Climate Change

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am pleased that the noble Baroness recognises the importance of public engagement, and I totally agree with her. Obviously we have been in the middle of a global pandemic so it has been very difficult for the engagement team to do its job properly in terms of engaging with the public, but she can rely on the fact that we have some ambitious plans to engage with the public before COP next year.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, heat pumps, offshore wind and installing installation at scale are all recommendations from the Committee on Climate Change, which does excellent work. These will help to create jobs and apprenticeships as well as helping us to get to net zero. The Government have certainly adopted this agenda but now they need to consider a serious step change in order to pursue it. Will my noble friend pursue these policies with even more vigour?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point; we will indeed. We already have the largest offshore wind capacity in the world, I think—certainly in Europe. We are world leaders in that technology and the costs have fallen massively. We will be conducting another contracts for difference auction shortly, and I think we will see even more ambitious progress. The targets have been set out and the money provided, and we are well on the way to meeting them.