Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Backing Business to Create Economic Growth.
Mel Stride (Conservative)
There is more in our alternative King’s Speech: a Bill to back our high streets and cut business rates for a quarter of a million of our high street businesses; a get Britain working Bill to reverse the damage done by the Employment Rights Act; a reducing bureaucracy Bill to remove the mountain of environmental, social and governance regulations; a save British industry Bill to get rid of the Climate Change Act 2008 and abolish the zero emission vehicle mandate; a cheap energy Bill to get rid of renewables subsidies and bring down bills for households and businesses; a getting Britain drilling Bill to reinvigorate our North sea oil and gas industry, creating jobs and boosting our exports; and a welfare reform Bill to get the benefits bill under control and restore the two-child cap. That is the serious plan that our economy needs. That is the plan to back our businesses and deliver growth. That is a Conservative plan for a better Britain.
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17:17 Kirsteen Sullivan (Labour)
We are in an era when global conflicts have inflated energy, fuel and food costs. The energy independence Bill is vital for our future, and I look forward to scrutinising it. In Bathgate, Invinity produces the UK’s only grid-ready non-lithium batteries. These long-duration, transportable batteries are ready to store renewable power for thousands of homes across Britain. Last week, the batteries were installed at Europe’s largest site of its kind, capable of powering 3,000 homes. They will harness the power of the sun through solar technology and help to deliver the UK’s energy security. How was this achieved? Through the National Wealth Fund, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and private industry working in lockstep, scaling manufacturing and exporting to the world. That matters to business, workers and households in Bathgate and Linlithgow, as well as to new manufacturing across the central belt of Scotland—and, indeed, for our critical energy independence.
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17:47 Robert Jenrick (Reform)
I will give the hon. Gentleman a second thing we would do: scrap net zero, so that we end the deindustrialisation of our country. Steel, chemicals, fertilisers, glass, ceramics, car making: 2 million jobs depend on high-energy intensive industries. All will be gone within the next 10 years. I wager that many Labour Members represent the good, decent, patriotic Brits who work in those businesses. They are selling them down the river. We need to end net zero and adopt a pragmatic and intelligent way to decarbonise our economy that does not immiserate working people and ruin what remains of our heavy industry. Those are two things that we could do.
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17:52 Stella Creasy (Labour)
We all walked out of the room, when we needed to be in the room to face the challenges of the modern world, whether that is national security, trade, or the climate crisis that we face. This is not a call to rejoin—that relationship with Europe is gone, and it will be a long time before we are able to rebuild it—but it is a call for us to recognise how damaging that has been for our chances as a country, and why we need to rebuild that relationship.
The European partnership Bill will do deals on food, emissions trading and electricity. Those things are all needed, but they are not enough to answer the challenge that our communities face us with: “How does life get better for us?”. Many of us who were here at the time of Brexit will already be deeply triggered by some of the things that have been mentioned, and it only makes sense to have this argument again if we are talking about a relationship that makes sense in 2026 and 2028, not 2016 and 2019. We must recognise that in the past six months we have been threatened with the invasion of Greenland, by continued aggression in Ukraine, and by a climate crisis that means we have to look again at the single market, the customs union and, yes, at freedom of movement. Any political party that denies that those conversations need to take place is not being honest with the public, because a customs union alone will not cut it.
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18:04 Kirsty Blackman (SNP)
On the red tape around regulation, there is more to be done on pension funds. Despite the Pension Schemes Act 2026, which I largely support, there is still more that can be done to free up some of the money in pension funds. For example, I would love to see more pension fund money going into building more social housing. We know that we will get a return on social housing, as people pay rent on those social houses. I would love to see flexibility introduced, so that the Government can create pipelines for smaller-scale energy projects, such as renewable energy projects for communities, and social housing. Pension funds could then invest our money in them. We must remember that it is our money in those pension funds, but that money is not being invested in ways that will ensure growth, in both living standards and the economy.
