12:38 Rishi Sunak (Conservative)

On top of the £2 billion voucher scheme, I am releasing £1 billion of funding to improve the energy efficiency of public sector buildings, alongside a £50 million fund to pilot the right approach to decarbonise social housing. Taken together, we expect these measures to make more than 650,000 homes more energy efficient; to save households up to £300 a year on their bills; to cut carbon by more than half a megatonne per year—equivalent to taking 270,000 cars off the road; and, most importantly right now, to support around 140,000 green jobs. A £3 billion green jobs plan to save money, cut carbon and create jobs.

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13:03 Anneliese Dodds (Labour)

We must be ambitious for the future of our country’s economy. Our ambition should not be just to build our way out of this but to do so in a greener and cleaner way. For this, we need more than the reheated announcements by the Prime Minister last week. Of course the investment announced was welcome, not least because much of it was already committed to by the Government. However, core elements are missing. For example, £50 million to support retrofitting in social homes is just a seventh of what the Conservatives said they would be spending every year. The muddled confusions over stamp duty over the past 48 hours reflect a broader lack of strategy when it comes to house building, particularly for genuinely affordable and social homes. Overall, the UK’s green investment package barely touches the sides of other countries’ commitments. Even with what was announced today, it only equates to just over the value of Germany’s investment in one green technology alone—hydrogen. The Committee on Climate Change has indicated how far behind the UK is in the race to decarbonise. Failure to heed its recommendations is not only damaging to our planet, but it also cuts us out of leading the development of the key technologies of the future. The Conservatives are still refusing to impose conditions on investment to ensure that it contributes to the goal of net zero and that it supports local jobs, uses local firms, leads to sustainable skilled employment in local areas and prevents the use of tax havens and other forms of asset stripping.

The hon. Lady talked about conditionality on funds that we provided. Here, she has to choose. It cannot be that you can develop significant interventions to provide liquidity and cash support to businesses at scale and speed, while at the same time having an incredibly targeted approach, imposing conditions on individual businesses. You have to choose one or the other. We unashamedly chose the former. The speed of what was happening to our economy and the scale of what was happening required us to take a broad-brush approach, and that was the way we could get help to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. But when individual businesses come to the taxpayer and require bespoke support, it is right that we impose conditions on those businesses. I have been very clear that that is what I would do and, indeed, that is what we have done. Without going into the details, as that would be inappropriate, let me say that such interventions will come with conditions: conditions on executive pay, protecting employment, climate change obligations, how supply chains and small businesses are treated, and obligations around tax. Those are all commitments and conditions that the taxpayer would expect us to make and that is what we have done in the one instance where the support has been provided thus far. It is what we will do for any future support.

The hon. Lady talked about a green recovery. This Government are proud of their record on our environment. She talked about Germany and other countries. When I stood here in March, we outlined one of the most ambitious and far-reaching investment programmes for our environment and tackling net zero from any Government this country has ever seen. Carbon capture and storage, the nature for climate fund, investing to further the support for electric vehicles, new charging stations, tackling air quality, taxes on polluters—those are all measures we have already taken. I am glad that other countries are catching up. We have decarbonised faster than almost every other European country. It is a record that those of us on the Government Benches are proud of.

The measures we have announced today are some of the most far-reaching measures any country has taken to tackle energy efficiency. They will provide thousands of pounds of grants for homeowners up and down the country to create local jobs and ensure we can reduce carbon emissions from our housing stock, which today account for almost a fifth of all our emissions. The Committee on Climate Change has said we must address that. In our manifesto, we committed ourselves to addressing it. Rather than waiting to get started and rather than the five-year plan outlined in our manifesto, we are getting on with it today.

I thank the Chancellor for the positive measures that he has announced, but why was there absolutely nothing serious for the self-employed? With unemployment rocketing—perhaps up to 3 million—and the climate emergency already hitting us, why is the Chancellor’s ambition for a green recovery so small? Surely we need far more green jobs, now and in future. Why is he not being as radical as European countries such as Germany and France, with a massive green fiscal stimulus for the technologies and industries of the future? Surely even his own home insulation plan should be three times as big and last five years to get real investment in our homes, to decarbonise, and to get the green jobs for our young people and for every community throughout our country.

I assure the hon. Lady that all relevant impact assessments are conducted at the time that they are required by legislation. As for the environmental impact, I gave a flavour of it earlier. The sum total of the green homes grant scheme and public sector decarbonisation fund will mean that about half a megatonne of carbon will be saved every year, which is the equivalent of about 270,000 cars taken off the road, and there will be about 140,000 new jobs. I hope she will welcome that.

The Chancellor says he is proud of the Government’s green record, yet the green measures announced today will cut just 0.14% of UK emissions—not only that, but this is a Government who are still committed to spending £27 billion on new roads. If he wants to have a green record that he can genuinely be proud of, will he start by cancelling the roads scheme, put the money into public transport and broadband, and introduce a new rule for the UK economy to ensure that all spending and taxation are in line with the Paris agreement and restoring our natural world?

It is a record to be proud of. We have cut carbon emissions by 40% in the last few years. We are now a world leader in offshore, wind, and, for the first time ever last year, we generated the majority of our energy from zero carbon sources. We are building on our progress. That has happened under a Conservative Government, and whether it is through our nature for climate fund, our measures to tackle air quality, or new technologies such as direct air capture or carbon capture and storage, this Government will ensure that we meet our net zero obligations and do so in a way that creates jobs in every part of our United Kingdom.

My right hon. Friend is doing a fantastic job in promoting and protecting jobs, but to really trade our way out of this recession, we will need to look at the future, and I know he is keen as I am to see a green recovery. Does he agree that COP26 next year offers us a really good opportunity to show UK global leadership, including by working now with international partners in big projects in areas such as battery storage, offshore wind or carbon capture, usage and storage? Those areas can create green jobs for the future the Chancellor.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is something the Committee on Climate Change also mentioned, which is why in the Budget we doubled the investment that we put into flood defences. That was the right thing to do. It will build resilience in our communities and protect our natural environment. I do not know the specifics of the timing of the announcement that he alludes to, but I am happy to go away and take a look at it. I know how important it is to him and his constituents that we are able to protect them from the devastating flooding that we have seen in recent years.

My colleagues have mentioned the lack of sector-specific support in this statement. May I ask particularly about car manufacturing? France has announced increases in electric vehicle subsidies, making them the most generous in Europe, and a means-tested scrappage scheme. Germany has doubled its EV subsidies. What will the Chancellor do not only to get car manufacturing back on its feet, but to help us meet our climate objective and the Committee on Climate Change recommendation that we bring forward the ban on new diesel and petrol vehicle sales to 2032—the committee recommends a zero-emission vehicle mandate? I hear nothing from him about what he will do to support manufacturing and our climate objectives.

In the Budget, we announced about £1 billion in support for low-emission vehicles in various different ways, including a £400-million charging infrastructure fund to spread the development of charge points across the country. I think that underlines our commitment to ensure that we transition properly to our net zero environment, starting with our transportation industry.

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