David T. C. Davies

The BBC, no less, reported in 2012 that in 11 out of the previous 12 years predictions about increases in temperature had been wrong and that there had been a warm bias. Does the Secretary of State, as the shareholder, agree that he should be asking some tough questions at the board meeting about why we should be imposing expensive climate change policies on businesses and householders, when so often the predictions behind them are proved to be inaccurate?

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George Freeman (Conservative)

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor demonstrated in the autumn statement, the Government put investment in R and D as the top priority in our long-term economic plan. I am delighted, as I am sure that Opposition Members will be, by the announcement on ring-fencing the science budget, with £6.9 billion on science capital and £4.7 billion on revenue. In addition, the Prime Minister recently announced a 50% increase in our funding of climate finance, with £400 million over this Parliament, and we have just announced £60 million going into the energy research accelerator.

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Mike Weir

Launching an investment coalition in Paris at the weekend, Bill Gates made the point that if we are to avoid global warming we have to move at full speed in developing new renewable energy technologies. To ensure that the UK plays its part, what progress have Ministers made in ensuring that the UK Green Investment Bank receives the full £3.8 billion of capitalisation and maintains its green mandate, irrespective of the future of the Government’s stake in the bank?

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David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)

In the spending review, a major energy investment of £250 million was announced for small modular reactors. That was warmly welcomed in the north-west and it will make a big difference to our ability to meet our climate change targets. It is crucial that the UK owns the intellectual property rights that result from that technology. Will the Minister and his colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change make sure that that is the case?

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George Freeman (Conservative)

My hon. Friend is something of an expert on those matters and I will happily look into the very important point he makes. One of the benefits of our support for the green economy—which, as I have said, is now a £45 billion sector in this country—is that we are generating the leading technologies in 21st-century green energy. I will happily look into the specific points he makes.

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Andy McDonald (Labour)

T9. I previously raised with the Secretary of State the Teesside Collective’s industrial carbon capture and storage ambitions, which will not only contribute massively to the climate change agenda, but secure existing industries and attract investment. In the light of the Paris agreement, will he meet me and industrialists leading that key initiative to explore how we might bring that important project to fruition? ( 902696 )

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Anna Soubry

I hope that I do not disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I am more than happy to have a meeting with him. He knows the terms on which we always have our meetings: not to shout at me. [Interruption.] Only in the House. I hope that he will join me in congratulating the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on her outstanding achievement on behalf of our nation in playing a full and important role in securing the excellent way forward to ensure that the planet that we leave for our children will be better than the one that we inherited. Yes, I will have the meeting.

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