Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Laurence Robertson and Grant Shapps(10 months ago)
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Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Grant Shapps)
The Government are supporting the installation of rooftop solar in numerous different ways: financial incentives, performance standards and the solar taskforce.
Mr Robertson
For years now, I have been trying to persuade Governments of all colours to change building regulations to require all new buildings to be fitted with solar panels. That would have the benefit of securing supply, reducing household bills considerably and helping us towards net zero, so why do we not do it?
Grant Shapps
I assure my hon. Friend that I am a great enthusiast for solar panels—I have had them on my home for the past 12 years, and they perform very well. I want to see more people do that. In fact, over that period, we have gone from virtually no renewables in our system—6.9%—to 43% in the last quarter. I am very keen for that expansion to go further and faster. We need to ensure that it is part of the building code, but we also want to make sure that other forms of renewables can be installed, so it is a balance between not being too prescriptive and making sure that we make speedy progress, particularly on all the commercial rooftops in this country.
International Travel
Debate between Laurence Robertson and Grant Shapps(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
On the contrary, I have been listening carefully to what the hon. Member for Oldham West has had to say from the Front Bench. A few days ago, he was challenged about how many countries should go on to the green list and he said, “Well, from our point of view it has got to be about the science.” He said that he cannot give an exact number and that we have to take the expert advice—what on earth does he think we have been doing all these months?
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
My constituency has a lot of aerospace manufacturing, which is suffering the knock-back from the lack of international travel. At a recent meeting with pilots from my constituency, I was told that the additions to the green list will up their business to only 10% of their capacity, so they really are struggling. They asked whether we could avoid any last-minute changes to policy and give people as much notice as possible. I need to stress that they were asking for a date on which double-vaccinated people would be able to travel a lot more freely. I said I would pass those messages on, which I have done.
Grant Shapps
I am grateful for the direct message. Sadly, the pandemic and the virus do not give us much advance notice; we often find that a country is on the green list and we need to move it, as we saw with Portugal and Spain with the travel corridors last year. One thing that we have done to provide a little more forward guidance is use the green watch list, the purpose of which is to help my hon. Friend’s constituents to see when a country may be a bit closer to the amber border and when they would therefore want to be more aware. I hope that that provides a bit of additional guidance, but I will return to the House next month with more details of what double vaccination can mean for people and for the travel industry.