to get behind it. From the energy White Paper to our landmark British energy security strategy to funding for small modular reactors and the future nuclear enabling fund, I hope we have shown our dedication to energy security, net zero and nuclear. I thank my right hon. Friend and other colleagues once again.
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13 Jul 2022: Non-proliferation Treaty: 50th Anniversary Review
18:14
Finally, the UK has encouraged and will continue to encourage the development and exchange of peaceful nuclear technologies, enabled by the NPT. Nuclear technologies have a critical part to play in tackling climate change, for instance, not only in helping to achieve net zero, but also through nuclear applications such as helping to improve food security and agricultural resilience. The technologies can help countries to adapt and become more resilient to climate change. They are also vital to global health, as they are used to treat cancer and prevent the spread of insect-borne disease. We want the review conference to highlight the significant global contribution that the peaceful use of nuclear technology makes to improving people’s lives and advancing progress to the UN sustainable development goals.
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10 May 2022: Debate on the Address
14:38
Today’s Queen’s Speech unveils a substantial legislative programme under four main headings: boosting economic growth and helping with the cost of living; making our streets safer; funding the NHS and tackling the backlog; and, providing leadership in troubled times. To pick out one item, if I may, the energy Bill is of particular importance to my constituents. It will make possible the development of hydrogen, and of carbon capture and storage, on which I expect the Humber to be not only a national but a global leader. It will take us to net zero and give us energy security and huge export potential.
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5 Mar 2020: Renewable Energy: Exports
09:51
We are working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to maximise the overall economic impact of our world-leading renewable energy sector, including that of exports. The Department undertakes a range of promotion activities, including running trade missions and dedicated workshops.
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11 Jul 2019: Renewable Energy Exports
09:40
Promoting renewables is, of course, one more function of a dedicated trade Department, and we have export campaigns targeting renewable energy opportunities across Europe, Latin America and south-east Asia, along with support programmes. For example, the offshore wind sector deal commits the Department for International Trade and industry to increase offshore wind exports fivefold to £2.6 billion by 2030 and puts in place support mechanisms to help UK suppliers grow.
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13 Sep 2018: Trade and Investment: India
09:41
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. There are so many things that we can do jointly with India. As I said, we had the mobility conference at the weekend, which was about cleaning up our air and our transport. India has set targets for 2030 to ensure that at least 30% of vehicles produce zero emissions, and we have said that 100% must produce zero emissions at the tailpipe by 2040. Working together, we can do more.
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25 Jan 2018: Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill (Fourth sitting)
15:39
We must make sure that when we act, it is always to tackle the problems in those developing countries, and that the long list that was laid out—including climate change, forestry and various aspects of human rights—is not used as an excuse for protectionism of interests in this country while we are morally posing ourselves as helping those in developing countries. That is why the presumption is that we should let them trade with us; however, in serious cases we should act. I hope that both this Committee and the House can continue to take that proportionate and balanced approach.
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4 Jul 2016: Energy Spending Priorities: Investors and Consumers
21:25
The Government have approved the fifth carbon budget—the framework of all frameworks. That is the why people should be optimistic. That is the message that needs to go out from this place to investors. That is where we are headed—to 2050, with the Climate Change Act 2008 intact and supported by the Government and the Labour party.
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20 Apr 2016: Energy Bill [Lords]
I agree that there are such issues. In his speech, my right hon. Friend did not reflect on the success of the Government. I know he is sceptical about both climate change and the Government’s approach to this over the years, but what is undeniable is the way in which the cost curve has accelerated downwards. We were previously in a situation in which clean energy was ridiculously more expensive than fossil fuels, which poison the air and also have climate risks attached to them. We have therefore seen a real driving down of that cost. Onshore wind is now in a position where it should be able to compete on a level playing field with new gas-fired power stations; we will not of course see any more coal-fired ones.
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28 Jan 2016: Transport Fuels: Renewable Sources
3. What recent assessment his Department has made of when the UK will meet its target in the EU renewable energy directive of 10% of its transport fuels coming from renewable sources.
