17:43 Darren Jones (Labour)

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is at the heart of Britain’s recovery. If we are to recover from the economic costs of the pandemic and tackle the climate crisis, it is imperative that we build back better for Britain, with a more inclusive, productive and sustainable economy that provides opportunity, security and resilience for families in every part of the United Kingdom.

That means good jobs for every generation in every part of the country; it means investing in key sectors in order to increase British manufacturing and British exports; it means Government partnering with business to bring forward investments in digitisation and technology transformation to improve productivity, with a specific focus on small and medium-sized enterprises; and it means recognising the importance of a fiscal stimulus in people as well as infrastructure, in the knowledge that an investment in every worker’s skills is an investment in the interests of the British economy. In each of those priorities, embedded in every single spending commitment, the Government must set out how they will accelerate our transition to net zero. Tackling climate change should no longer be a standalone policy; it should be at the heart of every Government decision.

The first key test for the Department must be to ensure that businesses large and small get the help they need in respect of both liquidity and debt management. In the course of our inquiry into the impact of coronavirus on businesses and workers, my Committee has seen evidence of employers doing the right things, but also of businesses and employers doing the wrong things. Conditionality on future support, in respect of both corporate behaviour and embedding the net zero transition and worker training, should become the new normal.

Evidence taken by my Committee from sectors in the most immediate need has also underscored the urgency of strategic sector-specific support packages and the high cost of failing to act. As the Member of Parliament for Bristol North West, I see that especially in the hospitality and aerospace sectors, and, while the hospitality sector can start to slowly reopen, the aerospace sector cannot. The aerospace sector should command a bespoke package of support bringing forward decarbonisation targets for new aircraft and developing the technologies of tomorrow, not just to protect vital jobs and skills, but to maintain our international competitiveness in this important sector. However, the Government seem unwilling to take a coherent sectoral approach. I appreciate that the Minister cannot make any announcements in advance of the statement tomorrow, but I wonder whether he might tell us if he thinks his Department will move from a one-size-fits-all approach to a more sophisticated sectoral approach in the months ahead.

Lastly, as I said at the beginning of my speech, I do not see climate change as standalone policy, but one that is embedded in every decision. I hope the Government will set out how every decision, through the billions of pounds that they spend, helps us to reach our net zero target.

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18:03 Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)

For us to emerge from the crisis, we must draw on the industry and ingenuity for which this country is famous. BEIS must support a renaissance in home-grown manufacturing, while promoting the UK as a world leader in certain fields. We have already achieved that in medical research and pharmaceuticals, and there is no reason why we cannot apply that success to sectors such as green energy and renewables, and in doing so steal a march on our rivals. We are already ahead of the game in technologies such as wind power, but we must act with speed and commitment to implement a hydrogen strategy to harness the full potential of this exciting zero-emission fuel of the future. Much of my work on the BEIS Committee revolves around such issues, and I welcome ideas from other Members to make them a reality.

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18:07 Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru)

With our vast mountains and hills and our 870 miles of coastline path, Wales is ideally placed for socially distant tourism, but attracting tourists at any cost should not be our priority. Post covid, sustainable tourism can be a vehicle for supporting our cultural heritage as well as combating the multiple crises of our age: the climate emergency, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and social and economic inequalities. Out of this crisis, we have an opportunity to assess our tourism industry and its role within our economy, and I urge the Government to grasp this opportunity to create a future-proof model of tourism with sustainability at its heart.

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18:18 Nadia Whittome (Labour)

Just as the UK was not prepared for the covid-19 pandemic, so the Government are failing adequately to prepare and protect people from the effects of climate change. What are the latest Treasury estimates for the cost of the likely damage to communities, food, food production, and industry as a result of climate change and environmental degradation over the next five to 10 years? Although I welcome several of the measures touted to make the Chancellor’s Budget tomorrow, particularly the green homes grant scheme, a responsible approach to the climate and environmental emergency will require far more than just one or two eye-catching measures and a few slogans. To say that anything less than systemic, transformative fundamental change to society, the economy and lifestyles is needed would be to peddle a dangerous and reckless myth.

