Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Sarah Olney Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this debate.

If we did not already know that decarbonising our energy supply is one of the most urgent challenges facing not just this country but the whole world, the ongoing discussions in Glasgow at the COP26 summit have certainly informed us. There is now worldwide consensus on the need to phase out the use of coal and other fossil fuels in energy production, transport, heating and industry, and it is encouraging to hear some of the commitments made by delegates towards that goal. We have quite a good story to tell already on that in this country. In the UK, energy production accounts for approximately 15% of all carbon emissions. One significant challenge we face is how to replace the role of coal and fossil fuels in energy production with carbon-free alternatives, but we have already made great progress in decarbonising our energy supply. Carbon dioxide emissions from power stations were 75% lower in 2020 than in 1990, and this change has come about largely from the introduction of new energy sources, particularly renewables, such as wind and solar. The use of coal in our power supply fell sharply from the mid-2010s onwards, after which the use of renewables expanded rapidly. Wind power is now the cheapest form of electricity generation, and it was Government policy that made the substantial difference to this change, notably the decision of the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to introduce contracts for difference to incentivise private sector investment into the renewables sector. That Secretary of State was my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), whom, I gather, went on to more exalted roles.

The legislation has strong precedents. Unlocking the barriers to private sector investment into carbon-free alternatives in our energy market has catalysed the changes we need to see. We need to go further to make sure that we can completely decarbonise our energy sector, supporting renewables and household and community energy.

[Mark Jenkinson]

Does the hon. Lady not prefer France’s decarbonised electricity model to Germany’s model of ever-increasing emissions and air pollution because of its decisions to close down nuclear power stations and go back to burning lignite, the dirtiest form of coal there is?

[Sarah Olney]

My remarks are about the UK power sector, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about Germany. Clearly, as I think I have clearly stated, we want to move towards carbon-free alternatives to coal. I also want to make it clear that it is not our position that we should be closing down nuclear power stations; we support the ones that are currently operational and where contracts have been signed to open new ones. As I want to go on to make clear, our position is very much that there should not be new nuclear power stations. We need to go further to make sure that we can completely decarbonise our energy sector. We want to support renewables and household and community energy. It will create jobs. To pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) about jobs in the nuclear sector, let me say that the advantage of jobs in the renewables sector and in other alternative energy supplies is that they can be spread over a much larger area of the country. I believe he said that there are probably 18 viable sites for new nuclear power stations, many of which are concentrated in his part of the world. I am interested in job creation right across the country, and renewables offer much better opportunities for us on that.

Of course, we want to cut fossil fuel imports. On that basis, I strongly back the Government in what they are trying to achieve here, but not for nuclear. I wish to reiterate the Liberal Democrat position: there is currently no economic or environmental case for the construction of any further nuclear stations in the UK. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) set out, in his extensive and detailed speech, very much what we believe: there really is not a case for such construction.

A further point I wish to make is that it will take 20 years to build a new nuclear power station, however it is funded. We have very ambitious net zero targets. As the Minister said, we want to be net zero in our power sector by 2030, which is much sooner than in 20 years. We need to move considerably faster than that, and we already have the tools and technology to cut carbon significantly in our power sector in a much shorter period, so we need to accelerate the deployment of renewable power. We need to remove restrictions on solar and wind. We need to build more interconnectors to guarantee the security of supply. If we did that, we could reach at least 80% renewable electricity by 2030, which would be consistent with the Government’s aims to achieve net zero.

Notwithstanding the points made by other Members about the growth in demand for electricity from electric cars, we can do much more to reduce demand for electricity from existing sources.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a strong case against nuclear power. Is she aware that it was her own party leader who signed off the Hinkley Point C deal?

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am fully aware of that; I just want to reiterate that Liberal Democrat policy is that we are against any further nuclear power stations. We want to redouble our efforts on renewables, and I think I have probably said that several times now. We believe there is no economic or environmental case for further nuclear power stations.

[Richard Graham]

The position that I think the hon. Lady is taking is that the Liberal Democrats believe that all our future energy needs can be covered entirely by wind, both onshore and offshore, and possibly a bit of marine energy. What happens when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? That is precisely when the base contribution of nuclear energy is so vital. By not increasing nuclear capacity, the hon. Lady would not allow us to be able to produce the energy demanded by consumers, who include her constituents as well as those of all Government Members.

