Climate Change Policy

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

Yes. One of the challenges that I have heard is that we need a fundamental reworking of the market-based system to solve all our problems. My recollection is that centrally planned economies historically had some of the worst records on environmental pollution, climate change and emissions. I have seen the power of the private sector investment that my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) referred to earlier, the technology and innovation that come from competition and things such as the auction system—I see the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), who previously occupied the post held by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and who helped to design the system—which have sent the costs of offshore wind tumbling over the past few years. The market-based system does deliver, but we need Government to set ambition, to regulate where required and to convene where necessary.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

This statement is very timely, given that Marsden moor, outside Huddersfield, and Ilkley moor, outside Bradford, have been on fire—raging—this weekend. Today, there has been a machinery of government announcement that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is transferring greenhouse gas business emissions over to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and 12,000 companies will now report on that. In that new guidance there are just seven pages on water, three pages on waste, two on resource efficiency and biodiversity, and woodland creation, and the greenhouse gases associated with it, has been relegated to one page in annexe K. May I urge the Minister not to lose sight of the natural world? When the new greening government commitments are made in 2020, may I ask that every Government Department is properly accountable? Our audits have found that they are failing to meet them in both the policy sphere and in their own operations.

[Claire Perry]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady and the Environmental Audit Committee. She knows that I and others are very impressed with the work she does. She raises an important point. The whole-of-Government approach is so valuable. We can no longer just point to a silo and say that if we have solved that, the problem is solved. We have to advance on all fronts. I will look at what she suggests we review. If improvement is needed, we will deliver it.