Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Debate between Catherine West and Claire Perry

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that the Each Home Counts review that we did, whose recommendations we have accepted, and where we have a trust mark for the work he mentions, should stop this problem happening in the future. Too much shoddy work has been done. Reparations have been made. Essentially, people have to have confidence that the work they are having done to their homes is of a high standard and is effective.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Tragically, Ella Kissi-Debrah lost her life to asthma, and the courts are currently looking at whether the authorities had any responsibility in that tragic death. I believe there is a crisis in children’s respiratory health. There is a meeting tonight with the title “Pollution Has No Borders”. One thing the Government could do would be to take away the cuts to local councils, which were looking at having more clean buses. Just increasing the number of bus journeys rather than car journeys would help not only lots of people on low incomes but the planet. Please could that be one thing that the Minister takes away from these questions and pledges to look into? Will she give that money back to councils so that action can be taken on our terribly polluted air?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady is right to point out that one problem we do not talk about enough is that CO₂ pollution is often associated with particulate pollution, and one of the co-benefits of cutting emissions is that we get cleaner air. However, I gently say that she is wrong to focus on a reduction in budgets for zero-carbon transport. My recollection—I will check this and write to her—is that those budgets have gone up, and I myself have seen some of the hydrogen and hybrid buses that are running. Of course, the challenge is also to get more cars off the roads, because they obviously have a far greater level of pollutant per mile travelled, and to ensure that children, particularly in the most deprived areas, have clean air to breathe.

Solar Industry

Debate between Catherine West and Claire Perry

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I know that you take a strong interest in these matters on behalf of your constituents in Kettering. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) on securing the debate and putting forward, as always, an excellent, well-informed set of points, which have been responded to and added to by the knowledgeable group we have here today.

I will not do the usual context setting, which is that we are doing well on the whole agenda. Renewable energy is now up to more than 32%, and emissions continue to fall rapidly. In fact, the last time our CO₂ emissions were this low was in 1888, when Queen Victoria was on the throne. That is absolutely worth celebrating.

[Catherine West]

Will the Minister give way?

[Claire Perry]

I want to respond to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury, but of course I will accept the intervention.

[Catherine West]

I thank the Minister for being so generous with her time. Will she also congratulate the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London on the London community energy fund, which helps to promote this sort of initiative?

[Claire Perry]

I will touch on that good point about community. Many good schemes operate across various local authorities.

The feed-in tariff scheme has been an effective part of our great decarbonisation journey. Since 2010, the scheme has supported more than 830,000 installations, 99% of which are solar and are currently generating about 3% of total electricity consumption. Also, a few things have changed since that time, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) will know. We have seen a dramatic fall in the cost of solar installation—up to 80% in some cases—which is to be welcomed, as it makes that more accessible to many people. We have also seen a dramatic fall in the cost of other renewable energies.

I like the phrase the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) used: the democratisation of energy. We are all participating, and one of the great benefits is that the hugely important technology that is offshore wind now costs the same, effectively, as building a new gas-fired power plant. That is a benefit to us all and to all our bills.

The feed-in tariff scheme has cost us almost £6 billion to date, and over its lifetime it will continue to cost us all about £30 billion, on many of our bills. It was absolutely right, therefore, that the decision was taken—before my time—to close the scheme. As we move to a lower-cost solar environment, and to a world in which we are rapidly seeing price parity between renewables and non-renewables technology, it is important to think about the impact on bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West]

rose—

[Claire Perry]

I will come to the hon. Lady’s point in a second.

I talked about jobs and the opportunity for skilled workers to pursue careers in this sector. Not only is there ongoing growth in solar, but so many other opportunities are emerging: electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, smart appliances and battery technology are all working to decarbonise our buildings and our transport systems. The opportunity for green-collar jobs is enormous; we already have almost 400,000 people in the UK working directly in the low-carbon economy or in its supply chain, making it a bigger sector than aerospace. Those jobs exist in the here and now.

[Catherine West]

rose—

[Claire Perry]

I am going to take an intervention from the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), who has not spoken yet.

[Claire Perry]

Indeed I do, and I am proud to have secured one of the largest increases in innovation research and development spending in the clean energy space. Of course, the ECO scheme, which we have recently pivoted to focus on fuel poverty in its entirety, includes an increase in the amount spent on innovation.

[Catherine West]

Will the Minister reassure us that when her officers are looking at the responses to the consultation, they will take into account the fact that for small schemes, such as the one that is putting solar panels on schools in my constituency, the overheads tend to be greater?

[Claire Perry]

That is a valuable point, and the hon. Lady is right to make it.

The consultation is closing in a few hours’ time. I know that it has been welcomed, including by the industry, which sees it as a bridge to a renewable, subsidy-free future. The comments that have been made today will be valuable in ensuring the details of the scheme are acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

Sadly, in all honesty, probably not. We have been clearly signalling the closing of the FIT scheme for several years now, and the response from the industry has been, “We understand that. We understand that some schemes may be on hold, but we welcome the smart export guarantee, because our main ask was to ensure that the energy that was being generated had some value.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury asked me another question about an issue that I was not fully aware of—namely, the concerns about testing the smart metering equipment technical specification 2 programme to ensure it interacts effectively with solar generation. I have instructed my officials to ensure that that testing is actioned, because that is an important point.

[Catherine West]

Will the Minister give a brief account of what is happening with Government buildings? They are clearly low-hanging fruit, as it were; there should be more and more solar installations on Government buildings.

[Claire Perry]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will have read the clean growth strategy from cover to cover, and will have seen in there that we have set out ambitious targets for the central Government estate and the wider estate. As we have so many former representatives of local authorities here, I encourage all Members to look at the Salix scheme, which allows local authorities to green up their own activities and rely on an interest-free revolving loan. It has been a great success story, and one that we must do a lot more on.

I will mention another issue—briefly, as I only have two minutes. A question was asked about encouraging housing associations and others to be involved, and I have been encouraging housing associations and local authorities to think about issuing green financial instruments. There is a huge appetite for green bonds, either individually or collectively, and using that funding for some of the excellent energy efficiency work that is available.