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18 Jan 2016: Energy Bill [Lords]
The thread of agreement among everyone who has spoken so far, including my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), my right hon. Friend and others, is that if we are setting out to fulfil the requirements of the Climate Change Act, we must do so in the lowest-cost way. My right hon. Friend was right to point out that, given the burden sharing throughout Europe, there is an issue about our taking further steps. Would that simply provide greater slack elsewhere? People may or may not share his scepticism about the whole arena, but none of us would want our making progress to mean that someone else slacks as a result. Therefore, having a joined-up approach is a sensible part of delivering what we all want and doing so at the lowest possible cost, and that is worthy of further investigation.
Where I do not think my right hon. Friend is right is in suggesting that this is purely an exercise in sadomasochism. After all, the Committee on Climate Change’s brief is to fulfil that which was passed in this House, albeit without his support: an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. If we read the Committee’s fifth carbon report, which was recently published, we see that its whole premise is to try to work out a pathway to get us there at the lowest possible cost. That is one reason why I welcome the reset of the policy by the new Government and our new Ministers. They are not stepping away from the Climate Change Act, although some of my hon. Friends might wish that they were. On the contrary, they are saying that they want to look at how best to make sure we have a policy framework that incentivises activity to meet the outcomes that we all want.
I know from discussions with the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is nodding in my direction, that one renewables issue we face—this picks up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty—is dealing with intermittency. One way of dealing with that is to develop storage. Have we had sufficient investment and created a framework that has incentivised enough focus on storage while we were also incentivising investment in things such as wind? The answer has to be no. We must therefore try to ensure that we get a framework that captures all the elements that we need in order to create a rational response, so that even if my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden does not entirely agree, he can see a more rational thread running through the policy in order that we can deliver.
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My hon. Friend is right, but it is important not to exaggerate that, because it will quite rightly be picked up by colleagues, who will point out that something as all-encompassing, as specific and as road-mapped as our Climate Change Act has probably never been passed in another country in the world, and it is coming up for eight years since that Act was passed into law.
On the issue of zero emissions, I just wanted to follow on from what the right hon. Member for Doncaster North said. He is right. If we are to deliver 2° let alone 1.5°, we will need to move to what sounds like a slightly fantastical idea of zero emissions. If we can entirely decarbonise the power system and then use that power in other systems, we will start to move towards the ability to eradicate most of our carbon. We still need other ways to change our systems—and we have time to develop these—so that any storage we have offsets the emissions that are not avoidable. There will always be emissions in a developed and industrialised world, but what we can do is net that to zero. It is important to make that point in case any people at home think that we are dealing in science fiction rather than reality. Given the progress in technology that we have seen over recent years, it is credible to believe that we can move to zero emissions. If, given modern science, 1.5° will be achieved, such a rate will be necessary.
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7 Jan 2016: Topical Questions
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am chairman of GLOBE International, which recently held a successful summit in Paris as part of the COP process. Does the Secretary of State agree that the world’s leading network of parliamentarians devoted to legislative leadership on climate change has a key role to play in ensuring that the intended nationally determined contributions—INDCs—turn from aspiration to reality? Will she meet me to discuss work between the Department and GLOBE, internationally and nationally, to ensure that that is achieved?
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15 Dec 2015: Climate Change and Flooding
I apologise to my right hon. Friend for returning to the subject of flooding when she has—rightly—just moved on to the subject of climate change, but does she agree that it is now time for a radical change in the way in which we fund our flood infrastructure and maintenance? The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) pointed out that when floods occur, there is investment, there are promises, but the investment then fades. That happened under the Labour Government, and it tends to happen under all Governments. Should we not hand responsibility for a regulated standard to, for instance, the water companies?
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I have just lost two of my favourite Ministers from the Front Bench—although they are staying for a moment—but I have another still on the Front Bench. I am delighted to have their temporary audience. Like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I congratulate our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on her part in helping to deliver a deal in Paris. Colleagues across the Chamber will doubtless debate how important and how effective that deal is and how it contrasts with Copenhagen, from which the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) bears such scars. Despite much of the detail being left for future work, I think we have a framework from Paris which can give us hope for the future. The intended nationally determined contributions provide the building blocks with which we can go forward. We have in place in the agreement the promise of not only a stocktake, but a review and, we hope, a growth in ambition over time.
