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Lisa Nandy 's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 23 Parliamentary debates in which Lisa Nandy has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 28 Nov 2024: Topical Questions

  The hon. Lady will know that for young people in particular, the climate crisis is an enormous priority. As she knows, we have announced that we are co-producing and creating the national youth strategy with young people. I would be amazed if the impact of climate change on the things that matter most to them is not an essential part of that strategy.

  [Source]

• 21 Nov 2023: International Development White Paper

  12:48

  The Minister is right to recognise that the major obstacle to eliminating extreme poverty is the growing challenge of climate change and debt, but the key is how to resolve it. The multilateral system is strained—much of the world’s debt is owed to private creditors, and over recent decades China’s influence has grown—so we strongly welcome the recognition in the White Paper that Britain’s approach to development must sit in a multipolar world. However, multilateral aid will fall to just 25% of aid spending by 2025. Although the commitments in this White Paper are welcome, the Minister is prioritising multilateralism while his Department prioritises bilateralism. Which is it? We have a strategy at odds with the ambition.

  The problem of climate finance and debt for middle-income countries enables us to focus on low-income countries and the core task of eliminating extreme poverty, but there is far too little in the White Paper about how that can be achieved. We welcome the focus on conflict, but the route out of poverty lies not just in access to finance and in functioning economies, but in self-sustaining health, education and welfare systems designed and run by the people in those countries. What can he do to reassure the House that that is not a second-order issue?

  [Source]

• 8 Dec 2022: Called-in Planning Decision: West Cumbria

  12:35

  This decision flies in the face of Britain’s net zero objectives, contradicts the aims of the UK’s COP26 presidency and undermines the 2019 Conservative manifesto. This is chaos. Successive Secretaries of State are contradicting each other and the Government’s independent adviser on climate change condemned the decision as “indefensible” even as the Secretary of State stands here trying to defend it.

  [Source]

• 9 Jun 2022: Social Housing and Building Safety

  12:38

  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would add to the many challenges currently facing councils and housing associations the challenge of decarbonisation and the goal of net zero. These things are keeping well-meaning, good people who work in our councils and housing associations awake at night trying to work out how they are going to square the circle, and they deserve more support from their Government.

  [Source]

• 8 Jun 2022: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

  14:21

  My hon. Friend is an outstanding advocate for her community and we on the Front Bench absolutely support her call for proper action to deal with the crisis of flooding around the country. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) is here; she knows only too well, too the impact that flooding has on communities up and down the country and the shameful way that we have been treated by the Government, with promises of action and measures. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said during the Secretary of State’s opening remarks, there is not a single mention of net zero in the Bill. What is the commitment, if it is anything at all?

  [Source]

• 9 Feb 2022: Local Government Finance (England)

  16:50

  Actions have consequences. The Secretary of State said yesterday that he understood why we would be cynical about a Government Minister coming and promising us the earth. Well, we are not cynical; we are furious. We are still paying for what he did as Education Secretary, so when he rocks up and tells us that we can have less to do more, and talks about renaissance Florence and the rise and fall of the Roman empire, we have had enough. Our local leaders, meanwhile, are living in the real world—grappling with climate change and rising transport costs—and having to compensate for what the Government have taken from us and our communities, with all the added costs that come from inflation at a 30-year high.

  [Source]

• 26 Oct 2021: Economic and Security Ties with Allies

  11:42

  I welcome the Foreign Secretary to her role and congratulate her on becoming the second woman in history to hold the post. I think I speak for Labour Members when I say that we look forward to welcoming the third. The Foreign Secretary is right to make delivering build back better a priority. COP26 will fail without a commitment to clean and reliable infrastructure in the developing world. We will never be taken seriously in Beijing if we do not claw back some of the influence we have lost in the world. She is right to identify that being a pushover with the Treasury does nothing for our national interest and nothing for our national security. However, the non-official development aid budget has been halved—ODA spending is down by £4 billion—and the Treasury’s accounting tricks will leave her coffers almost empty. With just days to go until the most important climate summit in a generation, has she clawed back some of that funding in tomorrow’s Budget, or will we see the same story playing out of a Foreign Secretary who is not taken seriously in Beijing because she is not taken seriously around her own Cabinet table?

