Priti Patel MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

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Priti Patel's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 18 Parliamentary debates in which Priti Patel has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 17 Jul 2024: Debate on the Address

  17:06

  One of the great achievements of the last Government was the expansion of renewable energy generation. We can be proud of our record in that regard and proud to be world leaders, given that the energy generated by a mix of renewables passed the 40% mark. That is a huge improvement on the situation in 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) has already touched on the question of how we can generate new technology for energy purposes, and I genuinely believe that technology, rather than taxation, is the path to a much more sustainable future.

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• 13 Dec 2023: Finance Bill

  15:05

  We should also make travel more competitive and affordable for families, especially as they are struggling with the impact of the cost of living. Reforms that have taken place under previous Conservative Chancellors have been welcome. I query the small increase in the APD rates for 2024-25 in the Bill. Back in the summer, in his speech on net zero, the Prime Minister pledged to scrap plans for new taxes on flying, but the Bill provides for an increase in APD rates, ranging from 50p to £6 per flight. Although they are small increases, they are still increases. They are lower than the rate of inflation planned for and assumed in previous Government statements and OBR forecasts, which is to be welcomed. Therefore, any clarification on what is happening with APD going forward is welcome. Again, that is important for certainty and also for forecast purposes.

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• 22 Nov 2023: Autumn Statement Resolutions

  16:20

  I want to speak about the importance of the energy sector. The Chancellor touched on connectivity to the national grid in today’s autumn statement. I am an Essex MP. Off the coast of the east of England, we have enormous potential when it comes to increasing our energy security, because we have been successful in producing renewable energy offshore. We are effectively a hub in the east of England, where we have had investment. Efforts to develop the sector and increase renewable energy are welcome, and we are proud of the work that has taken place, but we are now suffering from the lack of strategic planning.

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• 25 Oct 2023: Renewable Energy Providers: Planning Considerations

  10:13

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) on securing today’s debate, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on her speech. There is no doubt that there will be a lot of overlap in our various comments today. She has just spoken very powerfully about the need for local representation and, frankly, how planning blights so much of the agenda for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

  I say that in the context of our country having made tremendous progress over the last decade in the transition to more renewable energy. There is a whole new raft of innovation and technology out there, and we are leading the curve. I also pay tribute to many of our former Energy Ministers who have led what has been quite a taxing issue for the last decade.

  As our energy grid is being weaned off fossil fuels, renewable energy accounted for almost 43% of electricity generation in 2020. That represents a very significant increase from 14.6% in 2013 and 2% back in 1991. This country is leading the way, and even in the confines of this debate, I do not think that anyone should overlook what has been achieved. That is welcome, and it is right that we as a nation are moving in the right direction, as well as looking at options for nuclear energy and small-scale nuclear projects, in particular—I say that as a Member of Parliament for the east of England. The Bradwell site is not far from my constituency, and we are looking at all sorts of options there. We should also look at incorporating more efficient energy-saving measures, as well as small-scale solar. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud spoke in a dynamic way about that and the flexibilities needed.

  Communities across the east of England do not want money; they want a genuine say in the future of their community and countryside and a say in what renewable energy could look like, what infrastructure is needed and where it should go. Winser’s recommendation of developing spatial strategies for communities in the east of England is simply too late because the pylons are advancing at a fast pace. National Grid wants to hold its statutory consultation next year. I am afraid that that is simply too late.

  I and many colleagues from across the east of England have been working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to effectively put forward alternative plans. We have been working with the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), and colleagues in the Department not only to air our frustrations and concerns, but to highlight the lack of transparency. We recognise that legal and planning processes are taking place, so the Government’s powers to intervene are limited. Frankly, however, they need to intervene. We want alternative offshore proposals and have even put forward proposals for what that could look like and how the Government could proceed with a proper and transparent consultation. But much of that is falling on deaf ears.

  Communities across the east of England are incredibly worried. The plans will simply be badged and presented as riding roughshod over local communities when they and local authorities are powerless in the face of what is being done to them. That will be detrimental to the Government’s whole proposal for increasing renewable energy, to wider proposals relating to infrastructure, and—this could affect the entire country—to wider infrastructure development on energy going forward.