Following Paris, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has two things to do. One is to ensure that UK decarbonisation proceeds within the framework provided by the Climate Change Act 2008 and the fourth and fifth carbon budgets—our most current—which have been produced by the Climate Change Committee. We have not always got it all right. For instance, in the case of onshore wind, which is the lowest cost form of renewable energy that we have, there was a misdiagnosis of the problem.
The misdiagnosis lay in the fact that my party came to the conclusion that the difficulty was not the planning, but the subsidy, even though it is the lowest subsidy of any form of renewable energy. So we got to the bizarre situation where there is no subsidy for the cheapest form of renewable energy, at the same time as we talk about lowering costs to consumers. We should have removed the right to appeal to the inspectorate and allowed the developers to provide packages which won support in certain parts of the country. Personally, I felt that we would have ended up with more, but somehow we have ended up with the cheapest form of renewable energy in effect receiving no support, which is a bizarre outcome. We do not want to make further such mis-steps.
The big task for the Secretary of State is to work out how we are going to deliver decarbonisation of the UK economy at the lowest possible cost. It became apparent to me 10 years ago at the Montreal COP—conference of the parties—that we had to get the costs down. Sadly, hand-wringing environmental concern is not widely shared among the general populace of this country, among parliamentarians or across the world. We need to get the costs down so that it becomes more politically acceptable to people to do that which is compatible with tackling the risks suggested by the science.
There was a lot of positive rhetoric under the Labour Government about tackling climate change, but remarkably little action. In the end, in 2010, there had not been the progress that we should have seen. In the United States, by comparison, the rhetoric has always been negative but the policy environment for investment has been more positive. That is why there has been a great deal of investment in the United States, as well as more innovation and more jobs created than in this country, even though we, through the Climate Change Act and other things, have tried to be, and appeared to be, world leaders.
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The second challenge that faces the Government, after UK decarbonisation, is helping others to fulfil their national contributions to the INDCs and to build confidence at each national level to go further. Thus, when we have the review in five years’ time, we will be able to raise the ambition so that we are not heading, as now, for under 3°, but are genuinely able to head for a sub-2° world. There is a tremendous amount to be done in engaging with parliamentarians. I should declare an interest as the chair of GLOBE International. Colleagues from across the Chamber attended the summit of legislators in Paris the weekend before last. We need to engage more with parliamentarians. That is equally true in Parliaments such as ours where, despite today’s attendance, there are remarkably few colleagues with much interest in or knowledge of the subject matter. We have to engage more people so that they take more interest and ensure that we get the frameworks that deliver the investment. There is a huge role for the UK to play in developing countries through climate diplomacy and work with GLOBE and others to make sure that we engage with these parliamentarians, who, after all, pass the laws, set the budgets, and hold Governments to account. That is certainly what GLOBE aims to do through its chapters around the world.
I want briefly to say something about flooding, following my earlier intervention on the Environment Secretary. The threat to the Humber is real and growing, with rising sea levels. Last December, we saw a bigger surge than in 1953. If the wind direction and other factors had been slightly different, there would almost certainly have been loss of life. This is a growing issue and we need to find a long-term solution. My personal thought is if we leave it to Governments, who have to decide between investment in schools, hospitals and so on, and long-term investment in flooding, they always have a tendency, when not under the shadow of a recent flooding disaster, to cut back that long-term investment. Would it not be better to set a regulatory standard on which we could rely by handing it over to water companies, whose job is to borrow money from the international markets and invest for the long term at the lowest possible cost, to deliver an agreed standard? If we had a statutory standard with a duty placed on those bodies to deliver, and all the water tax payers of the country picking it up, we would not only save the Chancellor from the cost hitting the Exchequer directly, but could have in place lower-cost intervention, to an agreed standard, for the long term, and stop having these fervent and heated debates every time we have a flood disaster, which, given climate change, is likely to happen more often in future.
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25 Nov 2015: Engagements
Q13. Will the Prime Minister join me in commending the French Government for facing down terror and continuing with the climate summit in Paris next week? Will he acknowledge the important role of legislators such as those at the GLOBE summit on 4 and 5 December, and does he agree that his personal presence in Paris sends a message to the world about our continuing commitment to a lasting climate deal?