  [Source]

• 15 Sep 2021: Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

  17:03

  Finally, on national security we must have assurances that effective security checks are applied to those coming to the UK, and that there is clarity on the threat assessment and a plan to strengthen our intelligence coverage of Afghanistan now that the UK is no longer present on the ground. As well as the reality of those left behind in Afghanistan, what keeps me awake at night is the unknown security risks we now face. There are ways to address this, but one consequence might be that we become more reliant on countries that are not our natural partners. When we went to the UN, we were reliant on China and Russia in order to establish a joint international approach. What does this mean for Britain as we enter the next few weeks or the great strategic challenges that will become apparent in just a month’s time at COP26?

  [Source]

• 13 Oct 2020: Topical Questions

  May I say to the Foreign Secretary, who is a former human rights lawyer, that it is quite desperate and a sign of our diminished influence in the world that the UK is not willing to take a stance on this important issue? We are deeply concerned about our relations with the rest of the world. Whether it is the covid vaccine, climate change, the Iran deal, west bank annexation, NATO or Scotch whisky, the Government appear to have no influence at all in Washington at the moment when we most need it. We are told that they are now scrambling to repair the damage to relations with Joe Biden and his team. There is no greater indication of why that matters than the case of Harry Dunn. In July, the Foreign Secretary told the House he had reached an agreement with the US about immunity arrangements for the Croughton annex. His repeated refusal to publish that agreement has fuelled the family’s anguish and underlined the widespread belief that his Department has chosen to side with the US Government over its own citizens. Why does he believe that neither Parliament nor the family of Harry Dunn should see the small print of this important agreement with the United States?

  [Source]

• 2 Sep 2020: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

  00:04

  The creation of the Department for International Development—the right hon. Gentleman knows—was a game changer not just for the world, but for Britain, and to put that at risk now is extraordinary. The world has never felt more unstable. We are in the midst of a global pandemic. We know that a vaccine will be successful only if it reaches the world’s poorest, and as the UK takes on the task of hosting COP26 next year, the world is wondering what on earth is going on and whether Britain is capable of rising to the scale of the challenge.

  [Source]

• 2 Jun 2020: Hong Kong National Security Legislation: UK Response

  00:06

  I was astonished that, in his statement, the Foreign Secretary did not address how the UK intends to respond to the threat of countermeasures by China. It is increasingly clear that we need an alliance of democracies to ensure that we can maintain, as he says, a constructive dialogue with China on shared challenges, not least on climate change, while standing up to aggressive behaviour and clear breaches of international law. He referenced the statements by the UK, Australia, Canada and the US, which was welcome, and the additional statements from New Zealand, Japan and the European Union. It is time for an international democratic alliance to come together and speak with one voice. The G7 is now off. The G20 is not meeting. The discussion at the UN Security Council has been blocked by China. It is time for Britain to be far more proactive. In recent weeks, Australia has shown real leadership on the search for a vaccine for covid-19 and France has led the charge for a global ceasefire. On this of all issues, why is Britain not stepping up and showing the leadership the world needs?

  [Source]

• 24 Mar 2016: Indebted Prepayment Customers

  09:03

  I welcome the action that the CMA recommended for prepayment customers, but I urge the Secretary of State to heed the words of my hon. Friends who urged her to go further. I am sure that she is as angry as I am about the treatment of these customers. I am sure she is also as angry as we are about the treatment of 70% of customers who have been overcharged to the tune of £1.7 billion a year. The Energy and Climate Change Committee said that the Secretary of State’s

  [Source]

• 14 Mar 2016: Energy Bill [Lords]

  20:03

  Remarkably, the Bill will actually make our energy security position worse. It seeks to shut down, a year early, a major energy investment scheme that has been helping to ensure that wind farms are built. Wind farms already provide a substantial amount of electricity—enough power for more than 8 million homes every year—but, because of their ideological crusade against green energy, the Government do not want to increase their number even if that means that they are sending our power supply into the red. [Interruption.] Ministers can protest, but the reality is in front of us. It is there for us all to see—not just Labour Members, but Ministers’ constituents, who will pay the price for it. The Government will pursue their proposal even if it means retrospectively blocking projects whose development is well advanced and even if it means ruling out one of the cheapest energy options that are available to us, thus breaking their manifesto promise to cut emissions as cheaply as possible.

