Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment has he made of the potential financial impact of net zero policies on people in poverty.
Answered by Kerry McCarthy - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The net zero transition will not only be the economic opportunity of the century, but it will also support the creation of hundreds of thousands of good jobs across the UK, protect our economy from future price shocks that reliance on fossil fuels create, while delivering a range of social and health benefits. The Warm Homes Plan, for example, will transform homes across the country, from installing new insulation to rolling out solar and heat pumps, helping households make their homes cleaner and cheaper to run.
As the OBR has noted [July 2021 Fiscal Risks Report], the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero.