Source: Liberal Democrats, UK
Date: 14/09/2013
Event: Ed Davey criticises "the stone-age wing of the Conservative Party"
Credit: Liberal Democrats, UK
People:
[Speech by Edward Davey at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference in Glasgow.]
Ed Davey: I'll never forget the role Danny Alexander plays in green investment, in the Treasury. Without him, we couldn't do it. Andrew Stunell and Don Foster delivered our policy of Zero Carbon Homes, despite Eric Pickles. And think of Defra. Defra has a key environmental job, to protect wildlife and landscapes, alongside a key organisation - Natural England. What did the Tories want to do? Scrap Natural England. Working with Owen Paterson, David Heath has had to fight tooth and nail to save Natural England, and he won. [Audience applause.]
Now I want to be fair to Owen Paterson. He was brilliant over the horsemeat scandal. The way he demanded European Union action was impressive. Owen made the case for Britain's membership of the EU better than any Conservative I've ever heard. [Audience applause.] I'm not sure he meant to.
But, Liberal Democrats, our fight to green this government, haven't just faced opposition from the badgering of Owen Paterson, or the pickling of Eric. No, we have had to face the ultimate test - the charm of Michael Gove. Mr Gove and the draft curriculum for Geography - strong on European continental drift, but weak on climate change. Friends, children in our schools would no longer study climate change in Geography if I hadn't raised it, if it wasn't for Liberal Democrats. [Audience applause.] So, conference, we have to be in government, to fight for green advances and fight off green retreats.
Take the battles I fight over wind power. Owen Paterson would cull wind turbines faster than he can cull badgers. But we have prevented the stone-age wing of the Conservative Party from destroying our leading renewables industry. And for years, the huge wind potential from Scotland's islands - the Orkneys, Shetland and the Western Isles - has been well known. But Labour did nothing. And the SNP? But today, Liberal Democrats are acting. And it gives me great pleasure to make this announcement on wind here in Scotland. I am publishing new plans to unlock the green energy promise of Scotland's islands. Thanks to Liberal Democrats like Alistair Carmichael, Liam McArthur and Tavish Scott, another green battle won. [Audience applause.]
Conference, energy policy can stir emotions. I understand the concerns people have about energy's impact on our beautful landscape, whether it's turbines, coal pits or shale gas rigs. That's why I've worked hard to ensure that local communities will enjoy much greater benefits from hosting wind farms, nuclear reactors or shale gas drilling. Different to Labour. Different to the Tories. Liberal Democrat commitment to communities in action, at the national level.
Energy and emotions, historically, have gone together. Back three generations, my family were coal-miners in Nottinghamshire, where I was born, and when I lived through the coal-miners' strike - an emotional time. A difficult time. So I recognise the emotional impact of saying the days of coal-powered electricity are numbered. Unless and until we get carbon capture and storage commercially viable, coal has no future.
That's why I don't believe shale gas is the environmental threat some fear. Cleaner gas will be essential for keeping the lights on as we replace dirty coal. Our carbon plan for cutting carbon emissions assumes Britain will use a lot of gas in the future. So, conference, let's be the voice of green reason in the shale debate. Reject the zealots who claim it's a catastrophe. Reject the vested interests who argue it answers all Britain's energy problems. They are both wrong. [Audience applause.] I've been cautious on shale, avoiding hyperbole, weighing up the evidence, insisting on firm regulation. I've been "fracking responsible".
Liberal Democrats, we know that seeing the environment and the economy together is crucial. It's why Liberal Democrats believe our green policies are central to economic recovery. The facts are with us - £29 billion of investment already secured for renewable energy, supporting 30,000 green jobs, green jobs in every corner of the UK. More than 18,000 in England, nearly 2,000 in Wales and more than 9,000 here in Scotland. The Green Investment Bank - £2.3 billion invested in its first five months alone. Our Energy Bill - building the world's first low-carbon electricity market, with more than 200,000 green jobs by 2020.
But we have had to fight every step of the way. Take our Liberal Democrat achievement - getting a decarbonisation target into law, a clean energy target, a world first. The Conservatives were not keen. But we fought and we won. And I had to battle hard to get another radical green idea into the Energy Bill - electricity demand reduction. For the Energy Bill I inherited was great for investment in more green electricity supply but weak on cutting electricity demand - the real greenest approach. So I fought and won. Now there will be new incentives to cut electricity use, just as our new policy, Zero Carbon Britain, calls for. And, conference, to fast-track this, I'm pleased you are the first to hear my announcement of a new £20 million pilot - the first ever in Britain - companies being paid for saving energy, not wasting it. [Audience applause.]
And these new green markets we're creating, to cut energy demand, include our Green Deal. Now you may have heard reports claiming it's not working. But look at the facts. Nearly 60,000 assessments in its first five months. And more than 70% of them have had, or are looking at, getting Green Deal measures installed. Yes, it can be difficult, building a new green market. But the Green Deal was never meant to be a quick fix. We're building this not for a few years but for a few decades. And so my challenge to the Conservatives is this. Do you want this to be the greenest government ever, or not? I know the Tory Party is split on this. But colleagues, the climate can't wait for Tory Party unity. [Audience applause.]
