Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Infrastructure.
Full text: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2013-02-12/debates/13021255000003/Infrastructure
16:37 Rachel Reeves (Labour)
It is no wonder that, last year, 50 companies, investors and industry bodies wrote to the Chancellor asking him to set a firm decarbonisation target for 2030 to give investors the confidence they needed. On energy policy, the Institution of Engineering and Technology has been clear in saying:
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16:59 Greg Clark
How did things reach that point? As on the economy, when it came to infrastructure, the previous Administration took a typically ostrich-like pose to the challenges of the future. They knew for 12 years that, for example, most of our nuclear power stations and most of our polluting coal-fired power stations would have to close in the decade ahead—indeed, they signed the agreement to close down those power plants—but, unbelievably, by the time they finally made up their mind about nuclear new build, it was already too late to have the new stations up and running before the old ones closed down. How is that for dither and delay? They did not even get around to the long overdue reform of energy markets on which investment in new capacity depends. That surely is something that marks the record of Labour’s first and last Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whose name escapes me just now.
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17:15 Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
I move swiftly on. As I said in an intervention, we should look further afield to the emerging economies, which are growing at an enormous rate. I appreciate that we do not have the Chinese political system, but we could look closely at the Chinese commitment to, and focus on, investment in research and development. Brazil has; it is investing $5.3 billion in renewable energy and biotech and becoming a world leader. China’s investment has meant that certain US and European companies that used to lead in solar power are being taken out. We need to think strategically about how to invest in both the infrastructure and the innovation agenda.
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