Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

Joining the skills that we already have in one sector with those in another is an excellent suggestion, and I will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Offshore wind is an integral part of the clean growth strategy, which the Government have submitted to the United Nations as their official mid-century decarbonisation plan. However, the independent Committee on Climate Change says that the strategy will fail to meet even our existing targets for 2030. Will the Minister tell us when “mid-century” shifted forward 20 years? Why do the Government think a plan that fails even to deliver a 57% reduction in emissions by 2030 is appropriate to meet the much tougher reduction of a more than 80% reduction by 2050?

[Claire Perry]

Once again, I am amazed at the hon. Gentleman’s ability to turn one of the great success stories of this country—in fact, he wrote an article about this last week that was so poor that he did not even retweet it. The point is that we have—[Interruption.] If he stopped chuntering, perhaps he might learn something. He is most impolite. We have led the world in decarbonising our economy. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we were the first country to set up statutory carbon budgets, and we are on track to meet the first three, as well as to get close to the budgets, based on current policies and proposals, in 10 and 15 years’ time. He will also know that we are the first developed nation to have said that we want to understand how we will get to a zero-carbon economy in 2050, and my request to the committee—[Interruption.] He is doing it again, Mr Speaker; his mother would be horrified by this level of discourtesy. We were the first country in the world to ask how we will get to a decarbonised economy in 2050, and I would hope that we could enjoy cross-party support for something so vital.