G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady asks me to go for the detail, but having said some kind things about her approach just now, after listening to that I think I prefer the forensic—or the pseudo-forensic—approach of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). She is completely in ignorance of the basic facts. We have cut our CO₂ emissions by 44% on 1990 levels, largely by moving from 80% dependence on coal 50 years ago to about 1% or 2% today. It is a massive cut.

We have not cut our investment in overseas development aid for climate change funding—[Interruption.] No, we have not. We have kept it at £11.6 billion. I do not know whether the right hon. Lady was paying attention to the news, but only the other day we announced another £1 billion, which we were able to do because of the growth in the economy. She is completely wrong about the facts. As for what she said about vaccines, I am afraid it is an insult to the incredible work done by the UK vaccine roll-out programme across the world. One and a half billion people have had access to cost-price vaccines, thanks to the deal that this Government did with Oxford AstraZeneca—a record no other country in the world has—to say nothing of the £548 million extra that we put into Gavi, or the extra 100 million vaccines that we are donating by June next year. This country has an absolutely outstanding record in supporting vaccination around the world. If the right hon. Lady wants to look at the detail, I urge her to go off and study it.

I welcome the broad thrust of what the right hon. Lady said about COP26. I think she was saying that she sees signs of progress but there is a lot more to do, and frankly, there she is right. Perhaps I can point to the things that have happened since G20, and draw her attention to India’s massive commitment to cut CO₂ by 2030 by cleaning up its power system. I can point to the $10 billion from Japan over the next five years to support developing countries around the world, and I point also not just to Brazil, but to Russia, China and 110 countries around the world that have signed up to the forestry declaration to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. That considerable achievement will make a huge difference, and we will use consumer power, and the power of corporations and the private sector around the world, to effect that change.

For me, the single most important thing that came out of COP was an agreement around the world about the basic intellectual approach now being taken by the UK through the clean green initiative and what Joe Biden calls the build back better world initiative. That is the thing that offers greatest hope for humanity. We are not just putting in Government money to help countries around the world clean up, and putting in development aid money—although we are massively supporting that—but we are now leveraging in tens, perhaps hundreds, of trillions of private sector investment. That is the way to make the difference, and if we can get that right at this COP it will be a truly remarkable thing. As I say, however, there is still a long way to go.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Given that we are now taxing people at a higher rate than at any time since we were impoverished under the Attlee Government, and given that despite the fact that we produce only 1% of global emissions and China produces 27% we are now loading further controls on our industry that are not being matched in China or India, further eroding our competitive advantage, will the Prime Minister grip all his spending Departments and ensure that we root out waste and incompetence and create a genuine enterprise, low-tax economy?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and that is why we still have among the lowest corporation taxes in the OECD, in spite of the measures that we have been obliged to take because of the pandemic. That is why we put in, for instance, the 125% super deduction for companies to invest in capital, invest in infrastructure and expand their businesses. The results—the benefits—are already being seen, just in gigabit broadband alone.