Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, tidal has enormous potential. Only last month, at Pentland firth, we saw the roll-out of the biggest tidal array yet. I look forward to working very closely with my right hon. Friend.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his post. I hope he is as energetic in it as he was as Minister for Skills and Enterprise. May I press him on the sustainability issue? Is he aware that the Trillion Fund is a new way of raising money for sustainable energy projects, both in this country and worldwide? It is a very exciting new venture. Vivienne Westwood has just invested £1 million in it. Will the Minister get behind that crowdfunding initiative and give it some support?

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind; I am grateful for his compliments. I look forward to the opportunity of working positively with Vivienne Westwood on improving our energy supplies and security. We need improvement across the board, and that includes ensuring that we make the most of our indigenous gas supplies. Improving renewables in our country is, of course, about finance as well as technology on the ground. There is a big opportunity, especially as the cost of renewables falls—the cost of solar is pre-eminent in that fall—and we must seize it with both hands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s question and he has been a real champion of that issue. When I visited his constituency I saw how some rural properties off gas grid have high energy bills because they cannot use gas. This is very much at the heart of the new thinking in our draft fuel poverty strategy, which is now out to consultation. The Department has stepped up its work on that, and we hope to bring proposals to the House by the end of the year.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T3. Has the Minister seen the report from scientists in Aberdeen working with Cambridge university about the predicted 80% increase in global greenhouse emissions from the production of food, and particularly our increasing reliance—worldwide, but in this country too—on red meat? Will he talk to his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about that and say what he will do about it?