Net Zero Review

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The Government place huge emphasis on the importance of training as part of our green recovery. The Prime Minister made a series of announcements yesterday on plans to upgrade skills, focusing not just on young people but on older people who did not originally have those skills, to enable them, where needed, to transition to new jobs in the green economy.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

Is the Minister confident that the methodology used by the Treasury in the review will sufficiently factor in the costs of not tackling climate change, which the review carried out by the noble Lord, Lord Stern, in 2006 estimated would be 5% of GDP by 2050?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Yes, I can reassure the noble Baroness that it will. The review is not a question of whether we need to act to meet our net-zero target; it is about how we can act to meet it. That target is set out in law. We were the first major economy to commit to it, and the review is all about how we get there. So the question of the costs of not getting there, although important, is also, I hope, one that we have put to bed.