Oral Answers to Questions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the international competitiveness of the UK aerospace.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

6. What assessment he has made of the aerospace industry’s contribution to economic growth across the UK.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the international competitiveness of the UK aerospace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

What guarantees will the Minister give to ADS, the group representing the UK aerospace industry, which states that it must have

“Access to vital space programmes initiated by the European Space Agency, but funded by specific EU programmes”?

[Jesse Norman]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already talked about the importance of our satellite programmes in this country. The European Space Agency sits outside the EU structure, so it will be handled separately from EU discussions.

Retail Store Closure: Boxing Day

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the petitioners and the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on initiating the debate. It is a pleasure to be in the company of so many former retailers—and I was a retailer, too. I was thinking that my time in retail was such a long time ago until I started listening to the hon. Lady; all the memories came flooding back of those times and of the stresses at peak season, as we called it.

I should point out that I have been in not only physical, bricks-and-mortar retail, but internet retail. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I have a shareholding in teclan ltd.

Being in retail is incredibly tough. If my memories are as fresh as the experiences that we have heard about today, it is an extraordinarily demanding job, not just at Christmas, but all year round. I know that from people who are still experiencing the kinds of pressures that I did when I was in retail. I started off on the shop floor, part time, and worked my way up through the trainee management programme. The worst kind of job must be doing trainee management in retail, because people really have to do quite a lot as part of that.

We have heard stories about people being pressured to work all the time—not just at those times when people should be able to have time off legitimately, but throughout the working day. I am talking about people having meal breaks standing up because they do not have time to sit down to enjoy their breaks. There is also pressure in terms of pay versus hours. In many cases, the rates of pay are quite low, which is challenging. Where they are better, that is often negated by the fact that the hours that people are working for those fixed rates are longer than they would be required to work normally. Retail staff have to put up with a lot.

We are talking now about people working on Boxing day and Christmas eve. Often, when the shop is closing on Christmas eve, it is a hive of activity, getting things ready for Boxing day, and people work late into the night. From personal experience, I know that that could go on until the morning of Christmas day in some cases. I very much hope that that has changed for most people, but I know that it did happen in those days and am concerned that there are still those pressures out there today.

The hon. Member for Warrington North gave some clear examples of gross unfairness in the system and the pressures that people are put under, and particularly cases where people feel that their job is at risk because they have not complied with retailers’ requests to work. That is clearly unacceptable and should be considered unacceptable by everybody. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) was keen, and absolutely correct, to demonstrate that he has great empathy and sympathy with the people working under those conditions. He was also keen to show both sides; he brought in the issue of internet shopping and the pressures on the retailers and businesses to cope with that. He mentioned there being something of a conundrum with that issue.

Has the boat been missed? I contend that it has not, and that there is still a lot that can be done. I hope that we will hear more from the UK Government. I want to talk a bit about what is happening in Scotland, in order to challenge some perceptions about that. While I am talking about Scotland, may I pass on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who was keen to take part in this debate but was unfortunately the victim of delayed travel arrangements? He apologises for not being here to those people who expected him to be.

The hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) perhaps missed the point about people going shopping if they are not working. It is about choice. It is about what someone chooses to do with their family on the day; it is up to them whether they decide to go shopping to spend time with their family, or to stay home. She talked about her experience with Woolworths, Comet and Allsports; I bet that many retailers are glad that she did not work for them, given that they all went bust.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I actually did not work for Woolworths, just for the record. I was just saying how they—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady needs to be called before making an intervention.

[Drew Hendry]

I am, of course, introducing a bit of levity. I did not intend to—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we not have conversations across the Chamber?

