Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Hands and Jeff Smith(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend will know about the North sea transition agreement, which we announced earlier this year. I share his concern about the Scottish Government’s approach to all these things. It is still very early days for that coalition, but we are watching carefully. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that Scotland has benefited enormously from UK Government investment in renewables. On the contract for difference scheme, for example, 20 of the 58 projects that have been awarded CfDs to date are in Scotland. That represents 34% of all CfD projects and 21% of total CfD capacity. My hon. Friend is right that the UK Government are delivering for Scotland.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Hands)
The Government are carefully considering the Climate Change Committee’s progress report and will respond to it in full as part of our forthcoming net zero strategy ahead of COP26. That strategy, which will outline our path to meet net zero by 2050, will contain policies and proposals that will allow the Government to respond substantively to the report’s recommendations.
Jeff Smith
Well, it needs to, because the report was pretty damning. The Environmental Audit Committee recently made a number of recommendations to support community energy projects such as Greater Manchester Community Renewables in my constituency. Will the Minister emphasise the importance of community energy in the upcoming net zero strategy, as recommended specifically by the Committee, and put in place some practical measures to harness the potential of community energy, including support to enable groups to get investment for energy transition projects?
Greg Hands
Yes, of course we take community renewable initiatives very seriously indeed. We also take the Environmental Audit Committee very seriously indeed and I look forward to appearing before its Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), in due course.
The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that the CCC progress report was damning. For example, the report says:
“The UK has a leading record in reducing its own emissions”,
and:
“The UK has been a strong contributor to international climate finance”.
Recently, John Kerry himself, the President’s special envoy on climate, praised the UK approach.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Hands and Jeff Smith(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The Government are committed to meeting their ambitious environmental objectives. We are exploring environmental provisions in the design of our free trade agreements to ensure we continue to uphold the UK’s very high environmental standards. The precise details of each individual UK free trade agreement are a matter for the formal negotiations.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that question, which I think was very reasonably put, but actually we are doing a huge amount right the way across the board. We guaranteed in our manifesto no compromise on environmental standards in our future free trade agreements. The UK global tariff, which we published earlier this year, goes significantly further than the EU’s common external tariff in making sure that environmental goods are low-tariff or tariff-free. There are 104 tariff lines, including steam turbines, vacuum flasks and thermostats. We are also providing export finance in areas of renewable energy, such as solar energy and wind farms in Taiwan.
Jeff Smith
The former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said that the major role he played in his country’s trade negotiations was ensuring
“that we weren’t sidetracked by peripheral issues such as… environmental standards”.
Does his potential appointment as a policy adviser to the Board of Trade mean that that is the Government’s new approach? How can the Government reassure us that they do not now regard the environment as a peripheral issue?
Greg Hands
The Government’s approach on the environment, and on the environment and trade, is unchanged. No appointments have been confirmed. Personally, I welcome the fact that a former Prime Minister of Australia is willing to help this country out. I think we should welcome his interest and welcome the endeavours he has the potential to make for this country on behalf of us all.