  It is hardly surprising that Energy UK wants more clarity, because while Ministers talk about their action on climate change, they are simultaneously dismantling the clean energy schemes that could help to address the problem. We proposed to amend the Bill, in response to calls from business leaders, by requiring the Secretary of State to offer clarity on the direction and speed of emissions reduction to 2030, but the Government rejected our proposals. Together with other parties from across the House, we tried to close a loophole that will enable Ministers to square this circle through carbon accounting tricks, but that move was also rejected. This all means more uncertainty for investors, rather than less.

  The truth is that few people in this country beyond those on the Conservative Back Benches doubt the need to act on emissions. Only today, NASA reported shocking levels of global warming, and one top scientist said this morning that we are in a “climate emergency now”. Despite the Energy Secretary’s words today, however, people will be left scratching their heads over what exactly the Government’s plan is to make good on their new commitment and on the promises that the Prime Minister made at the historic Paris summit in December.

  Let us take carbon capture and storage as an example. The Government’s own advisers say that without this cutting-edge technology the cost of achieving emissions reduction in Britain could double. Some experts say that, without it, making good on the Paris agreement might even be impossible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) pointed out, however, the Chancellor has shamefully pulled the rug from under from businesses that were on the cusp of pioneering CCS projects in Yorkshire and Scotland. Investment and jobs have gone, and the possibility of a new maritime industry in our North sea has been put on hold. We proposed that a comprehensive new CCS strategy should be adopted within a year to undo the damage caused by that decision but, despite strong cross-party support, our reasonable proposal was rejected.

  [Source]

• 11 Feb 2016: Energy Prices

  A spokesman added that the Government were conducting a series of studies of utility companies to examine whether action was needed. The investigation was backed by the Prime Minister, the then Energy and Climate Change Secretary and the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It was reported that Ministers would be watching the energy companies “like a hawk”. What happened to that study, and what action was taken?

  [Source]

• 18 Jan 2016: Energy Bill [Lords]

  “it would be very odd to produce legislation that did not allow specifically for the transportation and storage of greenhouse gases.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 7 September 2015; Vol. 764, c. 1227.]

  “We need some kind of strategic framework within which private industry can operate in the CCS area.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 483.]

  They are absolutely right. Some of the infrastructure in the North sea could be used to create an entirely new maritime industry with very many new jobs. This would also help us to realise the commitments on climate change that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State recently agreed, rightly, at the Paris summit.

  [Source]

  The Wood review pointed to the need for the Oil and Gas Authority to be able to take a strategic view. It also pointed to the need for us collectively, including Government, to consider a long-term strategy for carbon capture and storage. In our view, unless the Oil and Gas Authority is tasked with considering the future of carbon capture and storage, it will not form part of the plan. As I said to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), now is the time that we ought to be considering what the long-term future of the North sea is. That simply cannot afford to wait. We also believe very strongly that this should not come at the cost of jobs in the North sea in the immediate term. However, we should not let our urgent need for short-term solutions preclude longer-term thinking. In future, CCS could become a huge new North sea asset. That is why we propose that consideration be given to the opportunities that exist to use North sea infrastructure for CCS where that is economically viable.

  Unfortunately, since the Bill was discussed by peers in the autumn, resulting in the one now before us, the Chancellor took the reckless decision to axe the £1 billion fund that he had promised to support new CCS projects during the course of this Parliament. That is one of the clearest examples yet of how this Government are damaging confidence among the people we need to invest in this country’s energy system by once again chopping and changing energy policies without any notice. The mishandling of the Government’s CCS programme means that the public will most likely pay, as companies understandably seek to recover costs relating to the CCS projects in Yorkshire and Scotland that they progressed in good faith but that will now not proceed. That is why I have written to the head of the National Audit Office to ask that he launch an investigation so that we can fully understand the cost to the public of the Chancellor’s sudden decision. It is also why we will seek to amend the Bill to require the Secretary of State to bring forward a new carbon capture and storage strategy within a year.

  There used to be consensus on this. The Prime Minister used to be a strong supporter of CCS too. Back in 2007, he said:

  He was right then, and he is wrong now. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that if we do not have CCS on a global scale, we are likely to see the costs of achieving targets on climate change being double what they would be otherwise. These targets may even be put out of reach entirely.

  [Source]

  Experts at the Energy Technologies Institute have estimated that, without CCS, by 2020 the costs of reaching our climate targets could be in the order of £40 billion to £50 billion a year more than if CCS were deployed. Ruling out technologies that can cut the cost of low-carbon transition is bad news for bill payers and for taxpayers.