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[Drew Hendry]

Thank you, Mrs Moon, I will bear that in mind. May I say, for the record, that I did not intend to cast any aspersions? That was merely a bit of humour that I hoped to bring in. One thing that I do agree with the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood about is that Boxing day is part of the key trading season. I remember being involved in retail and know, from speaking to retailers, that it has not changed, and is still an important part of the mix. Although it may not be the most important day of the year, it is still part of the important season for them.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) brought up the spectre of Black Friday. I am so delighted that I never had to endure Black Friday. It looks like an absolute nightmare. He was right to talk about the quest for savings, because that brings us back to an earlier point: people have this desperation to go out and make a saving at that time of year, because they have been conditioned to do so by the sales process over many years. He was also correct to bring up the hospitality sector, in which a great many people have to work over the festive season, and they face quite challenging circumstances. Even though their arrangements can be changed, we should still think of them at this time of year.

I said that I want to talk about what is happening in Scotland. We should take into account that there is an opportunity here to look at different behaviours; the boat has not been missed if we can encourage retailers to act in a different way. It is not easy to ask them to change the drive for sales; I understand that, and as I said, I have been in that market. However, when organising Christmas rotas, employers should take account of the needs of employees with caring responsibilities—that should be a fundamental part of the job that they do—and of those with family far away, as well as other relevant personal circumstances, where possible, to ensure compassionate working practices.

If an entitlement to leave on Boxing day is agreed between an employer and an employee in a contract, that contract must be upheld. Employer flexibility should be part of ensuring that workers achieve the right work-life balance, which in the long run benefits the employer, the employee and the economy as a whole. Compassionate and fair employment practices, in which employers take reasonable steps to support the wellbeing of their employees, should be part of the foundation of any sustainable and inclusive economy. When employers are engaging on holiday rotas, especially over the Christmas period, all those personal requirements should be taken into account, and it should not cause someone disproportionate detriment to work on Boxing day.

The Scottish Government will shortly take forward a commission on a flexible job index for Scotland, to determine the availability of genuinely flexible jobs that meet the needs of people who want to work flexibly. The index will analyse the ratio of jobs advertised as being open to flexibility, breaking that down by city and region, by role type, by sector and by salary band. It will also seek to identify the demand for flexibility in Scotland and the proportion of people who need that flexibility. The index will be used as a key step to promoting flexi-recruitment and other working practices in the private sector. In 2017, the Scottish Government will pilot mentoring on flexi-recruitment issues for small and medium sized businesses, building on existing support services.

Employer investment in the wellbeing of the workforce will improve economic outcomes. This is proved time and again: when businesses look after the welfare of the employees who work for them, they become more productive, do better and often make more profit. We share the idea of the fair work convention that by 2025 people in Scotland will have a world-leading work life, with fair work driving success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. This vision challenges not only business but employers, unions and the third sector, and there are clear actions for Government. In Scotland, we fully endorse the convention’s framework and will work with it to embed its principles in workplaces across Scotland. We will continue to raise awareness among employers in the public, private and third sectors of the benefits of fair work, to promote the fair work framework and to champion fairer, better workplaces.

[Mr Hollobone]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest. Things are always slightly different in Scotland—often for good reasons, but sometimes for not so good reasons. My understanding is that the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prohibits large shops from opening on Christmas day. The petitioners say:

“If only everywhere could be closed boxing day!”

I think they would like to see a Boxing day trading Act prohibiting large shops from opening on Boxing day. Would the Scottish Government support that?

[Drew Hendry]

The petitioners are quite right to look to protect the rights of workers. We heard compelling words from the hon. Member for Warrington North about the pressures that the petitioners feel need to be addressed. I am of the opinion that holidays should be respected; for example, in Scotland, traditionally, on new year’s day, shops are closed. I am unsure how we could make that work across the business sector, for small businesses and large retailers, through legislation. I have described the moves by the Scottish Government to improve the working lives of workers across Scotland through a different approach to working with businesses and organisations. In Scotland, the proper living wage, which is higher than the living wage that the UK Government have stipulated, has been adopted by a great many businesses. Encouraging good behaviour by businesses, including retailers, can and does work when we can get the message of positive change across.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). Am I right in thinking the Scottish Government do not favour stopping large stores from opening on Boxing day?

