Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The discussions with the steel sector are continuing and I fully expect to conclude an important and ambitious deal for this foundational industry.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s progress towards meeting its carbon reduction targets.

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)]

The UK was the first country to introduce legally binding emissions reduction targets through the Climate Change Act 2008. We have made excellent progress towards meeting our targets: we met our first carbon budget and are on track to exceed the second and third.

[Joan Ryan]

Does the Minister agree that the clean growth plan will not meet the fifth carbon budget on its own? Does he therefore agree that the plan is wholly inadequate and that, as the Committee on Climate Change has said, it should not be the plan?

[Joseph Johnson]

The clean growth plan has been broadly and warmly welcomed. Low-carbon innovation is at the very heart of our approach to our industrial strategy, with more than £2.5 billion of Government investment from 2015 to 2021.