Caroline Lucas: The Minister said that he looks forward to welcoming more of those who stood up for British values at great personal risk, so I want to draw his attention to precisely one of those. My constituent is a former Chevening scholar who has been in fear of his life since 2021. He has, at last, been provisionally accepted on ACRS pathway 3. On UK Government advice, he travelled to Pakistan with...
Caroline Lucas: The Minister has not really given any reassurance to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). As we know, methane is a whopping 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, so if the Minister is serious about tackling this issue, will he explain why the Government failed to use the Energy Bill to ban flaring and venting? Why did they whip their...
Caroline Lucas: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the exchange about the amendment on flaring just now, I do not think I heard the Minister formally withdraw his accusation that I got my facts wrong, and I certainly did not hear him apologise. Given that he has now accepted that he got his facts wrong and my facts were right, I would love him to formally correct the record and perhaps even to apologise as well.
Caroline Lucas: I congratulate the Minister on turning complacency and chutzpah into a new art form. The ineptitude of Tory Ministers means that this latest CfD round saw the smallest auction return since 2015—a failing that was entirely avoidable. How will he ensure that the UK delivers the 35 GW of new offshore wind capacity that is needed in just six years? Why did Ministers yet again fail to heed the...
Caroline Lucas: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Caroline Lucas: There are some elements of the Bill to commend, not least the net zero duty on Ofgem, but overall it fails to deliver the scale of ambition we need or to set out a vision of an energy system free not just from Putin’s influence but from expensive and polluting oil and gas in their entirety. My amendments would address that failing. New clause 29 would prohibit the approval of new oil and...
Caroline Lucas: rose—
Caroline Lucas: I agree that those three tests for decarbonisation make a lot of sense, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that as well as targets for some of the good stuff, we need to see the Government stop doing the bad stuff? In this case, the bad stuff is more and more new licences for oil and gas in the North sea. Would Labour support my amendment, which would see an end to the MER rule on maximising...
Caroline Lucas: (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities if they will make a statement on the Government’s decision to use the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to scrap environmental protections on nutrient neutrality.
Caroline Lucas: I find it extraordinary that the Minister can stand there and make that statement with a straight face. Over the past eight years, Ministers have stood at that Dispatch Box and promised time and again that leaving the European Union would not lead to a weakening of environmental standards. Those of us who raised our concerns have repeatedly been told that we were scaremongering. As recently...
Caroline Lucas: Will the Chancellor consider introducing a windfall tax on banks’ excess profits? The profits of the big four banks for the first half of this year were up 700% compared with 2020, yet the Bank of England is forecast to pay out as much as £42 billion in interest on reserves to banks in 2023, at the same time as the Government have cut the level of surcharge on banks’ profits by 60%.
Caroline Lucas: It is exactly a year to the day since UK temperatures hit a deadly 40°C for the first time, with 3,000 excess deaths last summer. Yet businesses and the Prime Minister’s own climate advisers have said that his climate progress is worryingly slow. He likes to claim that the UK is decarbonising more quickly than the rest of the G7, but since the Paris agreement that is simply not true. He...
Caroline Lucas: What recent steps his Department has taken to help meet the UK's international climate finance commitments.
Caroline Lucas: I take some comfort from the Minister’s reply. He will know that there has been much speculation—and indeed, some leaks—in the national media that demonstrate real concern that the Government were reneging on their climate finance commitments. Could he explain to me and the 50 cross-party MPs and peers who have written to the Prime Minister about this when the £11.6 billion will be...
Caroline Lucas: It is sadly not a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). Talking about leaving or having derogations from human rights law is exactly what is wrong with the Government’s approach to this issue and what is wrong with this vile Bill. With overwhelming support from across the political spectrum, and backed by Conservative peers and by religious leaders,...
Caroline Lucas: Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to the criticism he was making of the other place, because if the elected House is about to break international law, it is entirely fitting that the other place should try to prevent that from happening. The Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box telling us that this Bill is about deterrence, whereas the Home Office’s own impact assessment has said:...
Caroline Lucas: The hon. Member is making a powerful case, and I thank her for it. The Secretary of State told me yesterday that ending new North sea oil and gas licences is, in his words, “bonkers policy”. Does the hon. Member agree that what is really bonkers is a Government subsidising oil and gas companies to drill more of the very thing that is destroying our planet, and handing billions in...
Caroline Lucas: rose—
Caroline Lucas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I was trying to work out where his semicolon was going to come. I am very glad he raised the issue of demand reduction. Does he agree that the Climate Change Committee’s latest progress report is pretty damning when it says that installations of energy efficiency measures are still well below what is needed and, shockingly, fell even further last...
Caroline Lucas: There is not perfection either.