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• 20 Jun 2023: Finance (No. 2) Bill

  14:30

  On the point about multinational corporations, does the right hon. Member think that it is right that we treat multinational corporations that produce oil and gas in a different way from the way we treat renewable energy companies, including companies that produce renewable energy and invest in renewable energy projects? At the moment, it seems that the energy profits levy treats those things in different ways. Will she be supporting Liberal Democrat amendments to the Bill to encourage investment in renewable energy projects?

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• 5 Sep 2022: Work of the Home Office

  The Home Office delivered the first UK policing counter-drone capability, which was used effectively at the G7, COP26 and the Commonwealth Games. A combination of deterrence communications, effective use of airspace restrictions, and new police equipment, powers and procedures is reducing the incidence of misused drones and facilitating their tracking and seizure.

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• 16 Dec 2021: Home Office Delivery 2021

  Likewise, I was proud of all the Home Office teams, police and our partner agencies who were involved in safely delivering the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November—the largest international event the UK has hosted since the 2012 Olympics—as well as the G7 summit earlier this year. UKVI staff and Border Force officers efficiently processed and welcomed tens of thousands of visiting delegates from around the world; meanwhile, police officers from across the UK and our security agencies kept attendees and the public safe throughout—as they do without fanfare across the UK every day of the year. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

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• 7 Mar 2019: The Modern Commonwealth: Opportunities and Challenges

  16:11

  We should embrace what are now some of the fastest-growing and most high-technology economies on the planet, alongside—as we have already heard—some of the smallest and most vulnerable. We must cover a range of issues including skills, technology, innovation and education, but also, at the other end of the spectrum, some of the challenges that small and vulnerable states face from climate change. That means that we must change some of our assumptions. It is not always a case of the UK providing support in some of the more conventional ways. We should recognise that some of the largest economies are becoming prime sources of capital and market growth, and we are now relying on them for investment, trade and growth opportunities. Digital, knowledge-based and service-based patterns are now generating more than half the total wealth of international commerce, and the Commonwealth has a role in that.

  People everywhere in the world are on the move as never before and the Commonwealth can collectively provide some new answers and solutions to issues such as how we can provide and accommodate better educational transfer between our countries, how we can support new business regimes and visas across Commonwealth countries, and how we can ease some of the current restrictions on our people-to-people movements. At the same time, there are enormous opportunities, which colleagues have already touched on. They range from disease eradication to some of the climate change issues we face as well as fighting for women and girls and standing up for all the issues in the rights agenda and the equality agenda. We must not just focus on securing trade and security prospects and on wider global patterns of influence. We must recognise also that there are some key characteristics we can all bring together that demonstrate where we can build on the right shared values as we enter a new chapter, not just in our nation’s history, but also in terms of foreign and economic policy priorities.

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• 6 Mar 2019: Transport Infrastructure: Essex

  09:30

  Of course, it is not only individuals who depend on our transport sector, but businesses and everyone else. Essex has a strong advanced manufacturing and engineering sector that employs over 50,000 people in over 4,200 companies. We are host to a range of household names across the constituencies of all right hon. and hon. Members present, including BAE Systems, Teledyne e2v, Fläkt Woods in Colchester, and Crittall in Witham. We have a high-tech cluster; we specialise in life sciences, renewable energies, aerospace, defence, security, biotech, digitech—you name it, we have it going on.

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• 1 Nov 2017: Official Development Assistance

  The world is changing rapidly, with extreme poverty now increasingly concentrated in fragile states, and climate change increasing the risks of natural disasters. The global rules that govern aid spending—agreed by the 30 leading donors comprising the OECD Development Assistance Committee—were first set over 40 years ago. We are determined to ensure that they remain up-to-date and effective in the face of the complex challenges of the 21st century.

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• 18 Oct 2017: Hurricane Relief (Caribbean)

  We are very focused on resilience as part of the recovery programme and dealing with the challenges faced in respect of climate change. The implications of climate change for small island states are very much a focus of DFID, but also across the Government. We are leading many of the discussions internationally in terms of climate change—how we support resilience programmes through our aid budget, but also how to help countries have the preparedness that they need to deal with some of these disasters.

