Climate Change
Debate between Steff Aquarone and Pippa Heylings(1 month ago)
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Pippa Heylings
The answer to that is in two ways. First, we must take gas out of the system as much as possible. Secondly, we must fix a broken electricity market. The way we charge customers and businesses right now is broken, and we need to change that. I do not believe in what happened under a previous Government, when George Osborne as Chancellor reduced taxation on oil and gas companies three times. By the end of that we had negative receipts to the Treasury, because we were also looking at decommissioning exemptions. Until some of the windfall tax profits came in, negative receipts were coming into the Treasury at that point.
If we talk about the economy, let us talk about the transition. As we have already heard, research from the CBI and the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit shows that the green economy is already contributing more than £100 billion and over 1 million new jobs. Clean power and decarbonisation are about growing our economy, creating those jobs, lowering energy bills and strengthening our energy security.
Although we welcome the carbon budget, setting targets is the easy part; delivering them is what counts. That is why we look forward to the Government’s delivery plan and seeing the steps that will be taken, because we worry that there is a risk they will fall short. The carbon budget will take much more than decarbonising our power supply and cannot be delivered in a centrist way from Whitehall alone. We Liberal Democrats want to see more action and ambition from this Government, not a focus on energy alone.
Emissions reductions will be experienced in people’s lives, and not just environmentally but economically, through changes in how homes are heated, how people travel and how energy is used. Local authorities, communities, farmers and businesses will be required to be partners in delivering change. We will have to double our efforts to restore nature, which is one of our most powerful tools for tackling climate change, by more generously supporting our farmers to accelerate tree planting and peatland restoration. But please, we should not treat nature protections as a blocker to economic growth. I ask the Government to get rid of the lazy, reckless rhetoric that divides climate and nature, rather than seeing them as indivisible necessities. We will also have to increase powers and funding for local authorities and communities to implement credible local climate and nature delivery plans.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
My hon. Friend knows well about the issues of coastal erosion on the north Norfolk coast and the existential threat to communities such as Trimingham and Happisburgh. There is hard work being done by our local authorities and our Lib Dem councils through schemes such as Coastwise, and there is much more to do in the future, but does she agree with me that everything being done to protect those communities will be undermined by the worsening climate emergency, which has sped up erosion and will cause it to worsen further?
Pippa Heylings
I feel deeply about what my hon. Friend says. He is a well-known champion for rural and coastal communities that are facing such an insecure future, not knowing whether their homes will still be standing and whether they will be insurable. That is definitely something we need to look at.
Most importantly for this carbon budget, as we have heard from Members across the Chamber, electrification across key sectors is the key to rapidly reducing emissions and helping households to cut bills. Today, the Climate Change Committee has warned that progress in electrification has slowed, with heat pump installations up just 7% this year compared with 56% the year before. What is more, the share of electricity in industrial energy use fell last year, so we must see greater acceleration of electrification.
Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund
Debate between Steff Aquarone and Pippa Heylings(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is my huge privilege to be the MP for South Cambridgeshire, which is home to Europe’s largest biomedical campus and the UK’s world-leading tech and life sciences sectors, and one of the largest contributors to the UK economy.
The Liberal Democrats have long recognised that strategic investment in life sciences manufacturing is essential to our economic future and our national health security. Central to the delivery of the life sciences sector plan as part of the wider new industrial strategy, the life sciences innovative manufacturing fund is welcome and exactly the kind of targeted intervention the research and development sector has needed for a long time. While boosting economic opportunity, the fund also aims to increase the UK’s health resilience and ability to withstand and recover from health emergencies such as pandemics, long-term healthcare challenges and system shocks such as supply shock disruption.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
Scientists at the Norwich research park and Quadram Institute are doing incredible work in the field of agri-science, which could transform the future of food for the better; in fact, the Quadram Institute will be visiting Parliament and briefing MPs during evidence week next month about this work. This research is perfectly located to create jobs in my constituency, both directly and in the supply chain. Does my hon. Friend agree that investment in exciting life sciences projects such as those in North Norfolk is particularly crucial to unlocking growth in the rural economy?
Pippa Heylings
Absolutely. Investment in the life science sector in the rural economy is critical, and that is why we are concerned that this motion comes at a time when our life science sector is in crisis—and, frankly, I am not hearing yet from the Minister that the Government are grasping the scale of the crisis. I have heard consistent concerns from the life science sector about this, with Novartis saying that the UK is becoming “largely uninvestable”. We have seen signs of this, and heard of it today, with the loss of planned investment by Merck MSD in life science and vaccination manufacturing facilities to the tune of £1 billion and also £450 million-worth of investment by AstraZeneca. That comes on top of AstraZeneca pausing the planned £200 million expansion of its research centre in my constituency. This is obviously ringing alarm bells across the Chamber.
Additionally, in a report by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, “Delivering a voluntary scheme for health and growth”, life science leaders are warning that the Government growth plan will not succeed unless Ministers commit to fixing a scheme known as VPAG—the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth—which unexpectedly now requires companies to pay record clawback rates of up to a quarter or even a third of their revenue from sales of branded medicines to the NHS.
The Liberal Democrats would commit to raising R&D spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2034, a decade-long commitment that gives businesses the certainty they are asking for. We would introduce proof of concept funding to help researchers develop their early-stage ideas and empower local authorities to develop regional spin-out ecosystems so innovation can drive growth and high paying jobs right across the country, as well as where I am in my constituency in the golden triangle. I therefore ask the Minister to set out, in addition to this much-awaited manufacturing fund, the status of the last-minute negotiations with companies and their investments, such as AstraZeneca and Merck MSD, and also what the Government are doing particularly on VPAG to restore confidence to pharmaceutical companies that the UK is a competitive place, attractive to investment, that values research, development and manufacturing.