Iain Wright
Main Page: Iain Wright (Labour - Hartlepool)
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend is a real champion of green growth, and I can tell him unequivocally that, although we have set an ambitious carbon budget, under this coalition decarbonisation must not mean deindustrialisation—far from it. We are committed to creating a framework for more advanced manufacturing jobs to power green growth and to make Britain once again a workshop of the world.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Why in the past year has Britain slipped from third in the world to 13th in terms of investment in green industry?
Gregory Barker
I am afraid that it will be very difficult to shake a legacy of 13 years of Labour government, and the hon. Gentleman will know that we slipped massively down the table of world manufacturing during his party’s time in government. We are having to put this country on a different trajectory, and that means a slight hiatus while we change course, but when we have changed course and our new measures are in place we will be primed for success and will turn around the miserable failure of the Labour years.