COP30

Debate between Ed Miliband and Joe Morris

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support for the SMR fleet in north Wales; the announcement that we made was a really important one. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, who is not in the Chamber, is very much involved with the Marine Energy Council. We have been proud in previous auctions to support tidal energy, which has a really important role. It is obviously a more expensive technology at the moment; we need to drive its costs down. I will pass her request on to him, and I am sure that he will get back to her.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I commend the Secretary of State for his ongoing commitment to fighting the scourge of climate change in the face of rising denialism. I was really pleased to hear him leave the door open to future contributions to the TFFF. Will he spell out the circumstances in which they might come to reassure me and my constituents, who are deeply concerned that that did not come forward at this COP?

[Ed Miliband]

That would be telling. Those are the discussions that we need to have with colleagues across government, including in the Treasury, as we look at the ICF programme and others in the future. But I do want to reassure my hon. Friend. We are proud to have worked on the TFFF over all the time of this Government, and indeed part of the time under the previous Government, we think it is a very innovative financing mechanism, and we are absolutely serious about keeping a future UK contribution under review.

State of Climate and Nature

Debate between Ed Miliband and Joe Morris

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I have read the report, and the bit that the hon. Gentleman did not mention is where it says that if we end up in a 3°C world, we will add 56% of GDP to net debt. That is the cost of inaction. This is the point. Nick Stern—Lord Stern—produced a report in the 2000s which said that the costs of inaction were greater than the costs of action. This Office for Budget Responsibility fiscal risks report sets out very clearly that we will lose 8% of our GDP by 2070 if we do not act. Of course there is a cost to acting, and the report sets out different scenarios for public and private investment, but the evidence in that report could not be clearer about the costs of inaction, and they are far greater than the costs of action.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I was privileged to host a net zero roundtable in my constituency involving many people from a wide variety of backgrounds, who were all appalled to see net zero becoming a political football and part of an ongoing culture war on the right. Will the Secretary of State join me in recognising the important work of organisations such as Humshaugh Net Zero and the North Tyne climate action group in bringing together widespread support for net zero, bringing it into our communities and embedding it across the body politic?

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for Hexham and it is with great pleasure that I recognise the role of those groups. He and I have talked on a number of occasions about the importance of climate action to so many of his constituents, and I look forward to working with him on these issues in the months ahead.