Environment and Climate Change

Alan Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

As the hon. Gentleman is probably aware, the Scottish Government have taken significant action on that issue, and I would very much like to see it taken across the UK as well. There is no place for fracking anywhere, in my opinion.

Roseanna Cunningham is now at the forefront of delivering on a programme to actually deliver on addressing climate change—an environmental policy that takes into account the needs of people and the need to hand on a working planet to future generations. She will tell us that she wants to do more, to deliver more and to solve all the problems and solve them now, but she knows, as do many who sit in this Chamber, that Government policy does not pivot so easily, and public attitude changes take time and effort to effect. That means that this needs the extra effort and extra attention that great changes usually need. We have to change the way we live—the way we conduct society. We have to be aware now that these changes will make life less comfortable. That is just how it is, though, and we should get on with it.

This is the one issue that might require us to put away the tools of political point-scoring and decide to work together for the survival of the species. We may not agree on the way forward, and we do not have to, but we can do that without losing sight of what we are driving at. The DEFRA Secretary—or Old Swampy, as I like to call him—and I can find ways to work together. I can offer him the benefit of vision that those of us who live in Scotland have of a Government working towards some serious and stretching targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We can chat about how the Scottish Government have put money into ensuring that there are enough charging points for electric vehicles to allow a target for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles by 2032, and about funding electric buses and ultra low emission vehicles in the public fleet.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

On working together, I am not sure if my hon. Friend is aware that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is apparently looking at allowing onshore wind in Scotland where the Scottish Government have embraced onshore wind, yet the Scottish Secretary has put in writing to BEIS his objection to Scotland getting access to onshore wind, and now the Departments are refusing to release that correspondence. Is that not disgraceful and the very opposite of working together?

[Deidre Brock]

I am indeed aware of that issue, and I do think it is disgraceful. I cannot see how the Secretary of State has a leg to stand on in this regard.

This needs ambition—not personal ambition, but political ambition and the desire to see future generations able to breathe on this planet. We need to challenge an old measure of Government success—the measure that says that the greatest good a Government can do is grow GDP—and start to measure success by how much the Government can do to ensure that there is a future where the sustainability of communities and the environment is a touchstone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

Absolutely. I would suggest something along the lines of the Scottish Government’s £12 million transition training fund, which was launched in 2016. The fund enables people who are in the oil and gas industry—about 240,000 jobs across the UK depend on it—to train and perhaps progress into the renewables industry. That is certainly something I would like to see.

[Alan Brown]

Further to that point, does my hon. Friend agree that the oil and gas industry could also be supported by implementing carbon capture and storage, which allows a low-carbon transition? That is where the UK Government are sadly lacking, having pulled the £1 billion funding. That is where we need to go, and it could make use of the decommissioned oilfields.

[Deidre Brock]

Absolutely. That is a crucial element. Unfortunately, as the National Audit Office told us, the two competitions on CCS were cancelled at a cost of some £140 million, and that needs to be looked at properly again. At the moment, there is a £20 million prize fund on CCS, but it is simply not sufficient.

This requires a change of Government—not a change of personnel; there is no point changing the hand on the rudder if the course is still towards the rocks—and a change in attitude, ambition and direction of travel. It requires change across every Department and every ministerial portfolio. It needs Government to engage with the people and civic society, and to drive this agenda forward. In spite of the couthie words often chuntered here about saving the planet, there has not been much evidence of action. This is one small corner of the world, and it cannot change global politics on its own, no matter what strange dreams Brexiters have. We have a duty and a moral obligation to do our bit to keep this world fit to hand on to the next generation, and it is about time we bucked up our ideas.