Clean Growth Fund Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Grantchester
Main Page: Lord Grantchester (Labour - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Grantchester's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(4 years ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I agree with the noble Baroness that there are tremendous opportunities, but we have a number of other government funds outside of the one that we are discussing today. For instance, the Green Homes Grant scheme has a training element within it, with several million pounds of grants allocated to training providers to provide jobs in exactly the sector that she mentions.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
The managing partner of the Clean Growth Fund, Beverley Gower-Jones, has said that the fund will hopefully invest in two companies before the end of the year. This is from among hundreds of applications. Can the Minister explain how the aim of only two companies is reflective of the UK’s bold climate ambitions? How will the taxpayer share in any return and when might that opportunity materialise?
Lord Callanan (Con)
That is two companies this financial year; a number of other companies are in the pipeline. I am sure that the noble Lord would agree that it is proper that the fund manager does the appropriate due diligence to check that the money is well spent and invested properly. There have been 400 expressions of interest and the duration of the fund is over 10 years. It is a commercially driven fund and we hope to get our money back at the end of the day.