Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure the hon. Lady’s ministerial peers in other countries—to whom I think she referred earlier—must have felt keenly conscious of their great privilege in meeting her.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I would like to applaud this Government’s record on tackling carbon emissions. Our carbon reduction plan, alongside investment in new technologies and ratification of the Paris agreement, will make us world leaders in this field and create many more jobs—particularly, I hope, in Taunton Deane, with spin-offs from Hinkley Point, the lowest carbon energy development in Europe. Can the Minister give any further indications of how the Government are responding to the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement?

[Claire Perry]

Even those who do not think that this is a pressing international issue must surely welcome the fact that there are now more than 400,000 people employed in this industry—more than in the aerospace sector. Britain has shown, in the G7 and the Environment Council meetings, that we are absolutely prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with our European and international partners to make up any deficit caused by Mr Trump’s withdrawal.