I add my thanks to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)—it is good to see him in his place—and the members of his Committee for agreeing to the proposal from me, the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), who respectively chair the all-party parliamentary groups on the environment and on renewable and sustainable energy. I thank them for supporting the opportunity to have this debate to discuss the Government’s spending plans for action on climate change and decarbonisation.
This is a timely day for the debate, not least given the publication last week of the Climate Change Committee’s annual progress report to Parliament for 2022. The Environmental Audit Committee—it is good to see members of my Committee in the Chamber, and I hope they will have an opportunity to catch your eye during this short debate, Mr Deputy Speaker—will be discussing the report in more detail with the chair of the CCC next week, but its headline message is unarguable. There are major gaps—some might say failures—in the programmes designed to deliver the UK’s climate goals, and I am sorry to have to say that.
I sympathise with my hon Friend the Minister who will be responding to this debate. Russian’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted energy supplies and enormously exacerbated the demand pressures as economies recover from the pandemic. However, the scale of the current geopolitical crisis and the shock it has delivered to global energy markets clearly requires rapid recalibration of his Department’s strategy. That is not the topic of this debate, so I shall not refer to it in detail, but the cost of living crisis, to which the current price shock has contributed, is affecting us all, and the House will have an opportunity to discuss the Government’s legislative proposals on that issue later. This provides an important backdrop to the House’s consideration of the priorities for Government expenditure. There is a cost of living crisis that is making daily life extremely difficult for all of our constituents, including the most vulnerable.