Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rehman Chishti and Caroline Nokes(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes
We have a number of schemes that already allow children to come to the UK, including Dublin and the Dubs commitment that I have outlined. We are determined to make sure that we meet our international commitments and our humanitarian commitments, to make sure that, where we can help children in desperate need across the continent and, indeed, in the wider middle east and north Africa region, we do so.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will be aware that we had a Westminster Hall debate on that subject last week and that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) has a private Member’s Bill on it, which will come forward on 16 March. This is a policy area where we enable some refugee families to be reunited here. We have a proud track record of so far resettling 10,000 of the 20,000 we are expecting under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. This is an important policy. We are determined to be as compassionate as we can within the commitments we have already made.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Renewable Energy
Debate between Rehman Chishti and Caroline Nokes(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this important debate, because we are rapidly approaching 2016—a year that is demanding the Minister’s attention, given that security of energy supply, on which he is something of an expert, is increasing in importance.
I hope that this debate will feed into the wider discussion about the security of supply and be a useful contribution to the thinking on this issue. Given the three important issues that underpin that thinking—keeping the lights on, the diversity of energy sources and increasing the amount of renewable energy—I am pleased that hon. Members are here to listen to the debate.
The debate title is a testament to Britain’s growth in green technology and our status as a world leader in climate change awareness. However, as I will explain, for too long we have trailed behind countries such as Germany in the production of green energy, and we must take decisive action to secure support across the whole sector.
The reality is that attention within the renewables incentive debate has been centred on solar photovoltaic and wind energy. In the short term, river and wave energy may become a new focus. However, too little attention is paid to anaerobic digestion and other energy-from-waste technologies. The decoupling of the two subjects of waste management and energy production in the mind of the general public would be useful in overcoming hostility to the production of energy from waste.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I pay tribute to the excellent work done by my hon. Friend in this regard. Does she think that we need to expand on the excellent work of companies, such as ACM Environmental plc, which has converted waste into renewable energy in schools in Kent? Waste is converted on-site, rather than outside in other areas, and used to heat water, for example, at those schools.
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is exactly what I shall focus on, albeit in Hampshire rather than Kent.
To date, the main focus of attention on energy from waste appears to have been on large-scale industrial production of waste-sourced energy. Advanced gasification is a key part of securing green energy and decreasing landfill: it is a carbon-lean process involving the efficient, high-temperature conversion of waste to base-load electricity. After the August 2010 announcement that energy from waste can be sold to the national grid, there is now real discussion about how local authorities in particular can secure income sources by selling green energy. For example, Air Products, a leading provider of industrial gases and environmental systems, has been granted permission for a 49 MW advanced gasification plant in Teesside, the building of which will begin next year. That development will create 700 jobs, divert up to 350,000 tonnes of waste from landfill and produce enough predictable, clean power for 50,000 homes. Air Products is precisely the sort of provider of clean energy that we should be encouraging to meet our renewables obligations.