Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

The mines rescue service is available throughout the UK, and in Gleision there were staff available from outside Wales who came in to help. That is absolutely appropriate, because in any particular case we do not know the scale of the situation.

I certainly join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the local community. One of the most admirable features of coal mining communities has historically been their extraordinary solidarity when faced with such dangers.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the effect on carbon emissions of current economic conditions.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

The Department published updated energy and emissions projections last week. They took due account of the latest published economic outlook by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and of Office for National Statistics figures covering gross domestic product and output for the first six months of 2011. Both current and projected carbon emissions are now lower than in our previous projections. However, our assessment is that only a small part of those revisions is due to lower economic growth, with most being a result of higher projections for fossil fuel prices and other changes.

[Mr Bone]

I thank the excellent Secretary of State for that full answer, but are we not seeing that the economic climate has produced a carbon reduction that the Government could never have hoped for? Is it the Government’s policy to increase the economic downturn to save more carbon?

[Chris Huhne]

It is absolutely not the policy of this Government—nor, I am sure, was it the policy of the last Government or any other British Government—to have a downturn in order to improve carbon emissions. It is certainly the case that if there is a downturn, it goes hand in hand with a reduction in carbon emissions, but our efforts are directed entirely at ensuring that we can have greater energy efficiency, so that we can increase our output with a lower intensity of energy use. In fact, that has been a long-standing trend in the UK economy. We have had a very substantial increase in GDP, even though we have managed to hold our energy use completely stable. That gives us considerable hope that we can continue to do so.