[Sarah Olney]

The current issue with renewables is one of storage, but the technology to address some of the problems is being developed at speed. It is clear that by putting our energies, investment and ingenuity into answering some of the questions in relation to storage in particular, but other things as well, we can achieve net zero much faster through renewables. It would be much more productive to invest in storage solutions than to invest in nuclear power.

Let me return to my point about the need to address electricity demand. Currently, households are a key source of demand, but a lot of that demand comes from inefficient buildings. We need to do much more to insulate the existing housing stock and to ensure that we have much better building standards for new builds. The Government need to do much more on that. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and we have released a report on the green homes grant, which was a total failure, and the report goes into a fair amount of detail as to why. I urge the Government to redouble their efforts to get Britain’s homes insulated, because it is key that we use that as an opportunity to address the demand for power. We need to look at both sides of the equation.

If we can unlock more private sector investment, we can support investment in innovation and cutting-edge technologies, including tidal and wave power, energy storage, demand response, smart grids and hydrogen. My personal belief is that those things are much better uses of our time, energy, ingenuity and private sector capital than investing in more nuclear power stations.

In her intervention earlier the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), who is no longer in her place, highlighted the grave risks of nuclear power. I urge the Government not to ignore, in their enthusiasm for nuclear, the considerable downsides of nuclear waste. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I visited Sellafield last year, and I hope that every Government Member who promotes this Bill will also take the opportunity to do so. I found it so eye-opening in respect of the consequences of dealing with nuclear waste and the considerable time, effort and money that is still now being spent to dispose of nuclear waste that was generated in the 1970s, before I was born. It was just extraordinary and really brought home to me the literally toxic legacy that we leave for future generations when we create nuclear waste. I am not confident in some of the proposed solutions to deal with it, which could have grave environmental consequences. We cannot be confident that in 50 years’ time people will take nuclear waste seriously and that the right procedures will be in place.

I urge the Government to take nuclear waste very seriously indeed. We spend billions every year to dispose of it, which is why it is of interest to the Public Accounts Committee. The issue dates back to the fuel crisis in the ’70s, when the Government prioritised keeping the lights on. The costs are an ongoing liability for future generations and divert Government spending from other purposes. We need to be very careful before we propose to increase the existing legacy of toxic waste. I feel very strongly about that and urge the Government fully to consider the downsides.

In summary, we do not need new nuclear power stations. We want more private sector investment in innovative solutions and to spread the jobs bonus throughout the country. We cannot afford the legacy of nuclear waste that the Government propose to leave to future generations. We will vote against Second Reading.

Supporting Small Business

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I am extremely glad that the shadow Chancellor moved the motion before the House, because the support of our small businesses has to be one of the principal priorities of the Government at this time. I know that enormous challenges are crowding in from every side as we continue to tackle the covid crisis while dealing with fuel price rises, supply chain shortages, NHS backlogs and the work to decarbonise our economy, but a thriving economy built on private enterprise will do more to help us to solve all those problems than anything else, so it is imperative that the Chancellor does all he can to support and promote small businesses over the next few months.

Given its well-publicised proximity to Heathrow airport, my constituency plays host to many companies in the travel sector. I am particularly concerned about the future of the sector. Despite announcements in recent weeks, there are still considerable restrictions on people’s ability to travel that continue to limit the opportunities for trading in the sector, not least with continued uncertainty about the sector’s prospects as covid cases continue to soar.

The travel sector underpins so many other aspects of the UK economy, both in attracting visitors to our cultural and hospitality sectors and in enabling us to seek out new markets elsewhere, so it must be a strategic priority for the Government to provide it with support. Travel industries will not thrive after the end of the pandemic if they do not receive assistance now.