In the light of what we have seen, or not seen, from the Government on climate change and the environment, I am somewhat sceptical about their new-found love for interventionist approaches. Analysis shows that policies opposed by the Government to date on onshore wind, offshore wind power, home installation, tidal power and transport would have led to nearly 70 million tonnes of CO 2 emissions savings per year by 2030. The UK is off track to hit our latest carbon budget emissions targets. We are missing most of our international biodiversity targets, and Natural England and the Environment Agency have been cut so severely that they are barely able even to fulfil their basic statutory functions. In the context of all this, the Cabinet Committee launched to co-ordinate climate policy has, remarkably, met just once.

Covid-19 has shown that we all have the ability to make drastic changes to our way of life, when necessary. We must learn from these changes, not merely return to the old habits and old ways of thinking, and that goes for Government too. As a minimum, any company support package from the Government must ensure there is a clear commitment to tackling climate change. Will the Minister commit to the principle of public money for public goods today, and will the Minister commit to a comprehensive training, jobs and investment programme built around net zero and the circular economy—a green industrial revolution?

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18:20 Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)

As the Government plan for the future, we need to think carefully about what getting back to normal looks like. Some of my constituents joined me in a virtual lobby last week to talk about climate change, and one thing was clear: they wanted to see a green recovery for the economy. With CO 2 emissions dropping by a quarter during the lockdown, the number of good quality air days increasing by 22% and nitrogen dioxide levels falling by 40%, these things have changed considerably.

Inevitably, as the economy returns to normal, some of those improvements will diminish, but there is an opportunity to embed some of the behavioural change we have seen for the future, particularly when it comes to commuting into work. Experts in the US estimate that more than one in three jobs could be done entirely from home, and it would be interesting to look at the figures for the UK. If some of those who could work remotely continue to do so, this could make a significant contribution to the Government’s plan to be net zero by 2050, and help to alleviate some of the overcrowding on public transport.

Of course, many other issues need to be looked at if those working patterns are to be sustained, but this Government have already delivered so much when it comes to the environment—greenhouse gas has been reduced and, indeed, thousands of new carbon-free buses and a comprehensive network of cycleways have been introduced—so embedding this new trend for home working could well be a positive legacy from lockdown that truly helps produce a truly green recovery following the coronavirus lockdown.

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18:26 Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat)

The climate emergency is real and, as the word “emergency” suggests, it needs urgent action now. I want to thank the Minister for his time yesterday, and I will continue to engage with him; some of what I am going to say now he heard yesterday. I continue to worry that although the Government do something to address the need to lower our carbon emissions, they fall short of addressing the urgent need to get to net zero in the next few decades. The Government need to publish a comprehensive and coherent plan of how to get to net zero, not just to low carbon emissions, across all sectors of our economy—transport, heating, energy, agriculture, construction and so on. All this has to be done simultaneously. It is well understood that this is a very complex task, but any Government who took a climate emergency seriously would have such a plan, not just announce piecemeal measures.

One of the biggest set of carbon emissions comes from heating our homes and buildings. The Government need to set out what they believe the future of heating our public and private buildings will look like, and how the transition to net zero is going to be achieved. If the Government are serious about hydrogen, significant pilot schemes need to be rolled out soon, not only to guarantee their safety but to indicate to investors and businesses what the future direction looks like. I urge the Government to fast-track green hydrogen production, so that we do not end up with hydrogen coming predominantly from natural gas and we do not still pump fossil fuels out of the ground in 30 years’ time. The production of green hydrogen requires a large scaling-up of renewable energy production, so thinking about one sector branches out into another. District heating could play an important part in heating our homes, but rather than going forward with its roll-out, since 2018 we have gone backwards. The energy company obligation scheme is going to be continued into 2022, but I urge the Minister to look into widening it to include the most vulnerable people.

If private vehicles will be largely powered by electricity, we need a large increase in grid capacity. People will find it a lot easier to switch to electric vehicles if they can be confident that they can quickly and easily charge their cars. However, I hear from car makers across the board that the Government have not committed themselves yet to the large infrastructure changes needed to allow them to be confident about the quick and large-scale take-up of electric vehicles. Taking steps in the right direction is not good enough; we need a coherent plan and big leaps to get to net zero.

