Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy
Debate between Caroline Flint and Diana Johnson
Caroline Flint
I will make a little more progress.
In government, we recognised that at a time when public money is in short supply, a green investment bank could leverage in private investment. That is extremely important to our ambitions for the next level of energy generation that we want our country to achieve. In his autumn statement, the Chancellor boasted that he had funded the first ever green investment bank. Now, however, the Government are set to borrow a staggering £158 billion more than they planned a year ago, and the green investment bank will not have full borrowing powers until 2016 at the earliest. The Government’s claim that the green investment bank is part of a strategy for growth looks somewhat thin—like the rest of the strategy—if it is able to deliver any real investment only at the tail end of this decade.
The green deal is yet another example of a policy that we set in train in government but now appears to be headed for a car crash. Originally, the Government claimed that the scheme would create up to 100,000 insulation jobs by 2015, reaching 14 million homes by 2020 and 26 million homes by 2030. Now, sadly, the jobs forecast has been downgraded by nearly half. Transform UK believes that the green deal will reach only a fifth of the number of households that the Government expect, while the number of those in fuel poverty could reach 9 million by 2016. We still have no detail on the interest rates that will be charged, which is significant for whether anybody will be willing to take up the green deal.
As well as having a coherent strategy to improve the energy efficiency of our existing housing stock, we need new homes to be built to the highest standards. The Government could have ensured that a new gold standard was created with the code for sustainable homes, which I launched as Housing Minister, but they have fudged and watered down the commitment on zero-carbon homes. We should add to that reports that the Government, in the form of the Secretary of State for Education, are planning to undermine the green building code for schools. That worries me because, yet again, the Government’s role in stimulating new building methods and making new markets appears to be overcome by short-termism and lack of vision.
We need an active industrial strategy to bring about the energy industrial revolution. First, to unlock the £200 billion of private investment, we need clear signals and clear intent from the Government, unsullied by the voice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer playing to the gallery at the Tory party conference. Secondly, we need better procurement to ensure that public money is spent in a way that supports the low-carbon economy. Housing benefit is one example of that. In our manifesto, we said that we would consider regulating parts of the private rented sector because of the way it acted, which we felt was inappropriate to its tenants and not a shining example of the best that we could expect in that part of the housing market. Unfortunately, however, the Government have set their face against any regulation of the private rented sector, even though housing benefit is paid towards 40% of private rented tenancies and homes in the private rented sector are the least energy-efficient. I have suggested that we use housing benefit to drive up energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector. That would also create a supply chain for installers delivering the products and small businesses manufacturing them, and it could save tenants as much as £488 a year on their energy bills.
The third part of an active industrial strategy is skills. New industries cannot survive with an ageing work force. I am sure that Ministers are as aware as I am of some of the problems in different parts of the energy sector, including nuclear, in this regard. We hope that the modernisation of our energy infrastructure will happen in the next decade. The people who will do that are already in our education system, and we have to make sure that they are prepared for the future in terms of our energy security.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the skills that will be necessary for the future. In Hull, where we are hoping to become a renewables hub, we are well aware of the need to take such skills into account in education. Does she think that Ministers in the Department for Education have fully understood the need for their involvement in promoting the skills that we will require?
Caroline Flint
The extent to which Departments are joined up in the endeavour of realising the potential for new energy industries and jobs worries me tremendously. There are opportunities not only in providing cleaner energy, but in manufacturing the infrastructure to make it happen. I have mentioned the contradictions between the Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. I am not convinced that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is on board with everything that DECC wants to do. It is also worrying to hear that the Secretary of State for Education is downgrading the efficiency standards for new school buildings. This is one way in which we can use the muscle of Government procurement to make a difference without spending any more money. There are hundreds of ways in which that can be done.
We need a skills strategy. It is not only the school buildings that are important, but what is taught in our schools and how that links with industry. We must reach young people. However, we must not forget the work force in the existing fossil fuel industries. How can their skills be refreshed and transferred to the new industries as they come online? There must be hope for our young people, but there must also be hope for those in work that even if there are changes in their jobs, new jobs will be available for them and their families.
Fourthly, the Government must help to rebalance our economy. This, too, relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). Britain’s industrial heartlands—places such as the Humber, the north-east and Cumbria—have the business-cluster potential, the skills, the production, the ports and the energy to forge these new industries. We do not want to be a country that just installs products from overseas; we want to manufacture them. In the 1980s, small wind power developers drifted away from the UK due to a lack of support. Britain’s loss was Denmark’s gain and we have been playing catch-up ever since. Of the £1.2 billion cost of constructing the Walney wind farm, 40% went on turbines and parts that were not made in Britain. We have to do more to develop our supply chain and to support manufacturing in this country, rather than in Germany, Denmark and, increasingly, China.
Marine energy is still a nascent technology, but the potential is there. It would be unforgivable if we lost out on the economic benefits in the way that we did with wind energy in the ’80s. DECC and BIS must work together to be market makers and to build confidence in the British supply chain so that overseas energy companies know that there are British manufacturers who can do the job. At the very least, I would like to know, as a member of the public, what proportion of the steel used to produce turbines and other energy infrastructure is made in the UK.
Finally, the Government must empower the public in energy efficiency, and ensure that the public and communities become energy producers as well as consumers. The green deal must be delivered on fair terms to those people. In the Budget, the Government could cut VAT on home improvements, including those that increase energy efficiency, to 5% to give our economy the boost that it needs and to give power to people and communities.
The UK is not short of the capital skills or technology that are needed to make the transition to a low-carbon economy.