Fourth Carbon Budget

David Rutley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the growth fund, which is having a tremendous impact in bringing in a vast amount of private investment where it would not otherwise have been occurring; that is definitely a tremendous innovation. In addition, we are and will be developing the package for the energy-intensive industries, which I mentioned earlier. That is being done with our colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and it will be coming forward by the end of the year. We want balanced growth so that all parts of the economy can benefit from a robust economy.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I, too, wish to add my thanks to the Government and welcome the steps being taken to move to a low-carbon economy. It is also encouraging to see the great work being done by community groups, particularly Macclesfield Transition Town and Food4Macc in my area, to support these ambitions. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House what steps he is taking to engage these community groups in helping to achieve these very important targets?

[Chris Huhne]

We are keen to engage community groups; the ministerial team does a lot of visits and makes sure that we are talking to members of civil society and, of course, to non-governmental organisations, which have an important influence on community groups. This is also particularly crucial in an area that I know can be controversial, even among those on the Government Benches: proposals for onshore wind. I think that that is a beautiful form of renewable energy, although I know that that opinion is not always shared across the House. It is an important part of our strategy to get community groups involved and owning these policies, and some interesting proposals have been made. For example, the biggest proposal for onshore wind is the Viking proposal for Shetland and it is half-owned by the community group that supports Shetlanders. So I am very much in favour of the sort of engagement that my hon. Friend has rightly suggested.