16:41 Rachel Reeves (Labour)

I know the Chancellor has already performed quite a lot of U-turns today, but can I invite him to make another U-turn specifically on fracking? Given that renewable energy is nine times cheaper, would it not make good economic sense to invest in renewables rather than fracking?

We are not going to do fracking unless it has local consent, but I also say, as someone who believes passionately that we have to do more on climate change, that it is not helping climate change to import hydrocarbons from other countries and say that as a result we are being very virtuous in reducing our own emissions. We need to do what it takes to reduce overall emissions.

Unless you are a banker on a bumper bonus, which not many of my constituents are, you are looking at higher food prices, higher fuel prices, higher mortgages, reducing wages in real terms, falling benefits in real terms and savage real-terms cuts in public services. Alternatively, my constituents could be building towards a Scotland that is creating 385,000 jobs in renewable energy, producing between three and four times as much energy as we need, and—who knows?—maybe even selling it on at mates’ rates to our friends and neighbours, as long as they treat us well. I respect the Chancellor’s right to dismiss that future. I think he is doing himself an injustice by basing his dismissal on blind, evidence-light dogma, rather than looking at the facts, but does he accept that it is not for him, anyone on the Government Benches or, indeed, anyone on the Opposition Benches to deny my constituents the right to choose between those two futures?

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