[Drew Hendry]

I have clearly given my own view: I see this as challenging. I do not think there has been a proposition from the Scottish Government on this issue, and I would not presume to speak for them, so I gave my own answer to the question.

The way forward needs to be innovative and to include a different approach from the Government. We should adopt a model whereby retailers in particular—but other businesses as well—are encouraged to act. I gave the example of the living wage being adopted at a much higher level in Scotland. The Scottish business pledge has been signed up to, and employers have been encouraged to provide much better working conditions for their employees. There is measurable evidence that when businesses adopt those practices—when they are more considerate towards their employees and introduce measures to improve the situation for employees—they see increased productivity, increased profit and better sustainability. Staff are more likely to be retained and to stick with those jobs, and to be able to achieve a more effective work-life balance. We are discussing Boxing day, but the core of the issue is surely not just one day in the year, no matter how important that day is, or how stressful people might find it to miss out on it. This must be about making working conditions better for people across the entire year, so that they can all benefit from a better work-life balance from the beginning of January through to the end of December.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

I am struggling to make progress, Mrs Moon, because I am being given all sorts of interesting suggestions.

My grandad told me that if people cannot afford to pay decent wages, they should not open a shop. That is a good piece of advice about being a responsible employer. He might have amended that, in the context of this debate, to say that if employers cannot give decent time off over Christmas, they should not be opening a shop, especially on Christmas day and Boxing day. The hon. Member for Kettering is suggesting one option. Only 1.5% of the thousands of staff surveyed by USDAW said they wanted to work on Boxing day, so something needs to be done and it needs to be addressed. One option, undoubtedly, would be to amend the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004; another would be to have a Boxing day trading Act. I wait to see what the Minister has to say on that score. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if nothing is done through that piece of legislation, there should be action to ensure—this goes back to his earlier comments—that staff who do not want to work on Boxing day will not be under pressure to do so.

The hon. Gentleman reminded us that he voted against the Government’s attempt to include relaxation of Sunday trading in the Enterprise Bill in Committee and on Report. He will remember from that debate that points were put forward very forcefully and that extremely strong evidence was presented to us that many staff are simply unable to take time off on Sundays because of concerns and pressure, and the same applies to Boxing day, even though the legislation is different unless Boxing day is on a Sunday. We have to find some way of addressing the issue. I do not think the answer is necessarily for the Opposition to be prescriptive, but we need to get to a point where no one has to work in a large store on Boxing day unless they want to. Like the rest of us, they want to enjoy Christmas. They want to travel, see family and enjoy Christmas eve, not to feel under pressure through to Boxing day.

USDAW’s view is that the only staff who should be available to those large retailers at that time are volunteers. I suppose the point it is making is that if a store could manage purely with volunteers, there would be no objection in principle to that store opening. However, if stores are relying on only the 1.5% of staff who are prepared to work and the 5.5% of staff—I think that was the figure —who are non-committal, most stores would struggle to open without forcing staff to work.

Let me turn to the points about online trading. Things have changed since 2004. The nature and scale of online trading is very different. A number of hon. Members have made points about the impact of online trading on high street and, indeed, out-of-town stores. Perhaps the time has come to look at the needs of staff working in the warehouses such as those that the hon. Member for Kettering described in his constituency. Perhaps it is time to look at what the Government’s responsibility is towards staff who work in warehouses or for internet retailers, and the way in which they are treated. Those staff have a right to a Christmas day and at the moment they are not covered by the Christmas Day (Trading) Act, let alone by what we are talking about for Boxing day. The time has come to consider how that might be addressed and how we might get the kind of fairness that we would all expect for our own families.

Points have been made about the level of trading over Christmas. One estimate is that more than £77 billion will be spent in the Christmas period in the retail sector. Most of the people who work in retail, of course, are very low paid. As we have heard, premium pay is now a thing of the past in most businesses. In that context, is it too much to ask of the major retailers to do more to support their staff by not trading on Boxing day? Remember that those major retailers all have their own internet retail presences, so it is not as if they cannot trade online. By the way, plenty of people go online on Christmas day. It is not just Boxing day, is it?