I call on the Government to extend furlough to all the sectors that are still trying to operate under restrictions, but particularly to the travel sector. They also need to redesign the furlough scheme to enable companies to use it to part-pay their employees. When I spoke to travel companies at a surgery in my constituency recently, they highlighted that at the moment they have enough trade to pay their previously full-time employees to come in for two or three days a week to man the phones, take bookings and research options. They would love to have furlough to be able to pay them for the remainder of their time, just to keep going while there are still so many restrictions and so much uncertainty. Furlough was conceived as an all-or-nothing system, but it really needs to change in order to continue to support businesses that are still affected as we come out of the pandemic.

The retail and hospitality sectors were badly hit by the pandemic. Many are now struggling to reopen fully, thanks to supply chain and labour market issues. The Government need to look again at their immigration policies and think about how they can be better designed to support our key high street industries as we emerge from the pandemic. More than that, they need to complete their promised review of business rates and think again about how they are levied on town centre businesses.

There has been a lot of discussion this afternoon about what might take the place of business rates—I think that there was some freelancing from some hon. Gentlemen on the Tory Back Benches about what might replace them. They are no longer in their place, which is a shame; I was very interested to hear about their suggestions to increase VAT, although I think I am right in saying that the Conservatives committed in their 2019 manifesto to not doing so.

[Peter Grant]

I fear that I may have anticipated the hon. Lady’s next line, but how much faith can we place in a Conservative manifesto promise not to increase tax these days?

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Gentleman has indeed anticipated exactly what I was about to say, which is that, given that in their 2019 manifesto the Conservatives committed themselves to not raising VAT, we can surely expect it to be raised at some point before the end of this Parliament. Nevertheless, if the Government are not sure how to proceed on business rates, I can give the hon. Gentleman a fully fleshed-out policy from the Liberal Democrats. We believe that a commercial landowner levy would be a much fairer way of raising local revenue, by taxing landowners rather than business owners. We urge the Government to consider that option.

Small businesses provide about three fifths of the employment in the private sector, and it is vital that those jobs are supported. The Government’s recent announcement of a rise in national insurance payments will deter small businesses from creating the new jobs that are so badly needed and limit the expansion of companies seeking to offer new products and services, including those that offer the innovation we need for the green economy. The Government should limit the impact of this rise on the small business sector by quadrupling the employment allowance from £4,000 to £16,000. That would enable a small business to employ five full-time workers on the median UK salary without paying any national insurance contributions, and would incentivise and support new businesses as we make the transition towards a net zero carbon economy.

The UK faces a troubling few months. Covid is not over yet, and a return to normal patterns of life seems likely to be substantially delayed. However, problems create opportunities, and we need to help our entrepreneurs to find solutions and bring them to the people who need them. Small businesses support communities, provide employment and deliver a good society, and the Government need to support them for everyone’s benefit.

Subsidy Control Bill

Sarah Olney Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. I thank the Minister for his engagement on the Bill; it was useful to discuss the seven principles in detail beforehand. We welcome the fact that the Bill has been introduced, that there is a proposal to replace the EU subsidy regime and that the Government are making provision for it, but I put it to the Government that what is in the Bill is really only half of what we need if we are to have an effective and adequate UK subsidy regime.

The first thing missing relates not so much to what is in the Bill but what should stand alongside it: an effective industrial strategy. The Bill makes it clear that the purpose of the regime is to guide the awarding of grants for strategic purposes, but we do not know what the strategy looks like because we do not have an industrial strategy that identifies our key sectors and industries. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) put it so succinctly, we are not even entirely sure which regions of the UK we most want to support. Any subsidy regime that is not accompanied by a clear industrial strategy is really only half the picture, because we just do not know where the public support might best be directed.

As a number of Members have already said—I defer in particular to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and the points he made—the key thing missing from the Bill is transparency. What subsidies will be paid to whom? Without that level of transparency, we will have no real scrutiny of the decisions made. Quite apart from all the other related points that have been made, the key thing for me is how we can measure the value or impact of subsidies if we do not have a clear idea of exactly what subsidies are being paid to whom and for what purpose. How can we be certain that those subsidies reach the right people, organisations, regions and sectors, and that they provide the kind of targeted support that we want? Without clarity and transparency, we cannot properly evaluate what the taxpayer subsidises.

