Amendment of the Law

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Across Britain, our low-carbon firms, our green groups and millions of concerned citizens had high hopes for this Budget. They have heard the Prime Minister say that this will be the greenest Government ever—an ambition that was restated in the Chancellor’s Budget statement—so they might therefore have expected this to be a Budget for green growth and green jobs and a boost for green firms, but those hopes have been cruelly dashed by Ministers as it was not a Budget for green growth, green jobs or green firms. There have been so many promises, but so little action.

I want to address three important areas, the first of which is the reduction of household emissions. Ministers have announced the green deal for householders and tenants to make their homes energy efficient, but a closer look at the scheme shows that it is at serious risk of being bungled and botched. A battalion of accredited energy assessors and installers will be needed, but where will they come from and what are the incentives for home owners and tenants? How will consumers be protected from cowboys and what happens if the cost of energy efficiency measures is not met by the savings? Who will pick up the bill? The Government claim that up to 14 million households will benefit by 2020, so every one of the people living in those homes has the right to demand answers.

What about the Government’s ambition to make all new homes zero-carbon? In an article in The Guardian on 6 December 2010, the Minister for Housing, whom I am sorry to see has left his place, wrote,

“very soon I’ll be setting out our progress towards achieving a zero carbon approach”.

At the zero carbon hub annual conference on 1 February—just under two months ago—the Minister for Housing said:

“The commitment to Zero Carbon remains in place—there’s no ambiguity about that”.

There is no ambiguity because buried on page 117 of the Government document, “The Plan for Growth”, contrary to what we have heard from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who should perhaps look more closely at those elements of the Budget that affect his Department, Ministers have killed that commitment stone dead. The WWF described the announcement as

“years of work and ambition swept away.”

The second area that I want to discuss is the green investment bank, which Department of Energy and Climate Change Ministers have heralded in every speech and utterance. The Energy Secretary has staked his political reputation on it and green businesses up and down the country are crying out for it, so where is it? That the green investment bank will not be able to borrow its own capital until 2015—four long years away—and only then if the Government’s debt target is met, makes me wonder when a bank is not a bank and when it is merely a fund run by officials. Surely, a bank has staff, a board and a headquarters building. I have been asking Ministers about the set-up of this so-called bank for a while, but we are still waiting for the answers.

The fund that has been announced will total £3 billion, but Ernst and Young calculates that Britain needs £450 billion between now and 2025 for low-carbon investment. Ministers claim that up to £1 billion will come from selling Britain’s third share in URENCO, the uranium enrichment company. Perhaps Ministers can tell us what the URENCO share price is today compared with a year or two ago? If it can be done in 2015, why can it not be done this year? Do Ministers really believe that we can take our time? I keep hearing time and again from green companies that the window of opportunity is closing and that green business needs stability, but all they get from the Budget is uncertainty.

Thirdly, what does the Budget do to boost green research and development? No one should seriously doubt that without research and development into low and no-carbon technologies there will be no green revolution in Britain and Britain’s good green ideas will be developed abroad. Research into biofuels such as algae biofuels, which can be developed on arid land and could considerably reduce aviation emissions, has been cut, not boosted, by the Government. They have cut funding to the Carbon Trust and support for geothermal, tidal and other renewables has also been slashed. They have taken an axe to the very research and development that would yield the new green products and jobs for the future—how unlike other countries, which have increased their support for those infant technologies.

Britain can be proud of its environmental and renewables firms, including companies such as Eco Environments on Merseyside. We can also be proud of our leadership in low-carbon firms such as our video games development industry, which is the third largest in the world. In 2010, UK sales of video games totalled £1.53 billion. Those are the kinds of low-carbon sectors that deserve our support, but this Budget is unambitious: it does not deliver for low-carbon enterprise, it does not deliver green jobs and it does not deliver growth. Judged by deeds, not words, this Government fail every test. Ministers talk green, but is not the simple truth that this Budget sets Britain’s environmental progress back years?