Green Investment Bank Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Kevin Foster
Main Page: Kevin Foster (Conservative - Torbay)Department Debates - View all Kevin Foster's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
I have great respect for the Chairman of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, and we had a useful exchange about this issue yesterday, but he is again making assumptions about asset stripping. He is aware of the structure that we have established, having doubtless been involved in the parliamentary debate about it. There is a great deal of concern on both sides of the House about protecting the integrity of the green purpose of the GIB, which is why we have gone through the process—which I think is robust—of setting up what is effectively a green share, along with the mechanism for its governance. That system was, I think, agreed to by Parliament and was introduced formally with the protection of corporate law.
I return, however, to the human motive of those who want to buy this organisation, which is to enable it to grow and do more. It is the authenticity, sincerity and integrity of those proposals that we are now evaluating.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am sure the Minister shares my slight amusement at the Opposition’s argument that we can believe everything we read in the press about the Green Investment Bank, given that they spent all yesterday afternoon arguing that we cannot believe everything we read in the press. Does he agree that the Green Investment Bank was set up to deal with a market failure, that the fact that private investors are now keen to come in demonstrates the purpose it has served and, in particular, that without the restrictions imposed by EU state aid it can deliver more investment, not less?
Mr Hurd
My hon. Friend has made—much more eloquently than I have so far succeeded in doing—exactly the fundamental point that we are trying to convey. The test of an organisation that was set up to correct a market failure is whether that failure has indeed been corrected. We believe that it has, and our view is supported by the large amounts of private sector investment that are flowing into green infrastructure in the United Kingdom and around the world. What we must do now is ensure that the GIB is free and unfettered by the state, so that it can do more.