A Green Industrial Revolution

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her kind comments. Of course, she will understand what I and the other Labour leadership candidates are going through at the moment. Putting yourself forward and standing up for your principles is a noble pursuit, but it is also certainly an interesting one—I will say that much.

I agree with much of what the Secretary of State said in her speech, but that ambition needs to be matched with sufficient action. I hope she takes the comments that I am about to make in the spirit in which they are intended, so we can work across the House and reach a solution to the climate emergency.

I pay tribute to my colleagues Danielle Rowley, Laura Pidcock and Sue Hayman, who were sadly unable to take their place after the general election. Each one of them has been a champion, fighting against the climate emergency, and their policy work will leave a mark on this House for years to come. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) to his new role on the shadow DEFRA team. I am sure he will also leave his mark in the years to come.

Climate change and environmental breakdown present an existential threat to our society. I doubt that there is a single Member of this House who would disagree with me. Seeing off that threat by investing in new industries and technologies, and the restoration of our natural world, has the potential to bring jobs, new wealth and new pride to all the regions and nations of the UK. Again, I doubt there is a single Member of the House who does not want to see that.

So we start from a position of agreement on the green industrial revolution, which, in a nutshell, is about achieving just that. But to make it happen, rather than just talking about it, three qualities are required that are lacking in the Queen’s Speech: honesty, ambition and fairness. We need to be honest with ourselves and with the electorate about what the science says is necessary to avoid planetary catastrophe; we need to be ambitious, deploying our resources and testing our inventiveness at a pace and scale that is commensurate with the challenge; and we need to be fair, tackling climate change in a way that is socially just, that leaves nobody behind, and that meets and exceeds the expectations that people have for their lives and their communities.

I turn to the first quality—honesty. The Queen’s Speech references the Government’s commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the world’s leading scientific body on the subject, says that the entire world needs to reach net zero by 2050 to avoid more than 1.5° C of warming. Given the UK’s historical responsibility for climate change, and our wealth and resources to do something about it, we clearly need to be ahead of the curve on this, and we need to be honest that 2050 is not good enough—not if we are serious about keeping our people safe. I urge the Government to revisit this target.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon Friend is making an excellent speech. COP26 is coming to the UK this year. Is that not an additional responsibility for the Government, not just a historical one? Is it not true that we have a responsibility for the entire planet as the president and host of COP26?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My hon. Friend is spot on. We have an opportunity now to show on the world stage that we really mean business when it comes to tackling climate change. We need to lead the world, and not just in terms of the industries we support in the UK. We need to lead by example and encourage other countries across the world to take as robust action as I hope we will do over the coming years.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Alex Sobel

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Perhaps he was missing during the contributions, but numerous Members have outlined the Government’s inability to liaise with Members across the House to develop a consensus. I share the sentiments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley on the need to work together across this House to deal with the many issues outlined during these debates and ensure we find a deal that provides a consensus that we can all rally around. Unfortunately, we do not have a Government who have been capable thus far of delivering that. I will move on, because I know we are short of time.

I want to talk briefly about environmental and climate protections. We know that non-regression clauses in relation to environmental protections would not be subject to the arbitration procedures set out in articles 170 to 181. Instead, standards would be enforced at the domestic level and through far weaker state-to-state procedures that are rarely effective in international treaties. The political declaration, meanwhile, contains only hortatory statements regarding climate, energy and the environment that have no legal effect. How can we trust this Government to maintain domestic standards when they have taken quite an active role, shall we say, in opposing EU progress on energy and climate change?

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

We are now tackling air quality, and that is through the EU and environmental regulations, but the Government had to be taken to court three times. If such a health and environmental crisis engulfs us again, who will protect us if we are not in the EU? It will certainly not be this Government.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he makes an important point. The Government’s track record has been rather deficient, to say the least. For example, in 2017 this Government lobbied for EU renewable energy and energy efficiency targets to be reduced, made non-binding or even scrapped. Is it now this Government’s position after Brexit to adopt and maintain to 2030 at least the same ambition as that in the revised renewable energy directive and energy efficiency directive? If so, how can we trust the Government to honour that position?

Of course, no deal in relation to energy and the environment would be even worse, risking chaos and catastrophe for energy, climate and the environment according to the Greener UK coalition of non-governmental organisations. As I have outlined, it is extremely irresponsible of the Government to leverage the disaster of no deal to hard-sell what is quite frankly a dismal alternative.

I will bring my comments to a close. I have outlined briefly some of the deficiencies in the withdrawal agreement and political declaration, which, in their present form, demonstrably divide the House and, indeed, Britain. They will not protect jobs and the economy. They will not protect workers’ rights, environmental or health and safety standards, and they give barely any indication of what our future relationship with the EU will look like, causing chronic uncertainty for business.

Members have a choice: do they vote for a deal that they know will make us worse off, with a huge question mark for years to come over our future relationship with the EU, or do they demand the negotiation of a better deal for Britain that will secure support in Parliament and the country? That deal can be found, but this Government have demonstrated that they are not capable of delivering it.

Industrial Strategy

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, which are rather illuminating. I wonder whether she could share with the House how her region managed to secure those additional resources, so that we could let our colleagues know about it. That simply does not seem to be the case right across Britain.

Now, there was also a clear failure in business support. The Government’s proposals recognised that we need both public and private investment. Similarly, the Labour party has pledged to mobilise £250 billion of lending through a national investment bank and a network of regional development banks. However, the Government’s proposals fall far short of that. I said in the House last year that sector deals, a £2.5 billion investment fund incubated in the British Business Bank and yet another review into encouraging SME growth were simply not good enough. There was a clear failure to recognise the impediments that many businesses face when attempting to access finance and, indeed, there was a failure to protect businesses more generally.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we lost a lot of support after 2010 when Business Link was shut and the regional development agencies were closed down? Business support has gone backwards. We need to take it forwards, but we have lost eight years.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I completely agree. Unfortunately, what I see as I travel around Britain is a bit of a postcode lottery in business support, and the Government need to address that urgently.

As I said, the Government failed to recognise the impediments facing many businesses and to outline any more general protections. That could not have been displayed more clearly than in the Government’s handling of the Carillion scandal, where key requests by business organisations to mandate 30-day payment to suppliers and instigate the use of project bank accounts were effectively ignored. The Government simply looked on as Carillion and other big players like it abused the businesses that they contracted with and passed on financial liability and risk down the supply chain. Labour pledged to mandate 30-day prompt payment and the use of project bank accounts for all Government projects, and I will be grateful if the Minster will do the same today when summing up.