Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Part of Debate on the Address – in the House of Commons at 5:43 pm on 12 May 2021.

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Photo of Andrew Griffith Andrew Griffith Conservative, Arundel and South Downs 5:43, 12 May 2021

There is so much to welcome and so much ambition, yet I have so little time to welcome, on behalf of the constituents of Arundel and South Downs, what was in Her Majesty’s Speech yesterday. There were tougher sentences for dangerous drivers; fairer immigration; an ambitious environment Bill to clean our air, purify our rivers and boost biodiversity; and, for so many people, the lifetime skills guarantee, giving them a second chance at a first-class life.

As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I look forward to a record £22 billion of funding coursing through our labs and catapult and research centres while the Advanced Research and Invention Agency brings disruptive and dynamic thinking to play in that world.

Every citizen and taxpayer should celebrate and quiver with excitement about our new plans to reform procurement; to cut red tape; to allow small businesses to participate on an equal footing; to allow us to buy British; and to streamline the 300 different regulations through which people who are trying to sell services to Government currently have to jump. Over the life of this Government, £1.5 trillion of spending will be procured—that is a great opportunity to improve the quality of services for our citizens and value for money for taxpayers.

Let me conclude on a subject that Her Majesty mentioned that I am very passionate about. We can all be proud that Britain is a world leader on climate action. While some Opposition Members talk about the climate emergency, we are getting on and solving it. We were the first to put a 2050 net zero target into law, and our target of a 68% reduction on our 1990 emissions is one of the most ambitious of any country on the planet.

We have the fastest growth in renewable energy of any G20 nation and some of the most ambitious targets. By contrast, a German child born today will be leaving school before her country stops burning coal, in the year 2038. It is not just energy; we are an automotive green leader in the world. The last combustion engine in the UK will be sold in 2030, while across the channel our French friends will be rolling out combustion-engine-driven vehicles for another 10 years, until 2040.

The reason we can make so much progress so quickly is that we Conservatives believe in the ferocious problem-solving power of free enterprise and free markets—that human ingenuity and innovation are the answer, not delaying ambulances with street protests or blockading a free press. With the right frameworks, business is the solution not the problem, and just as global capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty and transformed the length of human life, and just as we have seen with the vaccine development, so too will it be business that actually solves the climate crisis.