Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Debate between Danielle Rowley and Claire Perry

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I am always delighted to visit installations in Wales—I visited Bridgend with the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and saw the amazing innovation work being led there—so it would be an absolute pleasure. The hon. Lady is right to point out that this is not just a challenge for a few. The Karman layer—the line where the earth’s atmosphere merges into outer space and where all the gases on which life depends are found—is 60 miles deep. I would not get even halfway to her constituency, if I was driving straight up, before I tipped out of the atmospheric layer. That is why this is such an important opportunity and we must work together.

[Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)]

If you can believe it, Mr Speaker, it was not in the too-distant past that I was a young activist. What I hated then and what I know young people hate now is when politicians say the future is theirs, because the present is theirs and this planet is theirs. One of the four demands of the climate strikers is extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds. They are so passionate about this topic. Will the Minister agree to giving them the vote so that they can vote on it?

[Claire Perry]

I did not realise the demands had got that broad. The hon. Lady is right to focus on something really important: it is the job of Governments to steward what they have for a period of time and then pass it on in a better state to the next generation. Whether it is the earth’s climate or the economy, that is what we exist to do. I do not know where the argument about the voting age sits in that. We have heard loud and clear what the next generation, and indeed grannies, grandpas, parents—all of us—need to do. We need to work together to accelerate our actions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Danielle Rowley and Claire Perry

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)]

T3. My constituents in Midlothian tell me how concerned they are about the catastrophic impacts that climate change will have, and indeed, is already having. What is the Secretary of State’s response to the long-term forecast by the Met Office showing that global warming could reach 1.5°, the limit aimed for in the Paris agreement, in just five years? Does he honestly believe that the Government are doing enough within their power to stop this?

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

I am very pleased to assure the hon. Lady that we are not only doing enough, but leading the developed world. Our renewables generation has increased fourfold since 2010. We have decarbonised our economy—as our four nations—more than any other country in the G20, and we were the first industrialised county to seriously look at that shocking Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and ask our own independent Committee on Climate Change for its advice on how we can get to a net zero-carbon economy going forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Danielle Rowley and Claire Perry

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

10. What steps he is taking to support new renewable energy technologies.

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

All of us in this House should celebrate the UK’s global leadership in decarbonising our economy: we have had the fastest rate of decarbonisation in the G20 since 1990, and part of that leadership has been through very substantial investment in renewable technology, including subsidies totalling £52 billion since 2010 and auction design and research and development investment. It is paying off: in the third quarter of last year we generated over a third of our energy from renewables, and our support is continuing with over half a billion pounds committed to the contracts for difference process and almost £200 million for cost-reducing innovations.

[Danielle Rowley]

Scottish businesses such as the innovative Artemis in my constituency have developed world-leading tidal and wave energy technologies, but requiring these early-stage businesses to compete with the more mature offshore wind industry for CfD subsidies means there is often no viable route to market for emergent technologies. Will the Minister consider having a three-pot auction for new technologies, including wave and tidal, so there is no direct competition with more established technologies?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. We want to continue to invest in technologies that have the potential both to decarbonise and drive global exports, and that is certainly an area that could contribute, although not at any price: we will not rerun the debate over Swansea, which would have been the most expensive power station the country had ever built and created just 30 jobs. There are potentially better, more valuable projects and I am always happy to look at innovative proposals coming forward to see how we might support this technology.