UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Spending Priorities: Investors and Consumers

The Government have approved the fifth carbon budget—the framework of all frameworks. That is the why people should be optimistic. That is the message that needs to go out from this place to investors. That is where we are headed—to 2050, with the Climate Change Act 2008 intact and supported by the Government and the Labour party.

It is important that we do not send out a message or a tone from this place that suggests that investors should not be confident. There are quite a number of ways in which we can all boost confidence. We are in a time of change, and I hope we will never again have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who says we do not want to lead in this area. We should lead in this area, not least for the reason pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat)—inconsistency elsewhere. If there is a Chinese electric bus company, an innovator in California or somebody anywhere in the world working in this area, they should come to Britain, because we are leading the world, we are committed to this issue and we have a law in place that has support across the House.

On the detail, energy reset will happen this year, and the Government are looking at the issue again, now that we have a Conservative majority. Brexit also provides opportunities. What are we going to do when we leave the European Union? We need to make low carbon our own. In doing that, we need to make sure we get the investment and the jobs here, and that we meet the central task.

That also goes to the point my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South always rightly raises, which is cost. We have to drive that cost curve downwards as quickly as possible. That requires coherent policy making, sound messages and a constant positive tone across the House if we are to make the UK the low-carbon centre of the world. If we do that, we will get costs down and we will lower our energy costs.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
612 c701 
Session
2016-17
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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