Dr Whitehead

Labour will produce a strong offer at the forthcoming election on the climate emergency and net zero, including a full ban on the extraction of fossil fuel by fracking. What chance does the Prime Minister think he has of matching that offer, particularly in the light of the news that the Conservative manifesto will be written by a lobbyist for the fracking industry?

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The Prime Minister

But I must say that this Government yield to nobody in our enthusiasm for reducing CO 2 . We have cut carbon emissions massively in the UK and we were the first European country to commit to net zero by 2050, and that is what we are going to do. We can do it because we believe in a strong, dynamic, robust market economy that is delivering the solutions in clean technology that are deplored by the Labour party.

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The Prime Minister

As the right hon. Gentleman knows very well, the greatest damage that could be done to the Scottish economy would be the SNP’s reckless plan to break up the Union with the UK. Sixty per cent. of Scotland’s exports are with the rest of the UK. They would be throwing away not just the biggest block grant in history that Scotland has received this year but, of course, all the benefits of membership of the most successful political partnership in history, from shipbuilding in Govan to the Glasgow climate change summit next year, which will be a glory of our whole United Kingdom and which is coming to Scotland precisely because Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. They would throw all that away with their crackpot plan for borders at Berwick and creating a new Scottish currency or joining the euro; and, worse still, going into the European Union and handing back control of Scotland’s fisheries—Scotland’s spectacular marine wealth. Just at the moment that they have been won back by this country, they would hand back control of those fisheries to Brussels. That is their policy; I look forward to contesting it at the barricades.

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Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)

This is also my last Prime Minister’s questions, and I want to follow the comments that have been made about your strong leadership from that Chair, Mr Speaker, and, indeed, your kind comments about my good friend my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and others. I would also like, if I may, to take this opportunity to thank the staff of this place, particularly those in the Library and the catering department, and the Doorkeepers, who do so much to keep us hale and hearty. I thank my numerous friends and colleagues across this place, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who have been so personally kind to me over the past few months and so supportive of our policies, particularly the introduction of our net zero legislation. I want to thank the people of Devizes who have given me their trust for the past nine years; it has been the privilege of my life to serve you.

I would like to ask the Prime Minister a question. Does he believe, like me, that there is no planet B and that we should take the opportunity of this Brexit blockage breaking election to move the country on and focus on the incredible things we can do as the host next year of the UN’s global climate change talks, which may be in Glasgow but are a four-nation COP, so that we can help the world to get on with dealing with the problem of the next 30 years and how we repair our climate?

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The Prime Minister

May I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for everything she has done in her parliamentary and ministerial career, and associate myself with your comments, Mr Speaker, about my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)? I know that my right hon. Friend is leaving this place to do something perhaps even more important, which is to run our COP 26 summit next year in Glasgow, and I know that she will do an absolutely outstanding job. She is completely right that it would be far more wonderful for this country to focus on what we can do to lead the world in tackling the problems of the environment and climate change rather than frittering away yet more political time and capital on two more pointless referendums. I thoroughly agree with her proposal.

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