Social Care Funding

Debate between David Mowat and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I am not giving the autumn statement, but I will say again that there is a 5% increase in real terms in adult social care funding during this Parliament, and that 42% of councils are increasing the budget in real terms this year.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister needs to recognise that not only can it be more difficult for cities to raise money—we have already heard from colleagues comparing the amount that would be raised by increasing council tax in cities as opposed to more affluent rural areas—but demographic concerns make delivering health services more challenging in cities such as Bristol. We are already looking at £92 million of cuts or savings that we have got to find over the next five years. Will the Minister come to Bristol to talk to the Mayor and see what challenges we are facing?

[David Mowat]

Cities do have issues with delivering social care, but so do rural areas, which quite often have a very high proportion of older people. That, in itself, can absorb a great deal of cost. The truth is that, as I have acknowledged, the whole system is under pressure, including in Bristol. We acknowledge that, and we are increasing the total spend by 5% during this Parliament.

Climate Change and Flooding

Debate between David Mowat and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I entirely agree. The renewables sector needs certainty and it has had the rug whisked away from underneath it. There is some incredibly innovative work being done. I visited Ecotricity in Stroud yesterday, to hear about Dale Vince’s proposals not just for building on his excellent work in the renewables sector but for going far beyond that. We must encourage the sector. This is where the high-tech, high-skilled, well-paid jobs of the future are and the Government ought to be doing more to encourage them.

We must acknowledge that the individual pledges made at Paris do not add up to a commitment to keep temperature rises below 2°. We must keep asking what more we can do by way of mitigation and consider what further adaptation to climate change is needed. Domestically, it is clear that the UK is not doing enough. Contributing to the global climate fund does not mean the UK can absolve itself of all responsibility, or pass the buck to developing nations.

While the international community is moving forward, the UK has gone backwards. The Government have axed the carbon capture and storage fund, worth billions of pounds. They have blocked new wind farms and cut energy efficiency programmes drastically by 80% and they propose cutting support for solar power by 90%. They are also selling off the UK Green Investment Bank without protecting its green mandate. They are increasing taxes on our more efficient cars and they are scrapping the zero-carbon standard for new homes. Their preoccupation with fossil fuels and fracking, as I mentioned, means they have threatened the future of our renewable energy industry and we have lost thousands of green jobs.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The hon. Lady says that the UK is not doing enough. Can she tell the House of one other OECD country that has reduced its carbon emissions by as much as the UK since 1990—just one other OECD country that has done that?

[Kerry McCarthy]

As the hon. Gentleman says, the UK has a proud record on tackling climate change, not least due to the leadership shown by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) with the groundbreaking Climate Change Act 2008. However, we are now coasting on that historical record and we need to do much more. We are not on course to meet our targets, so we need to do more.

The chairman of the Committee on Climate Change had no alternative but to conclude last month that the Government’s existing energy policy was clearly failing, and the CBI has said that British businesses need clarity. Businesses need to know that the Government are serious about climate change and will not make superficial claims about being green, only to U-turn on key environmental policies.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between David Mowat and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s remarks on behalf of the Labour party. Can she make it clear for the House whether the Labour party supports a carbon floor? I thought that that was settled policy. If it does support a carbon floor, what is the particular aspect of the announcement that is causing such concern?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not sure where to start in responding to the hon. Gentleman. My opening line was that we support the idea of a carbon floor price in principle. Everything that I have said since has outlined why we have reservations about the way in which it is being implemented. I simply refer him to the speech that I am making.

I appreciate that there are difficulties in getting this policy implemented at an EU level. It would be easier if we could look at the EU emissions trading scheme in the round. Experts have said that measures on carbon pricing should first be considered at EU level, and that a UK-only solution is a second best option. Lord Turner, the Chair of the Committee on Climate Change, has said that, and it was echoed in the Institute for Public Policy Research report. The Government appear to have done nothing to explore the EU option. The coalition agreement says that the Government will

“make efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits.”

However, it does not mention any intention to talk to our EU partners about a carbon price floor. Perhaps that is unsurprising, given the Government’s record on dealing with the EU. For example, the Government’s MEPs tabled no proposals to reduce the EU budget, whereas Labour MEPs tabled amendments that could have cut more than €1 billion of waste from EU spending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is an important point. Although there is concern about the carbon emissions of energy-intensive industries, in cases such as my hon. Friend has outlined they are actively working on measures to reduce carbon emissions. It is important that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater and prevent that type of green investment.

The carbon price support rate will actually provide an effective subsidy to the nuclear industry, as the Economic Secretary has confirmed in a written answer. In fact, it will benefit nuclear power twice as much as the renewables sector, with an average value of £50 million a year for nuclear between 2013 and 2030, compared with just £25 million a year for renewables.

We support building new nuclear power stations as part of the UK’s energy mix, but the problem is that the Government explicitly promised voters that they would not grant nuclear power stations a public subsidy. In fact, there is meant to be cross-party agreement that we are against nuclear subsidies. The Conservative party said in its manifesto that it intended

“clearing the way for new nuclear power stations—provided they receive no public subsidy”.

The coalition agreement stated that the Conservative party was

“committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations…provided that they receive no public subsidy.”

The Prime Minister himself said in the House in March:

“What we should not be doing is having unfair subsidies.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 950.]

Then there are Liberal Democrat Members, who were elected on a manifesto that opposed nuclear power entirely. At their party conference last year, a resolution was passed stating that

“any changes in the carbon price”

should not

“result in windfall benefits to the operators of existing nuclear power stations”.

When we delve deeper, it turns out that this is not the only nuclear subsidy by stealth that the Government are trying to sneak past the House. When I say “subsidy by stealth”, I am of course borrowing a phrase from the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), the Chair of the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change. Writing about the Government’s wider package of electricity market reforms, he has warned that they

“must not impose a one-size-fits-all reform on all low-carbon generation in order to avoid singling out nuclear for support.”

He said that the Government’s proposed design for feed-in tariffs

“seems to be more about concealing the fact that it is providing financial support for nuclear power than it is about coming up with the best approach.”

Even if the Government do support public subsidy for new nuclear build, they need to explain why they want to subsidise existing nuclear stations—and, for that matter, existing renewable power stations. Calling the carbon price support rate a green tax surely implies that it is intended to provide an incentive for future green behaviour. However, the Economic Secretary said to the Public Bill Committee:

“We are clear that ensuring that a tax is structured to drive positive environmental behaviour is one thing; ensuring that that can happen on the ground, and that people can change their decisions of the future is another.”––[Official Report, Finance (No. 3) Public Bill Committee, 19 May 2011; c. 242.]

A public subsidy for existing power stations, whether renewable or nuclear, is not behaviour-changing.

We should remind ourselves exactly where the subsidy comes from. The Economic Secretary may argue that it is not a public subsidy per se, because it does not involve taxing and spending. In fact it has a much more direct impact on every electricity bill payer, whether they are working families or manufacturing firms, and it is still a public subsidy in every sense. The hon. Member for South Suffolk says that the Government

“needs to be upfront about its financial support for nuclear energy”,

and I agree with him. That is why we have tabled the amendment.

The Government are using money taken from people and from energy-intensive industries to subsidise nuclear power stations, which they explicitly promised voters they would not do. They are also using that money to subsidise existing power stations, which makes no sense. We have tabled the amendment to give them an opportunity to explain why they have done that. If they are still sticking to their policy that there should not be a subsidy, I want to know how they will put that right.

[David Mowat]

Will the hon. Lady give way?