Climate Change Policy

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend points out an incredibly important fact. While people want to do the right thing, they often do not know where to go, and centrally imposed standards often suppress rather than stimulate innovation. Trying to get that right is the subject of a review by other Departments at the moment, but perhaps she could pour me a glass of organic wine and we could watch it together.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I asked the Minister earlier what she would do to incentivise all renewables, and I got a very narrow answer, so let me try again. Small-scale renewables such as solar panels have been fitted in developments in my constituency, such as the social rented housing one in Pollokshields, built by Home Group, but Hannah Smith of Scottish Renewables has said

“that the end of the feed-in tariff will mean, at best, a period of enormous uncertainty for the companies that install these projects and for the people who work for them”.

The solar sector in Scotland has sold the equivalent of 360,000 solar panels every year since 2010. It is no small industry. What will she do to restore certainty and incentivise that industry?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady makes the important point that we need to hurry up with the smart export guarantee and make sure it works to deliver that, but I would gently encourage her to look at the outcome that we are delivering, rather than focusing on a particular technology. Last month, renewable energy in the UK was at over 40%, and we can now source things such as offshore wind at subsidy-free prices, so we are delivering and will continue to deliver, but we need to do that in a way that provides value for money for consumers.