A Green Industrial Revolution

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I fully accept that mankind is changing the earth’s climate. I have always worried about how we are altering the air we breathe, but I feel our actions are now turning the weather. I realise that climate is cyclical; there was a little ice age from late medieval times until the 1850s or thereabouts, and the Thames froze over and ice fairs were held. I also believe that when I was a little boy, not very long ago, it was much colder in the winter—that might just be in my mind, but I felt it was more icy. There is too much evidence of ferocious world weather nowadays for us to ignore what is happening.

Health is definitely being affected too. For instance, according to Bromley Council health people, in one recent year there were 60 deaths across the six wards in my constituency because of long-term exposure to polluted air. I agree that we have started to tackle the problem, and we have had some success: carbon emissions have, apparently, been reduced by 25% in the past 10 years, and that is great; and all coal-fired generating stations will be gone in the United Kingdom by 2025. It is also really good news that we are the world leader in offshore power generation. We have increased renewable energy generation sixfold in the past 10 years. In 2018, renewable sources of electricity generation supplied 33% of our electricity needs, which is up from 6.9% in 2010. This is all good news. More and more people are buying and using cars powered by electricity, but they are damn expensive. By 2040, diesel and petrol cars should be almost off our roads, so it seems the future for our vehicles will be electricity, but let us not forget hydrogen, which is another source that can be harnessed to run vehicles. A heck of a lot of investigation as to how that can happen is being undertaken by the car companies.

Of course, our Government have a major part to play in reducing carbon emissions, and we have too; on 27 June last year, Parliament amended the Climate Change Act 2008 to include the commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. That is excellent news. Some say—I accept this—that we could get there earlier, and let us hope that that is the case, but at least we have a target. It would be superb if could get there as soon as possible. If we want to get to zero carbon emissions very fast, we have to accept the penalties: giving up our cars, diesel and petrol; travelling only by public transport; stopping flying off to exotic locations in aeroplanes; and changing our central heating systems.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point, and he alights on the issue of changing our heating systems. Does he agree that we need to incentivise, within the tax structure, the building of ground-source heat pumps and air-source heat pumps to ensure that they can replace traditional fossil fuel systems and get our carbon emissions down?

[Bob Stewart]

I certainly do, and I want it to happen in my house as soon as possible.

We are decarbonising our economy faster, apparently, than any other G20 country, and we have reduced our emissions by 29% in the past decade, but here is the point: every breath we take is full of something called particulates, which, to be honest, I did not know much about until recently. These particulates—particularly something called particulate matter 2.5—are about 200 times smaller than a grain of sand, so they just float through the air and go into our lungs. They pass into our bloodstream and end up somewhere in our brain, or any of our other organs. I am told—of course, I am no expert, and I suspect that very few of us in the House are experts—that this causes illness and death. Having looked at the January 2019 report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I understand that only 12% of particulate matter comes from vehicles.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning particulate matter, which is an issue of air pollution, but we should differentiate air pollution and climate change. They are two separate matters and we need to tackle them differently.

[Bob Stewart]

I accept that, and that I am no expert, so I accept the hon. Lady’s point of view, but particulate matter does have an impact on us all. Around 13% comes from industrial processes and 38% comes from wood burning and coal fires. That is quite a lot—more than comes from vehicles. I am looking up at the clock because I promised the Deputy Speaker that I would be finished in under 10 minutes—and I will.

I like the clean air strategy that was published in January last year: it is a good, bold new goal. We have to think carefully about using wood-burning stoves—I do not use the fireplace in my house anymore—and having open fires, and farms will have to change the way they do business. The move on the reduction of particulate matter has been welcomed by the World Health Organisation as an example for the rest of the world to follow.

As a good boy, I am now skipping through my pages, Mr Deputy Speaker, to make a final point. We produce about 1% to 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases. If we became carbon neutral right now, it might not make much difference, but that should not stop us doing it —we can become an example to the rest of the world—and the rest of the world is starting to follow and to deal with climate change. Bring it on: let us change the way we live so that the future is bright for those who follow us.

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[Vicky Ford]

I will keep going, because I have only a short time. I will not take any more interventions.

We need to make sure that we can use smart demand management, using AI and technology. I have seen at first hand how this works on the national grid. We also need to unlock the potential of electric vehicles, because of the benefits that they bring to battery storage. I welcome the Government’s commitment to more EV charging points, although I believe we need more urgency on this subject.

[Bob Stewart]

One of the problems with electric vehicles is that they have batteries that cause real problems. We have a problem in making them without actually using resources.

[Vicky Ford]

The Science and Technology Committee looked into electric vehicles’ batteries and resources in great detail last year, particularly the demand for lithium and cobalt—precious materials that are a globally constrained resource. The fight for global minerals will be an increasingly important part of foreign policy, and I would like to see that part of the net zero challenge addressed in the Foreign Office as well. I have driven a hydrogen-fuelled car and returned it safely, giving the keys back at the end. Using hydrogen in cars and potentially feeding hydrogen into our domestic gas network could bring huge benefits.

