Net Zero: 2050 Target

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on securing this debate. I am pleased to see that he is still pursuing an interest in net zero. I agree with some of what he said, but there were some points I would have liked him to cover. For example, when he talked about the grid, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) has just said, the biggest problem is not the question where the pylons go in east Anglia, but the lack of grid connectivity, which is a massive obstacle to economic growth. That is something we need to solve as we move towards greater use of electricity in our industrial sector.

Three former Business Secretaries, from the Lib Dems, Conservatives and Labour, have all come together today to bemoan the lack of an industrial strategy, so I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Spelthorne on that. He talked about retrofitting homes, which is obviously important, but it would help if we stopped building homes that do not meet energy performance certificate C standard. We are compounding the problem, having built more than 1 million homes since the zero carbon homes pledge was dropped that do not meet that standard.

The right hon. Member for Spelthorne mentioned green levies and incentives for decarbonisation. It would have been interesting to hear his thoughts on the hydrogen levy. We were in the Energy Bill Committee earlier today and it must be said that, based on Second Reading of that Bill, there is a lot of unhappiness on both sides of the House. We will oppose the hydrogen levy on bills, and I would welcome his support on that, because I do not think we should be putting the burden on consumers when it is mostly industry that will benefit.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Just to clarify, is Labour opposing the hydrogen levy on bills, or its removal?

[Kerry McCarthy]

The House of Lords voted against the hydrogen levy

on bills on the basis that it is a regressive measure and we should not be adding to the burden on consumers. We support that position; the Government think that it should go on bills, where it is the industry that benefits. There have been reports that the Secretary of State is due to U-turn on that position very soon, so the right hon. Member might want to be ahead of the curve and jump the right way before the Secretary of State does.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am sure that the Secretary of State does not need my encouragement, or otherwise, to come to the right decision.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am sure that the right hon. Member would be a very persuasive voice.

The Government’s commitment to a net zero target is to be welcomed, but a target for a date set far into the future—2050—is pretty meaningless unless it is backed up by a comprehensive road map as to how we are going to get there. We know that the majority of that journey needs to be done in the very early years, with just the hard-to-decarbonise sectors following at the end, so we need to know how much ground we are going to cover and when. The Government were taken to court on this issue last year, with the High Court ruling that they had provided insufficient detail. There was a big hype about “green day” at the end of March; eventually, the Government decided that it was not quite green enough and changed its name to something else, but what we got was a plan that—even in terms of our 2030 nationally determined contribution—only sets out how we would deliver 92% of that. We are still way off track.

Net zero is not a slogan or a mere box-ticking exercise: it is a whole paradigm shift that we must instigate, as a country and as a global community. Scientists are warning that we are likely to breach the 1.5° threshold in the next four years. We are running out of time, and we need to do everything as fast as we can. There has been a lot of negativity in recent days about net zero, with people pushing back against Labour’s announcement that we would not support any new oil and gas licences. Again, people have been repeating that old trope that it is too expensive to reach net zero, when we know that renewables are far cheaper now.

The Government do not seem to grasp that this is a huge challenge for the country, but as has been said, it is also an enormous opportunity. The right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who authored the recent net zero review, said that it is

“the economic opportunity of the decade—if not the century”

to create a new economy. As the right hon. Member for Spelthorne mentioned, President Biden has not only recognised that opportunity, but seized it with the Inflation Reduction Act, and the EU has responded with its green deal industrial plan. The Chancellor has said that he will come up with a response in the autumn, which is at least better than the response from the Energy Secretary, who tells us that the UK is already decades ahead of the USA. The Minister has said that the rest of the world is “playing catch-up” with us. We do have 22% of the world’s offshore wind installations, as I suspect the Minister will tell us, but we have only 2% of global wind industry jobs—that is just one example. A country such as Denmark, which recognises the export opportunities, has over eight times as many jobs as the UK for the equivalent wind energy capacity.