  [Source]

  I agree with my hon. Friend. I am not one who is keen to cast back into history to appoint blame, but what I will say to him and to the Secretary of State is that a 10-year promise was made not just to industries and companies, but to the communities that stood to benefit and to gain a huge amount from CCS. Given that the Government have announced £250 million of investment in a competition for nuclear small modular reactors, we seem to be creating a complete lack of confidence that any of the other schemes will proceed. Such decisions and the way in which they are taken damage our energy security, not just in the short term but in the long term. We have to give a signal that Britain is open for business, but the Chancellor’s decision has done precisely the opposite.

  [Source]

• 7 Jan 2016: Topical Questions

  I welcome the Secretary of State’s update to the House on the actions taken in response to the floods. I particularly welcome the Prime Minister’s decision to set up a cross-Whitehall review of the Government’s approach to flood defences, which will consider the rising flood risk that climate change poses. We know now that the last review in 2014, which was also led by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), met just three times and did not publish a single finding. Will the Secretary of State confirm that she personally attends this committee? Will she tell us whether it has met yet, how often it plans to meet, which independent experts are on it, and what, this time, she expects it to achieve?

  [Source]

• 15 Dec 2015: Climate Change and Flooding

  Members have done something else: they have given a voice to all of us who are deeply concerned about the costs of inaction on climate change and what it will mean for the UK. There is a remarkable degree of consensus—with the exception of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—about the clear link between climate change and the emerging trends in flooding. The Met Office analysis suggests that global warming at or above 2º from 1990 levels will increase the risk of extreme floods by a factor of seven. It is becoming increasingly clear that the sort of rainfall and flooding once seen as rare—as once-in-100-years events perhaps—seem to be happening more frequently. It is right that the Government have acknowledged that.

  The Government’s own adviser on climate change, Lord Deben, said that

  “if global greenhouse gas emissions do not peak soon and start to fall, 4 or more degrees of warming could take place this century. This would lead to severe and unavoidable…flood risk”

  and result in an extra 1 million homes being exposed. The Committee on Climate Change has warned that the annual cost of flood damage to the UK could increase from £1 billion to £5.6 billion by the 2080s.

  In her short but moving contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) made us understand the human consequences, and as her neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), said, this is about the future. The Committee on Climate Change said that the Government’s national adaptation programme lists a range of useful activity, but that it does not amount to a coherent programme. I say to Ministers today that they must urgently rectify that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said that we need a real plan—a long-term plan, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) also pointed out.

  Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and I called for a new flood risk assessment, and I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Environment Secretary for agreeing to that. What that will not be able to do, however—given that we have to wait until 2017 for the national climate risk assessment—is fully account for the latest understanding of climate change impacts on UK flooding. I therefore ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change today whether she will bring that forward. Will there be a new national climate adaptation plan to follow those reviews?

  Many Members talked about the need to take the public with us on the journey to climate safety. Just as communities such as mine in Wigan helped to build this country’s prosperity through dangerous, difficult and dirty work down the coalmines, so young people in communities such as Wigan and across the country should be given the chance to build and power the future through jobs in solar, wind and CCS.

  The UK team—the Department for Energy and Climate Change team and officials, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) as chairman of GLOBE International—showed in Paris this weekend just what is possible if we put our minds to something, raise our ambition and work together to build the future. In so doing, they built on a proud record of leadership shown by the UK—from 1997 and Kyoto to the Climate Change Act 2008, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and David Miliband. Again, in 2015, I was proud to stand with 50 Labour councils around the UK that have pledged to go clean by 2050.

  If the Secretary of State will not listen to me, will she please listen to the powerful and moving speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) about homes under water, children frightened of the rain, shopkeepers devastated and extraordinary acts of courage from members of the public? This is the courage we need now from the Secretary of State. The costs of inaction on climate change are right before us. I ask the right hon. Lady to show the leadership that we so desperately need, because the alternative is unthinkable.

