Climate Change
Debate between Pippa Heylings and Claire Young(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Pippa Heylings
I feel deeply about what my hon. Friend says. He is a well-known champion for rural and coastal communities that are facing such an insecure future, not knowing whether their homes will still be standing and whether they will be insurable. That is definitely something we need to look at.
Most importantly for this carbon budget, as we have heard from Members across the Chamber, electrification across key sectors is the key to rapidly reducing emissions and helping households to cut bills. Today, the Climate Change Committee has warned that progress in electrification has slowed, with heat pump installations up just 7% this year compared with 56% the year before. What is more, the share of electricity in industrial energy use fell last year, so we must see greater acceleration of electrification.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
On seeing a new development recently, I was dismayed that the developer said they were not putting in heat pumps because the cost of electricity meant that people would rather have gas boilers. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we removed the renewables obligation levy from electricity, so that we were fairly pricing electricity—currently, electricity is unfairly disadvantaged—we would incentivise far more heat pump installations?
Pippa Heylings
My hon. Friend often brings that issue up in the Chamber and in the Select Committee. We have to fix the broken system whereby households and businesses do not feel the benefits of cheaper renewable energy from solar and wind.
Finally, the Liberal Democrats believe that building public confidence in the transition to net zero requires people to see the benefits in their own communities. That means empowering those best placed to deliver change on the ground. Local authorities, community organisations and local leaders understand the needs of their areas, can bring people with them and are uniquely placed to turn national ambition into practical action. We need regulatory change so that community energy projects can sell energy locally, but those bodies can also take action on better public transport, warmer homes, nature restoration or street-by-street electrification.
Too often local climate action remains fragmented, underpowered and dependent on short-term funding. Critically, local authorities still have no statutory responsibility for delivering net zero for climate and nature duty. Such responsibility has been voted down every single time it has been introduced in devolution legislation. Will the Minister look at placing local authorities at the centre of delivery of the seventh carbon budget by legislating for a clear climate and nature statutory duty for local authorities, and by ensuring that they have the funding and powers needed to unlock these opportunities? Many Liberal Democrat Members have been local councillors and we know that local authorities can do that, together with local people. Climate change will not wait and neither should we—the time is now.
SEND Provision: Autism and ADHD
Debate between Pippa Heylings and Claire Young(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
One concern is that many children end up being out of education because they are not getting the support that they need in school. Does she agree that it is an outrage that, in that situation, some parents face prosecution? Does she also agree that we need to provide support for children to receive an education, whether in school or through alternative provision, and that we should record that in a better way? At the moment we have authorised and unauthorised absences. We do not record the fact that some children are missing school because their parents do not believe that they are receiving the support that they need.
Pippa Heylings
I thank my hon. Friend for raising one of the complex issues around this provision. While we support the current Government’s additional allocation of funding to this critical area, we really want them to look at the fact that it is not just about mainstream provision; it is also about specialist provision. As she says, we must look at all types of provision, because this is complex. Even if support is given in mainstream schools, it is often on very reduced timetables, which means that parents and carers are unable to work and be productive for society, because they are either covering the spaces in that provision, unauthorised or otherwise, in other settings, or covering for the times when the school cannot provide timetabled support.
I return to what the Liberal Democrats think we should have: a national SEND body, an urgent increase in diagnostic services, action to address the chronic lack of educational psychologists, targeted resources for local authorities to improve their capacity, support for our schools and for more special school places, and interim support measures for children awaiting diagnosis so that they do not fall through the cracks. The Lib Dems have always said that we need mental health professionals in every school. It is great to hear the Government talk about mental health professionals in secondary schools. We have heard about the need in primary schools, so let us get in there early too.
A capacity for early diagnosis and management means, as somebody said to me, in the words of Desmond Tutu, that we can stop pulling people out of the river, and instead stop them falling in the river in the first place. Once again, I pay tribute to all the amazing parents and carers who have spoken to me, and the amazing teachers, headteachers and SEND co-ordinators who are working in this area.