Businesses I meet now are describing the Inflation Reduction Act as a game changer, and are warning that they will transfer investments to the US. There have been occasional success stories—the news that Jaguar Land Rover is set to establish a gigafactory in the south-west, in Bridgwater, is very welcome—but that comes with a sense of relief that that company has made that announcement, rather than real confidence that there is a coherent industrial strategy that will deliver the 10 gigafactories that the Faraday Institution predicts we need. I would dispute the Minister’s suggestion that we are decades ahead: we need to have a coherent industrial strategy, a response to the Inflation Reduction Act sooner rather than later, and a revised net zero strategy that shows that we really are on course to meet that goal.

Energy Security Strategy

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State visited Bristol recently to look at the ambitious projects that are going on there, including new water source heat pumps and the City Leap partnership. Is the Secretary of State aware of what is going on in Bristol, and what can he do to help cities to decarbonise?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I know that Bristol has a strong tradition of green, carbon-reducing policies. I should be happy to visit the city and see the great work that is being done there. It is a part of the world that I know well from Airbus and other great industrial concerns.

Russian Oil Import Ban

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend, like other Members across the House, is right to focus on energy efficiency, because that is clearly a big part of this conundrum. We have had some successes, but we have also done some things not as effectively as we could have done. There were elements of the green homes grant that worked, and elements that did not work as well. I am constantly trying to improve the offer on energy efficiency with the public sector.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister has been asked twice now specifically about fracking and has completely avoided answering the question. Would he like to have another go?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will have a go, and I will be very clear. Funnily enough, I was a Minister at the time when the written ministerial statement on hydraulic fracturing was made. The Government have always been clear that we will take a precautionary approach and support shale gas exploration if it can be done in a safe and sustainable way. That remains our position, and we will be evidence-led. That is what we wrote and said in 2019, and we are still committed to that.

Corporate Transparency and Economic Crime

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am conscious that my hon. Friend would not want me to burden people who are legitimately setting up companies. He will also appreciate that the legislation will create new criminal offences, and I am confident that this will significantly tighten the regime that we have today.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Minister said in his statement that the new register will require anonymous foreign owners to reveal their real identity, to ensure that criminals cannot hold property behind secretive chains of shell companies. Will it also deal with the issue of beneficial ownership sometimes just being put in the name of another individual so that, on the face of it, it looks like they are the person who is entitled to beneficial ownership, but really they are not?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that we want to have greater transparency. The example in the statement was merely that; it was an example of how people can hide ownership of assets. We want greater transparency generally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T2. British companies have been shown to be complicit in the fires and deforestation in the Amazon through their investments and supply chains. Will the Minister look at introducing mandatory due diligence to address this?

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

This subject has come up, and we need to look at how companies and exporters tackle serious carbon emissions. What they are doing in the Amazon is not acceptable. We need to engage with that and have a dialogue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have made a lot of progress on trying to replace a lot of the EU’s funds and the regional way in which they allocate money. We have the UK shared prosperity fund, details of which will be introduced next year.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In the recent Tory leadership debate, the Foreign Secretary challenged his rival over no deal, saying:

“Let me ask Boris a question: what would you say to a sheep farmer in Shropshire that I met whose business would be destroyed by 40% tariffs?”

What would the Minister say to that sheep farmer?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have already made a commitment in this House to support our agricultural industries and our farmers under any circumstances, whether that is a deal or no deal. We have an Agriculture Bill that will allow the Secretary of State to provide the support that our people need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Kerry McCarthy

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

There is a real danger in looking at farming policy dissociated from what happens further along the food chain. This week, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee took evidence from the National Farmers Union and the Food and Drink Federation. Those organisations are obviously concerned about things like tariffs if we exit without a deal, but they are also really concerned about packaging, machine parts and so on—everything that is involved in food production.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Of course, the modern economy means that all these issues are integrated. As we said, the Agriculture Bill offers the possibility of a more bespoke policy. That is what Brexit can potentially deliver. So we are completely aware that a lot of these industries are integrated, and have a wide range of problems to solve. That is something that we are fully prepared to deal with.