Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Tim Yeo(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown). I remember a happy period at the end of the previous century when I debated with him—he was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for three years—probably more often than I have ever debated with anyone.
The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who led for the Opposition, expressed concern about the frequency with which the long-term economic plan and the northern powerhouse have been mentioned, but I am going to disappoint him. I must declare an interest; I want to draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes a new role at the university of Sheffield, which is a key part of the northern powerhouse, and whose research will contribute greatly to the implementation of the long-term economic plan. I also draw attention to my interests in the energy and transport industries.
This is definitely the last time I will speak in this House, as we are only 10 days away from Dissolution. I trust, therefore, that if I make a speech that is extraordinarily supportive of the Government, no one can suggest that it is an attempt to get a job. The Whip may record the voluptuous praise that I heap on the Chancellor and his colleagues, but it is entirely disinterested. It is really what I believe—just as if the Pope got up and said that he did not believe in God any more.
The plaudits that have been showered on the Chancellor are fully deserved. Under his stewardship, the economy has moved from disaster to triumph. The long-term economic plan and the northern powerhouse are essential for our future success, just as they were essential to put right the ghastly mess we inherited in 2010.
One reason I got interested in politics many years ago was that, in the 1970s, Britain was going through an appalling economic period, and as a business person travelling abroad I was embarrassed to say where I came from because we had become a laughing stock. That was all reversed in the 11 years of Margaret Thatcher’s Government, but she and her Chancellors would have given their right arms for economic statistics like ours: the fastest growth, record employment, record low inflation, and a recovery that is balanced throughout the regions. Those goals were only partially attained under Margaret Thatcher’s Government. All credit goes to this Government and this Chancellor for sticking with the long-term economic plan when it was under fire, not just from the Opposition but from a great many other critics.
In the 21st century, there are three essential pillars for any economy that wants to play in the premier league: first, a world-class infrastructure; secondly, top-class education; and thirdly, a tax and regulation system that is supportive of business. Judged by those three criteria, the Budget is a big move in the right direction. Transport in particular is an essential component of a modern economy, and Britain has been let down for many years by an out-of-date, 20th-century transport system, with congested roads, a failing railway and inadequate airports. I am a terrific supporter of High Speed 2, which is essential for the development of the north. If people cannot get somewhere, they will not invest there, jobs will not be created and the area will suffer a relative decline, so we need High Speed 2.
I am particularly delighted by the northern transport strategy. It is a wholly welcome development and another potentially transformational policy. It will be terrific to be able to get from Sheffield to Manchester in half an hour. One only needs to consider China to see how far our rail system has fallen behind what can be achieved. Last time I was there, just before Christmas, I took a train from Beijing to Wuhan. I was standing up, drinking coffee, talking on my mobile without holding on to any support. I rang a constituent and said, “The indicator says 320 km per hour”—that is 200 mph. We have made improvements, but even on High Speed 1, which does not go quite as fast as the Chinese trains, people need to hold on as they ricochet from side to side. The future is available to us, but we have got to grasp it quickly. I urge the Government to press on as fast as possible with the northern transport strategy.
I want to make a plea about airports. We urgently need an early decision on Heathrow. Without more connections to the great cities of the Asian economies, which will be a key part of the 21st century, we are going to struggle to develop the opportunities in those markets, which are essential to the success of our long-term economic plan.
I have strong—perhaps impeccable—green credentials, and I advocate investment in transport because a modern transport system can help to reduce emissions from the transport sector. Less congested roads and skies are better for the environment, in that they can lead to lower emissions. A continued modal shift from road to rail is also very beneficial, and we need that for freight as well as for passengers.
Equally important is a modern IT infrastructure. Let me now enter a plea on behalf of my constituents, who have shown such wisdom over the past seven elections by returning me to this House with comfortable majorities—I have confidence that they will elect my excellent successor, James Cartlidge, with an equally comfortable majority. My plea is that, before the end of the next Parliament, high-speed broadband should finally reach those parts of Suffolk that are still denied access to this absolutely essential business tool.
