(2 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I thank my friend and colleague the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for bringing forward this debate. As he said, it is not a new idea, but it is certainly a good one. As part of the mix of renewable energies, it must have its place. In every single speech I have heard the word “potential”, but we need to take it further. We need a road map, commitment and investment. From Lothian to Birkenhead, to Strangford, to Stoke-on-Trent—North and Central—and to Crewe and Nantwich, there is a hunger to see this succeed.
The scars that our landscape left behind after the decimation of the coal mining industry could finally pay a legacy, which would be a fitting tribute to generations of proud coal miners. As we transition from oil and gas, we must not let those skills be lost to foreign investment or simply discarded.
Today I am wearing my James Watt tie. He was a fellow Grenockian who has sometimes been wrongly credited with inventing the steam engine. What Watt did was look at ineffective technology and refine it—in his case, with the steam condenser. Hey presto! We had steam engines that were powerful, safe and practical. The industrial revolution was born. Bearing in mind the damage that that might have caused the planet, we may want to debate on another day whether that has been a good thing, but today I see those comparisons. The viability of geothermal heat has increased with every report that has been produced by the House of Commons Library since 2012. Technology that seemed to be just too expensive to be practical has become viable. Rather than add to the pollution, geothermal harnesses the Earth’s natural energy.
We have heard about a number of potential sources, but primarily it has been mine water. I want to add unused railway tunnels to the list, and not just because I have miles of them within my constituency of Inverclyde. Whenever a new technology comes along, there will inevitably be a cost associated with developing it, but I would venture that when it comes to clean, green renewable energy, we should factor into that the material cost to our planet if we do not develop clean, green renewable energy. We will get to a tipping point, when no amount of money, research or ingenuity will save our planet from overheating. That is the true cost of not investing in renewables now, and it is a cost that nobody wants to pay. In conclusion, I sincerely hope that the UK Government do not bury their heads in their sand, when we could be burying deep thermal bores into the ground instead.
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere are days when I genuinely have to thank God that the Labour party is the Opposition and not the Government of this country. We have £1.3 trillion of outward stock invested, including things like pension funds that British people will depend on for their prosperity. Were we to abandon the concept of investor-state dispute resolutions, what would happen to the protections for our investment overseas? The Labour party needs to start to think about the wider interests of this country.
Existing EU trade agreements, such as the EU-Canada comprehensive economic and trade agreement and the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement, contain provisions that ensure that it remains for the United Kingdom to decide how our public services are run. As we leave the EU, the Government will ensure that all future trade agreements continue to protect the UK’s right to regulate public services.
Technically, there is little that MPs and the public can do to prevent the Government from signing trade deals that could negatively impact on the NHS. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will expand the transparency and scrutiny mechanisms that pertain to any future trade deals?