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18:42 Steve Witherden (Labour)
British Steel is an industry that supports 37,000 direct jobs, and supports many thousands more through its supply chains. It is vital to our economic resilience and our industrial future, but for decades it has been in private hands. I welcome the Government’s willingness to bring in new legislation to renationalise British Steel, and our commitment of up to £2.5 billion to modernise and decarbonise the sector in the face of the climate crisis. However, I do wish to press the Government on a key point: the public interest test in the steel industry Bill. While it is right that such powers are exercised responsibly, I urge Ministers to ensure that the test is applied in a way that genuinely puts the public before private profit, rather than being constrained by a desire to reassure investors above all else. Furthermore, if we accept the principle that steel is too important to fail, why should we stop there? Across the country, people see the consequences of privatisation every day: sewage in our rivers, spiralling energy bills, and unreliable postal services. Let us bring all essential services back into public ownership and ensure that the wealth they generate benefits the public, not private shareholders.
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18:51 Steve Race (Labour)
Secondly, we must embrace the technological revolution. Exeter already leads the way in green energy, digital infrastructure and research. Artificial intelligence presents great challenges but also great opportunities, and I want Exeter to be at the heart of the tech revolution. From our world-leading universities to our thriving science parks, such as Exeter science park, and science institutions such as the Met Office, the south-west has become a powerhouse for scientific discovery and technological advancement.
Growth will come from tackling the climate emergency, developing the post-carbon technologies that will save us, and managing the just transition to an environmentally sustainable economy. All this requires an active state to take long-term decisions on investment and research. It requires successful and supported world-class universities, such as Exeter University, to deliver the job-ready graduates our businesses need, and to actively help innovators to commercialise and productise their research—to start up and spin out, and to scale up. It needs more active and deeper capital markets so that British innovation can more easily become British success.
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Kerry McCarthy (Labour)
It is disappointing and frustrating that even now we are having to relitigate the debate about whether reaching our climate goals and protecting our planet is compatible with economic growth and prosperity. On the one hand, we have the Tories and Reform peddling fallacious arguments about the cost of net zero, and completely failing to grasp the importance of ending our dependence on volatile fossil-fuel markets—with an apparent abject ignorance of things like electric arc furnaces and carbon capture and storage. On the other hand, we have the Greens and their anti-growth agenda, not understanding that for redistribution, we first need to have a growing, strong economy to redistribute from; that to solve a housing crisis, we need to support our construction industry; and that we can pursue economic growth in a way that helps us protect the planet, rather than plunder it.
When I was climate Minister with the international energy brief, I saw that the British model for offshore wind was seen as the gold standard, in everything from the way we financed it through contracts for difference to the innovation of floating offshore wind and offshore hybrid assets, such as the Nautilus and LionLink interconnector pilots. Whether I was at North Seas Energy Co-operation events, or talking to the President of Azerbaijan ahead of COP29, there was great interest in what we were doing and recognition of our expertise. The same was true of our progress on small modular reactors, fusion, and carbon capture and storage. It has to be said that that was not always recognised by other parts of the Government. Sometimes, there was a battle to stress to them just how crucial the drive towards net zero could be to our economic opportunities. Too often, progress was stalled by, “Treasury says no,” “No. 10 says no,” or “The Department for Business and Trade says no.” The knee-jerk reaction was that regulation or intervention would be a burden on business.
To take forest risk commodities as an example, in the Environment Act 2021, the previous Government committed to introducing regulations to stamp out deforestation in our supply chains. The EU was on the same mission, using the EU deforestation regulation. When I was a Minister in this Government, there were lengthy discussions about whether we should stick with the UK approach, centred on illegal deforestation, or adopt the EU’s approach, which was based on sustainability. Those discussions were valid, but what was not valid was some quarters suggesting that we should not regulate at all. First, there was the reputational crisis. How could the UK, which co-chaired the global Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership with Guyana, and the forest, agriculture and commodity trade dialogue with Malaysia, call on other countries to protect and restore our precious forests and peatlands if we were not prepared to act ourselves? We would have no moral standing. Secondly, businesses want this. I met companies such as Ferrero, and major supermarkets, who want the Government to act, set the direction and show leadership, so that they can plan accordingly. They do not see that as a burden. It is lack of certainty that businesses hate. They are perfectly willing to get with the programme, if they know what the programme is.
