12:50 John McDonnell (Labour)

In addition to the coronavirus, we face other emergencies, and we must not lose sight of the two other crises that we face. One is the crisis in our public services—it is a social emergency—with the levels of poverty and inequality in our society. The other is of course the existential threat of climate change. I have to say that yesterday’s Budget failed to address the social emergency. We have discussed it on the Floor of this House before, but this social emergency sees 4.5 million of our children living in poverty, with 70% of those children living in households where an adult is in work. We have—I do not know how else to describe it—a crisis of in-work poverty that perhaps we have not seen for generations in this country.

Let us not forget the third emergency we are facing today. Future generations will never forgive this Government for their failure to address climate change in this Budget. Infrastructure investment, if properly planned, could have been an opportunity to shift the tracks on which this economy runs towards a zero-carbon future. The Government have missed that opportunity. The Institute for Public Policy Research’s environmental justice commission said that £33 billion a year in green investment was needed for the Government to achieve only their weak target of net zero emissions by 2050. The Chancellor has fallen woefully short of that target. Instead, the Chancellor has opted for £27 billion to be spent roads, which currently contribute 90% of the UK’s transport emissions. They have committed less than one fifth of that to buses and cycling. Fuel duty is still frozen, with no effective assistance to encourage the shift from cars dependent on fossil fuel to less polluting cars and public transport. There is no new support for renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. In the year when we host COP26, this Budget will be seen as a betrayal of future generations.

What are the lessons we must learn from this Budget? It should not take a medical crisis before a Government wake up to funding the NHS adequately. It should not take a collapse in the economy and the threat of recession to force a Government to invest. It should not take our children going on strike to force a Government to take climate change seriously. Our community has experienced 10 years of immense suffering under austerity for nothing—for the pursuit of ideology; a political and economic experiment that has failed. This Budget should have been the most significant since the second world war. It should have been a turning point. As time has allowed scrutiny of this Budget in the past 18 hours or so, it has become clear that it has failed. It does not come close to reversing the damage of the past 10 years of austerity.

I give this final warning to the Government and to all of us. If we sow the seeds of disappointment and disillusionment, it could stir up a form of politics that none of us wishes our country to experience. We need the Government to recognise that they have a responsibility to bring forward—it may now be in autumn—a Budget that tackles our social emergency, our crisis in public services, the levels of poverty and inequality in our society and the existential threat of climate change. The Opposition will do everything we can to ensure that the Government listen and bring that Budget forward.

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13:24 The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Alok Sharma)

In the coming years, we will need to make the most of ideas, innovations and solutions from each and every corner of our United Kingdom. The shadow Chancellor will agree that nowhere is that more true than in tackling climate change. Part of my Department’s mission is to deliver clean energy and to lead on the path to net zero emissions by 2050. Since 2010, as a result of the actions we have taken, the United Kingdom has cut its carbon dioxide emissions by around 30%. Driven by investment in renewables, 99% of the UK’s solar photovoltaic capacity has been deployed since 2010. Today, the UK has more installed offshore wind capacity than any other country in the world.

Thanks to the industries I discussed earlier, we aim to have up to 2 million green jobs in our economy by 2030. The UK economy has grown by 75% since 1990. At the same time, we have cut emissions by 43%. We have demonstrated that green growth is possible. We have the opportunity to turn climate change into a green growth opportunity for the global economy. As the shadow Chancellor noted, this November, COP26, the UN climate conference, which will be the biggest summit ever organised by the UK, will take place here. Whether globally we live in the south or the north, the east or the west, we share one life-giving but fragile planet. All our futures are indeed intrinsically linked. COP26 can be where the world comes together to ramp up momentum towards a zero carbon economy. It can send out a message of ambition and hope that decarbonisation is the future, with huge opportunities for those who are willing to act now.

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13:45 Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)

This Government’s commitments to achieving net zero remain to be seen, with a meagre £10 million for policy development towards net zero, but £27 billion being spent on roads, and tinkering round the edges of challenges such as domestic heating and making our homes climate ready, rather than incentivising investment by cutting VAT on products for repairs and improvements to aid energy efficiency. We are coming up to COP26, as the Minister said. We need big ideas and we need the money behind them, because if this work is truly to be a success, we need to see a transformation, and that is not what this Budget promises.

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14:54 Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)

I also want to press the Government on the need for much greater ambition on climate change. There was very little that was new or radical in the announcements yesterday, and I hope we will see much greater ambition when the comprehensive spending review is presented later this year.

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15:35 Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)

I also want to refer to another measure that could level down opportunity for my constituents. The shows and fairgrounds industry makes a major contribution to the lifeblood of my constituency, yet it has faced significant financial pressures in recent years in providing entertainment to adults and children alike. The Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain has highlighted to me that the planned increase in fuel duty on red diesel will put many of their members out of business, with some reporting that it could increase their overheads by as much as £24,000 per annum. I stress that I am strongly supportive of measures that tackle the climate emergency, and it is right that we take the necessary steps to switch to cleaner forms of transport, but showpeople are less able to absorb the significant increase in fuel duty compared with other big businesses that use red diesel, and currently there are no alternative cleaner fuels that could wholly replace red diesel for the power-generating equipment for fairground rides.

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15:40 David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)

The commitment to a new storage and research facility will move about 40% of the Natural History Museum’s collection to the Harwell campus, along with some of the scientists, so it can work on some of the biggest challenges we face today, such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity and emerging illnesses and diseases. The principle of Harwell is that if we bring people together on the same campus, they can work out the solutions to coming and developing problems.

