Results 1-20 of 2,477 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Gregory Barker

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: This has been an excellent debate. It is rather a shame that it had to end with some rather incoherent rambling and on a slightly sour note, but I do not think that we will let that spoil our enjoyment of the afternoon. I was in Copenhagen for the GLOBE meeting two weekends ago and returned feeling rather more encouraged than I had expected. There has been a great deal of negative press...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we take Europe as an example of how the world might look and consider the different regulatory regimes and the various methods of incentivising renewable energy, we can see that great strides forward have been made in some parts of Europe, such as Germany and Spain, because they have the right framework and incentives in place and the well of money has...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: I do not quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. Substantial UK and international investment goes into those countries, but it does not come here. We want it here in the UK, but we need it to flow around the world. Let me talk briefly about the many points that have been made in this excellent debate. The right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) spoke about the opportunities...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: I am afraid I do not necessarily agree with my right hon. Friend. He described himself today as, I think, putting forward a lukewarm case for what I guess we would call climate scepticism.

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: I stand corrected. Let me make a serious point, however. I know that my right hon. Friend is very genuine in his beliefs, but if we were talking about the probability of our children or grandchildren suffering not from climate change, but from cancer, would he indulge in the same rhetoric about probabilities and ratios? If we were talking about a 60 per cent. probability of our kids...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: I appreciate the points my right hon. Friend makes, but even if we are at the lukewarm end of the range of probabilities, that is still a very substantial problem. If I thought there was any chance of actions taken by myself or a Government of which I was a member leading to a 10, 20 or 30 per cent.—let alone a 60 or 70 per cent., or, as the IPCC believes, a 93 per...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: Indeed. My hon. Friend discussed a lot of the developments in China that people do not appreciate—for example, the fact that it is ahead of us in the amount of renewable energy that it generates and that, sadly, it is increasingly ahead of us in the deployment of CCS technology. If we are not careful, we could be patting ourselves on the back for agreeing to stretching, long-term...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: As my hon. Friends point out, that was certainly no criticism of the climate change agenda. As we have repeatedly pointed out, Europe is ideally suited to deal with climate change. We want to work closely with our European partners on climate change and not on other issues. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) held the House spellbound—at least, there was not a great...

Climate Change (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing confused on our side. We are very clear that, if we win the next general election, there will be no third runway at Heathrow.

Energy and Climate Change: Energy Pricing (5 Nov 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: Despite the huge drop in wholesale prices in recent months, the Department's own statistics show that more than 4.5 million people will be in fuel poverty this winter, which is a massive increase on last year. When we called last year for an investigation by the Competition Commission, the Minister dithered and said he would talk to Ofgem, because he thought that that would offer a quicker...

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: There have been questions over the sustainability of biofuels and ethanol that are imported from the developing world and over whether they are farmed at the expense of natural rain forests. Does the Minister agree that those issues are a million miles away from the sensible and pragmatic reuse of waste cooking oil? It is an almost entirely separate debate.

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: I am concerned that the Minister seems to be a bit confused about who he is. Let me tell him who he is: he is the Minister in the Department that should have policy oversight. Is he telling us that the Department of Energy and Climate Change and his ministerial team have ceded responsibility for strategic direction, policy and decision making to unelected quangocrats? That does not come as a...

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: Given what the Minister has said about the term "renewable", does his use of it here mean entirely 100 per cent. renewable, or does he mean low carbon?

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: It rather looks as though one hand does not know what the other is doing. We have the sensible adoption of a policy that recognises the low-carbon nature of biofuels, whereas other parts of the Minister's Department either do not have access to the same thinking or are not capable of following the same decision-making process. Why are there two strands of thinking in one Department? I thought...

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: The Minister has been extremely generous in allowing interventions, and I promise that this will be my last as he is running out of time. The feed-in tariff is a welcome development, although one that the Government were not very keen on initially. Can he confirm that, unfortunately, it appears that the Government anticipate that only 2 per cent. of the UK's total electricity generation will...

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Taylor. This has been a short but excellent debate. I praise my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) not only for securing this debate but for clearly articulating the issues in a way that will be readily understood by people outside Westminster and the narrow biofuels debate as involving obvious and common-sense points....

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: My hon. Friend has put her finger on it. It does not make sense to ask for schemes to encourage the uptake of low-carbon fuel while refusing to make sensible minor changes to its fiscal treatment so that it makes commercial sense to produce it. Her suggestion of a 90 per cent. renewables obligation certificate would be a sensible way to reflect the fossil fuel element in such fuel. The role...

[David Taylor in the Chair] — Biofuels (27 Oct 2009)

Gregory Barker: My hon. Friend highlights the important issue of the illegal or careless disposal of cooking fats and greases—what one might call fly-dripping. Ultimately, those costs will not be picked up by Anglian Water, or another water company, but will be socialised and paid by all people who have a water utility bill. Has Anglian Water estimated the cost of such clean-up activities in my hon....

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Climate Change (Political Response) (21 Oct 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: What I actually said was that the Chinese Government set much more store by short-term action than by long-term targets and that although I thought that it was not a case of either/or, I could certainly see their point.

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Climate Change (Political Response) (21 Oct 2009) has video

Gregory Barker: Before the right hon. Gentleman gets too carried away, can we just remember that the only reason why the Government will meet their Kyoto targets is the dash for gas in the 1990s? Without that, they would be nowhere near meeting them.