Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Hands and Andrew Bridgen(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Greg Hands
Can I just correct the hon. Gentleman on one thing? The Climate Change Committee’s report was actually full of praise for the Government on electric vehicles and on what we are doing on electricity decarbonisation. On his wider point, this Government have a fantastic record of action on climate, thanks to the COP26 President, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma). At the start of the year, 30% of global GDP was signed up to net zero targets. That is now 90%, and the UK is leading the way with our own net zero strategy, published just before COP last year.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Storm Arwen: Power Outages
Debate between Greg Hands and Andrew Bridgen(3 years ago)
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Greg Hands
I am told that the hon. Gentleman’s office was informed that I was coming to Ellon in his constituency, but may I use this opportunity to thank the school in Ellon and particularly the local responders, the local resilience partnership and others who were there providing assistance? The local armed forces, 3 Scots, were there as well, providing really excellent help to the community.
Once the local resilience forum had called out, or said that it needed assistance, the response was incredibly fast: I think it took less than half a day to make that deployment. I talked to the military liaison officer in Aberdeen on Friday; she was absolutely clear that she is a keen member of the local resilience forum and as soon as the call went out, the response was extremely quick.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Given the fallout from Storm Arwen and the disruption to the power grid, will the Government use this opportunity to look into the feasibility of placing more power cables underground?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend has asked a good question. The difference in cost between underground and overground is considerable, and such action would also be very disruptive. I think that a more organic approach should be taken, involving working with the companies and the engineering resources that we have. In general, however, my hon. Friend is right: an underground grid will be more resilient than an overground grid, and I am sure that that too will feature in the review.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Hands and Andrew Bridgen(9 years ago)
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Greg Hands
I join the hon. Gentleman in welcoming so many disabled people to Parliament today, and I agree with him about the importance of doing more to help disabled people into work. That is why we extended the access to work scheme and launched the Disability Confident scheme, to ensure that employers better understand the benefits of recruiting and retaining disabled workers, the specialist employability support and the Work and Health programme, which we launched this year.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that about 3.2 million people with disabilities are in work now, and that the Government are looking to see that number increase dramatically over the next few years?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is right. This is one of the most important aspects of the Government’s work. He is correct to say that disability employment is now up to 3.2 million, which is an increase of 340,000 since 2013, up 74% on the year. We are increasing real-terms spending on disability employment by around 15% by the end of this Parliament.
Productivity
Debate between Greg Hands and Andrew Bridgen(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is quite right. Labour seems not to be learning the lessons of the general election five weeks ago. Encouraging enterprise and promoting sound public finances by dealing with the deficit are extremely important, so I entirely agree.
Andrew Bridgen
At least twice during his opening speech the shadow Chancellor said that we are now seeing highly skilled employees replaced by low-skilled employees. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the shadow Chancellor should not talk himself down like that?