Oral Answers to Questions

Alexander Stafford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

We understand that things are really tough at the moment, which is why we have put in place £900 of cost of living support this year, but we also all need to work on bearing down on inflation. We are seeing it start to come down, but we know it is still too high, and we hope we will reach the Prime Minister’s pledge of halving inflation, because that is the biggest help we can give to households this year.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to help mitigate the potential impact of environmental, social and governance practices of financial institutions on levels of investment in the defence sector.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Bim Afolami)]

The Secretary of State for Defence and my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), recently set out that the values within ESG practices of financial institutions should never undermine capabilities developed to help us preserve peace and security. The Treasury recently consulted on a potential regulatory framework for ESG ratings providers, which aims to improve transparency and promote good conduct. I hope this will address some of the issues that defence companies have raised.

[Alexander Stafford]

ESG is so vital when it comes to investing in all our services, including defence. We were promised that the “Greening Finance” road map would come out at the end of 2022. Then we were told that the consultation would come out by autumn this year. It is still just about autumn, and it is yet to come out. Why are the Government kicking ESG down the road? Why have they stopped caring about ESG, and when will we have the consultation to get a UK green taxonomy sorted?

[Bim Afolami]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. [Interruption.] I do; I know how much he cares about these issues and campaigns on them frequently in the House, and I commend him for it. The Government are committed to delivering on a UK green taxonomy to provide investors with clarity on which economic activity should be labelled as green. We expect to consult this autumn. The green taxonomy will provide an important tool for enabling the supply of relevant and reliable sustainability information for the market, and information will come in due course.