The point about the scrutiny of individual subsidy decisions has been made a number of times. There has been much discussion about the CMA’s role, but it strikes me that although the CMA will have a role to play in scrutiny, it will have no enforcement role. It is probably right that the CMA will be consulted not on every particular subsidy but just on those that are of interest, but for it to be asked to look at subsidies of interest but have no enforcement role seems to me to be a bit of a waste of time. It also highlights the fact that no overall independent body will assess the subsidy regime and whether subsidies have been awarded according to the principles outlined in the Bill. Who will hold the various local authorities to account for ensuring that the principles have been adhered to? There does not seem to be a role for any independent body.

Without an industrial strategy, clear data on which bids are successful and an independent body to provide guidance, how much faith can individual businesses, or their lenders or investors, have in their likelihood of success? How can confidence be built among investors who bid for a subsidy? How can they assess their likelihood of success? The Bill will lead to inefficiency in the system, because it will discourage businesses that might have had a good chance of getting a subsidy if only they had had all the information available when making their bid, and the available subsidies will perhaps then be given to businesses that do not have such a good case.

I refer again to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, who used the term “unproductive”. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I care as deeply as any other Member in this place that we get good value for taxpayers’ money. It seems to me that without clarity, guidance or an overarching industrial strategy, there is a real danger that subsidies will be awarded behind closed doors, without clarity. That would make for the inefficient allocation of resources, which we all want to avoid.

The only restraint on subsidies that this legislation allows for is the threat of legal action by competitors who might have missed out. Without that clear information about who is getting a subsidy and what for, it seems the information simply is not going to be available for those legal challenges to be mounted. How will affected businesses know that they have been disadvantaged and how will they be able to gather sufficient information to mount an effective legal challenge? None the less, that legal challenge appears to be the only effective restraint on how subsidies are handed out.

Through this Bill, the Government seem to have constructed a regime that will enable secret payments without scrutiny or challenge. It does not provide enough of a route to challenge or anyone to hold to account in order to ensure that the principles are being observed. To be honest, it surprises me that this Government, who already have a reputation for cronyism, would not take greater care to ensure that those perceptions were not perpetuated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

What guidance his Department issues to (a) retailers and (b) consumers to help raise awareness of the threat of online scams.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

Having worked in the retail sector for a number of years, I sympathise with consumers who have been targeted by these dreadful scams. Guidance for businesses on how to spot and avoid getting caught out by scams is available on Business Companion and the Businesses Against Scams website; consumer advice is available on the Citizens Advice website. All of these are funded by Government.

[Sarah Olney]

The reported rise in remote banking fraud poses considerable concern to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are increasingly accessing online business banking services owing to the closure of high street banks in many of our communities. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that SMEs are well equipped to navigate online banking and, by extension, recognise fraudulent activity?

[Amanda Solloway]

Businesses and consumers all fall victim to these scams, so it is important that they have an awareness of all online scams. They can report matters to Action Fraud; consumers can also go to the Citizens Advice scams action helpline.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

I promise not to detain the House much longer. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I welcome the Bill. We support all science and technology spending. We support what the Bill is trying to do, and we wish it safe passage through the other place.

I beg your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to take just a couple of minutes to talk about my new clause on climate change and some of the other amendments on similar themes. I have listened to what those on the Government Benches had to say about why they did not want to support those amendments. Broadly speaking, that seems to be around not wanting the agency to be constrained in any way and wanting it to have full rein to take the science where it leads. Obviously, that is a laudable enterprise, but the point I wished to make in tabling that new clause was that nothing innovative can stand the test of time if it does not meet net zero targets or respond to the challenge of climate change.

If any of the new inventions or new research that come out of this new agency do not respond to that challenge, they cannot be a sustainable part of our future economy and society. That is why climate change has to be a baseline, and that is what I was trying to achieve. The need to tackle climate change is going to be a constraint anyway on the agency, so why not have that in the Bill?

During this debate, there has been a lot of reference to the vaccine roll-out, which has obviously been a great success. The research and how it has been carried out is obviously a fantastic example of science and technology really succeeding, but the key point is that the research and the vaccine were responding to a very clear and present challenge. The scientific community has responded amazingly, but the lesson to learn is that the science was responding to a challenge. We have no greater challenge ahead of us right now than tackling climate change. We will find, I believe, that even without the climate change amendments in the Bill, that is what the agency will be doing anyway. It will be responding to the challenge of climate change and it will need to take account of carbon emissions.

