00:00 Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I am intrigued by the amendment, because on the one hand, the Opposition were very keen with amendment 15 that ARIA’s mission be to drive the net zero agenda; on the other hand, this amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to the ISC. Can she explain where she thinks a report on the potential for net zero to the ISC would be necessary and what it would achieve?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I hope does not reflect a lack of understanding of the ways in which science research and our national interest work. On national security, a direction could be given to ARIA not to work in nuclear energy with a Government whose interests did not align with our own, for example. That is quite a relevant example, because we know that, rather than investing in it themselves—even though interest rates are so low at the moment—the Government have welcomed, and even encouraged, investment in our nuclear energy by the Chinese. Some kind of direction might well be given on that basis. There are many ways in which climate change is essential to our national security, so I do not think that example was very well chosen.

Once again, my hon. Friend raises an excellent point, and indeed he brings together the themes of our amendments. He is right to say that if ARIA had a clear mission, there would be better understanding of the kinds of decisions and trade-offs that might well need to be made, and we could have a much better informed discussion around that. However, the fact is that we have neither a mission for ARIA, nor any opportunity to scrutinise the national security directives that might be made in the interests of addressing climate change, but also might be made in the interests of ensuring that we have oil drilling rights, or that we continue to fund minerals extraction around the world in order to support other research objectives. It is clear to us that we need to have this scrutiny.

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