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18:34 Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)

In the remaining time I have, let me say that there is no more strategically important sector to this country than the North sea in terms of the billions it generates for the Treasury, whether that is through the petroleum revenue taxes or through the economic activity that it generates elsewhere. It is on the brink of thousands of job losses. The Scottish Government have already invested £62 million in an energy transition deal. We need the UK Government to match that ambition and invest that money. There is no route to net zero without harnessing the expertise of that sector.

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18:36 Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)

A few minutes cannot cover a Department that has responsibility for business recovery, energy, industrial strategy, climate change, net zero, getting the carbon budgets back on track and leading on COP26. It is not credible that one Secretary of State has all those responsibilities under his belt, as well as leading in the Cabinet on climate change.

A green recovery will need investment and commitments on a greater scale than anything we have seen to date, and it is shocking to think that BEIS only spends £1 billion a year on tackling climate change, yet spends £2 billion a year on nuclear waste at Sellafield. The nuclear waste liability is estimated to be £131 billion. What a legacy that is, yet the Government and BEIS are still infatuated with nuclear, despite the failing business models. Hinkley has a strike price of £92.50 per MWh for a 35-year concession, yet offshore wind is now at less than £40 per MWh for a mere 15-year concession. It is crazy, and it is time to abandon the nuclear sector deal, which is sucking another £190 million out of the Department’s budget. The nuclear fallout needs to be ended and there needs to be greater investment in renewables. If the Government are still arguing that we need a baseload, I would argue that they should be finding a route to market for pumped hydro storage, which would give the required baseload, rather than nuclear energy.

The same is true of carbon capture and storage and hydrogen production: the funding of such projects at scale is required in order for us to become world leading. It is critical that funding is provided for the Acorn CCS and hydrogen-production project at St Fergus. The Committee on Climate Change recommends that a funding mechanism must be in place this year.

Support is also required for the oil and gas industry so that it can have a just transition to renewables and the net zero target for 2050. When are we going to see some of the £350 billion of Treasury revenues that came from oil and gas coming back to Scotland to support the sector?

On facilitating green investment in infrastructure, there also need to be upgrades to national grid pinch points and a resetting of transmission charging, which right now punishes renewable projects in Scotland. We need greater investment in electric vehicle infrastructure, and to have a coherent strategy for a green recovery, we need to see the energy White Paper. We need a national infrastructure strategy to come forward. The heating building strategy, transport decarbonisation plan and net zero review all have to align and come together. The options for investment are massive; if the UK Government will not grasp them, they should give Scotland the powers so that we can continue on our green journey.

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18:42 Matthew Pennycook (Labour)

A number of other Members mentioned the environment and climate emergency. Given the primacy of the climate threat over the long term and BEIS’s lead role in ensuring that our country plays its part in tackling it, I want to use the time that I have to focus on the Department’s record in driving progress towards the net zero target for which we legislated just over a year ago.

Although 2050 is too late, we can continue to take pride in the fact that we were the first major economy to adopt a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero. But setting a target is one thing; hitting it is quite another. As things stand, not only are the Government failing to do anything like enough to meet our legally binding 2050 target, but they are not even on track to meet the less ambitious target that preceded it. I am afraid Ministers give every impression of being entirely relaxed about that fact. How else do we explain that over the past 12 months, while basking in the virtuous afterglow of legislating for net zero, the Government have done precious little to set us on the road to carbon neutrality?

The Committee on Climate Change put it in characteristically diplomatic terms when it stated in a recent annual progress report that last year

The human, economic and social cost of the coronavirus crisis has been severe, but as we turn our attention to rebuilding, the Government have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate the decarbonisation of our economy and make up lost ground, and it is imperative that they seize it. There have been some positive signs in recent weeks that suggest that the Government may recognise the force of this argument. Take the package on energy efficiency measures that was trailed yesterday. We believe that the amount allocated to social housing is woefully inadequate, we take issue with the fact that the private rented sector has been almost entirely overlooked, and we have concerns about whether it will be possible to deliver in the seven-month window provided, but the investment is welcome. However, it has to be the first step, rather than the last word, when it comes to energy efficiency; the start of a long-term, year-on-year programme of support rather than merely a one-off annual boost. The same principle must apply in other areas.

