Clean Growth Strategy

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

To reassure the right hon. Gentleman, not only has the Green Investment Bank—it is now known as the Green Investment Group—signed up to the plan, it has joined our green finance taskforce. We have asked our leading minds and operators in financial services, insurance, risk assessment and financial regulation to come together, so that we can not only mobilise the level of private capital that we need to drive this transformation in the UK, but export that incredible professional expertise right across the world. The taskforce is already coming up with solutions, and we will again be able to lead the world by mobilising capital and investing the right amount that we need to decarbonise.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on producing this brilliant strategy. It is brimming with ambition and full of good ideas, as we would expect from her. It is great stuff, but I just want to ask about one issue. The strategy tells us that transport emissions have been cut by 2% since 1990 compared with an average of well above 20% in all others sectors, so if we are to hit the 2050 targets, we will need something really radical in transport. The strategy talks about banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040, and I want my hon. Friend to reassure me that that will be equal to the challenge we face.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend will of course know that per vehicle emissions have actually dropped. Cars are now about 20% more efficient, but we are using more of them. Reducing congestion and getting cleaner air is a really important benefit of taking action, but I hear what he is saying. The ambition is accelerating all the time. We announced ending the sale of conventional petrol and diesel cars and it is interesting that the Netherlands has come out with something similar. We are all doing this together. Things are the same with unabated coal. We said that we would phase it out by 2025 and Canada has said similar things. There is a genuine, exciting ambition, and things happen when we set such ambitions.

We have been talking about ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars for years, but we set the ambition and had that conversation and then many of the major manufacturers that are producing cars in the UK brought forward their plans for electric and ultra-low emission vehicles. For example, BMW announced that it will be building the electric Mini in the UK. This country already makes one in five of the electric vehicles sold in Europe, and it is through setting ambitions and then investing in innovations such as the Faraday challenge that we can be a world leader in making such vehicles and accelerating their transformation. However, this is not only about the vehicles; we also have to be able to charge them up. It is therefore important that we accelerate the roll-out of what we want to be the world’s most effective charging network, so that performance and price, not charging, are the only considerations when buying a car.