The second pillar is education. I strongly welcome the extra support for universities, which has been announced several times by the Chancellor in recent statements. The UK’s higher education system is a jewel in our crown. I welcome the support announced in the autumn statement for the Henry Royce institute, of which the university of Sheffield is a beneficiary, and the further support announced on Wednesday for the midlands. In particular, I welcome the energy research accelerator, which will contribute to another very important area in which Britain has, potentially, a big lead. Perhaps that programme could include Sheffield, which is almost in the midlands.
The direct link between that support for universities and science, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) who is about to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the performance of the economy is clear. The resurgence of manufacturing in the UK is now well under way. We were a world leader in manufacturing in the 19th century. We could be a world leader in advanced manufacturing, with high value-added jobs, in the 21st century, and we are already on our way to that.
Education is also about schools. I hope that the next Parliament will ensure that the schools budget is protected. Of course I understand why we protect the budgets for health, international development and defence, all of which are important candidates, but none of them is central to the economy in the way that education is, and the education budget is the one that, above all, needs our protection. I am a particular fan of free schools, and the Stour Valley community college in my constituency is an outstanding first-wave example of a free school. I was pleased to have the opportunity to fight for its establishment, and I urge the Government to press on with the expansion of those schools.
I shall touch briefly on the third pillar. A sympathetic corporation tax regime does exist in this country and must be maintained. Regulations have also been improved, but the big issue that we have not yet tackled is the planning system, which inhibits all kinds of development. To achieve economic prosperity, we need to streamline our planning system. I urge my hon. Friends in the next Government to make that a top priority. The often hidden but enormous cost of planning delays handicaps British business: it makes us less competitive, raises consumer prices and obstructs enterprise. That problem is particularly acute for infrastructure projects and we really must tackle that obstacle.
Finally, let me touch briefly on energy policy. The Budget announced support for tidal lagoons. I warmly welcome Britain’s leadership in researching and encouraging a variety of low-carbon technologies, including several marine energy technologies in which we are world leaders. I pay tribute to the work that is being done and I celebrate the huge expansion of investment in low-carbon electricity generation that has been achieved under this Government.
Gregory Barker
Very quickly, on the point about green issues, may I point out to my hon. Friend in case he missed it—I am sure that he did not—something that was buried at the back of the Budget, which was the announcement of marine-protected areas in Pitcairn? This is the largest ever marine conservation programme embarked on by any Government—
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Tim Yeo(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)
I warmly welcome the opportunity to debate the UN framework convention on climate change process—a subject in which the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change takes a close interest, and will go on doing so during 2014. Our previous report on the subject was published in July 2012, and I will run through some of the recommendations.
In general terms, we attach importance to the UNFCCC process. It is the international route for trying to reach agreement on how to tackle climate change. It is clearly—evidence shows this—a tortuous route, so while we affirm our belief in its vital importance, we should not feel dismayed or frustrated by the lack of progress. There is a danger in thinking that unless we reach a global agreement, nothing much will have come out of this. I believe that the existence of the UNFCCC process is a valuable spur to countries doing things individually. Many of the commitments that have been made on emissions targets and the progress on achieving climate change legislation around the world have resulted, at least in part, from the fact that we have the parallel process taking place—international negotiations—which focuses the minds of individual Governments.
In that context, I commend the work of GLOBE International, with which many members of my Committee and several hon. Members present are closely engaged, in helping to spread awareness of the benefits of climate change legislation. As we speak, the Chinese version of the latest GLOBE legislative study is being unveiled in Beijing by some of our colleagues. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister want to intervene?
Mr Yeo
I am sorry; the Minister was paying such close attention that I thought some gem—some pearl—must be about to drop from his lips, but that will come later.
Let me deal with some of the key recommendations and the responses to and outcomes of the report—first, on monitoring, reporting and verification. We recommended that the Department of Energy and Climate Change push for a single accounting regime to ensure effective MRV. DECC agreed that a common accounting framework was necessary and hoped to see progress on that at Doha. The outcome was a number of changes to the MRV framework to improve transparency and accountability.
Energy efficiency is a subject close to the heart of my Committee in a number of contexts, and we recommended that the Government prioritise it as a mitigation strategy, using EU cohesion funds and EU emissions trading scheme credits to drive energy efficiency policies. The Government agreed with those recommendations, although they noted the need for a stricter cap or for structural reforms to achieve that with the EU ETS. I shall return to emissions trading in a moment.
