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Donate to our crowdfunderKwasi Kwarteng: This subject has come up, and we need to look at how companies and exporters tackle serious carbon emissions. What they are doing in the Amazon is not acceptable. We need to engage with that and have a dialogue.
Kwasi Kwarteng: The hon. Gentleman is right: carbon capture, usage and storage is going to be crucial to our meeting our net zero carbon target. We are committed to supporting its deployment in the 2020s. The Government are already funding programmes in this policy area worth more than £500 million, and we will have a useful dialogue with colleagues in the Treasury to encourage the development of the technology.
Kwasi Kwarteng: Absolutely. We had an official present in the room at that PCI meeting on 4 October. This issue has been raised with me and is a matter of concern.
Kwasi Kwarteng: I would be happy to visit Angus at any opportune time.
Kwasi Kwarteng: Thank you very much, Mr Gray. I have to say that this has been an excellent debate, and I sincerely commend my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) for securing it. I hope that we can have more time in the House of Commons to discuss these important issues. One thing that struck me in the debate was the level of consensus. There were one or two examples of political...
Kwasi Kwarteng: The hon. Gentleman will recognise that the target has changed. The Climate Change Act 2008 set an 80% reduction, but this year we have set a net zero carbon target. There is absolutely a wider debate about how we move on— [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is trying to put words into my mouth, but I am just saying that there is a broader debate.
Kwasi Kwarteng: I am not going to give way any more; I have to sum up. It is absolutely right that we should debate these subjects. There has been considerable progress with a bipartisan approach. I will not stand here and say that everything that Labour did was terrible and that everything we have done is brilliant. That is a childish approach—[Interruption.] For the avoidance of any doubt, I am not...
Kwasi Kwarteng: First, we need to get other countries to sign up to the net zero carbon target. They have not done that. This is one thing that will absolutely be at the top of our agenda at COP 26. That is exactly how we are showing leadership. The Chinese Energy Minister says that they do not want to pollute their country and want a cleaner energy approach, and that they are looking to countries such as...
Kwasi Kwarteng: I assure the House that we continue regularly to meet our counterparts from across the EU and its member states on a number of issues, including our security relationship after the UK leaves the EU. The political declaration sets out a shared UK-EU commitment to a comprehensive future security partnership. That partnership will include close co-operation on law enforcement, criminal justice,...
Kwasi Kwarteng: I assure my hon. Friend that that is absolutely the case. We have a long history of co-operating with our partners in Europe and are working closely with many of our EU partners on Europe’s key defence challenges through capabilities such as Typhoon, A400M and Meteor.
Kwasi Kwarteng: Of course, I have always championed the deal and the right hon. Gentleman has voted against the deal three times. In the case of no deal, we will absolutely co-operate with our EU partners, including through making use of Interpol and the Council of Europe conventions. For example, on extradition, we would rely on the Council of Europe’s 1957 European convention on extradition. There is...
Kwasi Kwarteng: We are absolutely mindful of the risk that the hon. Gentleman describes. He knows that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that the dark days of the 1970s do not return to Northern Ireland.
Kwasi Kwarteng: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s questions, as always, but I would like to point out that he has wrenched my comments completely out of context, and they were made not yesterday but on Monday. I was merely echoing what the former Governor of the Bank of England, the highly respected economist, Mervyn King, has said about our GDP growth since 1800. On an annualised basis, there would be...
Kwasi Kwarteng: We continue to have regular conversations with ministerial colleagues across the Government on all aspects of exiting the EU. To provide certainty to farmers and landowners, the Government pledged to commit the same cash total in funds for farm support until the end of this Parliament. That commitment applies to the whole of the UK in both a deal and no-deal scenario.
Kwasi Kwarteng: We have had a deal, which the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends and colleagues rejected three times. It makes absolutely no sense for them to complain about the prospect of no deal when they rejected a deal so comprehensively on three occasions.
Kwasi Kwarteng: We have made a lot of progress on trying to replace a lot of the EU’s funds and the regional way in which they allocate money. We have the UK shared prosperity fund, details of which will be introduced next year.
Kwasi Kwarteng: We have already made a commitment in this House to support our agricultural industries and our farmers under any circumstances, whether that is a deal or no deal. We have an Agriculture Bill that will allow the Secretary of State to provide the support that our people need.
Kwasi Kwarteng: Ministers continue to carry out extensive engagement on EU exit across all sectors of the economy, including with the British Ceramics Confederation, in meetings that in many cases have been organised by third parties. I have personally engaged with business and civil society organisations at national and regional level, and we have met representatives of the security, voluntary and...
Kwasi Kwarteng: I am pleased to note that the hon. Gentleman has belatedly come around to the merits of a deal. I hope that we can get a deal and leave in an orderly way. I am always happy to meet him and other representatives of the ceramics industry to discuss the interests of his constituency.
Kwasi Kwarteng: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his record of championing the aerospace industry in his constituency; he is a fine advocate of its interests. Working together through the partnership, industry and Government have made a joint funding commitment of £3.9 billion to aerospace research from 2013 to 2026, as he will be aware. Ministers and other officials across Government remain in close...