Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Claire Perry

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I thank the hon. Lady for my inadvertent promotion. She just has to look at the numbers: we have had the cleanest year for electricity generation that we have ever had, and this weekend this country, which was built on coal, went for the longest period ever without using any coal. We are legislating to ensure that homes will have no more fossil fuel heating, and 42,000 homes in my constituency are now off the gas grid. From 2025, no home will be able to be built there unless it has some other form of heating. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady shakes her head, but she knows better than many in this place, given her long involvement in these matters, that it is all very well for politicians to stand up and mouth empty platitudes but what we have to do is deliver actions, not words. That is what we are delivering.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

As the Minister knows, the Governor of the Bank of England warned last week that climate change poses a financial risk to investments such as people’s pension savings. In March, the $1 trillion Norwegian sovereign wealth fund declared that it would no longer invest in oil and gas exploration, in order to minimise exposure to those climate-related financial risks. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that the green finance strategy includes incentives for people to invest and for organisations to provide investments that are sustainable?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the issue of pension fund investing. When we had our Green Great Britain Week last year, we said that one of the most effective things that an individual could do was to their move pension fund if they were able to, or to lobby the trustees of their pension fund, like the House of Commons pension fund’s trustees, to move away from fossil fuel or unsustainable investment. The opportunities are there, and I am really proud of the work that the Bank of England has done on the climate risk disclosure, but clearly we need to do more. If the hon. Lady has ideas, we would be extremely keen to discuss them, because we would be much better off if we all put our heads together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Claire Perry

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

The growth of new and renewable technologies presents a huge opportunity for the north-east economy but, given the continued uncertainty about the clean growth plan and our membership of and access to the single market, what are the Government doing to encourage business investment in this area?

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Claire Perry)]

We will publish the clean growth strategy very shortly, but it is not just a question of simple decarbonisation; we have to decarbonise right across the economy and maximise the economic opportunities for doing that throughout the UK. We also have to ensure that we are not putting a high energy-cost burden on consumers and business and that all parts of Government are committed to the strategy for the long term. When we are able to publish the plan, which will be very shortly, I look forward to debating the issue further with the hon. Lady.

The Economy

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Claire Perry

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

This is not the opportunity for me to set out what the shadow Chancellor has already set out—the way in which we would tackle the deficit. I do not want to take up precious time that my colleagues want to spend giving speeches in this very important debate.

Women are particularly affected in the north-east, where about 46% of all working women are employed in the public sector. Those women face being one of the 30,000 public sector workers anticipated to lose their jobs in the region; most of those job losses will affect low-paid female workers. They also face pay freezes and the ever-increasing costs of balancing work with family life.

[Claire Perry]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Catherine McKinnell]

No, I will not, because I want to leave time for other Members.

It is not just women who are bearing the brunt of the cuts and stalled economic growth. One year on, after the Chancellor’s first Budget, a key concern in the north-east remains youth unemployment, with about 19% of 16 to 24-year-olds in the region not in education, employment or training, compared with 15% nationally. Of particular concern is the fact that, over the past 12 months, the number of 18 to 24-year-olds claiming jobseeker’s allowance has increased by 10% in the north-east.

Since being elected to the House, I have been a passionate advocate of the important role that apprenticeships can play in supporting young people into the workplace, thereby helping to prevent a lost generation of young people as a result of the Government’s policies. However, Ministers need to recognise that there is a real difference between making limited funding available for apprenticeships—I welcome that and it has been promised—and ensuring that good-quality apprenticeships are offered by businesses in the areas of our economy where we require those skills.

I implore the Government to consider some serious and genuine risks today. We should not allow the number of apprenticeships offered to override the importance of their quality, thus ticking the box but failing to provide young people with a decent start to their working lives. To reach such targets, we risk simply converting existing jobs into apprenticeships, when in reality no genuine new employment opportunities are created.

Following the abolition of the regional development agencies—today, we mark the anniversary of that dreadful decision—we have lost the joined-up thinking of bringing the business community, educational providers and RDAs together in a working partnership to ensure that we prevent the over-supply of certain skills and the under-supply of the skills that we need in the areas that we rely on for future growth. The result will be a failure to stimulate growth to ensure that we have the skilled work force of the future and to reach out to those young people who are most in need of the best start to their working lives.

While we are focusing on the impact of the Chancellor’s first Budget in June last year, I should like to turn briefly to two policies that he announced that are particularly relevant to Newcastle. In his Budget speech, the Chancellor announced the creation of 21 new urban enterprise zones, one of which will be located on Tyneside. I should like him to clarify today what progress has been made on this issue. Will he explain, as I did not receive an answer to the question that I asked during the Budget debate, what steps he is taking to ensure that the zone does not simply lead to jobs being transferred from one part of Tyneside to another?

A further issue is that of tax incremental financing, which the Chancellor promised to rollout in his Budget this year, to give cities such as Newcastle borrowing powers to finance much needed job-creation schemes and regeneration projects. In Newcastle alone, it is thought that about 5,000 jobs could be created over the next two decades if the council—now safely back in Labour hands—could borrow about £13 million for important projects such as Science Central and the redevelopment of the East Pilgrim street area. That is particularly important at time when we have lost the investment of our RDA, One North East, and when private sector investment for many major projects has dried up. Yet it appears that cities will not be given those powers until 2014, thus risking three years of wasted growth opportunities and lost jobs. Why are the Government dragging their feet on this important issue, when we need such support more than ever?

As we are marking one-year anniversaries, I point out that the Prime Minister promised last May to create Ministers for big cities such as Newcastle to breathe economic life into the towns and cities outside the M25, by ensuring that Whitehall blockages to economic development were dealt with. Thirteen months on, we are still waiting for further details or confirmation of that announcement. Unlike the previous Administration, no one in the Government is championing the needs of Newcastle and the north-east—a task that was so ably undertaken by my right hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), during his time as the Regional Minister. Indeed, the vacuum has recently been criticised by the North East chamber of commerce, which said:

“We’d be really keen to see the Coalition appoint City Ministers. We don’t have any Cabinet or Ministerial-level representation from the North East. And having senior Government Ministers not only aware of the issues, but actively resolving them is absolutely the right thing to do.”

I realise that the Conservatives are fairly limited in their knowledge and experience of the north-east and might find it difficult to find a candidate for my city and region, but will the Minister say when that policy will materialise, or will it be another example of a broken promise?

One year on, this Government’s policies are hitting women, children and families, as well as young people, in places such as Newcastle that can least withstand it. I hope the Chancellor will listen to the concerns expressed today, stem the damage and help to return our north-east economy to its trajectory of growth.