Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

Last Friday, this country left the European Union. Britain’s place in the world is at a crossroads, and while there are different views across the country, we will be holding the Government to account as the negotiations begin. My hope is that we will now truly come together to shape our common future and build an internationalist, diverse and outward-looking country. Indeed, we will get an opportunity to do that when Britain hosts the UN climate change conference, COP26, later this year. Despite the fact that we are at the 11th hour to save the planet, the former Tory Minister and now ex-president of COP26 Claire O’Neill said that there has been a

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The Prime Minister

If we look at what the Government are achieving and already have achieved on climate change, it is quite phenomenal. The right hon. Gentleman will know that last year was the first year on record that renewables produced more of this country’s energy than fossil fuels. He will know that 99% of all the solar panels that have achieved that miracle were installed since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. We are delivering for the people of this country. We are reducing greenhouse gases. All he would produce, I am afraid, is a load of hot air.

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Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

The problem is, the Government’s own figures show that they are missing the carbon budget —let alone 2050, it will be 2099 before this country meets net zero.

but we do not. Why is the Prime Minister failing so spectacularly to measure up to the scale of the climate crisis that this country and this planet are facing?

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Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

This country is not meeting its target and it is not due to meet its target, and I think the Prime Minister should recognise that. Even the Paris targets are not enough. The UN says that we have just a decade to change course if we want to avert a climate catastrophe. Let us look at something else his ex-Minister said—that the Prime Minister promised to “lead from the front” and guaranteed there would be “money” and “people”, but these promises are not close to being met. What on earth could she have been talking about?

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Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

Not my words—hers. The Prime Minister’s failure in government means this country will not meet its net zero target until 2099. This Government have banned offshore wind, and this Government are funding billions on fossil fuel projects abroad. Is this what his ex-Minister means by the “absence of leadership”?

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The Prime Minister

I think the grotesque failure of the Leader of the Opposition to understand what is happening in this country’s economy, let alone in the fight against climate change, is quite mind-boggling. I can inform him today not just that this country is leading in producing the technology to generate offshore, but that the north-east of this country leads the world in producing and designing those fantastic turbines. It is because of that technological innovation that we are able massively to expand our renewables. I can tell him —I think he may know this—that in 1990 this country was 70% dependent on coal power. And, by the way, he would want to reopen the coalmines. Today, we are down to 3%, and by 2024 it will be zero. That is our plan. What is his?

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Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

It was the Labour party that proposed the climate change emergency motion to this House on 1 May. The Prime Minister is quoting things that happened in 1990 and afterwards. During that time, of course, he was a climate sceptic who did not say anything about this at all.

Poor leadership is nothing new to this Prime Minister. When he was Foreign Secretary, he cut the number of climate attachés across the world by 60% in our embassies, and reportedly said to his staff, “You’re not going to spill this all out to the media, are you?” Considering his monumental failure in advance of COP26, is it not really just a continuation of his climate change denial statements that he was regularly making up until 2015?

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The Prime Minister

The right hon. Gentleman is talking absolute nonsense. This Government are delivering a fantastic agenda in tackling climate change; we lead the world in going for a zero-carbon approach. His own approach is utterly unclear and has indeed been condemned by the GMB as a disaster for the UK economy. He would confiscate people’s cars and prevent them from having foreign holidays. We have a plan that will allow the UK economy to continue to grow and create jobs and that will tackle climate change.

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Jeremy Corbyn (Other)

I really do admire the Prime Minister’s very vivid imagination, but unfortunately his vivid imagination seems to have taken over from his memory, because he might recall saying that climate change is a “primitive fear…without foundation”. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh said:

No wonder the Prime Minister is shutting newspapers out of No. 10 because he does not like the briefings. When will he face up to the climate emergency and take the action necessary to turn Glasgow into the turning point when this world will stop the levels of pollution and climate change we are having and go forward to a sustainable future? Because his Government’s policies simply do not take us there.

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The Prime Minister

This Government are showing world leadership in tackling climate change, and we are going to have a fantastic summit at Glasgow and I look forward to it very much.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions the media. Labour finally conducted an inquest into what happened in the general election, and they discovered in the Labour party that it was not the leadership that was at fault, and it was not Brexit; it was the media. They blame the media for it. I do not blame them; I am a journalist—I love journalism. The people of this country do not blame the media; they can see that the media do their best to represent the reality, and the reality is that this is a Government who are getting on with delivering 40 new hospitals and 20,000 more police, tackling climate change, and £30,000 starting salaries for every teacher in the country. It is not about the presentation of the facts, it is about the reality, and the right hon. Gentleman cannot cope with the reality.

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