Some online retailers do not necessarily fulfil orders. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) made the point from his own experience in the internet retail sector—he may want to intervene to set me straight on this—that there are plenty of opportunities to delay fulfilment of orders. There are plenty of retailers that do just that, so they are not open 24/7.

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful for the opportunity to underline that point. There is room for retailers to be innovative by using the new technology—what would in other circumstances be the challenge of internet retailing —to help to create a much more equitable situation with in-store retail. The big benefit of having in-store staff is that they can give advice. Boxing day is a day when people are picking up units. They do not need advice; it is just about picking up the goods at a discount.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention because it really adds to everybody’s understanding of the challenges, opportunities and some of the realities. Perhaps the Minister can take some of these points away and, as well as responding to them, look at how online and offline retail operate and at what might be appropriate in supporting staff in both parts of the industry.

I want to talk a bit about some of the retailers who have so far resisted the pressure to open on Boxing day, because not every major retailer does. The initial consultation for the Christmas Day (Trading) Act, which was carried out in 2002, suggested that competitive pressure was one reason the Act was needed. Although at the time not every retailer by any means was opening on Christmas day—indeed, it was only a few—the sense was that in the end everybody would have to do so to keep up or they would lose ground.

A similar pressure now applies with Boxing day. So far, retailers including Lidl, Aldi and John Lewis have resisted the pressure, and have done so successfully, which suggests a public appetite for delaying shopping to a degree. In the last year, those retailers have seen their trading figures go up at the expense of some of their competitors, but we do not know for how long that will continue. Earlier evidence suggests a concern across the sector that businesses will ultimately all have to work and trade on Boxing day unless there is Government intervention—nobody else can make such an intervention.

The Conservatives say that this is nothing to do with them—that it is a free market and that it is up to businesses to decide what to do. The problem, if we follow that argument, is who will prevent abuse. The problems with Sunday trading, and now with Boxing day, mean that workers are unable to take time off. Who will intervene to look after workers and ensure fairness between employers on the one hand and staff members on the other?

We have seen far too many abuses recently. We have seen the behaviour of Sports Direct, and some of Amazon’s behaviour in Scotland was highlighted over the weekend. A number of us will have constituents who have been affected by the cuts in pay and conditions at Marks and Spencer. It is all our responsibility, and particularly the Government’s responsibility, to intervene on the side of working people, whether on fair pay or hours of work.

Who looks after responsible businesses? The businesses I mentioned, Lidl, Aldi and John Lewis—and there are many more like them—want to do the right thing and act responsibly. How will they be encouraged and supported unless the Government introduce the necessary conditions so that they can do that without succumbing to competitive pressures? As we discussed when we were considering a statutory instrument last week, the Prime Minister is consulting on boards having a representative with responsibility for staff. It is regrettable that the Government appear to be walking away from having elected worker representation on boards, but will such board representatives be strong enough? Will they have the interest to ensure that staff are treated fairly? The concern is that the measure just will not go far enough. This is an example of where Government intervention cannot just be left to the market. It cannot just be voluntary.

Perhaps the time has come to consider a cautionary tale. We can either go down the route of supporting responsible businesses and treating workers fairly, or we can consider what has happened historically. I have mentioned some of the more recent cases, but we saw all sorts of horrors before there was Government support. I am not suggesting that the Minister is in any way interested in repeating what happened hundreds of years ago, but my mind goes back to “A Christmas Carol”. I wonder who Ebenezer Scrooge might be in this scenario. Surely not the Prime Minister.

