Speeches by White.

“Thank you, Chair, for that question. If we look at the statistics, the polling numbers are, surprisingly—I say that as a Member of Parliament, because sometimes perception is different—incredibly high, in terms of the British public supporting taking action on climate change. We do regular assessments, but 79% of the p…”

“If what you are saying, Chair, is that people want to tackle climate change and at the same time reduce their cost of living, I completely agree with you. People want both those things. We as a Government have to meet both of those needs: we need to make sure that we are leading the transition to a low-carbon Britain, …”

“I think there is absolutely more to do to make that clear.”

“First, in terms of the risks and what is happening in our country at the moment, I think you just spoke to Neil Morisetti about what the risks are and what is happening in our country at the moment. Colleagues have been flooded—what is the impact of that? We need to make sure that people are aware of why we are taking …”

“I think it should be multiple message carriers. I am working with multiple message carriers. We work with the Net Zero Council, which was relaunched under the Secretary of State, and a great selection of individuals, from trade union leaders to corporate leaders to leaders of NGOs, within that. Each of them has a role …”

“Absolutely.”

“You referred to some of the interventions we have already made. We have doubled the warm homes discount, so it is now available to 6 million people over the course of this winter. We will be taking, as you rightly mention, £150 off energy costs thanks to the announcements in the Budget. Obviously, we had the warm homes…”

“We are looking at all options—don’t get me in trouble!”

“That is a great question. To be honest, I am not sure that most members of the public know what net zero means. It is a term that, in some ways, has become weaponised, but it is a policy term that is used as part of a long-term direction. Is it a useful term? It is something we have done to set the long-term trajectory…”

“If you are saying that the language should be more appropriate and accessible, I agree with that 100%. Language is very inaccessible in this debate and people do not know what the terms mean.”

“I want to have a cleaner, greener, healthier, wealthier country, and I think this is the route to doing it. Any of those words, whether it is about a cleaner or healthier home or a cleaner or greener environment, are more the words that you and I would use around the dinner table. I certainly do not have a conversation…”

“I think there are multiple motivations. The vast majority of the public understand that it is happening, not just because people have been talking about it for 20 years, but because they see it themselves. Whether it is an influx of ladybirds or wasps over the summer, people can see that things feel different. They hav…”

“I think people have different motivations. I was trying to make the point that people understand it is an issue and want to act on it because they can see the trajectory and where it is heading. There is a lot of concern about energy security sovereignty and about children and grandchildren. People are motivated to lea…”

“No. On the list of the things that I want to do, it is nowhere near my list of priorities, because it would take a lot of time and money, and I would rather spend that on talking to people around a table in a normal way and trying to communicate in different ways. There are so many great things that the Department is d…”

“If I jump in, we are obviously monitoring in different ways and looking at where the different audiences are. The way I look at it is that there is a national debate at a country level, and then we have a community-constituency level and then a citizen-consumer level. Obviously, they all feed in and interrelate to each…”

“The clean energy mission is more in our gift than the carbon budget. To go through it, we have to be much clearer with DFT, DEFRA and other Government Departments that we are working with. Please chip in whenever you want, Ryan, but the clean energy mission is much more in the gift of the Department. We do work really …”

“I certainly feel I have strong support from my ministerial colleagues within other Departments. I work really closely with them, whether they are at DFT, DEFRA or MHCLG, and I have no reticence in saying that they feel as much commitment to this as I do. They feel it is cross-Government.”

“I feel very fortunate to have a Minister of State for Housing who I think previously sat in my job in Opposition, so has a strong personal commitment. As I say, I find ministerial colleagues incredibly helpful. We are looking forward to the future homes standards coming forward imminently.”

“Hopefully, that will be soon. I feel very supported by my colleagues, including in other Departments where you might not expect as much—with the Department for Education, we are ensuring that climate is on the curriculum more and we will have the natural history GCSE.”

“I want us to move as fast as we can towards delivering on our target. I also want to make sure that we do things in a thoughtful way, and that we maximise the co-benefits for Britain. I have absolute faith in the Minister of State in MHCLG to do that.”