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29 Oct 2015: Green Investment Bank
That investment is focused on the five objectives set out in section 1(1) of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 and in the bank’s articles of association: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; the advancement of efficiency in the use of natural resources; the protection or enhancement of the natural environment; the protection or enhancement of biodiversity; and the promotion of environmental sustainability. Since the bank was established in November 2012, it has delivered on those principles. As of August this year, it had invested in 52 green infrastructure projects; I think that figure was updated to a larger number in the evidence given yesterday to the Environmental Audit Committee.
The GIB has also invested in seven funds in more than 240 locations around the UK, ranging from anaerobic digestion on Teesside to a £241 million stake in the Westermost Rough offshore wind farm and, indeed, new streetlights in Southend. The bank’s chief executive, Shaun Kingsbury, anticipated that by the end of this week it will have committed £2.3 billion of funding as part of wider projects worth a total of £9.8 billion. In other words, the next deal that the GIB does will take to more than £9 billion the total invested in the low-carbon transition that this country has not only said it will deliver but, in the Climate Change Act 2008, set out in law that it must.
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I went to the Conference of the Parties in Montreal in 2005, and from there I got involved in an organisation called Globe International, a global legislators’ organisation for a balanced environment. I am chairman of that group. I have been involved in the issue of climate change over the years; when I first came to this place, I was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee. It seems to me that the central challenge in tackling climate change, despite all the complexities, is to drive down the cost curve of clean and green approaches as quickly as possible.
For all the jobs that are created and for all the economic benefits, we cannot do that for free. One of the big challenges is to speed up the reduction in cost and ensure we have the institutions and frameworks to incentivise that. I say that because, for all the complexities around climate change and all the conferences I have been to over the years, I have always thought that we have to get the cost down as quickly as possible.
It is essential to get the privatisation process right and to remember that many investors and Governments will be watching how we decide to proceed with the GIB. As we head towards the UN climate summit in Paris this December, we have a responsibility to ensure that the Green Investment Bank remains a world leader in its field and a driver of investment and innovation in cutting-edge, low-carbon technologies.
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The hon. Gentleman is extremely generous. A little partisanship does not go amiss. It is important to have the perspective that the current Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, was the first major party leader to call for a climate change Act. That same day, the Liberal Democrats followed, and it was only because it felt that it was going to be left behind that Labour joined in. It was thanks to the current Prime Minister that we got the Act, and it is within that framework going forward that we can have confidence that we can meet these challenges. That is why it is so important that Ministers get their policies right.
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The Government announced that they will privatise the bank so that it can access capital, as the Minister has set out. The letter announcing that privatisation stated that the bank will be guaranteed by the statutes. Those statutes have suddenly gone, and promises have been made to the Treasury. It feels as if the Government machine has already decided to privatise this bank, but the basis on which the Government are privatising the bank has changed. Will it be possible to go back? The Treasury is rightly trying to address the deficit and the debt, but there is a conversation to be had, because the bank is not being privatised on the basis that was originally proposed. There is a risk that this thing will not do what we want it to do. The Climate Change Act 2008 commits us to action, and if that action costs more, we would be back to cutting off our nose to spite our face.
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It has been an excellent debate, with involvement from all parts of the House. The COP21 conference will soon take place in Paris, at which the intended nationally determined contributions—the national promises about action on climate change in a domestic context—will be discussed. The INDCs that have been put forward cover 87% of the world’s population and roughly the same percentage of the world’s emissions. We are looking at a world in which we are recognising the need to act, but within that context, we have to ensure that greening our country and doing what is right for the climate and the environment is done at the lowest possible cost to our constituents, many of whom are struggling on low incomes to pay for their heating.
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10 Jun 2015: Climate Change
17:19
My right hon. Friend is right to talk about carbon capture and storage and the two projects, and I hope that the White Rose project will get Government backing in due course. It is fair to point out that the Labour Government said in 2003 how urgent it was to bring CCS forward as it was critical to any hope of meeting our targets by 2050—and they failed completely and utterly to deliver anything by 2010. We should take no lessons on that particular subject from Opposition Members.
