I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to the debate. Hon. Members across the parties have signed up to it, including a large number of Select Committee Chairs and chairs of all-party parliamentary groups. I speak as chair of the all-party group on the environment.
Our debate comes at an opportune moment: this is Net Zero Week, and last week was the third anniversary of my signing net zero by 2050 into law as Energy Minister. The UK was the first G7 country to do so. If I had been told at the time that by COP26 in Glasgow, 90% of the world’s surface would have signed up to a net zero target, I simply would not have believed it—but I probably would not have believed that we would have a global pandemic, that Afghanistan would cede to the Taliban or that Russia would invade Ukraine.
Given all the strong headwinds, the day-to-day political events and the crises of the past three years, it is worth reflecting on the longevity of the net zero target and on what needs to be done. We need to be resilient and sustainable to achieve our greatest challenge: a green industrial revolution, with a move from petrochemicals towards a new materials economy. The challenge is massive, but the UK has shown international leadership in signing up to net zero. We were able to pass it in this Chamber because of the Climate Change Act 2008, which was enacted by the then Labour Government with the Conservative party in opposition demonstrating cross-party support for upping the target.
We need to be in a place where our financial commitments are shadowing the commitments to net zero that all political parties have made. We do not have a financial mechanism in place as we do for our carbon budgets, so I think we need to be more innovative in how we look at our budgets. Today we are discussing estimates and the budgetary cycles for our net zero commitments; I will come on to the details in a moment. Until we move to a longer-term cross-party funding solution, however, I think we will struggle, because we will be endlessly discussing the detail rather than the broader strategic approach needed to deliver energy efficiency.
Before I go into the costs in pounds and pence—the billions of pounds that are being spent—I want to make sure that we do not fall into the trap of thinking of net
zero as a sunk cost. Actually, every pound spent is an investment. Net zero is a net benefit to our economy, so when we talk about the money invested by the Government, let us not fall into the trap of thinking that somehow it is going down the drain.