All of which is to say that when it comes to judging the impact of tomorrow’s statement and the autumn spending review on our decarbonisation efforts, what matters is not only the scale and nature of the stimulus, but whether the measures to be announced form part of a co-ordinated long-term approach and are interwoven with the policy change required to drive emissions reductions through the remainder of this crucial decade.

If we are to get on track for net zero, the impetus ultimately has to come from the centre, but for obvious reasons BEIS has a crucial role to play in supporting the centre to set that strategic direction on decarbonisation and direct its spending appropriately to that end. Yet in several crucial areas the Department is still failing to provide the clear, stable and well-designed policy framework that businesses and investors require.

Secondly, when it comes to the decarbonisation of heat, the estimates merely appear to contain a broadly static commitment to expenditure on the renewable heat incentive. Leaving aside whether funds allocated to the RHI will be rolled over to underpin other proposed low-carbon heat schemes, does the Minister agree that the total resources currently allocated by the Department to heat are nowhere near enough to respond to the challenge presented by this most difficult of sectors?

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18:48 The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Kwasi Kwarteng)

The hon. Gentleman asked about the decarbonisation of heat. I refer him to the fact that we have a heat in buildings strategy, which will outline the policies clearly and simply. There is certainly a great deal of movement in that area.

The hon. Gentleman said that there are lofty ambitions for day-to-day spending, and suggested that our spending is perhaps more carbon-emitting than it should be. We have actually had great success on the carbon emissions front, particularly in electricity generation. He will know that in 2010, when I entered the House—he entered in 2015—offshore wind seemed like a fantasy, but in 10 years we have massively ramped up capacity. People say flippantly, “Oh, well, the cost is £39.50 per MWh”—the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said that—but that did not just happen by accident. It was a serious attempt by a serious Government to construct an auction—a CfD round—and it managed to drive down costs. It was led by policy and evidence. It has been very successful and is admired throughout the world. That is an example of BEIS delivering substantial change and innovation on carbon emissions reduction and the climate change debate.

In the last few minutes of my remarks, I turn my attention to what is at the centre of the Department and at the centre of its strategy: the net zero commitment. I think it was the hon. Member for Bristol North West who said that this cannot just be a stand-alone policy. It is not; it is at the heart and centre of Government strategy. I also reject those voices that say that somehow we are the laggards and the backward students. That is a completely wrong characterisation. I mentioned coal. Germany’s date to remove coal from its electricity power generation is 2038—a whole 14 years after this Government and this country will have left coal behind. We are leaders, not followers, in many of these respects. The Prime Minister outlined in his speech on 30 June that we intend to

The Prime Minister has already spoken of our plans to run 4,000 new zero-carbon buses and the new plan for cycleways as part of the upgrades to transport infrastructure. Since the outbreak of covid-19 in this country, we have published the first stage of our transport decarbonisation plan. That plan provides a measure of certainty and a clear pathway to the future. We have announced a £2 billion package for cycling and to encourage people to walk, which is not only more energy efficient, but also tackles issues such as obesity and exercise. We can remobilise and decarbonise at the same time, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your patience and for the very brisk way in which the debate has been handled. We have heard some excellent speeches. BEIS is now considering how best to support businesses. The green recovery is at the heart of what we want to do post covid, and we are exceptionally focused—more than any other Department—on delivering the strategic goal of net zero. In all this work, we will continue to listen to businesses, large and small. I particularly look forward to engaging in debate with Members of this House, as I have done in the past. We are also listening to business representative organisations. We are determined to get it right for individuals and businesses who need support, for our economy and for the future.

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18:58 Darren Jones (Labour)

I thank the many right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken for their contributions today. Whether on key sectors such as the aerospace and the beauty industry, about which we have heard from hon. Members in this debate, or from loud voices such as Unite the union for aerospace, or from over 400 letters from thousands of workers and women to the Minister regarding the beauty industry; whether from the Petitions Committee on parents, on our lack of progress on net zero or on entrepreneurs and those who have fallen between the cracks, the demand on the Government has been clear this evening. That is, we expect a more sophisticated, coherent and transparent set of policies from the Government. With all due respect, the Minister was unable to announce anything about the future this evening. I hope that is because we will hear the plan that we need for Britain and British workers tomorrow from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt we will all be back to hear that and to hold the Government to account tomorrow.

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