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1 Jul 2014: Humber Flood Risk Management Strategy
10:10
The Government rightly recognise the challenges of climate change. Anyone involved with climate change will know that the risks around it are twofold, or in two areas: the need to mitigate and the need to adapt. It is not enough simply to mitigate; we also need to adapt. I have in front of me the excellent latest science briefing from the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences. It shows the sea level rise record since the beginning of the 20th century, including the acceleration of sea level rise in the last few decades, which is expected to carry on accelerating to the end of this century. Given that, how can we allow the short-term political time frames in which we operate—four or five years to a general election, or between local government elections—to inform our attitude to this subject? The danger is that we will and that we will not take the long-term view, which is so important if we are to get this right.
My message to the Minister is to look at how Government can create the frameworks to ensure that the resource that is required is invested in time to meet the long-term threat, because we recognise that the dynamics of the politics in which we operate on a daily basis are not very good for dealing with long-term threats. Therefore, we need to look hard at how we get a framework in place to ensure that there is an incentive to deal with those long-term threats, and that we deal with them, because although we will strongly make the case today, as we are doing, for the Humber area, the truth is that, nationally, we need to take the risk of flood damage more seriously. That fits entirely with the analysis that the Government have themselves made of the risks around climate change and rising sea levels, yet we do not see a co-ordinated, well thought through, long-term plan to ensure that the correct protections are put in place.
Minister, those of us here today will maintain our joint efforts in this regard—not only when we meet the Prime Minister next week, but thereafter. I will finish by referring to an issue that I touched on earlier, which is trying to get a framework in place that means that the MPs for a particular area do not have to make a united effort to get people to see the long-term risk when the technical evidence for that risk already exists. With rising sea levels and the risks of climate change, we need a strategic overview by Government of the risks around flooding. Without that, we are putting our constituents at risk of devastating flooding of their homes, and we are also risking investment in and commercial success for this country. Having made that plea, I shall sit down.
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3 Mar 2014: Managing Flood Risk
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) said, has been distinguished by many fine speeches covering a wide range of policies relevant to the subject in hand. One of the largest, all-encompassing issues—climate change—has been touched on, and in my exchange with the Green party member the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) I spoke about getting the language right, which is important. I declare an interest as chair of GLOBE International, and refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last week in Washington, GLOBE International held a climate legislation summit in the US Senate. The Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences gave a presentation, which coincided with the launch of their new booklet setting out the state of the science—truly chilling information.
I am not a scientist and have always remained sceptical when dealing with climate change and trying to come up with the most rational—I hope—response, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) said that this is about acting in the most rational and sensible way with our information and limited finances. Unlike some who would cast Lord Lawson into outer darkness for daring to question any of the orthodoxies, I do not think that is the right way to go. We need an inclusive debate in which we assess the science, taking it with an appropriate pinch of salt as we in this place learn to do with all expert opinion. However, the mounting, growing, consistency of information makes it hard not to accept that the emissions we create in our industrialised societies are contributing—and, more importantly, will contribute —to greater warming of the planet.
We are trying to work out what that means and its implications, but scientists would say that they do not understand it all. Perhaps even more complicated than understanding which areas will be colder, wetter or warmer as a result, is working out the best response to that threat, and that is the fundamental context for this debate on managing flood risk. All scientists—certainly those I have seen—seem to agree that greater energy is coming to the Earth, which will lead to greater levels of precipitation. In some areas there will be intensified drought, and in others intensified rainfall. In that context we must think not only about our response to the current environment—whether or not that is immediately driven by climate change—but about the long term.
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21 Oct 2013: Natural Capital (England and Wales)
20:08
The prize is considerable. Measuring and accounting for changes in natural capital assets, and improving the valuation of those changes, would help to support better economic decision making. It would improve the delivery of major public policy goals, such as food and energy security, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and public health and well-being. In saying that, it is crucial that natural capital accounting is explained as a way of providing detailed information for better management of the economy. That needs to be done in a way that is coherent internationally but that resonates at home with a public who are concerned about seeing the more immediate benefits of economic growth.
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13 Dec 2012: International Climate Change Agreement
6. If he will make it his policy to seek bilateral agreements in advance of a new international climate change agreement.
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12 Dec 2012: Sustainable Development Goals
The GLOBE climate legislation initiative will be launched in the Foreign Office on 14 and 15 January, and will bring together legislators from 33 countries to discuss national action on climate change. Does the Minister agree that further national action is necessary, and that we should follow the example of countries such as Mexico, which has passed legislation, and China, which plans to do so, in order to establish the conditions that will allow international agreement in 2015?