Where is the line if the Government say they will not intervene? We used to send children up chimneys in Victorian Britain, and I know the Minister is not suggesting that, but let us remember the ghost of Christmas past and make sure that the ghosts of Christmas present and Christmas future show fair treatment for workers and responsible businesses. That is the way forward, and the right solution will ensure that workers are looked after on Boxing day, that family life is protected, that responsible businesses are encouraged and that there is the right balance between online, high street and out-of-town shopping. I challenge the Minister to deliver on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I have had extensive discussions with the steel industry over the summer, as my hon. Friend will understand. It is very important that we should have a sustainable future for what has been, and is, a very important sector in our economy.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

T9. The huge Hanjin Shipping line has gone into receivership, leaving between £12 billion and £16 billion-worth of goods at sea. The inability to dock is projected to have an impact on UK retail, particularly during Christmas trading. More importantly, UK seafarers—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. One sentence. Very briefly. We have got a lot to get through.

[Drew Hendry]

Seafarers such as Scots cadets are stuck at sea. What action is the Minister taking to assist retailers, and will he speak to his Foreign and Commonwealth Office counterpart to get help for our seafarers?

[Greg Clark]

I will take that point away. On the immediate impact, I know that the local enterprise partnership is engaged in ensuring that the delays will be overcome.

Paris Agreement on Climate Change

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I strongly agree that what investors and businesses want is certainty. Members of the Conservative party may want to see outcomes, but one way of achieving those outcomes is to set a strict framework and then stick, within that framework, to the interim targets that we wish to meet. The hon. Gentleman has played an important part in the Environmental Audit Committee, sharing with us not only the Scottish experience, but his wider global experience.

As we know, 23 countries have now ratified the agreement, and over the past week the United States and China have come together. Given that they represent 40% of the world’s carbon emissions, this is a really significant moment. It seems to me that they are firing the starting gun for the next big industrial revolution. Britain led the way in the first industrial revolution, with the spinning jenny, electricity and other forms of energy, and the steam engine. The second industrial revolution, in the 1990s, introduced technological change which has revolutionised the way we think and do business. This will be the third great industrial revolution of our time. Whichever country first gets to market with individual transport solutions that are non-emitting—solar-powered cars and battery storage—will have a massive competitive advantage in the global race.

We have heard about the Climate Change Act 2008. That was Labour’s achievement, but it was a cross-party achievement in that only five Members voted against it. It committed the United Kingdom to reducing its emissions by 80% of the 1990s level by 2050. It has been copied, replicated and imitated across the world because it gives investors certainty, which is crucial, particularly at a time when, following the referendum result, there is a great deal of uncertainty in our economy. The Act sets out long-term goals, but it also gives Governments flexibility to decide how they want to meet those goals. Our Government also introduced feed-in tariffs and the renewables obligation, which brought about an energy revolution in this country. In 2005, none of our energy was being produced from renewable sources, whereas at certain points last year, 25% of our electricity was coming from such sources.

I want to say something about the work of the Environmental Audit Committee. I have here a copy of an excellent report that we published about 10 days ago, entitled “Sustainability in the Department for Transport”. It did not receive quite as much press coverage, or Daily Mail pick-up, as the microbeads report, which is a great shame. I am sure that no Member who is present, or anyone sitting in the Galleries, uses microbeads. I must say that we are all looking very polished and relaxed after our summer break.

What the Committee found was concerning. We found that the UK is failing to reduce its carbon emissions in the transport sector, that air quality targets that were supposed to be met in 2010 will not be met until 2020 at the earliest—and the only reason there is a plan for developing them is the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, and the threat of action against us by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice—and that although a year has passed since we discovered, on 18 September, that Volkswagen had fitted cheat devices to a range of cars, the Government have yet to decide what action, if any, to take against the company. As far as I am aware, not a single Volkswagen has been recalled in this country for any sort of fix or refit. That is completely unacceptable to Volkswagen customers who, for instance, may wish to change their cars and are unable to obtain a fair valuation.