I am pleased that the Government are to introduce a super-bus strategy. We need better buses in my city of Chelmsford. We need to have medium and long-term strategies on that. We also need to relook at how we run our railways. The service offered to my rail commuters in Chelmsford at the moment is simply not good enough.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) asked about air transport. As a one-nation Conservative I acknowledge the need to improve connectivity between all parts of our country, and regional airlines have a role to play in that, but as an eco-Tory I recognise the urgent need to tackle air transport emissions. It is good that the UK is leading the world in developing cleaner, greener aircraft—Cranfield University is a leader in this—but we should do more about carbon offsetting. Easyjet is now carbon offsetting all its flights, but Flybe does not offer that service to anyone. Consumers have a role to play, and they should be given the ability to carbon offset.

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[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher). I think everyone on the Labour Benches would thank him for his kind words about Dennis Skinner, who was more than just an MP to us; he was a link to a period when people had dignity at work and felt respected in what they did, and when we had real communities that were strengthened by the work and the ethos that people had as part of their community. For Labour Members, Dennis is a link to so much more than just the Labour party, and to hear the hon. Gentleman’s warm words meant so much.

On the idea of a statue, I cannot speak for Dennis, although I can think of one word, or perhaps two words that he might say as one word: something like “Give over!” The thought is appreciated, though, and who knows what will happen on this side of the House and how far that will go? Even though it came from the Conservative Benches, I think Dennis would have appreciated that and the hon. Gentleman’s warm words, for which we thank him.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my friend for allowing me to intervene. I speak as a friend of Dennis Skinner. The lesson for everyone new coming into this place is to realise that there is a difference between politics and friendship. Friendship stretches across the House; politics may differ, but friendship is firm. Dennis is one of those sorts of people who would be very welcoming when one sat down and had a chat with him.

[Clive Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; he makes an important point. I hope that in the coming weeks, months and years we all remember each other’s common humanity. It is important that we hold on to that.

Let us understand the backcloth to this debate: Australia is currently on fire; 2,000 homes have been destroyed; 27 people have lost their lives; and half a billion animals have been incinerated. An area larger than either Hungary or Portugal has been razed to the ground. Meanwhile, to its north, the rains that never reached Australia are flooding Indonesia. This pattern is being repeated across the globe.

We are already in an era of wild weather: seasons appear at the wrong times; food harvests are diminished; pollinating and insect-mating seasons are being disrupted; and, without our noticing, the seas have been warming and storms increasing at an alarming rate. This is the beginning of climate disruption. We have talked about it for a long time. It is now here. We are at a stage that cannot easily be reversed, but that can be stopped from heading into runaway breakdown. The key is what we do within the current decade, which is what makes the Queen’s Speech so important.

If the Prime Minister understood the emergency, the Queen’s Speech would have included measures such as: introducing UK carbon budgets to reduce CO₂ emissions by 20% a year; removing planning permission for new buildings connected to the gas grid; reinstating Britain’s zero-carbon homes standard; putting in place a national fuel poverty, home energy efficiency programme; raising the UK tree planting targets to 3 billion within a decade; transferring the roads budget into new public transport networks; and, because building resilience into every part of our economy from infrastructure to food security is now critical, making a huge investment in flood prevention programmes and everything else that goes with that.

Later this year, the UK will host the COP26 gathering of nations still struggling to set up a robust framework to avoid climate breakdown. It is an opportunity for Britain to lead rather than just to host. Are there any measures in this Queen’s Speech to show how we will do this? No, of course there are not. Has anyone actually told the PM that one cannot just turn up to COP and go, “Bing, bang, boom, bong, phwoar, climate crisis!”? We have to stand on our record, and this Government do not have one. Members do not have to take my word for it. In its latest assessment, the Committee on Climate Change said that the UK is not

“on track to meet the fourth carbon budget. To meet future carbon budgets and the 100% target for 2050 it will require the government to apply more challenging measures.”

To you and me, Madam Deputy Speaker, that means pull your finger out because: the world is burning; biodiversity is collapsing; the oceans are warming; the ice caps are melting; and the world is watching us here in the UK this year.

Ultimately, I fear that nothing we say in this place will change the mind of this Government. The entirety of this Government’s mandate has been founded on one thing, which is to get Brexit done—it pains me to say that. When we understand that this is a hard right political project, we will understand that this Government have no intention of facing up to the climate crisis. Brexit has always been about trade deals that do not give a damn about climate, inequality or the global south. It is about deregulation that lets corporations raping our planet do so with ever more impunity. That is what Brexit is actually about, and that is why the Queen’s Speech has failed even the most basic of tests.

Ultimately, little we say in here will make a difference with this Government. The only way that millions of people in this country will see any real change is to build a climate mass movement, the likes of which the world has not yet seen, to force them to act. Greta Thunberg, the youth climate strikers and the global climate movement have shown us all the way. It is now time for us in this place to join them, to build a movement and show that our democracy is capable of changing course and building a better and more sustainable future.