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• 18 Oct 2017: Natural Disasters: Emergency Funds

  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is right to highlight the fragility of many countries. Our aid budget is there to provide relief and the preparedness to help them to deal with many of the disasters and catastrophes that take place through climate change and conflict and through man-made disasters, too. That is effectively DFID’s focus.

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The House may have noticed that the secretary-general of the OECD was in town yesterday, and I met both him and the chair of the Development Assistance Committee to discuss this issue. They are the first to recognise that such small island states need resilience to the impact of climate change and that we need greater agility in applying the rules to many of those countries. We will have that discussion at the DAC in 10 days’ time.

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• 12 Jul 2017: Oral Answers to Questions

  Let me be clear about this Government’s commitment to climate change reduction. We are a signatory to the Paris agreement, which we are committed to delivering. As for the spending percentage, it is important to stress that we have a range of spending across Departments. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which leads on climate control and climate change, is working with DFID, because climate change issues such as drought and famine have a massive impact and cause a great deal of harm in various parts of the world.

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• 11 Jan 2017: Oral Answers to Questions

  As the hon. Lady will know, a variety of challenges exist in this part of central Asia. Dealing with climate change is one, but others are economic security, financial management and performance issues. DFID’s combined approach will help to deliver greater economic security in the long run.

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• 1 Dec 2016: UK International Development

  These reviews build on the Government’s UK aid strategy published in 2015 and set out how UK aid will be focused on ending poverty and tackling great global challenges like mass migration, disease and climate change. It demonstrates how investing 0.7% of national income in international development will meet Britain’s moral obligation to the world’s poorest and work in the UK’s national interest.

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• 25 Mar 2015: Finance (No. 2) Bill

  14:40

  The hon. Gentleman also mentioned clause 29, which sets out film tax relief opportunities. The structure of the current relief is completely different from that introduced under the previous Government’s scheme, which was prone to abuse, so there are no issues of avoidance in this case. He also mentioned zero-emission bands. Stakeholders have asked for rates to be announced four or five years ahead, and the Government have been committed to announcing rates three years in advance, which is why we have done so.

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• 25 Mar 2015: Environmental Taxes

  Climate change levy

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• 11 Sep 2014: Energy-intensive Industries

  13:32

  I welcome today’s debate and congratulate the hon. Members for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing it, not least because it puts me through my paces in understanding the remit, this whole field and carbon taxes. It has been an insightful debate. The Government’s position has been discussed by a number of hon. Members, but we are clear in recognising the significant role that energy-intensive industries play in the UK economy. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said back at Budget 2011, we are committed to ensuring that manufacturing is able to remain competitive during the shift to a low-carbon economy and have pledged to do everything we can to help manufacturers play a valuable role.

  On carbon pricing, over the next decade we need to attract investment worth more than £100 billion to replace and upgrade our energy infrastructure and to diversify the energy mix. The investment will help to ensure that the UK meets our long-term legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reducing targets and, importantly, to safeguard the country’s long-term energy security, on which we have only just touched in this debate. Establishing a minimum carbon price sends a credible signal to help drive that level of long-term investment in low-carbon electricity generation—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah). But diversification is not concerned with renewable energy alone. The Government are committed to developing a wide range of energy sources to ensure that energy prices remain competitive in the future, and of course nuclear energy and shale gas are central to that.

  We are also continuing to look into the issues faced by energy-intensive industries. Today, Members have touched on the issues of carbon-reducing options and the competitive impacts. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who talked about CEMEX and the cement plant, touched on the fact that there are a range of sectors that are not on the European Commission’s list when it comes to exemptions and approval of indirect costs. Let me reassure Members that this is about not just an occasional conversation with the European Commission but about being absolutely firm and clear with it and pressing it on this issue. The Government, too, will look at the competitive impacts of their carbon reduction options through a series of road maps. I am talking here about the involvement not just of the Treasury but of the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. This will help focus policy making more on the opportunities and barriers that energy intensive industries face, and allow Government and industry to agree on actions to deliver cost-effective decarbonisation while safeguarding competitiveness.

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