I congratulate the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) on securing this valuable debate.
Let me start by saying that I have here a reminder of why we are in this place debating our children’s future. It is a “Climate Comic”, produced by children in Windsor Park primary school in my constituency. I think the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) might be quite interested in having a look at it later on—I guarantee it will not go into Hansard. The children who helped to produce it all have sensory impairment problems; most of them are deaf, and they signed the presentation they made to us.
If we want to change the world, we must get busy in our own little corner, and that is exactly what those children have done. It is top-class work by the primary school. The children produced their climate-conscious comic as part of the Forth Valley Sensory Centre’s “Making Sense of Climate Change” project. I thank all who helped to produce the comic and raise awareness of the fact that time is not on our side. The narrative on climate change of, “We need to do this.”, will soon become, “We should have done that.”
Here is why: the energy and security strategy presented a prime opportunity for the UK Government to tackle the dual climate and cost of living crisis, and they failed on both fronts. Their lack of ambition in setting meaningful policy to tackle that crisis was exemplified by their energy and security strategy in April, a strategy that was widely criticised and deemed inadequate by stakeholders. In the aftermath of the strategy being announced, the former chief of Ofgem noted:
“One failure, that could’ve helped in the short to medium run, is a lack of focus on energy efficiency, on insulation, on improving the quality of people's homes—I think that is an opportunity missed.”
Simon Virley, KPMG’s vice-chair and head of energy and natural resources, no less, stated that
“this strategy won’t get us to Net Zero at least cost to consumers.”
Given the importance of tackling the cost of living crisis, that is a missed opportunity. Other European countries such as Holland, France and Germany are doing this as a matter of urgency. The strategy fails to set out measures focused on improving energy efficiency in buildings, which has been described as a silver bullet by industry experts.
I am a member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I pay tribute to our excellent Chair—the right hon. Member for Ludlow—my colleagues on the Committee and the excellent standard of work by its Clerks. On the sustainability of the built environment, our report stated:
“If the UK continues to drag its feet on embodied carbon, it will not meet net zero or its carbon budgets.”
The EAC also pointed to the lack of any evidence that the UK Government were taking action to prioritise retrofit or reuse of existing buildings. Furthermore, the chief executive of E.ON noted that
“our plea to the government has always been to push hard on energy efficiency because that is the proven way, if you like the only silver bullet for this crisis”.