Finance Bill

Debate between Peter Kyle and Andrea Leadsom

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I honestly believe that global climate change is the existential threat of our time, but, unlike the shadow Minister, who just criticises the Government, I believe that with a great threat comes a great opportunity. I am absolutely certain that a focus on green growth offers us the way out of the inevitable coronavirus recession.

It is a fact that, since 1990, the UK has outperformed the G7 in cutting our greenhouse gas emissions by 43%, while growing our economy by more than two thirds. Today, there are around 450,000 green collar jobs and I truly believe that, if we play our cards right, the UK’s clean growth sector could be even bigger than our world-leading financial services in years to come. Even on our current trajectory, the UK is forecast to have 2 million green collar jobs by 2030, but we can do so much better—from electrification of our transport sector to industrial decarbonisation, from nuclear fusion to battery technology, and from low-carbon home heating to our world-leading environmental standards. We are not just leading the world in science and innovation, but creating an ideal platform for millions of new jobs.

[Peter Kyle]

The right hon. Lady mentioned low-carbon heating. Heating homes and businesses accounts for about 43% of our CO₂ emissions as a country, yet Government do not have a single target for it. How can we tackle these things if Government will not even set a target for reducing the single biggest emissions area for our country?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As a matter of fact, it is not the single biggest emissions sector in our country, but the Government have a number of plans and projects to look at how we can decarbonise home heating, which are very important and I will come on to specifically talk about target setting.

We are not just leading the world in science and innovation, but creating an ideal platform for millions of new jobs. In particular, it is well known that young people—more than 70% of them—would prefer a career in the green sector. Perhaps the greatest UK success story to date is our pioneering efforts in renewable energy. The UK accounts for more than a third of the world’s deployed offshore wind, and renewables have accounted for 37% of electricity to the network this year, with nuclear accounting for a further 18%. Furthermore, the speed of UK achievement has accelerated under successive Conservative Governments. When I was Energy Minister in 2015, we announced we would be taking coal off the grid entirely by 2025, and it is a real credit to our energy sector that we have achieved close to zero coal now, and it is only 2020.