Speeches by Young.

“I want to talk about one of the other themes that came through in the written evidence, which is about consumer demand then driving increased labour demand. There was some concern that members of the current workforce feel they do not need to retrain because there will be plenty of work doing what they are doing at the…”

“I want to follow up on that final point about better ways of assigning existing spending. One thing that has been raised with me locally with regards to green jobs is whether the unspent apprenticeship levy could be localised and used within the local further education college network to better support skills training …”

“Finally, is there anything the Government can do to further stimulate the existing efforts that others are making to increase demand, like the third sector and early adopters?”

“In that case, how can that be done without fiscal commitments from the Government?”

“My next question is about incentivising consumer take-up without the Government having to make significant fiscal commitments, but it sounds like where you want the fiscal commitments to go is in shaping the behaviour of the suppliers.”

“If we come back to the original question, you accept that it is necessary to increase consumer demand. In that case, how do we avoid that putting too high a cost burden on consumers?”

“What you are doing is challenging the basic premise of my question. The evidence is saying that if we increase consumer demand, that will increase the labour demand. All the questions are around the various things you could do. This question was around the Government doing something in terms of regulation to push peopl…”

“As you have had Wales and Scotland taking that approach sooner, do you have evidence from that that you could send us that would demonstrate the point you are making?”

“You say it is about sending signals, but are there any more concrete things that you are doing from your side?”

“What lessons can be learned for UK manufacturing from the US Inflation Reduction Act, the EU green deal industrial plan and the EU Net-Zero Industry Act? Just to clarify, I am talking about the IRA as it operated under the previous Administration.”

“If I can stay with you, Darren, the voluntary targets included in the supply chain plan under the CfD auction are difficult to enforce, as they do not directly score UK content. Ultimately, the tendency is to drive you back to choosing on price rather than origin. How can the Government improve the overall effectivenes…”

“Yes, particularly about being able to reuse and recycle.”

“Should we be developing standards in this area?”

“Moving on now to the question about the circular economy, we have been told about the importance of developing a circular economy and embedding better recycling practices to alleviate pressures on the domestic supply chains. How could that be implemented?”

“The key word in what I said there was “improve”. Acknowledging where we are now, what more could the Government be doing?”

“Where the UK is innovating in emerging technologies, what is the potential for that UK innovation setting future international standards for other materials or products in wave, tidal and floating offshore wind?”

“Just to follow on that point, given we have moved on to the issue of Trump, what impacts do you think the changes that he has made will have on the global supply chain for materials and skills?”

“Yes.”

“Is there sufficient alignment between UK domestic and international product standards to ensure that exports in the low-carbon energy sector are both feasible and competitive?”

“Can any of you comment on the EU green industrial plan and the EU Net-Zero Industry Act?”