Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government is proactively encouraging universities to divest from fossil fuel based activities.

The government wants the public and higher education sectors to lead by example through reducing energy use and driving decarbonisation across the UK economy. Last year I published an article calling on Universities to lead the climate change debate:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/climate-change-carbon-neutral_uk_5d08a9cae4b0ea7c4a4f220b.

It is an important issue for universities to consider and we will continue to engage with them on this.