  [Source]

• 14 Dec 2015: Climate Change Agreement

  This accord is testimony to the fact that we are stronger and safer when we work together, both at home and abroad. Our voice has been heard more loudly because we have worked closely with our friends in the European Union and we have spoken together, united and with one voice. Our voice has also been heard because of the hard work and the skills of our lead negotiator, Pete Betts, and his team in the Department for Energy and Climate Change, who worked tirelessly with Sir David King and his team of diplomats in the Foreign Office to secure the agreement. Let me place on record our thanks for what they have achieved. Let me also commend the dedication of the British scientists, campaigners, faith groups, business leaders and civil society organisations who mobilised public support for this global deal. Last month, along with some of my hon. Friends, I joined hundreds of thousands of people to march peacefully through the streets of London, Edinburgh and other major cities around the world, to ensure that our collective voice was heard in the negotiating rooms of Paris.

  Ministers have also undermined our progress on carbon capture and storage, which is crucial to ensuring a just transition and support for climate change action from the communities of Britain who work in the important industries that rely on fossil fuels. In Yorkshire and Scotland, communities, scientists and engineers are reeling from the Chancellor’s decision to axe a £1 billion fund for CCS. Can the Secretary of State tell us today that that decision will be reversed?

  Following the Prime Minister’s important words in Paris, will the Secretary of State demonstrate to the House that the Government as a whole will listen, and that they will prevent the Green Investment Bank from being sold off in a manner that will remove its green mandate, leaving it free to invest in fossil fuels; cancel the new tax on more efficient vehicles; and stop another tax raid on the renewable energy industry? All those steps will take us backwards on climate change and jeopardise jobs in the industries of the future. It raises this question: what is this Government’s plan for meeting Britain’s climate change commitments? The Government’s own advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, recently warned that existing energy policy is “failing”, and only this morning the CBI called for more clarity for British business. On news of the Paris deal and the goal it contains to limit global temperature rises, its director told the BBC:

  So can the Energy Secretary confirm whether her Government’s recent string of green U-turns will now be reviewed in the light of the new assurances we have that every country will play its part in addressing climate change?

  Secondly, can the Energy Secretary confirm that the UK will continue to support raising European targets on reducing carbon pollution by 2030, to ensure we are making our fair contribution to the international effort and grasping the maximum potential for our economy from green industries? Finally, will the Energy Secretary ask the independent Committee on Climate Change to review the adequacy of Britain’s existing carbon reduction targets in light of the new internationally agreed goal of limiting global temperature rises to well below 2 °C, and ideally to no more than 1.5 °C?

  [Source]

• 19 Nov 2015: Paris Climate Change Conference

  Last year, scientists at NASA said that global temperatures have risen to their highest recorded level. With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years on record have all been since the turn of the century. Humanity’s greatest scientific minds have warned us time and again that the warming trend is now unmistakeable, and that climate change is no longer a distant threat; it is already happening.

  “all the available evidence suggests there is a link to climate change.”

  Climate change is a threat to our broader economic prosperity and to the families and businesses that depend on a growing economy. New research for Aviva Investors found that if temperature rises of up to 5° of warming occurred, it could result in $7 trillion of losses, which is more than the total market capitalisation of the London Stock Exchange. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) reminded us some moments ago, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has said:

  “Climate change will threaten financial resilience and longer term prosperity”.

  “Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.”

  Climate change is also a threat to public health. A major commission by British doctors, published in The Lancet earlier this year and backed by the World Health Organisation, found that rising temperatures constituted a threat to people’s wellbeing because of heatwaves, the spread of infectious diseases and crop failures.

  “Climate change is a medical emergency. It demands an emergency response.”

  Pope Francis was right when he called action on climate change

  We should start from where we are. Some climate change impacts are inevitable as a consequence of the carbon pollution that is already in the atmosphere, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to direct substantial aid towards the poorest and most vulnerable communities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) knows and reminds me so often, we must take steps to adapt to worsening extreme weather and rising seas through the hurricane-proofing of schools and the building of sea walls.

  The UK goes to the Paris summit with a proud history of action on climate change. It was Tony Blair who put the issue on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council and the G7. It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North and his brother who passed into law the world’s first-ever Climate Change Act. It was Gordon Brown who took action in Copenhagen to win agreement from other world leaders to set up the UN’s global climate fund to help the poorest countries in the world to protect their citizens from the impact of stronger hurricanes and rising seas.

