Bill Esterson

“My hon. Friend is right. I hope that her constituents and the businesses in her constituency can take full advantage in spite of the damage that the appalling party she mentioned is trying to do not just to the climate to our economic prospects. Let us look at the cost of a failure to take action. Last July, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that failure to act on climate has an economic cost. The Climate Change Committee put a figure on it: 7% of GDP will be lost by 2050 unless we take climate action. If we do not want to believe the Climate Change Committee or the OBR, let us try the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries—a pretty reputable bunch that anybody on the right of politics ought to listen to. Its prediction is that the global economy will be cut by 50% between 2070 and 2090 unless we take action internationally right now. That means leadership by this country of the sort we have been discussing. The public are being led to believe by the siren voices on the right in politics—let us be clear, they come from both main right-wing parties—that costs will go up. Well, I have news for them: the costs of investing in our networks and in our infrastructure to generate electricity will be there whether we do that with renewables and low-carbon generation or with fossil fuels. The cost is there whatever we do, but it is better to do that through low-carbon sources for all the reasons that my hon. Friend gave earlier. Let us deal with the claims about the North sea. Yesterday, the leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), made a comparison with Norway. In Norway, the Government did not sell off the production company—it is state owned, and they have control over it. Norway also did not have the same rush to extract oil and gas from the North sea that we had in this country. By the way, Norway was clever, because it set the boundaries between the UK and Norway sectors for the extraction of oil and gas. As a result, it has far more reserves than we do, and it has control, unlike us. As has been said, whatever we do, and however much we change the production capacity, we cannot set the price—not that we could do it soon anyway, so it would not affect the current concerning situation with the conflict in Iran. We have to be honest about what is going on here, and we have to give confidence to people that ours is the right approach. It is true that we can improve our energy security, reduce prices and take the action we need to on climate as they are inextricably linked; we have to make that case. We also have to give confidence on the jobs mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham), to support the supply chain and to make the case for the co-benefits to be had in health from taking action, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers). On the economy, the clean economy is growing three times as fast as the rest of the economy. The Government have taken action, including with the clean energy jobs plan and apprenticeships. Apprentices like those I saw at Cavendish Nuclear in Warrington just a few weeks ago are starting to make the difference in good, well paid, high-skilled jobs. With allocation round 7, this country is demonstrating again that we are the place to invest in the low-carbon economy. In the actions of Great British Energy through Sizewell C and the small modular reactors programme we see examples of the Government leading the way again. We have to continue taking that lead, we have to continue busting those myths, and we have to keep reminding people that this is not a choice that our children and grandchildren want to have to face. Let us take that action now, let us keep making the case, and let us ensure that we prevail in the debate on the climate over those who would undermine, who would damage and who would destroy.”