Ed Miliband: The thing the Prime Minister has underestimated throughout these last two years is the fact that COP26 is not a glorified photo opportunity; it is a fragile and complex negotiation. The problem is that the Prime Minister’s boosterism will not cut carbon emissions in half. Photo opportunities will not cut carbon emissions in half. I say to the Prime Minister that in these final days before...
Ed Miliband: With 10 days to go before COP, much is riding on the shoulders of the COP26 President and we wish him well, but to deliver the 1.5° target we have to cut emissions by 28 billion tonnes by 2030—a halving of global emissions. So far, the pledges made for Glasgow amount to 4 billion tonnes at most, so we are not yet where we want to be. Does the COP26 President agree that we need to be honest...
Ed Miliband: May I suggest to the COP26 President that the rest of the UK Government could make a difference, even in these final days, by not undermining his work? The Secretary of State for International Trade should not be giving big emitters a free pass by doing a deal with Australia that allows them to drop their temperature commitments; the Prime Minister should deliver on the promise made at the G7...
Ed Miliband: I thank the Minister for his statement, and send my warmest congratulations—as I have already done directly—to the Secretary of State on the birth of his new baby. Let me start by saying that it is good that tackling the climate crisis is a shared national objective across the House, and that we want the Government to succeed at COP26 in just ten days’ time. However, there are two...
Ed Miliband: indicated assent.
Ed Miliband: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on rising gas prices and the collapse of energy suppliers.
Ed Miliband: On Monday, I said to the Secretary of State that he was being far too complacent about the situation we are facing. Events since have, unfortunately, borne that out: complacent about the crisis in the market; complacent about the impact on families; and complacent about the cost of living crisis. He pretended on Monday and again today that it was normal for a number of suppliers to go down...
Ed Miliband: It kind of is.
Ed Miliband: Families looking at soaring gas prices will be deeply worried about how they will pay their bills. One of the reasons UK households are particularly vulnerable is the Government’s failure on home insulation. Emissions from buildings are in fact higher today than in 2015. I am afraid to say that the Secretary of State’s record is abysmal, with the fiasco of the green homes grant, cuts to...
Ed Miliband: It is a complete fiasco. The Secretary of State actually cut the money that was supposed to be allocated to homeowners. At least half a million families are going to be thrown into fuel poverty by the rise in energy prices. On top of that, along with national insurance rises, millions of families are facing a £1,000 a year cut in universal credit in just 10 days’ time. It is a Tory triple...
Ed Miliband: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and agree that we should not be alarmist on the issue of security of supply, but I fear his statement was much too complacent on the price and economic impacts of the current situation. First, on continuity of supply, we support the Secretary of State taking all necessary measures to ensure that families and businesses continue to have access...
Ed Miliband: On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Ed Miliband: Yes, Mr Speaker. To follow on from the point made by the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), I submit that it really is not good practice for the Secretary of State to come to this House and say that he will make a joint statement with Ofgem this afternoon to set out the Government’s next steps, but refuse to tell Members what is in that joint statement. The point of his...
Ed Miliband: The Copenhagen summit of 2009 was undone by deep mistrust of the developed world by developing countries. Rather than learning from that, rich countries are still failing to deliver on the promised $100 billion of climate finance and the billions of vaccine doses still required by poorer countries. Yesterday, shamefully, the Prime Minister decided to press ahead with the cut in our aid...
Ed Miliband: The COP26 President knows that world leaders and others are asking him why the UK is the only G7 country cutting aid spending in the year that we are hosting the COP. He knows that delivering support to developing countries is not just morally right, but essential to building a coalition to pressure the world’s largest emitters. The most significant of those emitters is China. To have a...
Ed Miliband: As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) said earlier, the Climate Change Committee’s report card on the Government two weeks ago was devastating: “This defining year for the UK’s climate credentials has been marred by uncertainty and delay”. The Climate Change Committee says that “the policy is just not there”, and: “We continue to blunder...
Ed Miliband: I think that is what we call the “dog ate my homework” excuse, and this is where the problem lies. When it comes to investment in a green recovery, the UK Government’s plans per head of population are less than a third of Germany, a quarter of France and just 6% of the US. That is why the Climate Change Committee says that we are just one fifth of the way to meeting our targets in terms...
Ed Miliband: We have had an excellent debate with noteworthy contributions from all parts of the House. I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), on securing this debate, and I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), for Neath (Christina Rees), for...
Ed Miliband: For a successful COP26, we have a particular responsibility as hosts to build trust with developing countries. The Government’s decision to cut aid spending—the only G7 country to do so—is therefore an appalling one, not just because it is wrong in principle, but because it is staggeringly self-defeating. The COP26 President knows that that decision makes a successful outcome at the...
Ed Miliband: The problem is that cutting aid spending severely undermines the ability of developing countries to tackle the challenges of climate poverty and public health. The COP26 President knows that: it is what developing countries are telling him in the negotiations. We need vulnerable countries to be calling for more ambition from big emitters such as China, but they will be much more reticent in...