I briefly want to talk about scrutiny. I understand the reluctance to allow too much scrutiny and not allowing freedom of information requests. I know that scrutiny can sometimes be vexatious or opportunistic, but science answers questions. That is what science is for; that is the function of science, and it should never shy away from questions. At its best, scrutiny can be constructive and improving, and that can only be of benefit to the agency being set up by this legislation.

To sum up, we support the Bill. We absolutely want ARIA to succeed. We very much look forward to seeing what it can produce, and we support the Bill’s passage to the other place.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

10-point Plan: Six Months On

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When MPs talk to their constituents, we hear them talk about range anxiety, and it is critical that we have the right charging infrastructure to drive forward the EV roll-out. We have committed public funds to this, but I am very happy to discuss with her, as it is obviously critically important. I feel that we are in a good place, but I would be very interested to hear her ideas.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The 10-point plan announced 50,000 new jobs in energy efficiency, which may or may not have been in addition to the 80,000 new jobs that were due to be created by the green homes grant announced last summer in the Government’s plan for jobs. My repeated written questions to the Department to clarify whether those 50,000 jobs are in addition to the 80,000 have not yet elicited a clear answer, so could the Secretary of State tell me how many jobs in energy efficiency have been created so far, and what plans are in place to create more, now that the green homes grant has been scrapped with no plan to replace it?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The 50,000 jobs related to the green homes grant. The hon. Lady will know that there were three elements to the green homes grant. One related to the decarbonisation of public sector buildings. That was £1 billion deployed through Salix. That has gone extremely well. Of the remaining £2 billion, £500 million was to be disbursed by local authorities for council housing, social housing and people who are vulnerable. That programme is going very well. What has been rejigged has been the half that related to owner-occupied buildings. It was a short-term stimulus plan that was due to run out in March this year, and we are looking at a replacement scheme.

UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I commend my hon. Friend, who, only in his brief time as a Member of Parliament, has made a real impact on these discussions and in representing Redcar. I remember a Redcar that was represented by a Liberal Democrat precisely because of the closure of the SSI plant, and I am delighted to see that it is now represented by an excellent Conservative MP.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

The circumstances surrounding the collapse of Greensill Capital throw up a lot of questions about how decisions are being made regarding the use of public money to guarantee loans to struggling companies during the pandemic. It is important that Parliament has sight of those decisions to properly scrutinise them. On 12 November 2020, in response to a parliamentary question tabled by the shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Minister said that the list of companies offered coronavirus business interruption loans would be published “in due course”. Does the Secretary of State agree that transparency is essential for effective scrutiny, and will he commit to publishing the list of companies that have received Government-backed loan support without delay?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will certainly look into the hon. Lady’s request. This is something that has been brought to my attention and I will try to see if we can publish something soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The proportion of residual waste sent to landfill, incineration and transfer stations that could otherwise have been recycled in England in 2020 is not available, I am afraid, but data on waste arisings are not structured around the material composition of waste streams. For both fossil and biogenic CO₂ for energy-from-waste plants, national emissions estimates are based on an emission factor derived using the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change default factor for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

Given that women are disproportionately more likely to lose their job during the pandemic, what conversations has the Minister had recently with the Department for Work and Pensions about how to support women back into work?

[Paul Scully]

I speak to DWP Ministers all the time about how to create jobs for women and for all people in the UK. We had record jobs creation after the last recession. Equally, we are planning to grow and bounce back.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Sarah Olney Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the setting up of ARIA. Liberal Democrats wholeheartedly welcome any announcement of new public funding for science and technology.

I was struck by the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Havant (Alan Mak) about Britain’s history of scientific technology and innovation. When I was a child growing up in the 1980s, we were still coming towards the end of the cold war, and science and technology felt almost threatening in a time of conflict revolving around nuclear weapons. A transformation has taken place over the last 35 years in public attitudes towards science. We have had a digital revolution. Here we are today, on the anniversary of the first lockdown of the pandemic, and in the last few months, scientific research and scientists have dominated the headlines with the extraordinary work they have done in developing the vaccine. It makes me think that today’s children have a very different attitude towards science, and I very much hope that the experience of the last few years will encourage more and more children and young people to consider science as a career. I hope they will be inspired by our great national history of science and innovation, and that this new agency will in some way pick up that great inspiration and some of that great talent, which is surely being fostered in our schools and universities as we speak, and bring new innovations and great scientific thinking to the world.

