18:04 Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP) [V]

As a Member of Parliament representing the north-east of Scotland, I am only too aware of the importance of the energy economy and the criticality of ensuring a just transition to net zero. While I acknowledge the £27 million that has been announced for the energy transition zone in Aberdeen, it still falls well short of the wider £62 million transition fund committed last year by the Scottish Government.

[Source]

18:19 Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)

This is a Government that talk the talk on greening our economy, but nothing in the Budget will address the urgency of the climate crisis. This Government have failed, this Budget has failed, and the Chancellor has failed the nation. [Interruption.]

[Source]

18:22 Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)

Secondly, I welcome the green finance measures, extending the Bank of England’s remit to reflect the transition to net zero Britain, which the Environmental Audit Committee had specifically called for. The confirmation of the £15 billion green gilts issuance, the launch of environmental retail savings products and the review of carbon offset market trading will all help to cement the City of London’s leadership in green finance. The City and its regulators should lead the way in developing global standards of taxonomy to monitor and rate company performance and investment products and portfolios, as part of our contribution in hosting both the G7 and COP26 this year.

But despite these promising moves, covid has delayed many of the detailed environmental policies needed to deliver net zero Britain. The private sector is poised to invest in projects contributing to the economic recovery and to net zero Britain, but they need the demand signals and policy structures in place from Government to do so. The Chancellor missed this opportunity and made little further progress in aligning recovery measures to the overarching Government ambition to achieve net zero Britain. Last summer, the Chancellor launched the green homes grant—an excellent initiative to help the 19 million homes that need energy efficiency measures to cut carbon emissions, but unfortunately he did not choose the Budget to overhaul and extend this scheme so that it would live up to his ambitious targets.

[Source]

18:25 John McDonnell (Labour)

I have seen it reported that in this Budget the Chancellor is stealing my policies. No, he is not. His Budget plagiarises the rhetoric but not the substance, with promises of corporation tax rises, but delayed and overridden by tax giveaways—tokenistic gestures to levelling up but contaminated by pork barrel politics. Taken alongside the fast-track award of crony contracts to Tory friends and donors, it is hardly surprising that many now refer to this Government as corrupt. The decisions to freeze fuel duties and to dig a new coal mine, and the pathetic scale of environmental policies, do not just pay lip service to the climate crisis we face but put future generations at risk. By any measure, this is a Budget to be ashamed of.

[Source]

18:29 David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con) [V]

Eden Project North meets all the Prime Minister’s policy priorities: it can be an exemplar project in terms of levelling up. As the project is shovel-ready, it is now possible that workers can be on-site this year, with immediate gains, demonstrating the green shoots of recovery from covid-19 and being a showcase for the Government’s commitments to COP26 in Glasgow in November. Eden Project North is precisely the type of project that the Government should be backing. Three Prime Ministers and four Chancellors have agreed with this, as did the Minister in my recent Adjournment debate.

[Source]

18:31 Ian Lavery (Labour)

Despite that, the exciting proposal of a new state-of-the-art electric battery manufacturing gigafactory in Cambois in my constituency presents an opportunity that our communities can be rebuilt around—a new industrial power in the north that centres on green energy, upon which we must and will become increasingly reliant. This will only be possible with the firm support of this Government, and the question from my constituents to the Government is simple: “Will you support us this time round or cast us aside once again? Will you deliver, or will you boot us into touch once again?”

Climate change is a real and dangerous threat, yet there was little mention of it in the Budget last week. But, believe me, there is no get-out-of-jail card with climate change; there is no vaccine for climate change. It is crucial that the Government do what they can to support the development of this gigafactory in my region. It is an opportunity for the people to get just employment—to get fair wages, and terms and conditions.

[Source]

20:06 Anna McMorrin (Labour)

This Budget was a lost opportunity to provide security for those in hard-hit and precarious sectors, to provide economic justice to the excluded millions who have gone a year without support and to provide recognition for our protectors or stability for our businesses. There was no recognition for our public sector workers who are at the forefront of the crisis and who we depend on to get us through. It was a Budget with a thin green veneer, not one that will properly finance climate action to protect the health of people and planet, or demonstrate to the world the power of the UK’s example as a climate leader in the year of COP.

