A Green Industrial Revolution — House of Commons, 2020-01-15
Topic: Environment
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): With hon. Members’ permission, I will make a little progress first. I have not even touched on anyone else’s speech yet, so let me talk about this afternoon’s debate. We know that global warming is one of the biggest threats to humanity. That is why tackling climate change is so important, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set out some of the measures we are taking The contributions to the debate have been particularly impressive, and I pay tribute to the nine Members I noted making their maiden speech today. Each was brilliant in different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) spoke about the poor rail service in his constituency—I am sorry about that. Other Members mentioned rail services in relation to Northern. The House will be aware that I have been speaking about that recently, and will again very soon. He made a beautifully pitched and calmly delivered speech, showing how much he cares about the community he now represents. Our hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook) spoke in great terms about his constituency and everything going on in the community, and did a wonderful job The hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) described her constituency with great care, leaving us in no doubt about her passion for it. My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) made a fantastic speech, showing great knowledge of subjects including offshore wind. She pointed out that seven of the 10 largest offshore wind farms are here in the UK —a great statistic. The hon. Members for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) also made their maiden speeches in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) proposed a statue of the "Beast of Bolsover", although we do not know how that would be taken. His was a fine speech The new hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) talked about her constituency—the constituency in which I got married, it so happens—with great passion Finally, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) also spoke about her constituency very passionately indeed. There were fantastic speeches all around, and all concentrated on today’s subject of green growth Reducing carbon in the atmosphere is incredibly important. I know we have had a bit of a debate about it this afternoon because we will say, quite rightly, that our economy has expanded by over two thirds since 1990, but we have managed to cut carbon emissions by more than 40%. I want to point out—because this was questioned during the debate—that these are figures not that we have somehow come to but which have been calculated under the internationally recognised system for assessing the amount of carbon that has been cut. The figures do show a 40% cut since 1990, which is faster than any other G20 country We continue to lead the world in this process. We have legislated for zero carbon by 2050, becoming the first major economy to do so. Of course, what happens internationally is important, but I do not accept the argument that just because we cannot control what everybody else in the rest of the world does we should not be making the effort ourselves. It is the right thing to do, and we should be proud of our performance in this area We also know that measures have to be viable and practical. It is easy to say that we should just follow Norway, where a number of electric cars are sold. Does the House know why that is so? It is because it does not have a domestic car production facility to protect before the change to electric; it does not produce its own cars. So to all those Members who say, "Look, why don’t we just do it tomorrow? Why don’t we just demand that every car is electric from now on?", the answer is: because every single factory in every single one of the constituencies affected would be closing tomorrow. We have to work with the industry and help it to make the transition, and that is what this Government are doing every single day of the week Let us not forget what this country has achieved so far. We ratified the Paris agreement. More than half our electricity—53%—now comes from low-carbon sources. We fostered green industry, which is now worth £45 billion; and that goes to my previous point that we need to have a period of transition for industry. The new green sector now employs 430,000 people, so it is growing all the time. We are setting a net zero target, and have committed around £2 billion to green growth initiatives. An awful lot is happening To manage these great efforts, we know that there has to be a framework—an industrial strategy. The clean growth strategy, which details our carbon-cutting plans through to 2032, is exactly that document. In July we published our green finance strategy to trigger investment in green infrastructure technologies and services, from offshore wind to energy-efficient housing. Of course, the Prime Minister will chair the new Cabinet Committee on Climate Change to help co-ordinate the effort of the whole country to get to zero carbon. Later this year the UK will have the honour of hosting the climate change summit in Glasgow.