Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Prisk and Jessica Morden

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

I am delighted to support the company in Tiptree; hon. Members can perhaps see that I tend to do that too often, given my breadth. It is an excellent business that is showing the way, through its exports and productivity. It is a business that we can be proud of.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Five independent schools send more pupils to Oxbridge than 2,000 other schools combined. What is the Minister going to ask Oxford and Cambridge to do about that?

Steel Industry (Carbon Floor Pricing)

Debate between Mark Prisk and Jessica Morden

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Prisk]

We are always mindful of the need to consider whether we can help the industry, particularly where there are up-front capital projects that need to be bridged, and I am always in discussions with the sector. I cannot make open tax promises at this stage as that is not my job; it is the job of the Chancellor, and rightly so. I am nevertheless always happy to talk to the industry on that basis.

The strategy, together with the carbon price floor and the fact that the strategy is founded on a consultative approach, means that we can, I think, work with the industry. As the right hon. Member for Rotherham rightly says, the Treasury, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills all need to be involved, and that is the approach that we seek to take. If we had only a single Department approaching the issue from one perspective, we would be in danger of not looking at it in the round.

[Jessica Morden]

As part of that, has the Minister done a full impact assessment of the effect of carbon floor pricing on intensive energy users? If not, will he make a commitment to doing so?

[Mr Prisk]

The lead on this is not my Department; the proposal comes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which has been looking specifically at the impact of the price across sectors. I deal with deregulation, and impact assessment has many other, often challenging, implications. We have been looking at how it impacts on the sector, what it means and, most of all, what the practical outcomes are that the industry can use to progress. That is the key point.

In conclusion, we believe that energy efficiency and business competitiveness go hand in hand. We are trying to ensure that the challenge for the environment does not become something that is done at the expense of the economy, and we are very sensitive to the fact that particular industries, whether it is steel or—as I saw for myself recently—brick making, understand the practicalities of changing processes, changing materials and the regulatory environment, and how the carbon price floor will work, so that we can help businesses move through this period and successfully decarbonise themselves and compete at the same time.