Energy Intensive Industries
Debate between John Robertson and Julie Elliott(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Julie Elliott
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) for his comments. He gives another example of how missed the regional development agency is in the north-east—in our region.
It is right that the Government are taking steps to help energy intensive industries that must adapt to the EU emissions trading system and the carbon floor price. We do not want to see the UK’s carbon emissions just shifted overseas. However, if we are to meet our emissions targets and avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to reduce those industries’ carbon emissions.
Energy intensive industries are an important part of our economy, accounting for 4% of gross value added, and 125,000 people are employed by them directly or in their supply chains. Many energy intensive industries are at the forefront of the low-carbon economy, producing the mechanisms that we need to develop our low-carbon industries. That was set out in great detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge. However, like all sectors of our economy, this one must decarbonise if we are to meet our crucial emissions targets. The transition to low-carbon power generation will keep energy prices down in the long run. The alternative is to remain at the whim of unpredictable yet ever rising gas and electricity prices.
As the EEF, which was formerly the Engineering Employers Federation, has pointed out, if the Government were serious about the transition to a low-carbon economy, with innovation and green jobs at the centre of that transition, they would be supporting research and development. We question why research and development on energy as a percentage of Government R and D spending is comfortably less than the OECD average. However, the bigger problem is the Government’s counter-productive, counter-science and counter-business decision not to adopt a 2030 power sector decarbonisation target, which was supported by the EEF, which represents many companies in this area. That decision, or rather non-decision, is scaring away investment, costing green jobs and jeopardising our future energy security.