Pensions and Social Security

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Sarah Newton

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

indicated dissent.

[Katy Clark]

The hon. Lady may shake her head, and she has spoken about many aspects of Government policy, but she must be aware that the cumulative effect of the policies that her Government are pursuing is to take money out of the pockets of some of the poorest and the most vulnerable in this country, and out of some of the most deprived communities. That is the wrong economic policy, it will not lead to growth and it clearly is not the policy we need for social justice. It is one reason why the gap between rich and poor is increasing so greatly at the moment.

The hon. Lady spoke about Labour manifesto policies, but the Conservative party gave assurances before the election that it had no plans to change the current index-linking of pensions. The Liberal Democrats also said that they regarded index-linking rights as protected. No doubt they will say, “We opened the books and everything was very different”, but the point I am making is that these measures will have long-term cumulative impacts that will hurt the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

[Sarah Newton]

I completely disagree with the suggestion that we are targeting the most vulnerable people, but my question to you is: can you remind the House what happened to the gap between the richest and poorest people in this society under Labour?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I would love to answer that question, but I am prevented from doing so. The hon. Lady knows that she is not supposed to address the Chair in that way. In responding to her point, I hope that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) will come back to discussion of the uprating order.

Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I think my hon. Friend has made his point.

In the few moments I have left, I should like to develop the good points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Chris Kelly), who rightly reminded us that the Government have only so much money to give away in subsidies and that they need to support a wide range of sustainable and green ways of producing energy.

[Katy Clark]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I am sorry, I will press on so that more Members can speak.

I am concerned that we should not use up all our resources, as we need to support emerging technologies. It is vital that we do not spend all the money on FITs for PVs. The Government have introduced a wide range of really good policies that support the emergence of new technologies in my constituency. For example, recent investment by the regional growth fund in deep geothermal engineering will leverage in £42 million of private sector investment, alongside nearly £1.5 million from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to create the first deep geothermal power station in my constituency.

That is a sustainable and inexpensive way of producing energy, and DECC has estimated that it could produce up to 10% of the electricity that the UK needs. That is a very good investment, and the Government are to be congratulated, at a time when there are limited resources, as that deep geothermal energy plant will create thousands of jobs in the company and up to 9,000 jobs in the supply chain around Cornwall for the development of that new and exciting technology.

I very much welcome the fact that, this winter, the renewable heat incentive will be made available to commercial businesses and a limited number of consumers installing ground heat pumps and other sources of renewable heat. I hope that, through that work, lessons will be learned so that we can end the debacle that we inherited with FITs. The renewable heat incentive will play an enormously important role in our energy security and in making sure that people switch to sustainable, green energy sources, so I hope that it does its job and works well.