Clean Growth Strategy
Debate between Claire Perry and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Claire Perry
To reassure the right hon. Gentleman, not only has the Green Investment Bank—it is now known as the Green Investment Group—signed up to the plan, it has joined our green finance taskforce. We have asked our leading minds and operators in financial services, insurance, risk assessment and financial regulation to come together, so that we can not only mobilise the level of private capital that we need to drive this transformation in the UK, but export that incredible professional expertise right across the world. The taskforce is already coming up with solutions, and we will again be able to lead the world by mobilising capital and investing the right amount that we need to decarbonise.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on producing this brilliant strategy. It is brimming with ambition and full of good ideas, as we would expect from her. It is great stuff, but I just want to ask about one issue. The strategy tells us that transport emissions have been cut by 2% since 1990 compared with an average of well above 20% in all others sectors, so if we are to hit the 2050 targets, we will need something really radical in transport. The strategy talks about banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040, and I want my hon. Friend to reassure me that that will be equal to the challenge we face.
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend will of course know that per vehicle emissions have actually dropped. Cars are now about 20% more efficient, but we are using more of them. Reducing congestion and getting cleaner air is a really important benefit of taking action, but I hear what he is saying. The ambition is accelerating all the time. We announced ending the sale of conventional petrol and diesel cars and it is interesting that the Netherlands has come out with something similar. We are all doing this together. Things are the same with unabated coal. We said that we would phase it out by 2025 and Canada has said similar things. There is a genuine, exciting ambition, and things happen when we set such ambitions.
We have been talking about ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars for years, but we set the ambition and had that conversation and then many of the major manufacturers that are producing cars in the UK brought forward their plans for electric and ultra-low emission vehicles. For example, BMW announced that it will be building the electric Mini in the UK. This country already makes one in five of the electric vehicles sold in Europe, and it is through setting ambitions and then investing in innovations such as the Faraday challenge that we can be a world leader in making such vehicles and accelerating their transformation. However, this is not only about the vehicles; we also have to be able to charge them up. It is therefore important that we accelerate the roll-out of what we want to be the world’s most effective charging network, so that performance and price, not charging, are the only considerations when buying a car.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Claire Perry and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
16. What steps the Government are taking to meet their renewable energy and carbon budget targets.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Claire Perry)
As I have mentioned several times, the UK has led the world in introducing legally binding carbon budgets with cross-party support, and we have exceeded our budgets to date. We are also on track to exceed our ambition to generate 30% of our power from renewables by 2021—it is looking like we will deliver 35%. However, all that has not been done at the expense of economic growth and productivity. Indeed, yesterday’s PwC report says that Britain is leading the world in clean growth and is reducing emissions while growing the economy.
Zac Goldsmith
Millions of tonnes of wood pellets from clear felling biodiverse forests in the US, Canada and the Baltic states are burned to make electricity for the UK every year. In the light of clear evidence from the old Department—what used to be called the Department of Energy and Climate Change—that that results in carbon emissions at least equal to those of coal, will my hon. Friend reconsider the huge annual subsidies for large-scale, inefficient biomass electricity generation?
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend’s question demonstrates his deep knowledge in this area, but I am happy to reassure him that my Department’s follow-up, which was published in February this year, to the biomass energy counterfactual study that he references showed that the UK’s imported biomass is both sustainable and carbon beneficial. Although there is a risk of non-sustainable practices, they are not happening thanks to our strict sustainability criteria, and we continue to monitor the situation, because we are determined to maintain our global reputation for clean growth.
Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between Claire Perry and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
A number of speakers have already said this, but it is worth repeating that energy efficiency has for so long been bizarrely overlooked in the energy debate, despite the fact that, in terms of value for money, it is a no-brainer. I want to give just one example. Under the energy efficiency commitment, E.ON claims to have installed measures that delivered energy savings equivalent to 2.3 Kingsnorth plants at a cost of £250 million, which is a fraction of what it would have cost to build those 2.3 plants—if, indeed, it were possible to build 2.3 plants.
There will always be debate about the best source of low-carbon energy, but everyone across the House agrees that the best plant of all is the one that we do not need to build because we have eliminated the demand for it. I therefore strongly welcome the Bill, with its focus on efficiency and its simplicity. The green deal will, very simply, enable households and businesses to invest in energy efficiency at no up-front cost, thereby removing the biggest barrier to carbon refurbishment—the up-front cost—by allowing them to repay the debt through savings.
If the green deal works, it will not only reduce our dependence on imported foreign oil but insulate our homes and businesses against rising energy prices. It will also create opportunities on a large scale for green jobs and growth. More than that, it is clear that an ambitious programme of retrofitting is a prerequisite for the UK to meet its carbon targets. That has been made very clear in the fourth carbon budget report of the Committee on Climate Change, which said that we need a major energy efficiency programme to capture what it believes could be a 74% reduction in emissions from our housing stock by 2030.
The right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) and other Members have aired their concern about how quickly the green deal will be taken up, how far it will go and how much demand there will be for it. The truth is that we have no idea, because it is a new scheme. There are steps that the Government could take, however, to boost the programme. For example, I would strongly urge the Treasury to introduce proposals for a stamp duty rebate for homes participating in the green deal. Given that retrofitting is always disruptive, it makes sense that the biggest incentive should be at the point at which the home changes hands. I suspect that DECC is already lobbying the Treasury on this, and I suggest that if the Treasury wants to avoid being seen as the cuckoo in the nest in relation to green policies—it said that it would try to avoid that—it really ought to take that idea very seriously, because it would have a transformative impact. Another idea is for the green investment bank to have a role in helping to ensure that the necessary low-cost capital can be raised at scale. I am pleased that, as the Bill stands, it does not preclude a role for the green investment bank; at least, that is my understanding of it.
Emissions reduction targets are clearly important, and I want to take this opportunity to urge the Treasury again to accept the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee for a 50% reduction from 1990 levels by 2025. That is important on so many different levels, but they have already been covered in a number of speeches so I will not dwell on them. But, to return to my original point, irrespective of the targets that we set, they will be worth absolutely nothing unless we also develop the mechanisms for delivering and achieving them.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the new and interesting things about the green deal is that it will work with human nature? One of the big impediments to greening up homes, beside the cost, is a distrust of cowboy installers. If we put together a package, working with household names, it will help to overcome that consumer distrust and give us a much better chance of achieving the targets.
Zac Goldsmith
I agree with my hon. Friend 100%. One of the great aspects of the green deal is that it overcomes the obvious barriers that exist without it. The green deal is very much part of the delivery in meeting the targets, but so too is the next energy Bill. Clearly, this is not the end of the energy story for this Government.