There is no doubt that in funding for science and innovation we have lagged behind somewhat in both the private and public sector. We have fantastic science, education and research capacity in this country, as we have done for many years, but our biggest failing has been our inability to match up the great work and innovation that we are generating in our universities, research centres and private sector companies and bring it into economic activity so that it can deliver wider benefits to our economy and workforce. It is a problem that Governments of all stripes have wrestled with for many years.

However, while I welcome the fact that ARIA has been set up with that express purpose in mind, is this particular agency the result of Government analysis of where we have been going wrong or is this Mr Cummings’s brainchild? Conservative Members seem to have almost limitless faith in Mr Cummings’s abilities and analysis, but I have to be honest that it is not that clear to those of us on the Opposition Benches that just because Mr Cummings thinks something is a good idea, the rest of us should automatically follow.

So I am very interested to know what analysis the Government have done as to how ARIA can fix some of these questions that have dogged our science and innovation space for so many years. How is the agency going to direct its activities to make sure that it can really address the issues we are facing? My first question is about who is going to be addressing these particular issues. The legislation is broadly drawn, which is probably right given that we want an unencumbered agency, but who is going to be appointed to lead it? I notice from the legislation that the board will be appointed by the Secretary of State; it will obviously include the chief scientific officer as that is clearly right, but beyond that what will be the qualifications of the people who are leading it? Will they be scientists, will they be from industry, will they be academics, will they be economists? The legislation is silent on what will qualify somebody to sit on that board and how they will direct the agency and to what particular ends. That is an interesting point, and I look forward to hearing more about how the Secretary of State will make those appointments.

I welcome the plans to provide the substantial funding for this new body, and particularly the direction that the projects it undertakes can have a high risk of failure. However, the Secretary of State must be aware that he is committing to taking big risks with taxpayers’ money. How can he or the hard-working taxpayer be sure that this use of public money delivers greater value to the British public than any other use? I acknowledge that that will be a difficult question to answer and that we need to accept that there will be downsides, but the Secretary of State should be clear about whether this high-risk investment is new money or whether it is being taken away from other established and lower risk programmes elsewhere. For example, is funding for ARIA coming from money for research and innovation for other programmes—perhaps money that UKRI received for official development assistance research into global challenges, which we know has been cut by two thirds? Is that money now going into ARIA? Are we cutting existing programmes in order to fund this high-risk research?

We know that ODA budgets and also the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Academy are seeing cuts, and again I ask is ARIA the new destination for that funding? It is essential that the Government confirm that this is new money and that it is going to be introduced to sit alongside existing funding streams. Otherwise, far from being a boost to scientific research, ARIA will put successful current research at risk. As has been pointed out, the wide-ranging remit of ARIA also represents a risk that research projects will be undertaken that duplicate work already being done elsewhere, which again risks taxpayer value for money.

In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats are very pleased to support the Bill. We are 100% behind efforts to increase science and innovation, particularly where they can have wider applications for the economy and quality of life in this country, but we will be watching very closely for answers on appointments to the board and funding.

Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port and Battery Manufacturing Strategy

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend has raised that question. I had an excellent visit a few months ago, as he remembers, in his constituency in Culham. I spoke to many business people who are driving the net zero agenda, and, alongside him, I am very happy to support those efforts.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

Increasing demand for electric vehicles can help to create the green jobs that we need, as we transition away from carbon-emitting industries. Will the Secretary of State agree that cutting VAT to 5% on electric vehicles can help to stimulate that demand?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady is right. We are considering many ways to stimulate the demand to drive this critical agenda. It was a big step for the Prime Minister to announce that we would try to phase out the purchase of internal combustion engine cars by 2030. There was some opposition to that, but it was clearly the right move and we are looking at all sorts of other measures to promote the demand that she wants to see.