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1 Nov 2012: Topical Questions
10:31
This country accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions, and that level is falling. It is, therefore, essential that we engage with countries around the world that have larger emissions. When did a Minister from the Department of Energy and Climate Change last visit China?
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28 Feb 2012: Rio+20 Summit
20:06
The Earth Summit in 1992 was a timely and significant international event that brought together 172 countries, more than 100 of which were represented by their leaders. It led to the creation of the UN conventions on biological diversity, the framework convention on climate change, the principles on sustainable forestry and Local Agenda 21, all of which were designed to tackle the unsustainable use of natural resources and reduce man’s impact on the environment. Twenty years later, however, as leaders are about to meet again in Rio, we have to be honest about where we are. The state of the environment has worsened significantly, with many of the natural resources on which we all depend under ever-increasing strain in many areas, including oceans and forests, biodiversity and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Yes, we can all point to significant advances in parts of the world—for example, the significant decrease in deforestation in Brazil—and to political processes such as the recent outcome of the Durban climate negotiations, but all the scientific indicators are flashing red.
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19 May 2011: Climate Change Legislation
22. What his policy is on recognising national climate change legislation as a commitment under the United Nations framework convention on climate change.
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10 Feb 2011: Onshore Wind Energy
The hon. Gentleman leads me on neatly to the next part of my speech. My point is that it should primarily be a decision for local people and that although onshore wind might have a part to play, the central task in dealing with climate change in this country and globally is to reduce the cost of cleaning up our energy supply. We must live sustainably on this planet with lower emissions, due to the potentially catastrophic impact of those emissions on climate change. I do not know whether the science is right, but the risk that emissions could have deleterious effects on the globe seems sufficient for us to take action. The only way to do so, given economic pressures and the fact that so many people live in poverty, is to drive down cost.
We are a global leader in offshore wind. We now produce 1.3 GW of offshore wind, I think—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—and aim to produce 33 GW by 2020, which will keep us narrowly ahead of what the Chinese are planning, although it is worth saying that when the Chinese plan something, they have a tendency to do it, while we have a tendency to talk about it without doing it. However, that aside, offshore wind provides the opportunity for scale and investments such as those made by Siemens, GE and other companies elsewhere if the Government do everything possible with the limited money that they have to develop a supply chain that can drive down the costs of offshore wind. If they do, there is every reason to believe that within relatively few years, the currently high costs of offshore wind can be driven down below the costs of onshore wind and make a long-term contribution. The Minister shakes his head, in which case I would question whether we should have any form of wind energy if we cannot drive the cost down. The central task in tackling climate change is to find ways of greening what we do at an acceptable, lowest possible cost. Everything we do and every time we spend money should be designed for that purpose.
“To be successful it is vital to have broad public support and the consent of local communities. This includes giving communities not only a say, but also a stake, in appropriately-sited renewable energy projects like wind farms.” —[ Official Report , 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 36W.]
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27 Jan 2011: Business of the House
I am grateful, Mr Speaker, although disappointed that you did not notice me from the beginning. After a collapse in manufacturing employment over the last 10 years or so, there are optimistic signs, not least in Hull, where Siemens is investing in a major renewable energy plant that may employ 10,000 people or more. Other companies are following. May we have a debate on the infrastructure to support that development? The Humber offers huge economic opportunity for this country and we need to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to support it.
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14 Jul 2010: Police Grant Report
13:34
The right hon. Gentleman said that it is important to get the facts straight. I have not seen the letter sent by the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden. Did he ask for a fair share of the funding provided to police forces for Sussex, or did he in fact make the point that Sussex’s needs were not properly recognised compared with other areas? If the latter is the case, will the former Minister apologise for suggesting that my hon. Friend merely called for extra money? Perhaps he did so, but will the right hon. Gentleman spell out precisely what was in that letter?
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27 May 2010: Energy and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a powerful speech. Not only do we have renewable energy and oil and gas, but carbon capture and storage. We have the skill sets and the ability to store carbon, and I hope that the failings of the previous Government will not mean that we lose the opportunity to be a world leader in that area, because it could produce jobs and wealth if we can sell that technology instead of having to buy it from others.
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