Domestic transport is the single largest emitting sector of the economy, accounting for 22% of UK emissions. Those emissions need to fall by 31% over the next 10 years. We found that the UK is on course to miss that target by 50%. So demand for transport is growing and, despite marginal falls in average car and van CO₂ intensity, this is driving up emissions. Therefore, we are not going to be on the most cost-effective pathway to those 2030, 2040 and 2050 targets. That is deeply worrying, because if we are not on the most cost-effective pathway, it means we are idling along in the slow lane, hoping that something will turn up to suddenly help us meet those carbon budgets later on down the road, literally and figuratively.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the Scottish Government proposition to make sure that all towns, communities and cities are free of fossil fuel vehicles by 2050 is the right approach? Does she agree that the UK should be looking to follow the example of Norway and the Netherlands, which are looking at banning all new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2025?

[Mary Creagh]

What I would say about a 2050 target is that it is long enough away for none of us to be accountable for it, because most of us will be dead by then. [Interruption.] Well, some of us; I probably will be—no, I will be enjoying a long and fruitful old age, as I intend to live until I am 100. I want to see interim targets, so if there is a 2050 target I would be interested to see what are the 2020, 2025 and 2030 targets, because faraway targets can always be our children’s problems.

The issue in the report about our transport sector is that we are not doing enough now, and I want to develop my theme because transport emissions increased in both 2014 and 2015. Some 94% of those transport emissions are from road transport, and we were concerned that less than 1% of new cars are electric. There is a good reason for that: they are very expensive—£30,000 or £32,000, perhaps. The Committee on Climate Change says that we need 9% of all new cars to be ultra-low emissions vehicles by 2020 if we are to meet those targets at the lowest cost to the public. We should match what the Committee was saying with the Department’s forecasts; the Department was saying, “Well, actually 3% to 7% of vehicles will be ultra-low emissions by 2020, but our average central point is 5%.” So the Department’s central forecast is 5%, but the Committee on Climate Change says it should be 9%.

That is worrying, because the next target—the 2030 target—is that 60% of all new vehicles should be low-emissions. If we are only at 5% by 2020, I cannot see a way of getting to 60% of low-emissions vehicles without some spectacular change in the way we buy cars in this country, and we did not hear any brilliant bright ideas from the Department for Transport. We heard of the money that was committed, but we did not hear a strategy for getting that mass take-up. That means we are playing catch-up and we are not going to follow the lowest cost route to decarbonise the economy.

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[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I am particularly grateful to have caught your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, having missed the start of the debate. I apologise to the Front-Bench speakers for that, but I was detained in the Procedure Committee, where we were taking evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of our EVEL—English votes for English laws—procedures. I look forward to that issue returning to the Floor of the House in due course.

I was particularly inspired to try to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, by the comments of the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) about the impact of climate change on people in developing countries. As she said, and as I said in my intervention on her, the poorest and most vulnerable people around the whole world, who are often those whose historical carbon emissions have done the least to cause climate change, are feeling the impact of climate change first and hardest. That is why, in this debate and in the negotiations that took place in Paris, the concept of climate justice is so important. As I said in my intervention, the Scottish Government have really embraced that concept, as can be seen in a range of policy interventions. The former First Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), spoke about this concept at the central party school of the Communist party of China in Beijing, no less, which shows the Scottish Government’s ambition in this area.

Along with this Parliament, the Scottish Government have set some of the most ambitious carbon reduction targets anywhere in the world. Earlier this year, we were able to announce that the commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 42% on 1990 levels by 2020 had already been met this year. Of course, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, according to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, but I am sure that it was just a coincidence that that was the target.

The other innovative approach the Scottish Government have taken is through their climate justice fund. I have had the privilege of seeing that in action at first hand in Malawi, a country with which I have become very familiar over the years. I have seen the impact of climate change in that country, as rain patterns change significantly from what people were used to. Periods of drought are followed by periods of intense rain, which makes the cultivation of crops incredibly difficult. Of course, most people in that part of the world rely on their crops as they are subsistence farmers. The changing weather patterns that result from climate change are having a huge impact on the day-to-day lives of the population of that country and the wider region. The region is, of course, facing a drought at the moment.

