Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. Closing Britain’s remaining coal units by 2024 will mean that we have reduced coal’s share of our electricity supply from a third to zero in only 10 years. This is a huge achievement that reinforces our record on climate action.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) said earlier, the Climate Change Committee’s report card on the Government two weeks ago was devastating:

“This defining year for the UK’s climate credentials has been marred by uncertainty and delay”.

The Climate Change Committee says that

“the policy is just not there”,

and:

“We continue to blunder into high-carbon choices.”

The chair, Lord Deben, when asked to give the Government marks out of 10 for policy, said “somewhere below four”. On any measure, these are failing grades. Who does the Minister hold responsible?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As we are world-leading—and, like a number of world leaders, I think Mark Carney stated at a Select Committee yesterday that we are doing as well as anybody else across the planet—I must respectfully disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, because I think we really are making huge progress. The policy that is rolling out is rolling out at incredible pace. Businesses—and I am hugely impressed—are leaning in so hard to help as their contribution to the decarbonisation challenges we face. As we move towards the net zero strategy, he will be able to see the holistic approach we are taking, which will ensure that all of us who are going to help to solve that will meet the challenge.

[Edward Miliband]

I think that is what we call the “dog ate my homework” excuse, and this is where the problem lies. When it comes to investment in a green recovery, the UK Government’s plans per head of population are less than a third of Germany, a quarter of France and just 6% of the US. That is why the Climate Change Committee says that we are just one fifth of the way to meeting our targets in terms of policy. Is it not the truth that, because the Government are not matching their grand rhetoric with public investment at scale, they are failing to tackle the biggest long-term threat our country faces?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

We are one fifth of the way. If this is a journey to net zero in 2050, we have put into law—in fact, I did so just two weeks ago—carbon budget 6, which has brought forward the challenge we face to decarbonise our power industry by 15 years. We are literally world-leading in doing this, and other countries are talking to me day by day in an effort to help them follow the path we are taking and to make sure that we all do our part to meet net zero. This is not only about the UK; this is of course a global challenge, and the work my right hon. Friend the COP President-Designate is doing to help drive that across the world is critically important to its success.