15:22 Steve Barclay (Conservative)

Our commitment to levelling up is directly linked to another of the Government’s totemic ambitions—that of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

I fear that that is almost the same question that the hon. Lady put to the Chancellor earlier. I know that she and I will disagree on the commitment we have to the road-building programme, because on the Government side of the House, we see that as key to driving productivity and helping jobs, and it is an issue on which many of my colleagues campaigned at the election and their electorates sought to see improvements. However, we have a commitment to the green agenda. That is what the Chancellor set out in his statement, and that is the record that we are building on through measures that include the £1 billion decarbonisation of public sector buildings, which I am sure is a scheme that she would welcome.

Our quest for net zero has the potential to build on proven regional economic strengths and create many more high-skilled, high-quality jobs. It will spur innovation and exports and, most importantly, it can deliver clean and resilient long-term growth. As part of the £8.6 billion of capital investment, the Government will invest £3 billion to decarbonise the United Kingdom and, in doing so, protect or create thousands of green jobs.

The Minister is extremely generous, and I am very grateful. On the issue of cross-party support, I know that hydrogen is very much in the Government’s heart as a way for the economy to recover and to get to net zero. Why is there no hydrogen strategy, and why has not there been an announcement today about anything to do with the hydrogen industry?

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15:46 Wes Streeting (Labour)

Turning to climate change, the Chancellor promised a green recovery with concern for the environment at its heart. What we actually got today was a scaled-back ambition that fell well short of what the Committee on Climate Change and climate change justice campaigners were looking for. The Conservative manifesto promised £9 billion for energy efficiency. Today the Chancellor announced just £2 billion, which is about a fifth of what the Conservative promised people before the election. If the crisis has taught us anything, it is that there is such a thing as too late. It is this decade to 2030 where action will really count if we are to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown —not the next 30 years to 2050, but the next 10 years to 2030—so where was the green new deal? A green industrial strategy will get our country back on track to meet its climate obligations in the longer term, but it can also be the shot in the arm our country needs in the shorter term, creating new jobs and delivering improvements to our quality of life.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He has been very generous. We should have a three-point test for the Government’s infrastructure investment: does it involve local firms and deliver better local jobs? Does it provide opportunities to upskill local people? Will it reduce carbon emissions and ensure that this is a green recovery that gets us back on track to zero emissions?

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16:08 John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that while it is right that the Bank of England is doing quantitative easing, how the money is spent ought to have more democratic input? That money could be used for the sorts of investment we need now for jobs and tackling climate change.

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16:45 Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)

Following on from the plan for jobs that my right hon. Friend announced earlier, there are three areas in which I think we can start a jobs revolution. The first is focused decarbonisation. Before the lockdown, between January and March this year renewables soared to make up 47% of all UK electricity generation—up from a mere 6% 10 years ago. Our new normal is greener, but there is still more to do. The announcement on the green homes grant is a fantastic first step, and in the Budget earlier this year the Chancellor had already committed £800 million to support carbon capture, utilisation and storage, but I urge him to go further in his autumn Budget. Investment in hydrogen technology can decarbonise our hard-to-abate sectors such as transport, domestic heating and industry, creating and securing hundreds of thousands of jobs in the sector.

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16:59 Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

I give almost two cheers for the short-term measures announced today, but less than one for the medium and long-term measures. The Chancellor will have to produce a much more coherent economic strategy if we are to deal with unemployment in the medium term and with inequality and climate change, which are still massive challenges for our country.

When it comes to the medium term, this package is just not up to the moment. We have a serious economic crisis, the like of which we have never seen, and it comes on the back of the threats that will be posed to parts of our economy from Brexit. We also have the climate change challenge and the global issues caused by the tensions in trade between China and the US. All these things will dampen the global economy and our economy, and I just do not think that the package we have heard about today really amounts to anywhere near enough if we are serious about protecting jobs and getting that green transition.

If we really want a fiscal stimulus, we should be talking about the longer term and about the new industries. I was very proud when I was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change that we really boosted renewables. We nearly quadrupled renewable power. We became the world leader in offshore wind. We saw jobs created in declining economies such as those in Hull, Grimsby and Lowestoft, thanks to the policies we put in place on the basis of green jobs. Where is that ambition here? I do not see it. There is nothing on hydrogen, as has been said, and no real push for renewables, no real push to make sure that we bring in investment in nature and environmental improvements as part of the climate change challenge, and very little more on green transport.

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. As well as insulation, does he agree that we need to make sure we have zero-carbon homes going forward? Some 2 million homes have been built since the Climate Change Act 2008 came into being that now need to be retrofitted. Does he agree that the Government must bring forward the future homes standard, and that they were wrong to scrap the zero-carbon homes standard?

