While the Conservative and Labour annual Conferences held in Manchester and Liverpool respectively, hosted the usual array of fringe meetings showcasing the varied opinions of experts and lobbyists from the business and NGO communities, the conference platforms themselves had slim pickings on green issues this year.
Energy minister Charles Hendry, addressing a 75% empty hall on the first day of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on 2 October, after lambasting Labour for underinvestment in key energy infrastructure, claimed, “To put it bluntly, we need twice as much investment every year of this Conservative decade, as Labour managed in their last decade. To put it in numbers, we need £200bn to be invested in our energy infrastructure over the next 10 years or so.”
He characterised this as a “huge challenge,” but also “an incredible opportunity for growth and new jobs.”
He stressed: “It means making the tough choices that Labour ducked, putting the emphasis on technologies which will deliver most output for the lowest costs.”
Asserting that there is a choice facing this country, he argued, “We can be leaders in these new industries or we can be followers. If we follow, we import the technology and we export the jobs and the wealth. If we lead, we help create the technologies which will transform the global approach to energy and deliver real low carbon energy security for decades to come.”
But the Guardian’s senior environmental commentator Damian Carrington caustically blogged: “The repeated blocking of green ambition by the trolls of the Treasury and business departments, the comments of senior figures [Treasury select committee chairman Andrew Tyrie and ]Cabinet Office minister[ Francis Maude and the total absence of announcements in the speeches I just watched suggest green issues are very far down the Tory party priority list."
The Chancellor did not ignore climate change, but certainly downplayed its importance, saying in his conference address on 3 October: "We're not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business," while pledging, “we're going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.”
John Cridland, director general of the CBI, welcomed Mr Osborne’s position: “For businesses, one of the challenges to growth is rising energy costs, so manufacturers will be encouraged by the chancellor's commitment that cutting emissions will be no faster than our European competitors.”
But fellow Conservative MP, Tim Yeo, chairman of the Energy & Climate Change select committee, later warned a Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) event on 14 October: “You must be careful not to read too much into the nuances of a party conference speech.”
At Labour’s conference, a week earlier than the Tory gathering, Meg Hillier, making what turned out to be her last major speech as shadow energy secretary before being replaced, fiercely attacked the Government on its green agenda. She praised Ed Miliband, saying he understood the “audacity” needed to meet the challenge ]of energy policy[. “What a contrast with the Department for Energy and Climate Change today. Humiliated almost daily. The laughing stock of Whitehall. Trampled by the Treasury. Undermined by No.10,” she opined, as she rolled out what Labour deem a litany of coalition failures.
She pilloried the Green Deal for home insulation, which, she argued “promises the earth, but few have even heard of.” The Green Investment Bank was promised in Labour's manifesto, but “hobbled under the coalition,” - both delayed, and unable to borrow capital, she stressed. She adde both Zero Carbon homes and research into bio-fuels have been scrapped. Low carbon businesses are watching their orders disappear abroad, she complained.
It was noticeable that Ed Miliband in his own keynote conference address on 27 September barely made mention of green issues, observing briefly he believed “our environment and climate change is a crucial issue for our future. An essential part of the new bargain,” while calling for investment in low carbon, high tech energy systems, and attacking the high price of energy for consumers charged by the energy companies.
Miliband, who as party leader can now chose his own shadow team following a rule change agreed at Labour’s conference, has reshuffled his shadow Cabinet, with leading former environment secretary Hilary Benn taking on the shadow Communities portfolio, Caroline Flint, a former housing minister switching from the shadow communities portfolio to shadow energy and climate change secretary, replacing the sacked Meg Hillier, and leading Treasury select committee member Chuka Umunna, continuing his meteoric rise as an MP - only elected to Parliament for the first time in 2010 - by taking on the shadow business secretary brief from former Communities secretary John Denham. Denham takes on the important role as Mr Miliband’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, essentially his eyes and ears in Parliament, and key right hand man.
At junior shadow spokesperson level, Tom Greatrex, a former energy select committee member, switches from being a shadow Scottish affairs spokesman to becoming a new member of Caroline Flint’s energy team, replacing the Huw Irranca-Davies, a former environment minister, who had played a major part in putting Labour’s position in the Energy Bill committee, now shifted sideways into the environment team.
www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2011/10/Hendry_Our_priority_is_to_rebuild_our_power_sector.aspx
www.labour.org.uk/ed-milibands-speech-to-labour-party-conference
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