Oral Answers to Questions
Daniel Zeichner Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
Because of our plan, half of homes now meet the Government’s 2035 energy performance certificate band C goal, a significant jump from 14% in 2010. In 2010, low-cost measures were targeted, with 960,000 installations. In 2022, funding shifted to high-cost measures to benefit low-income households and less-efficient homes, resulting in approximately 200,000 installations last year.
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge that we have moved from 14% to 50% because of the actions of a Conservative Government. To answer his question directly, we are allocating around £20 billion to clean heat and energy efficiency over this Parliament and the next, which will benefit his constituents. That includes our Great British insulation scheme, worth £1 billion, which will deliver insulation measures to around 300,000 of the country’s least energy-efficient homes, saving them £300 to £400 each year by March 2026.
Daniel Zeichner
I echo the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda). I remember in 2008-09, long before I came into this place, working endlessly with Cambridge City Council and energy providers on encouraging people in the city to take up home insulation schemes. Since then, we have seen precisely nothing—nothing has been going on. Labour has a huge ambition for the future; what is the Government’s ambition?
Andrew Bowie
I know mathematics is not a strong point for the Labour party, but I will go over the figures again: 14% to 50% over the course of the last three Parliaments, delivered by the actions of this Conservative Government. We have a plan to continue to deliver for the least well-off in those homes that need more energy efficiency measures. As I just said to the hon. Member’s colleague, we are allocating £20 billion to clean heat mechanisms over this and the next Parliament, and we are going to continue to deliver for the British people.
COP28
Daniel Zeichner Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. I also thank her for her attendance at the COP and her continuing passion and ability to communicate the importance of nature as a value in itself, but also how, dealt with in the correct way, it is complementary to development and to the maintenance of carbon sinks. Nature, and making sure that an understanding of it is central to our thinking, is so important.
My right hon. Friend thanked my officials, and she is right to do so. When Dr Sultan al-Jaber made the historic announcement of the UAE consensus, the central text of the various texts we agreed was that on the global stocktake. Having thanked the two Ministers who led the work on the stocktake, he immediately thanked Alison Campbell and Mr Teo from Singapore for their fundamental role. Our officials and my team were very much involved in drafting and pulling together words, and I was delighted to be supported by them as we met those from Saudi Arabia to China, India and other partners. I pay tribute to all those countries that, just like us, had to move from their initial positions to find a consensus.
My right hon. Friend mentioned the presence of MPs. My first COP was in 2005 in Montreal, and I remember feeling then that the elected parliamentarians, who make the political weather, were not properly accounted for. When I look back to that historic Climate Change Act 2008, I am proud of the fact that my then party leader, the noble Lord Cameron, was the first party leader to support it—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) could just be quiet for a moment, I was talking about parliamentarians. It was a combination of Friends of the Earth working with Back-Bench parliamentarians and a new green Conservative party, and an early-day motion—an instrument here that is often looked at askance—that triggered the Climate Change Act, which has been significant not only for the UK, but for the world.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
One of the key themes at COP28 was food system transformation. Given the Climate Change Committee’s damning criticism of this Government’s failure to make progress on cutting emissions in the agricultural sector, could the Minister tell us what changes he expects to see in UK domestic policy as a result of the agreements reached in Dubai?
Graham Stuart
Again, the UAE can be very proud of the fact that, among so many other things, it really made sure that food was seen as an important part of this COP. He is right that land-use issues, agriculture and more sustainable agriculture are fundamental to delivering net zero. Under both my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and her successor, we are working very hard to do that at home, but we were also able to announce at COP support for more sustainable agriculture and land use abroad. He is absolutely right that this is an area on which we must keep complete focus. We must make sure that we deliver in that area, as in so many others, to pull together and maintain our net zero pathway.
Oral Answers to Questions
Daniel Zeichner Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Graham Stuart
When I recently visited Aberdeen, Inverness, Port of Nigg and Orkney in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), it struck me that nearly all—in fact, I think all—the companies I met were working across oil, gas and renewables. They are part of one system, whether it is fabrication, subsea engineering or any number of other things. In truth, our energy security is about oil, gas and renewables. We are reducing our use of fossil fuels, but producing it here at home is a noble career for people in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
In a few months’ time, there will be extra checks on food coming into the UK from Europe. That will require extra cold store capacity; it is being built, but the Cold Chain Federation tells me that there is a three-year to four-year wait for connection to the grid. What are the Government going to do to make sure those facilities are up and running in time?
Andrew Bowie
Years of world-leading green investment has meant we have connected the second highest amount of renewable electricity in Europe since 2010. That has, of course, put pressure on the electricity network, and reducing connection timescales is a high priority for the Government, as I have already set out multiple times this afternoon.
Oral Answers to Questions
Daniel Zeichner Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Amanda Solloway
This Government have an unprecedented record in helping both domestic and non-domestic customers, and the energy bills discount scheme will continue to provide a discount to eligible non-domestic customers, with a higher level of support provided under the energy and trade-intensive industry element of the scheme.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
The Government have made very good progress: 47% of homes in England have now reached the Government’s 2035 target of achieving EPC C levels, up from 14% in 2010—a 133.7% increase. In 2010, the Government supported the installation of around 968,100 measures. In 2022, the Government supported the installation of around 204,000 energy efficiency measures in around 94,500 households. Around 1 million homes will be upgraded with improved energy efficiency between now and 2026 through our help to heat schemes.
Daniel Zeichner
That is a very partial account of the story, I have to say. The Minister will know that in 2010 the Government inherited a functioning scheme from the Labour Government that meant hundreds and hundreds of homes in my constituency, and possibly his, were being insulated. Come forward 10 years and what do we see: that scheme has absolutely crashed, so can the Minister tell us just how much that decade of Tory failure has cost our constituents?
Andrew Bowie
A decade of Tory failure? That is complete nonsense. We have had a 133.7% increase from 2010, when, by the way, we inherited a situation where only 14% of the country had EPC C levels. We are now at 47% and from 2010 to 2022 the Government supported the installation of around 8 million energy efficiency measures.
Powering Up Britain
Daniel Zeichner Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Graham Stuart
I share my right hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for the export opportunities that lie ahead of us. By leaning in ahead of others, as we have done and are doing, we can develop technologies and solutions which can then be exported all around the world, to the good of those other countries and ourselves. It is great to see us brokering support for just energy transition partnerships with the likes of Indonesia and Vietnam, who are great partners for us going forward. We are setting out today our vision for hydrogen and our commissioning of electrolytic hydrogen projects as part of our effort to transform the situation and move to a position where we have no unabated hydrogen as soon as that can possibly be delivered.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I am not sure what the Minister had for breakfast but it is probably best avoided because his aggressive and belligerent approach has undermined much of the good cross-party consensus that there is on this important issue. No one can look at the home insulation schemes of the last decade and imagine they are anything other than a painful failure, so for cities such as mine that have historical housing and need an insulation scheme, how will the new schemes be different from the failures of the last few years?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman talked about getting the tone right; perhaps I responded in the appropriate tone to the way that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) addressed me. When I consider that he was a Minister in the Government who so spectacularly failed, it is all the more likely that I might be a little spikey. [Interruption.] If he stops barracking for a moment, I will respond to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who asked about insulation over the last 10 or so years: we have gone from 14% of homes effectively insulated to half of all homes, and we have set up the energy efficiency taskforce. We are driving forward and putting a budget in place precisely to take this forward and improve it further. With our support for heat pumps, we are looking to green our houses and lower costs for families, as well as meeting the climate challenge, on which the last Government singularly failed and I am pleased to say that this Government are making progress.