The hon. Lady, whom I call my hon. Friend, is absolutely right. I was part of the team that brought in the zero-carbon homes regulation, and two months after we left office the Conservative party got rid of it. It was an outrageous act of climate change vandalism, and nothing has happened on that, so the hon. Lady is absolutely right.

The idea that the Conservatives have a good record on climate change is for the birds. All the advantages actually came from things that the Labour Government did before 2010 and things that the Liberal Democrats did when we were in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and they tried to undo almost everything when they had the chance. I saw them trying to undo all the great things—not just zero-carbon homes; they cancelled the carbon capture and storage plans, which they are now trying to put back with the timidity of a mouse. They do not understand how big the challenge is. This is an historic challenge: we have to move our economy from a fossil-fuel based economy to a net zero carbon economy, and we cannot wait for 2050. We now have an opportunity to retrain our young people, and our whole workforce, so that we can deliver this, creating a green industrial base and a regional strategy that brings everybody up. However, I fear that this Prime Minister, this Chancellor and this Government are just not up to the job.

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17:13 Jerome Mayhew (Conservative)

I also welcome the developing demonstration that this Government are really serious about reshaping the economy to achieve carbon net zero by 2050. We are on a journey of technological development to zero-emission energy and zero-emission land transport, and now is the time to tackle our buildings, which are responsible for 18% of all our emissions. Even with our increased appetite to “build, build, build”, 80% of all buildings likely to be standing in 2050 have already been built. The Chancellor’s £3 billion insulation schemes are a fantastic start, and I look forward to the publishing of the buildings and heat strategy later this year to see how this policy can be further developed.

However, as the Chancellor made clear, our response to the current crisis cannot all be about spending. In the medium term, we need to put our public finances back on a sustainable footing. Baldly, it is likely that ways in which to raise revenue will not be far from the Chancellor’s mind. Anticipating that, we should consider a carbon tax, together with a scheme for broader adjustment payments. Today, the full cost to the economy of carbon emissions is not included in the price of purchase, creating a false exchange. Put simply, when we buy something, we do not know what carbon cost we are responsible for. A carbon tax, adding that missing part of a transaction, would remedy the problem.

Such a tax would make the decision to take advantage of today’s grants for insulation even more attractive, and, rather than costing the taxpayer, could raise significant sums for the Treasury. Its enormous benefits can be summarised as follows: creating an efficient exchange where all the costs of production are reflected in a decision to purchase; creating stronger and more profitable business cases for the new green tech businesses that we want our economy to pivot towards, without having to attempt that by expensive and inefficient Government projects and grants; providing a cash incentive to all of us to reduce our carbon-emitting purchases in favour of lower carbon alternatives, thereby assisting the achievement of our legal obligation to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050; and, in addition to all those public goods, generating a very significant income source for the Treasury at a time when everyone else is calling for increased spending. If anything will get the attention of the Minister, I hope that last point will.

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17:16 Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)

The Transport Secretary spoke last week about 4,000 buses. This is welcome, but completely lacking in the kind of ambition that we need now. A firm commitment from the Government to order at least 10,000 low and zero-emission buses would be a transformational policy, with the potential to be the biggest boost to public transport in generations, and it will help keep skilled jobs in this country in the long term. I urge the Chancellor to sit down with his colleagues in the Department for Transport to make that programme happen and support not just those jobs, but the accelerated transition to a net zero economy. The aviation sector, the bus industry, coach firms, aerospace and engineering—collectively, the UK transport industry is facing an unprecedented and catastrophic future if action is not taken, and taken soon.

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17:24 Matt Western (Labour)

The reason for that better performance is that France has put in place a greater stimulus package—or rather, a stimulus package—of £7.5 billion, an amount not dissimilar to that of other countries in Europe. Germany’s is even greater. That must be seen against a backdrop of the support that they had in place for some time for electric vehicles and hybrids, including EV charge points, as has been mentioned. That point was recognised by the Committee on Climate Change, which has estimated that we need 29,000 rapid charging points in this country. We have 3,000 at present. France has four times as many. Perhaps one of the most concerning aspects is that the Chancellor has perhaps not recognised the signal that that sends to the global industry.

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17:33 Emma Hardy (Labour)

The good news is that the Chancellor could use this as an opportunity to build back better, build back brighter and improve the lives of everyone across the city and in Hessle, if he so chooses. We could seek to clamp down on poor working conditions and poor tax practices, and encourage businesses to hit environmental targets. Our city does not want charity; we want the help to help ourselves and fulfil our huge ambitions, including that of being the green energy capital of the UK. The alternative is yet another lost decade.