The climate justice fund has been able to help people to adapt to the impacts of climate change, often by using innovative methods that are energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly in their own right. For example, I visited a community in Dedza where people were able to irrigate their crops thanks to a reservoir built at the top of a hill. Without the need for any kind of electricity or pumping—just through the force of gravity—that irrigation allows people to grow crops and cultivate their food, whereas previously that would not have been possible because of drought or the erratic rain patterns. Likewise, in Chikwawa, in the south of the country, a solar pump is harnessing the extreme power of the sun that is felt in that area and turning that into green energy which, again, has allowed crops to be irrigated and food to be grown.

[Drew Hendry]

My hon. Friend mentioned innovation, particularly in a country such as Malawi. Does he agree that there is an opportunity for hydrogen technology and storage to be deployed to meet some of these ambitious targets? Many of us here hope to be around in 2050 and the Scottish Government have targets for emissions up to then. We have not heard a lot about hydrogen today, but it could also be used in vehicles, as we are doing in Aberdeen, where hydrogen buses and council vehicles are running now.

[Patrick Grady]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. That is an example of the kind of innovation we see in small countries such as Norway, which was mentioned earlier, Malawi and Scotland. What is particularly important about the Scottish Government’s climate justice fund is that it is additional to the international development fund that they make available for mainstream international development programmes. It is encouraging that the Minister for Climate Change and Industry was formerly a Minister in the Department for International Development. I hope that will mean that there will be joined-up conversations across the Government as we take forward these important concepts.

The other matter on which I wish to reflect briefly, which I mentioned in an intervention, is the message from Pope Francis about climate justice and tackling climate change, and our own personal responsibilities to take action in our daily lives to reduce our footprint on the planet. Much of this has already been discussed in terms of where our energy comes from in the first place and clean electricity generation, but we have a responsibility to drive demand reduction through the more efficient use of electricity and by purchasing more efficient electrical appliances. We do not need to live in the stone age, but we should make much more efficient use of the energy that is generated, hopefully in a clean manner. The idea of climate justice is due to the fact that people who have contributed the least to climate change and can least afford to deal with it are experiencing the greatest impact.

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I did not realise that I was at a “Star Trek” convention, but we learn something new every day in this place.

This has been an incredibly important debate. There have been a number of excellent speeches from all parts of the House by Members who really know this subject inside out and upside down. The debate was opened with a formidable tutorial by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), who mentioned the Government’s woeful record.

[Drew Hendry]

On the subject of the Government’s woeful record, does the hon. Gentleman agree that a missed opportunity was not supporting the alternative air fuel scheme, proposed by British Airways, which would have transformed 575,000 tonnes of London’s waste into fuel and allowed BA to operate its flights twice over for a year from London City airport? Does he agree that that was a missed opportunity by the UK Government and that they should revisit it?

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his exceedingly early intervention in my speech. Of course, there are many examples of the kind that he gives.

We heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) about the worrying loss of UK influence on tackling climate change, like so much else that results from the Brexit vote. He also mentioned his grave concerns about the damage being done to the international community’s ability to tackle climate change, given our leading role up till now and the likely dramatic reduction in our influence outside the European Union.

We heard contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), who reinforced the importance of the UK’s role and the implications of Brexit. He questioned whether Government policy meant that we were on track to meet our obligations. That theme was picked up by other hon. Members later in the debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh). We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), for Copeland (Mr Reed) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), among other contributions.

Earlier, the Minister spoke about what he called the Government’s fantastic record, but he rather ignored the fact that investor confidence has plummeted, subsidies have been cut and jobs, not least in the solar industry, have been lost. He blamed the European Union for our not having ratified the Paris agreement, while acknowledging that other European countries had done so. The Government and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been happy enough recently to act against the rest of the EU. The UK recently blocked action by the rest of the EU to protect our steel industry. The Government are happy enough to take unilateral action when it suits them, but we had enough false claims about the EU during the referendum campaign, thank you.