Geraint Davies
Main Page: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Caroline Flint
Let me make a little more progress. We know that businesses will not invest, build factories or create jobs until the Government end the dithering, stop shifting the goalposts and get behind the industries of the future.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
On that very point, would my right hon. Friend be interested to know that literally dozens of people in and around Swansea are losing their jobs as a result of the withdrawal of the feed-in tariff? What is more, Tata Steel has just announced an opportunity for people to go home, not work at all and be paid half-pay, simply because of this ridiculous unilateral carbon pricing. On both sides—heavy industry and green energy—uncertainty is leading to less investment and to lay-offs; it is disgusting.
Caroline Flint
As I have said, the Government have confirmed that, based on their own estimates, 5,000 people in the solar industry alone will lose their jobs this year, including constituents in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Last week, business after business lined up to say that billions of pounds-worth of future investment is now on hold because there are serious question marks over the Government’s commitment to wind power. We are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution that is shaking up the old world order. We have to be leaders, not followers, in this revolution. It is about creating a new economy that is cleaner, leaner and more competitive and that provides the energy we need. We all know that the longer we delay action, the costlier it will become to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and the economic opportunities will slip through our fingers.
Mr Davey
We need to look carefully at our energy-intensive industries, which is probably what is behind my right hon. Friend’s question. However, there is a danger in the debate that some of the economic analysis is too static. As the world moves to its climate change targets, industries across the world must be more energy-efficient. Industries in countries such as ours that can steal a march and become first movers will prosper by becoming more energy-efficient. Some of the market signals that are needed are rightly happening, but I accept that we need packages for energy-intensive industries.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
As the former chair of Flood Risk Management Wales charged with leading Wales forward in adapting to climate change, I am pleased to speak in the debate. The Welsh Assembly Government have sustainable development at the core of their constitution. I shall put in a bid for Swansea as the site for the green investment bank, given the access to the natural wind and wave power, the great universities there and the financial cluster in Cardiff to support it.
We are living in a world where the population will grow from just under 7 billion to 9 billion people in the foreseeable future. China and other emerging economies are driving up the price of oil as a result of economic growth. That means that opportunities for green investment increasingly show a higher prospective rate of return. That is why the present Government, like the previous Government, should invest now rather than later to get niche global leadership in fledgling green markets, targeting exports to emerging markets and providing the critical economies of scale at home to make that possible.
I have in mind the Government’s procurement programme. One can imagine a new generation of solar tiles being installed in all schools, for example, or the Government working with Tata Steel, which is based in Port Talbot, near Swansea. Tata is developing new cutting edge steel comprising six layers, which creates its own electricity and can warm buildings. Working through the procurement system could help to bring about a step change in green technology for Britain. We should think carefully about that.
I have been campaigning for the electrification of the railway from Cardiff to Swansea. There is a question mark over the cost-benefit ratio, but as the costs of diesel and the alternative means for the locomotion of trains get more and more expensive, it is self-evident that electrification will be an investment worth making sooner rather than later.
Nuclear is clearly part of the future. I know that the Secretary of State has previously campaigned against nuclear and the Liberal Democrats say there should be no subsidy, but again it is about embracing the future. It was a great dereliction of duty on the part of the Government to withdraw the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, which would have assumed global leadership in an emerging market in nuclear production. That was a disgrace.
Tata Steel, which I mentioned earlier, has suffered from the unilateral carbon pricing that we have seen from the Government. Only last week it announced an opportunity for workers to go home and receive half-pay, when it should be motoring forward in emerging markets. Airbus in north Wales is at the forefront of carbon wings. Half the aircraft in the world are created by Airbus. We should embrace the future there, as with wave power. We should not just use our export focus to sell green technology and green products in emerging markets, but recognise that the capital opportunities in oil-rich countries and those with trading surpluses could help investment here, rather than UK inward investment remaining at the perimeter of Europe.
There are great opportunities for a green trajectory to an early recovery, rather than the stupid focus on cuts, cuts, cuts and the environment being seen as in competition with economic growth. I visited Olchfa school last week, which wants to put the green economy—the environment alongside the economy—at the forefront of any future agenda.