We saw misplaced caution in other areas, too, such as on our manifesto commitment to 1.5°-aligned transition plans. One other area where I suspect other parts of the Government machine have been acting as a drag on progress is the development of voluntary carbon and nature markets. We know that public money and philanthropy alone will be nowhere near enough to enable us to meet our climate and nature goals. We also know that private finance is interested in investment, whether that is driven by the need to offset its own emissions, decarbonise portfolios, or ensure biodiversity net gain—or whether it is driven by insurers’ worries about climate risks and so on. In London, we have the world’s leading financial centre, and we are the best place to lead—many international visitors to last year’s buzzing London Climate Action Week told us that—but the consultation that concluded on 10 July last year seems to have gone into the ether. If the Minister can reply on only one issue that I have asked about, can she tell us what has happened to progress on the voluntary carbon and nature markets?
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19:26 Mary Foy (Labour)
The King’s Speech sets out an important direction, but the test will be delivery. For Durham that means supporting small businesses, good well-paid jobs, unlocking the sustainable energy potential of Durham University, investing in skills and ensuring the green economy creates opportunities that local people can build their lives around.
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19:53 Ben Coleman (Labour)
Under the SPS deal, multi-page export health certificates, phytosanitary certificates, port health authority costs and sampling costs would all go. The Bill will support that. It will also provide the framework to implement an emissions trading agreement, which will link the UK’s emissions trading scheme with that of the EU. That will give us a larger, more stable carbon market, support investments in new technologies and help us to decarbonise more efficiently. Together, the food and drink deal and the emissions trading agreement could add nearly £9 billion to the UK economy by 2040.
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20:49 Olly Glover (Liberal Democrat)
The Government’s plans include some welcome measures to better protect consumer rights and reduce costs. The energy independence Bill and the electricity generator levy Bill are long overdue attempts to ensure that consumers feel the benefit of our move towards renewable electricity generation and accompanying grid upgrades, including by reducing the effect of electricity prices being determined by a small amount of gas power generation. However, we need more and faster action on home insulation, a heating oil price cap and the creation of an energy security bank to finance critical green energy generation upgrades. These steps are exactly what we need. Climate change prevention cannot be done to people; it must be done with them, and the benefits have to be very clear to people, economy and planet.
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Janet Daby (Labour)
Turning to Europe, which so many in this Chamber have mentioned, I welcome the closer ties with the European Union that will be delivered through the Government’s European partnership Bill. It will benefit many businesses across my constituency. Indeed, when I was first elected in 2018, it was on a promise to repair the relationship between the UK and the EU, and I am pleased to note that the Government are progressing that commitment. The Bill will stabilise our trading relationship and set the stage for agreements on emissions trading and electricity trading, benefiting the environment, advancing our net zero goals, and securing our long-term energy future. I very much welcome the youth experience scheme and our rejoining Erasmus.
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21:14 Lillian Jones (Labour)
Last year’s CBI report confirmed that in 2022 prices the wood panel industry added £1.1 billion of gross added value to the UK economy. Yet despite that contribution, wood and wood-based products are too often overlooked in industrial policy, particularly compared with steel, cement, ceramics and glass. That must change and it must change quickly. Timber security is national security. The UK currently imports more than 80% of its timber and wood products, leaving us exposed to global supply shocks, price volatility and geopolitical uncertainty. I welcome the solid foundation this Government have laid, but I urge Ministers to go further. First, timber security should be formally recognised within national security and supply chain resilience planning. Secondly, wood and wood-based products should be explicitly recognised within the industrial strategy as strategic construction materials, alongside steel, cement, glass and ceramics. Thirdly, we must support domestic forestry expansion and ensure that productive planting targets are actually met. Without the raw material, we cannot build the resilient supply chain we need. This is not a niche issue. It goes to the very heart of growth, jobs, housing, net zero and national resilience.
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Harriett Baldwin (Conservative)
Fourthly, we will restore industrial competitiveness with our save British industry Bill. We will repeal the Climate Change Act 2008, establish a monitoring and reporting mechanism for the offshoring of emissions, axe the carbon tax, which pushes up energy bills, and repeal the zero emission vehicle mandate. That will lower costs and lead to stronger industries—jobs kept in Britain.
Fifthly, we will tackle energy costs—many hon. Members raised energy costs in their contributions today—with our cheap energy Bill. We will cut electricity bills for businesses by 20% and household bills by £200 by taking VAT off energy bills, axing the carbon tax and scrapping the Energy Secretary’s renewables subsidies. That will give businesses immediate relief and greater competitiveness, and lead to stronger growth.
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