Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I shall group Question 13 with Questions 15 and 19.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

15. What the reasons are for the time taken to publish the Government’s carbon reduction plan.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

19. What the reasons are for the time taken to publish the Government’s carbon reduction plan.

[Claire Perry]

I am, of course, delighted to welcome that incredibly innovative partnership, which was launched in 2002 and is making real progress in working out how we can naturally store carbon in the peat environment that the hon. Lady now represents. As I have said, I intend to publish the clean growth plan when Parliament returns from the summer recess. I look forward to cross-party discussion and, hopefully, consensus on a document that is hugely important both for Britain’s domestic future and for our international leadership.

[Paul Blomfield]

The publication date that the Minister mentions is almost a year after the date originally intended by the Government. Does not this reflect a lack of commitment to tackling climate change? What is she doing to engage with other Departments to ensure that they carry out emissions impact assessments so that we can see a real commitment to tackling climate change across the whole of the Government?

[Claire Perry]

May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that, as the proud MP for the constituency that has Britain’s leading carbon capture and storage research facility, he ought to welcome the progress that successive Governments have made on this agenda? We were the first country in the world to set binding carbon budgets, and we have over-achieved on the first and second ones. Our full intention is to engage the whole of Government and industry in delivering on the upcoming budgets.