The Climate Emergency

Part of Debate on the Address – in the House of Commons at 3:44 pm on 17 October 2019.

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Photo of James Cartlidge James Cartlidge Conservative, South Suffolk 3:44, 17 October 2019

I was being generous in giving way but, with hindsight, perhaps I should not have been. The point is that coal use has definitively slumped massively and our CO2 emissions have fallen massively.

The good news is that I do not think we will ever need to take such difficult, divisive decisions again, because of what is happening around our coasts, and particularly —I am proud to say this as a Suffolk MP—off the coast of East Anglia. Now, 52% of our 4 GW of offshore wind-produced electricity is coming from the East Anglian shore. This debate falls at a timely moment. Had it not been for the Supreme Court decision, I would have been able to speak, during the original planned Prorogation, at the launch of Norfolk & Suffolk Unlimited. That is a new enterprise from the New Anglia local enterprise partnership based in Norfolk and Suffolk to promote inward investment into our region and to promote exports. At the heart of that will be clean growth and a drive for even more wattage to come from offshore wind.

I have a question for Ministers. We are incredibly ambitious about seeing more growth, more jobs and more electricity being produced from offshore wind, but will he assure me that investment in the grid and support from the National Grid for the greater electricity output will be sustained? There needs to be a co-ordinated strategy if we are to make the most of our potential off the coast of East Anglia and around the whole of the United Kingdom.

Having started back in the dark days of the miners’ strike, I now have another positive thought for the House. Whenever I visit primary schools in my constituency, of which there are 40, I find it incredibly uplifting to see that the next generation is so besotted with this issue. My last four primary school visits were about the issues of waste, cutting down on plastic use and using renewable energy. I think that we can be positive and optimistic about the next generation. Seeing as I took an intervention, I am now going to wind up and give others a chance to speak. The picture that needs to be painted is very positive, and this Government have played a huge historic role in that, of which I am very proud. Now we need consensus so that we can continue with these positive measures.