COP28
Debate between Graham Stuart and Andrew Gwynne(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Graham Stuart
As delightful and pleasant as the hon. Lady is outside the Chamber, she is always challenging within it. The Prime Minister remains committed. He has insisted on our commitment to net zero and our 2030 nationally determined contribution, while ensuring that we carry people with us. He was delighted to announce £1.6 billion of UK funding for new climate projects while at COP, including £887.8 million of new and additional financing, with other announcements focused on driving forward climate action on forests, finance and net zero transitions. This Government are walking the walk while ensuring and making no apology for the fact that we seek to maintain the national consensus and carry people up and down the country with us as we continue to lead. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Doncaster North insists on giggling, but we are leading in the way his Government singly failed to do before 2010.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
May I start by thanking the Minister? Politics aside, there is much we can all agree on in the deal at COP. I would like to see us go further in some areas, but I recognise that we have to build a coalition, and I thank him for the work he has done. However, it is about not just what we do, but what we say and how we say it.
Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), the way that the Prime Minister recalibrated the Government’s policy in this area had the opposite effect to the one we all would like to have seen. We got the following headlines: “Sunak’s U-turns make net zero harder” in The Guardian; “Could Rishi Sunak’s green review threaten UK net zero?” on the BBC; “Sunak’s net zero backsliding ‘deeply damaging’ for Britain” in The Daily Telegraph; and “Climate tech backers slam Rishi Sunak net zero retreat” in the Evening Standard. Does the Minister not get that these messages are heard across the globe? Will he go back to No. 10 and ask the Prime Minister to be just a bit more careful in his language and how he says things so that we can get net zero over the line?
Graham Stuart
In maintaining the public commitment to net zero, it was important to say to people in my rural east Yorkshire constituency, for example, who are off the gas grid and fearful concerning heat pumps, that they would not see their boilers ripped out when they did not think there was an affordable and deliverable alternative. As the Prime Minister announced, we combined that with a 50% increase in the heat pump subsidy level to £7,500, and we saw a tripling of interest in the following week. Words do matter, but there are many constituencies to talk to. I look to the hon. Gentleman to help provide the proper balanced and nuanced view. This country has cut its emissions more than any other major economy on earth and we have more ambitious plans going forward. The Prime Minister is behind net zero. We must have a balanced discussion to show that we are not inflexible. We are prepared to work with people and ensure we do it in the right way.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Graham Stuart and Andrew Gwynne(12 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne
As a fellow Lancastrian, I hope you had a good Lancashire Day yesterday, Mr Speaker.
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
As a Yorkshire MP, I resent that remark. [Laughter.]
I meet regularly with business leaders and organisations. I chair or co-chair, among others: the Offshore Wind Industry Council, which I will be going straight to after questions; the solar taskforce; the green jobs delivery group, which met yesterday; the North sea transition forum, which I will attend tomorrow; and, from a strategic cross-cutting point of view, the Net Zero Council. Of course, the Secretary of State and I met global leaders yesterday.
Andrew Gwynne
Well, as the Minister seems to meet so many business leaders, he must have heard their shock and horror about the Government’s roll-backs on net zero. Earlier this month, the Aviva chief executive officer Amanda Blanc said that the Government were putting our climate goals as a country “under threat”, putting at risk
“jobs, growth and the additional investment the UK requires”.
She is not wrong, is she?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman has a well-founded and highly esteemed reputation for anger. Under this Government, this country has cut its emissions more than any other major economy on the planet, and we have the most ambitious plans for 2030. When I attend COP28 next week, we will be inviting and supporting others to join the UK, which under this Conservative Government has led the way on a pathway to net zero.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Graham Stuart and Andrew Gwynne(4 years ago)
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Graham Stuart
There can be no greater or more persistent champion of UK-Pakistan relations than my hon. Friend. The Government remain committed to increasing trade and investment with the Asia-Pacific region. We have signed a free trade agreement with Japan, are negotiating FTAs with Australia and New Zealand and hope to be able to apply for formal accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, as already discussed. At the end of the transition period, the UK will put in place its own generalised scheme of preferences, and my hon. Friend will be delighted to learn that Pakistan will continue to receive the same market access to the UK next year. The scheme will help British and Pakistani businesses to continue trading seamlessly after we end the transition period.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)