Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Karl McCartney

2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has just taken my next point—thanks very much. Once again I will use the phrase “untapped potential”. Renewable energy really is the way ahead. I do not want to get pollution out of our cities only to put it into industrial areas with power stations, whether they are coal, oil, gas or nuclear.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and touches on a point that I raised during an intervention. She took an intervention about renewable energy from the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), but renewables might not be the way forward. It is not just industrial areas that may experience an increase in pollution. Rural areas such as Lincolnshire, or the east midlands as a whole, where lots of power is currently generated, will have to generate even more power to create that electricity. In cities such as Lincoln, companies already have to pay extortionate amounts for electricity between the hours of 4 o’clock in the afternoon and 8 o’clock in the evening because of the peaks, and there is no way that we will ever be able to charge a multitude of electric cars with renewable energy.

[Carol Monaghan]

I disagree. Has the hon. Gentleman visited Scotland at any point? I struggle to go out in Scotland on a day when it is not windy, so we could be tapping into that potential. There is a huge possibility there. Nuclear is often billed as the clean energy source, but tell that to the workers in India who are mining the uranium ore—it is certainly not clean for them. The Bill needs to cover different forms of low-emission vehicles, such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. That technology has been pushed aside to a certain extent, but we need to ensure that there is a possibility to develop it.

In conclusion, I generally support the aims of the Bill and I am excited by the technology. However, we need to ensure that we are enabling that technology to progress, that we look after EU nationals working in science and research, and that we consider how various types of fuel can be dirty.