Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion
Debate between Liam Byrne and Claire Perry(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Claire Perry
It is a very serious point. Ms Thunberg’s efforts, which have become a global phenomenon, demonstrate the power of a young person deciding to make these statements. What I would say to protesting schoolchildren is this: “We need the climate engineers, the geo-physicists and the scientists of the future. Those are skills that you will learn best by engaging in education. You are protesting; we are listening. We have to work together and we need your skills to solve this problem.”
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The west midlands was the home of the industrial revolution. We sparked the carbon revolution; we would like to lead the zero-carbon revolution. However, it has been harder to decarbonise our power system since the Government phased out feed-in tariffs for solar. It is harder to decarbonise our transport system because of the confusion, identified by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee before Christmas, around electric vehicles. It is harder to decarbonise energy in our homes when the Minister cannot tell me, in parliamentary answers, our share of the energy company obligation funding that might fund that retrofitting. Cities in this country would like to lead the green industrial revolution, so why does she not help them?
Claire Perry
I will certainly look at the last point. It may be that we just do not cut the data by metropolitan area. ECO is an important fund that we are using to focus on fuel poverty and create more innovation. I do not think there is confusion. The feed-in tariff scheme, which the right hon. Gentleman will know given his time in the Treasury, was an extremely expensive scheme. We have spent almost £6 billion so far and it will cost us £30 billion over the future of the scheme. Essentially, as I mentioned to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), we have seen the price of the renewable technologies we are supporting tumble. We do not have to subsidise to drive take-up. The smart export guarantee, which I will introduce soon, will pay people for that generation and ensure there is a demand-side aggregation created in the homes investing in it.
On transport, we have been very clear. We have one of the most ambitious programmes of moving to zero-carbon new vehicle sales. [Interruption.] It is true. Opposition Members should look at what other countries are doing. The right hon. Gentleman will know from his constituency that one in five of the electric vehicles sold in Europe is made in the UK. We do not just want to be leaders in how many are driving on our roads; we want to be leaders in investing in the technology that the world is moving towards.