This Chancellor is also slashing life-saving support around the world: the aid that builds resilience to the climate crisis and future health challenges. During a pandemic, the Government are pulling back our first response to future crises and hitting the vulnerable hardest, the consequences of which we will feel here at home. The Government are turning their backs. Overseas and here at home, the Government are recklessly playing with people’s lives, pushing people to the brink only to pull them back just a bit. That is not how responsible Governments behave. It is time to do the right thing.

[Source]

20:19 Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)

Missing from this Budget is any real effort towards addressing climate change and the environmental problems the world faces. This Government like to talk about climate change but they do not act on that chat. So we get a token commitment to a green economic recovery while they continue to crank up the pressure to carry on regardless. When France was creating the Paris agreement, it invested huge amounts of money, time and effort into global diplomacy to deliver it. We are months away from COP26 and the UK effort is nowhere near what is needed, with a delivery team that fails to inspire and with this Budget serving to remind us and the rest of the world that action on climate change is not a priority for the UK.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Brexiters would want to show that they can perform like a world Government, but instead we get announcements, 10-point plans, targets and wizard wheezes that lead to no action and that the Government seem to think are an end in themselves. The world will be watching while COP26 fails.

The Government have plenty to say about shiny competitions—there is a new one on energy storage—ignoring already successful and operational schemes such as Cruachan. There are competitions to create showcases, but no cash on offer to get on and deliver. There is net zero by 2050, but no practical strategy about how to get there. Should the VAT system not be altered to encourage green home upgrades? What about incentives for more efficient white goods or drivers of behavioural change to encourage action towards environmental sustainability?

The Chancellor has said his freeports will support green fast-growing industries, which is not something that anyone else thinks, but it is indicative of this Government’s attitude that someone else will sort things out. We need forward planning and anticipatory spend to upgrade the grid for the extra juice as we switch to electric vehicles and for domestic heating and cooking. That failure lays down problems for the future. In the same vein, we need to see the transmission charging scheme changed to ensure that renewable energy can be pumped into the grid wherever it is produced.

[Source]

20:54 Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

Climate change was almost untouched in the Budget. We know that the warm homes grant is completely useless. We need a street-by-street strategy, but the Budget did nothing whatsoever on that. In terms of home building and home buying, it will help those with the money but push up house prices and make things worse for many millions; and, with the local housing allowance matching only the 30th percentile, not the 50th as it did in 2010, many renters are still worse off.

[Source]

20:57 Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con) [V]

This is a welcome Budget statement and offers much for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. For example, I welcome the commitments to apprenticeships. I have personally employed three apprentices under a Conservative Government. Getting the right match between apprentices and jobs will mean a great and much needed route to skilled, well-paid jobs in construction of new homes, which we badly need, in retrofitting existing homes, which will lead to healthier, greener, warmer and cheaper homes for many, in renewable energy and nature recovery—massive areas of growth, not just here in west Cornwall but across the country—and in engineering, food and farming: all areas that are essential to this green, resilient recovery from covid.

[Source]

21:18 Chi Onwurah (Labour)

It is the greatest crisis that this country has faced since the second world war, and the Chancellor offers us a partisan and peripatetic Budget—partisan because it seeks to shore up the majorities of Conservative MPs, regardless of need or national benefit, and peripatetic as it jumps from area to area and sector to sector, giving and taking with no vision and little ambition, with nothing on social care, nothing for our key industries, nothing for Newcastle and almost nothing on climate change.

[Source]

21:35 Ruth Cadbury (Labour)

With the UK hosting COP26, we would have thought the Government would have a bold, ambitious and sustainable plan that both tackles the climate crisis and creates high-paid, secure green jobs, with the associated economic stimulus the UK economy so desperately needs, but they do not. They have just a green-focused investment bank, and the Chancellor did not mention that it fails even to plug the gap left behind by leaving the European Investment Bank, nor does it replace the green investment bank that the Conservative Government sold off. There was a £1 billion cut to the green homes grant, which was justified on that grounds that “too few applied”; it was not reformed so that it actually worked for homeowners needing to make their homes energy secure and efficient, while also ensuring there is work for small and local businesses in my constituency and across the country.

[Source]

21:50 John Glen (Conservative)

As many hon. Members have mentioned, the Government continue to take their world-leading environmental commitment seriously. They remain dedicated to meeting climate change and wider environmental targets, including improving the UK’s air quality.

[Source]