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17:59 Rachel Hopkins (Labour)

Today’s statement on the economy is a clear opportunity to confront some of the vulnerabilities that covid-19 is exploiting, including rising unemployment and the ever-present climate emergency. Without greater and targeted intervention, both those intertwined crises will exacerbate class inequalities and severely damage living standards.

The Government have a unique window of opportunity to accelerate a green transition in the aviation sector. A targeted economic package would protect thousands of jobs and stimulate a sectorial transition towards net zero. Commitments attached to economic support could include strict time-bound decarbonisation expectations and obligations to adopt cleaner fuels and low-emission technologies. A green aviation package would save jobs in Luton during the pandemic while creating a thriving, sustainable job market for future generations.

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18:07 Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat)

In the short term, these sectors can be enabled to kick-start the recovery now. In the longer term, the Chancellor has talked a good game on green jobs, but his announcement today does not go nearly far enough. We need an ambitious green recovery package that seeks to insulate every home in the next 10 years and massively expand renewable energy and new air quality standards. That is why it is also time that the Government put the final nail in the coffin of any plans to build a third runway at Heathrow.

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18:13 Zarah Sultana (Labour)

Key workers, from shop assistants to delivery drivers and refuse collectors to hospital porters, are on poverty pay. They kept our country running through this crisis, but this country has not been running for them, because while working people have faced a decade of public service cuts, stagnating wages and rising rents, the super-rich and big businesses have enjoyed a decade of tax cuts and corporate giveaways. Their wealth has soared while the majority have suffered. This was the economy before coronavirus hit—rigged, unfair and unsustainable, and charging us towards climate catastrophe, with the Government on course to miss their carbon neutral target by 49 years. We cannot go back to that: it is broken, it is rotten and it has failed.

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18:25 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

Any progress is still dwarfed by public money for fossil fuels. We cannot put out a fire with one hand while still pouring petrol on it with the other, yet that is what the Government are doing, through the £27 billion road building schemes, the blank cheque bail-outs to airlines and the public money funnelled into fossil fuel projects overseas. It is time to draw a line in the sand. The Government should commit that not one penny more of public money will be spent on propping up the fossil fuel economy and fuelling the climate emergency.

Yesterday, I presented the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill. It was put together by the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and myself, and it is the first ever attempt in the UK to legislate for a green new deal. If the Government are struggling to grasp what a commensurate response to our challenges looks like, I invite them to take a look at the work that has already been done. It is, some might say, oven ready.

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18:28 Stephen Flynn (SNP)

The reality is that the sector has put £365 billion-worth of income into the Treasury. This is not just about protecting the jobs of the individuals in the sector at this moment in time; it is about what comes next. It is about being able to reach net zero. It is about being able to create an sustainable energy future for Aberdeen and for Scotland, be that through the hydrogen backbone across Europe, through an energy transition zone, or through the Acorn project on carbon capture and underground storage. So much could be announced, but to date the Government have continued to sit silent. The consequence of that has been job loss after job loss after job loss, and it is my constituents who are having to face that harsh reality.

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18:37 Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)

Right now, the FTSE 100 is stacked with establishment companies that will rally once the covid crisis eventually subsides, but it will not be those industries that provide the high-growth success stories of the next 10 or 20 years. The highest growth will come from fledgling, disruptive sectors just entering their growth phases now or not even yet created. The development of our highly successful start-up ecosystem, which houses the world-leading sectors of tomorrow, such as FinTech, green energy and automation, will be essential to our long-term global competitiveness and prosperity. I would love to see an extension of the Government’s existing commitment to support those industries, at the pre-seed, seed and series A levels.

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18:44 Bridget Phillipson (Labour)

A plan on job creation should have moved in lockstep with our commitment to tackling the climate emergency, but again, Ministers have fallen short. The recent Committee on Climate Change report laid bare how badly the UK is falling behind, and with this package, we continue to do so. The French Government have promised €15 billion for a green recovery. The German Government—€40 billion. The UK Government—£3 billion so far. Tackling the climate emergency should have been at the heart of the Government’s economic response. Decisive action to drive towards net zero goes hand in hand with job creation, providing upskilling, training and new opportunities, yet the Government’s approach in this area is sadly lacking.

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18:52 John Glen (Conservative)

It is a plan that puts young people front and centre, with a kick-start scheme that will pay employers to create quality jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment, alongside new funding for apprenticeships, traineeships and sector-based work academies. We shall be issuing guidance very shortly on how those schemes will interact with the extra support that we are putting into jobcentres. It also means that we shall invest in infrastructure, decarbonisation, and maintenance projects that will serve the needs of communities across the country, while creating jobs and apprenticeships here and now.

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