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16:06 Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat)

However, while a short-term injection of funds to address the immediate crisis might be an appropriate response to the coronavirus, the Chancellor appears to have extended this approach to the whole of his Budget. It was a litany of short-term emergency measures. His speech yesterday left a whole wasteland of ungrasped nettles. If this Conservative Government, at the beginning of a five-year Parliament with a majority of 80, cannot bring themselves to make some tough choices to re-programme our economy to meet the challenges of climate change, and to reset the course of this nation’s economic journey as we leave the European Union, when on earth will they?

For all of us, the largest nettle that goes ungrasped is our response to the climate emergency. The Chancellor announced funding for many new road schemes across the country but little for mitigating measures to reduce carbon emissions. The plans announced for carbon capture and storage are pitifully inadequate, and not enough is being done to invest in electrical vehicle charging infrastructure.

It is a particular shame that the issue of carbon emissions from domestic homes was not addressed, as the barrier to real change on that is the lack of funding. If we are to meet the Government’s net zero target by 2050, we need to start a comprehensive programme of retrofitting insulation to domestic homes and to install more efficient forms of domestic heating. Such a move would have a beneficial impact on domestic energy bills everywhere and, in particular, would alleviate fuel poverty in many homes. I want to reiterate the Liberal Democrats’ support for the Government in dealing with the coronavirus challenge in the months to come— [ Interruption. ]

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16:20 Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)

I welcome the £800 million commitment to carbon capture, usage and storage, but I note that it is spread over four projects. In the second round of carbon capture and storage, which was pulled by the previous Government, the total was larger at £1 billion, but for fewer projects. We need clarity, and the Government must push on with this, because there is no route to net zero emissions that does not involve CCUS.

Similarly, for an oil and gas sector deal, we must decarbonise the extraction process. There is a proposal to connect Shetland to the main electricity grid on mainland Scotland, and if we did that, if would become possible to electrify the oil extraction processes west of Shetland and reduce emissions. That would allow for renewables to connect to the grid. There are a range of regulatory and technical stumbling blocks, but it is the sort of project that cries out for inclusion in an oil and gas sector deal, alongside promotion of the hydrogen economy, subsea, and decommissioning.

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16:29 Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)

Finally, and most importantly, I turn to climate change. The Committee on Climate Change—not me, the Committee—said that the best they could say about the Budget was that it was a “realistic start” but it was not close to what is really needed. The Chancellor kept saying that the Government were going to meet their environmental obligations, but environmental groups do not agree. The Government’s advisory group does not agree. I do not agree. My constituents definitely do not agree. This is an existential threat. It is a matter of urgency—it is an emergency. I salute the Chancellor for taking the coronavirus emergency seriously and I just want him to do the same, with the same level of urgency, with the climate change emergency.

In conclusion, this Budget fails to address my constituents’ concerns. While it contains many good things, especially on covid-19, it does not undo the economic and social damage of the past 10 years or the cuts to public services, and it fails to treat the climate emergency as an emergency. It is a Brexit Budget. The Chancellor used to be seen as the coming man, but I fear that he is now just seen as Cummings’ man, with an agenda of deregulation, downgrading of public services and shrinking of the state. The Chancellor has a family, and one day they will ask him what he did about climate change, and I hope that he will be able, before the COP climate change conference this autumn, to tell them exactly what he did to protect the climate.

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16:40 Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour)

We live in precarious times. The three crises we face, coronavirus, the social emergency and the climate emergency, demanded a brave Budget—a bold Budget—to tackle them head-on. It was welcome to see action to help businesses encountering cash-flow problems, zero rates for businesses that qualify for the retail discount, the loans available for those affected by the virus and the 14-day statutory sick pay rebate for small firms. Those measures will help, but there remain gaping holes in the Government’s response to the virus. Statutory sick pay is £94 a week, which is not enough for many people to live on and pay the bills. People who fall ill will be forced to choose between hardship on the one hand and risking their health and those of their colleagues on the other. What of those not eligible to receive sick pay—the insecure workers created by a decade of Tory rule? For them, the choice is even starker. While extra funding for the NHS is welcome, we cannot overturn a decade of cuts and capacity shortages overnight with a quick cash injection.

Turning to the emergency that will define our generation and those to come, the climate emergency, I would like to list those things on which this Budget was silent. On solar power, wind power and tidal power, there was nothing. On the Tory manifesto pledge to support hydrogen production—nothing. On the Tory manifesto pledge to spend £9.2 billion on energy efficiency and cut household bills—nothing. On the Tory manifesto pledge to support a gigafactory for electric vehicle batteries—nothing. On reducing emissions from agriculture—nothing. On making public transport more affordable—nothing. And on measures to support workers and communities to transition away from carbon-intensive industries—nothing.

Then there is a commitment to consult on measures to support renewable heat. There is a commitment to consult on green gas. There is a commitment to publish a review—sorry, two reviews—on the cost and benefits of reaching net zero. I do not think I am alone in this House in saying that consultations and reviews are not quite what we had in mind when we declared a climate and environment emergency last year.

Public calls for a climate Budget have never been louder, but what does that mean in practice? There are three key tests. First, is the Budget adequate? Does it take its lead from science rather than political expediency, cutting emissions at the rate necessary to avoid dangerous heating? Secondly, is the Budget aspirational? Will it create hundreds of thousands of good green jobs, positioning the UK as a world leader in the green industrial revolution, bringing huge wealth to all regions and nations? Finally, is the Budget fair? Does it spread the costs of dealing with the climate emergency in a way that is progressive and just, at home and internationally?

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