Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Rachel Reeves

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The number of jobs has increased by 329,000 this year. That is the record of this Government in getting people back into work. The youth guarantee is dealing with the fact that when we took office last year, one in eight young people were not in education, employment or training. That is the Conservatives’ record; this Government are addressing it.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend the steps that my right hon. Friend took to support those on low incomes, both in the Budget and through the recently published financial inclusion strategy, but may I encourage her to go further on the issue of savings, given that a quarter of the people in the UK have little by way of savings and, indeed, one in seven have no savings at all? Will she encourage employers to work with local credit unions to help those who want to save automatically, and to save even a small amount from their pay packets, to do so?

[Rachel Reeves]

Through the financial inclusion strategy led by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, we are extending Help to Save within the universal credit system, and working with banks and building societies. I know that, as a Labour and Co-operative MP, my hon. Friend works closely with the co-operative movement and with building societies to ensure that more people from low-income backgrounds can save for the future.

Climate Change, the Environment and Global Development

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Rachel Reeves

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I absolutely agree. Some of those coastal towns, cities and regions stand to benefit the most. In my own region, Yorkshire and the Humber, the job opportunities from offshore wind have helped to transform previously deprived communities. There will be huge opportunities in Cornwall, with battery technologies giving huge potential for growth and jobs in an area that desperately needs them.

[Gareth Thomas]

I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend and of the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on the huge potential for offshore wind to create new jobs in this country. Does she agree that the solar industry also offers significant potential for new jobs, and that it would be good to hear the Government’s plans to accelerate the requirement to put solar panels on new buildings?

[Rachel Reeves]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend, and I would also add the opportunities from onshore wind, which the Government disappointingly continue to block, and from tidal power. The experience of offshore wind is that, after initial Government support and investment, the industry and the energy it produces can become cheaper than those it replaces, which again provides big opportunities for jobs and investment.

Sir David Attenborough gave evidence to the BEIS Committee yesterday. Right at the beginning, he said that the environment around us is essential for every breath we take and everything we eat, as well as for our sanity and our sense of proportion. How we treat our natural environment and what we put into it is incredibly important.

As you can imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, the BEIS Committee always has huge audiences for every inquiry and every evidence session, but our audience yesterday was particularly large, and the attendance was pretty impressive, too. The audience was also very young.

The Minister said at the beginning of this debate that when he goes into schools in his constituency they often talk about these issues, which is inspiring and gives us all hope for the future. The next generation, who listened to our evidence session yesterday, and the generation after that, who are at Castleton Primary School in Armley and Beecroft Primary School in Burley in my constituency, know what a priority this is, and I hope they will continue to press us to make it our priority in this place, too.

I am proud that this was the first Parliament to pass a climate change Act in 2008, and that the current Parliament has set a target of achieving net zero by 2050 but, as Lord Deben said on the publication of the report of the Committee on Climate Change today, international ambition does not deliver domestic action. That is an important point for us to dwell on. I welcome the bid to host COP 26 next year, and I welcome the fact that we are the first country to legislate for net zero, but we will achieve it in 2050—I hope we achieve it sooner—only if we put policies in place today to make it happen.