So I say to our Coalition partners: it's make your mind up time. Colleagues, remember before the last election, when there seemed to be so much political consensus on climate change. Remember how the "vote blue, go green" Conservatives used to love-bomb us? I have to say, it used to give me the creeps. But now they're love-bombing UKIP. Tory backbenchers fantasising about Nigel Farage. They long to be the Sancho Panza to the UKIP Don Quixote. Well, let them tilt at windmills. I am far more impressed by the young wind engineer apprentices I met in Wales, when I went to celebrate the start of construction on what will be the largest onshore wind farm in England and Wales. The wind farm apprentices told me their fathers and grandfathers worked down in the Welsh valley coal mines. And their families were delighted their sons and their daughters were keeping the lights on above ground. [Audience applause.]
Colleagues, be warned, UKIP and some Tories will wildly claim it's green policies pushing up energy bills, even though the facts show that's not true. For it's the rocketing price of wholesale gas on international markets - 50% up in just five years - that's pushing up the bills. And so I'm worried, extremely worried, about high electricity and gas bills. I've had to help people struggling with astronomical bills. I'm sure you've seen people in your area genuinely frightened about using too much electricity or gas. That's why I'm so determined to act on fuel poverty. But, believe it or not, we first had to work out how to measure fuel poverty properly. Under Labour's incompetent measure, even the Queen was counted as fuel-poor. She had too many rooms. With our new measure, and with new, tougher targets, I will act on fuel poverty. And I'm asking everyone across government, from the NHS to local government, to help me, and to help everyone struggling with high energy bills. I promised this conference last year we would legislate for simpler bills and simpler tariffs. And I've kept that promise - we have. And many people will start to see the benefits, later this year.
But too many energy companies have ripped off too many people. I could not allow that to continue. So I have given Ofgem tougher powers. In the future, if your energy company rips you off, you can get compensation. Liberal Democrats, on the side of the consumer! [Audience applause.] And we're doing more. Working with the voluntary sector, we have created the Big Energy Saving Network. This new network will tell people who need help that help is here. And, conference, it's my concern about energy bills that's led me to be so tough, on nuclear power. I heard the debate today, I respect it. I have to deliver the Coalition Agreement. That says no public subsidy, and on behalf of consumers, that is what I'll deliver. [Audience applause.]
But where is Labour, on all this? Their difficulty is they agree with what we're doing. Many of them wish Labour had been so green. But Labour do have a policy. It's tough. They want to abolish Ofgem, the independent regulator on energy markets. But abolishing Ofgem has at least three major problems for Labour. First, it was Labour who set Ofgem up. Second, it was Ed Miliband who "strengthened" Ofgem. And third, their policy, after Ofgem, is - wait for it - Ofgem 2. You couldn't make it up.
But it's been on climate change where Labour have disappointed the most. Ed Miliband should be proud of introducing the Climate Change Act, when he was doing my job, albeit with cross-party support. Yet do you know how many questions the Labour front bench have asked me on climate change since I became Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change? A hundred? Fifty? Ten? One? No. Not a single question on climate change from Labour in 20 months. That is shocking.
And it's worrying. Because tackling climate change can't be done by one party alone. Climate change needs the politics of coalitions. Within this coalition, there are a few Conservatives who help on climate change. But as my Conservative colleague Greg Barker wrote on Friday, green Tories have got to speak up. But so has Ed Miliband. Given his track record, surely he would want to improve Labour's act on climate change. So today I'm giving him the chance. Ed, I'm inviting you to share in my advanced planning and strategy for the critical global conference on climate change in December 2015. That's after the next election.
For the next government, whichever parties are in it, we'll need to hit the ground running, to fight for the greenest deal for the planet. That's why, ahead of the 2015 climate change negotiations, I'm also building international coalitions. Within the European Union, I've set up the Green Growth Group - 14 countries are now working together for an ambitious European position, ahead of 2015. And in Obama and Kerry, we have the most climate-friendly American leaders we have ever seen. The new Chinese government is now showing green leadership that's yet to get the recognition it deserves. So, if the USA and China move, a global deal on climate change may be really possible in 2015. Europe has to be ready, and we're going to make sure it is. [Audience applause.]
Conference, when I go to these international meetings discussing climate change, I'm privileged to listen to people from around the world. People who are already experiencing the awful impacts of climate on their countries today. One speech, from a minister from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, has stuck in my mind. He told us how some people in his country go to bed in life jackets, because the sea levels have risen so much. We have to rebuild the political consensus on climate change. That's why our role in this coalition has been so important, and why the Liberal Democrat fight for the environment is so significant.
Conference, I know Liberal Democrats are the greenest party ever to serve in British government. But we are not yet part of the greenest government ever. So in the 20 months left of this government, we must fight to help the Prime Minister deliver his promise, to lead the greenest government ever. [Audience applause.] And, fellow Liberal Democrats, we must go further. We must build the greenest political generation ever. Fighting for the environment. Conference, let's build a stronger economy, a fairer society, and also a greener world. That is a Liberal Democrat calling, and it's my commitment to you. [Audience applause.]