Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

This is unusual for me, but I think my hon. Friend is being slightly unreasonable to Labour Members, because, under the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, they did take the decision to restart a nuclear programme. Of course, it was slow going at first, and we have accelerated it considerably. This summer’s decision, announced on 8 October, was a big step forward that has demonstrated to other potential investors that this market in the UK is now open. We have eight approved sites in total, four of which have projects that are at various stages of development. New nuclear will play an important part in our future energy mix, and I am glad that it has cross-party support.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

11. What recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in European Union member states about carbon and renewables targets.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I have been engaging with a large number of my EU counterparts over the past two years on these issues. By engaging in Europe—by building relationships and trust over a period—I believe that a UK Minister is better placed to win arguments in the EU that are in British interests.

That is what we have done over carbon and renewable targets, so now we have more ambitious carbon targets than many thought possible. We have an EU-wide renewables target, not a rigid member-state-based target, so European countries can cut carbon emissions using the lowest-cost technologies for them while still providing a strong signal to Europe’s renewables industry.

[David Mowat]

I agree that decarbonisation targets, not purely renewables targets, are a good way forward. However, the Secretary of State may be aware that the Government of Austria—a country that since 1990 has increased its carbon emissions, which are more than 25% higher than ours—have reportedly said that they are going to sue us over Hinkley Point C. Could the Secretary of State give us his perspective on their comments? Is there anything we can do to counter-sue carbon junky countries such as Austria that repeatedly fail to meet their emission targets?

[Mr Davey]

I probably will not answer the last part of that question, because the Foreign and Commonwealth Office might want to have a word with me. On the first part of my hon. Friend’s question, Austria has reportedly been considering taking the European Commission to court, to judicially review its state aid decision. We are confident that that decision was taken in a robust way and we were very supportive of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, both in thanking my officials, who are extremely hard working and talented people, and on the future of low-carbon energy on Anglesey. He has been a real champion of those sorts of projects and the Horizon project for the new nuclear power plant there.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Earlier in Question Time the Secretary of State made the point that the 2030 agreement was the export of our Climate Change Act across the EU. I very much welcome the 2030 agreement, but does he agree that the rate of decrease implied by that agreement is quite a lot slower than our Climate Change Act? Does he intend to harmonise the targets in the two agreements?