  I am proud that we doubled renewable energy generation and put in the work to make sure that the UK was a global leader across a range of clean energy technologies. I am proud of the jobs and the opportunities for young people that those projects have created across the length and breadth of Britain, including in my own constituency. Two thirds of the renewable projects that came online in the past five years started under the Labour Government. But as we were told by my right hon. Friends the Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who did so much to keep this on the agenda in the previous Parliament, we cannot ignore the fact that the legacy of the UK’s leadership at home and abroad is now at risk.

  We cannot make progress towards climate change safety while we are unravelling all the policies at home that will help us shift towards a low carbon economy. Let us consider what they are. Solar energy support has been cut by almost 90%. The only nuclear power station on stream has been delayed yet again—delayed twice under this Government; delayed yet again. Energy efficiency programmes are being cut in real terms. Carbon capture and storage projects have not been delivered. Onshore wind farms are being blocked, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) said, even where they enjoy local support. The Green Investment Bank is being sold off without a proper mandate to invest in new green clean energy.

  The Government do not appear to have any kind of plan to ensure a just transition that protects the communities that are dependent on those industries for their livelihoods and to ensure that the workforce remain in good, skilled jobs. Only yesterday the Secretary of State acknowledged the role that coal miners have played in this country, doing dangerous and difficult work that changed lives here and boosted our national prosperity. As we move into the future, the skills, the patriotism and the work ethic of people in coalfield communities ought to be our greatest national asset, but where is the industrial strategy that will safeguard jobs and skills in those communities and help us build a new, clean energy system?

  The present chaotic, contradictory approach to energy policy has been criticised by the CBI and by Ernst and Young for causing serious confusion. It puts off investment that we badly need for our energy security, and it sends a hugely damaging signal at a time when Britain must harness the momentum that exists internationally to get a deal to tackle the threat posed by climate change. This will be the defining test of our generation. It is a test that we cannot afford to fail. It is right that the Secretary of State has come to respond to the debate herself. I applaud her for doing so. She will have heard what hon. Members said today. She will have heard the words of Pope Francis. I urge her to change course, and if she does so, she will have our full and guaranteed support.

  [Source]

• 19 Nov 2015: EU Renewable Energy Target

  Thousands of jobs have already gone and thousands more are at risk since this Government slashed support for renewables. Ministers have blocked onshore wind developments, slashed support for solar and are chopping and changing energy policy so often that the CBI says they are deterring potential investors. How many more renewable energy companies must go under—how many more jobs must be lost—before this Government will live up to our international commitments and end this assault on Britain’s clean energy industries?

  [Source]

• 19 Nov 2015: Topical Questions

  I share the right hon. Lady’s sadness at the recent events in Paris, which shocked the world. As world leaders gather in that same city in a few days’ time to address the threat posed to us all by climate change, will she ensure that we use the opportunity to show real leadership and offer hope to people around the world that we, the international community, can come together to address the common threats to our shared security through shared international goals and by increasing our ambition every five years until the job is done?

  [Source]

  I thank the Secretary of State for that answer and particularly for the push she will give to five-year reviews. I also very much welcome the agreement that the G7 leaders reached earlier this year to phase out pollution from fossil fuels by the end of this century and to cut greenhouse gases by between 40% and 70% by 2050 from 2010 levels. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the British Government will continue their support for the Climate Change Act 2008 and will accept the advice due to be given shortly by the independent Committee on Climate Change on what the next round of UK carbon targets—the so-called fifth carbon budget—should be?

  [Source]

• 17 Sep 2015: Renewables Obligation

  09:41

  Investors looking at the UK are scratching their heads. On the one hand the Government say that they are trying to reduce the cost of energy for working families, but on the other hand they say that they want to go for shale gas and CCS, which are unproven markets. We have

  [Source]

• 27 Apr 2011: Export Credits Guarantee Department (Regulation and Reporting)

  12:34

  Currently, the ECGD supports a handful of large companies that operate in just a few sectors. In the past year, for which we have figures, virtually all its support went to one company alone, Airbus, which hardly represents the diversity of the British economy, and that does absolutely nothing for the small and medium-sized businesses that we are all so keen to support. The ECGD could instead support and promote new, green industries and make productive investment that would generate jobs and prosperity. Renewable energy, public transport projects and low or zero-carbon industries should all be considered for support. Instead, we support proportionally more carbon-intensive industries than any other EU country. A credit line of £50 million, which was rightly ring-fenced for renewable energy in 2003, has not been touched to date.

  [Source]

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