Climate and Nature Bill

Christopher Chope Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Savage]

I applaud the fantastic work being done in Harlow to increase the number of trees. They are indeed life-enhancing and valuable self-contained ecosystems.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for having engaged with me about her Bill. She shared with me the frustrations she has had in discussing its contents with the Government. Can we get to the key issue here? She talks about urgency, but is it true that the Government are intent on kicking the Bill into the long grass because they do not want to be seen to be opposing it, yet they do not really support it?

[Dr Savage]

That is not my interpretation of the Government’s position, and we have had some fruitful conversations.

I shall move on briefly to the climate. While two sectors in climate—power and greenhouse gas removals—are on course to meet or even exceed the required emissions reductions, significant challenges remain in agriculture and land use, transport, and heat and building.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

This is getting rather worrying, because I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Either he is doing harm to his political career or I am doing harm to what might be left of mine. I shall leave it to my hon. Friend the shadow Deputy Chief Whip to jot that down in his little red book.

I find UK manufacturing really strange in this respect, because the trajectory of policy for the past several years has been very clear. We are not trying to make our petrol combustion engines go faster; we are trying to make electric vehicles more reliable, less costly, travel further and so on. Why has UK plc manufacturing not grabbed hold of that as a fourth industrial revolution and led the way, in the way that our forefathers did at the start of the first industrial revolution? We have to look to private equity and others to invest.

I was pleased to see an investment in a solar farm in my constituency. I visited the site to see where it was all going to go and how it was going to plug in, and I asked, “If you broke down a solar panel, where did the component parts come from?” Not a single component had been manufactured in the United Kingdom. They had come from about 12 different countries; the only thing that we had done was assemble them. I say to our entrepreneurs and our leaders of industry and commerce that we are better than that. We are not just assemblers; we are makers and innovators. We are an island race that has worked on free trade and exporting values, ideas and products across the surface of the globe. This is a time for us to lead in the export of actual hard power, and drive forward an international alliance on these important issues.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Dorset is well represented this morning. I will of course give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend has not mentioned China specifically, but China is still intent on increasing its CO₂ emissions until at least 2030. As a result, it is able to compete unfairly with what would be UK enterprise if we had not put a stranglehold on it with all these regulatory restrictions. How does he expect to deal with the issue of China?

[Simon Hoare]

Let me respond to my hon. Friend by quoting one of his great political heroes, the noble Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton: just because we cannot do good everywhere, that does not mean we cannot do a little bit of good here. I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes. Of course we have to be conscious of cost differentials, production costs and all the rest of it, but I say to him respectfully that if the rest of the world does something that is to the good, and one or two countries decide not to, or go at a slower pace or on a different path, I do not believe we should just stop, shrug, throw it up in the air and say, “Oh, well, if not everybody’s doing it, why the hell should we?” We led the abolition of slavery. Nobody else was doing it. We did it because we thought it was right. We introduced factory Acts. Nobody else was doing it. We did it because we thought it was right. We introduced votes for women. [Interruption.] Not me personally! I am not as old as my hon. Friend; I have just had a hard life.

We have led. It is what the United Kingdom does. We are not a nation that follows; we are a nation that sculps, leads, forms, challenges, cajoles and encourages.