Oral Answers to Questions

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I hope my hon. Friend caught my point that I agree it would be wrong to have power provided to the grid for free. In his constituency, there are now more than 1,300 feed-in tariff installations, and he should be proud of that. He is right; there are many such organisations. I was lucky to meet a group of people from all different faiths who were really committed to a zero-carbon future in many places of worship. That is happening right across the country. There is value in that, and we want to see it continue.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Scotland is the home of energy innovation, and a lot of that is down to EU funding for the innovation and research that is taking place. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that funding for the Scottish renewables sector is protected after Brexit?

[Claire Perry]

I encourage the hon. Lady to move away from defining success as the amount of subsidy that renewable energy receives. In fact, thanks to incredible policy work and innovation by the suppliers, Scotland, like other areas, has benefited from a rapid decline in energy costs. We will continue to invest in clean growth—more than £2.5 billion over the course of this Parliament—and we will all benefit from those jobs and the renewable energy that those installations provide.