On the role of the UNFCCC, the Committee considers it the leading multilateral forum through which to combat climate change. The Government share that view. We should not allow the rather tortuous progress to be a reason to despair. Alongside the international process, the bottom-up process should give every possible encouragement. We increasingly see individual countries making national commitments.
Energy and Climate Change Committee Report
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Tim Yeo(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
May I say on behalf of the coalition Government that we greatly welcome the report published today? There is a lot in it, and I will certainly be studying it in more detail over the Christmas period as I munch my cold turkey. The imperative of acting in the interests of consumers and being prepared to be radical is something the Government take to heart. That is why we are bringing forward the most radical, sweeping changes since privatisation to how consumer tariffs operate. We will take on board my hon. Friend’s recommendations, including those published today. We are absolutely aligned in the interests of ensuring that consumers get the best deal.
May I also welcome my hon. Friend’s announcement today of a further inquiry? We all have an interest in ensuring that we do much better and raise the level of ambition in relation not only to communicating these messages but to understanding the underlying causes. It sounds as though the report will greatly help policy making.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Tim Yeo
Gregory Barker
The hon. Lady is right: there have been shortcomings in the programmes introduced under the last Government—namely, CERT and CESP. We have done much more to drive deployment of those programmes into vulnerable homes and for the super priority group. I have assurances that we will meet those targets for CERT and CESP, but the great thing about the green deal is that it is applicable to every single home. Whether it be pensioners living in rented accommodation or people living in social housing or on their own, the green deal will be for them, along with a whole range of measures that were not available under CERT.
Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)
Recognising entirely the important contribution that the green deal will make, does the Minister nevertheless accept the concerns expressed by the Select Committee about the relative absence of energy-efficiency measures from the draft energy Bill? When the final Bill eventually appears, will it include further measures, and has his Department given consideration to a feed-in tariff for energy efficiency?
Gregory Barker
This is one of a number of measures under active consideration at the moment. The energy Bill is very complex, as my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee knows, but it will include the most transformational, radical proposals on energy efficiency ever introduced in this place. Given the complexity and the need to consult, some of these measures may be introduced by way of Government amendment as we take the Bill through the House. I can tell my hon. Friend that the Government are leading and are determined to act on energy efficiency in a way that the Labour party failed to do in 13 years of office.
Feed-in Tariffs
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Tim Yeo(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Gregory Barker
I am sorry that the right hon. Lady constantly sees the glass as being half empty, and carps at a very ambitious scheme that will be very good news for the industry. She clearly wants to invest her political capital in failure. If she looks at the consultation, she will see that we are proposing a further cut in the tariff for solar power. She mentioned one of the options, but there are actually three. The proposals for smaller schemes, which typically involve installations on the roofs of average homes, include the options for 16.5p, 15.7p and 13.6p. We will consult on those options. She clearly does not understand the big dynamic that is driving down costs. We welcome the fact that costs are coming down, and we are determined to ensure that tariffs come down with them. If she wants to stick to, and defend, the old scheme, she is welcome to do so.
I welcome the right hon. Lady’s acknowledgement that we listened to the consultation—that rarely happened under her Government—and that we are going for band D. More than 50% of homes in Britain already meet the band D criteria, and, when the green deal is launched in the last quarter of this year, everyone in the country will be able to access measures to improve their home at no up-front cost. We have also announced today that we are going to consult on a community scheme, which the Labour Government failed to introduce when they launched this programme. For us, communities are at the heart of the renewable energy revolution, and we want to do far more to encourage and enable communities to come together to generate low-carbon and renewable energy. We expect to be able to achieve exactly that under this scheme, which will be bigger and deployed to give better value for consumers and householders.
Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)
The Minister’s statement is welcome in that it restores a degree of order to a situation that had become increasingly chaotic. I am afraid that the chaos was aggravated by the nature of the consultation process on solar feed-in tariffs before Christmas. Does he agree that the new package will be judged on whether it offers more predictability for investors, thus bringing down the capital costs, and on whether it will give value for money to the consumers who are required to contribute to the development of the renewables industry?
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those two things are right at the heart of this new scheme: better value for money and greater predictability, with a regular, predictable degression, particularly for solar PV, allowing us to anticipate, and take advantage of, the falling costs of this exciting technology. I think he will see that industry broadly welcomes these measures.