Andrew Griffith
Main Page: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)Department Debates - View all Andrew Griffith's debates with the Department for Transport
(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I hesitate to mention this, because I do not want to embarrass the hon. Lady, but she talks about our reading from Labour’s manifesto, and I can assure her that that is not the case. It was, of course, an “utterly unachievable” manifesto when it came to net zero. Those are not my words, but the words of the GMB union at the time.
We are not anti-car. I cannot get this across enough. We are investing £27.4 billion in building roads. We believe that not just cars but buses and bicycles require roads to get around. We want those roads to be of good quality. We want to reduce the congestion and therefore reduce the environmental damage as well. Quite simply, we are not anti-car. I know that York will have many different attributes, next to that fabulous York National Railway Museum, which I enjoy visiting so much. Who knows, one day York might be home to Great British Railways.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I commend the Secretary of State for today’s announcement. Does he agree that it is the work of business that is providing the solution to these problems, from the fabulous endeavour and effort going into the Jet Zero Council to Electric Avenue, at that former fount of petrol heads that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), visited last week to see the new array of electric vehicles that are coming. Finally, does the Secretary of State also agree that it is such a great shame that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is not in her place today to hear about the fabulous solutions to these problems?
Grant Shapps
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as the UK’s net zero business champion, promoting all these causes. He is absolutely right—I have not been to Goodwin, but yesterday I went to Bedford to see a Formula E car, which is an electric racing car. The technology is moving in about 18 months from the cars to, for example, the Nissan Leaf that I stood next to. It really is a tremendous transfer of technology from one to the other. I think that all his work in encouraging us along, working hard to push for the jet zero, the net zero, the car zero, is doing a fantastic job and holding us on the road to zero.