Tuesday 3 October 2017

Energy Minister says Industrial Strategy must focus on UK’s green growth

Energy Minister Claire Perry believes the UK's Industrial Strategy must focus on boosting and protecting the country's rapid green growth progress.

Speaking to ELN at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester yesterday, she said: "The energy sector, as we've just heard, has made huge progress, we've taken up our renewable percentage from something like 6% to over 30% in the last few years, that's billions of pounds of investment."

The Minister said the government is trying to work with the energy sector on various deals to continue these improvements, for example by supporting innovation, directing spending on research and development projects and by attempting to solve skill shortages in low carbon industries.

[youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AThVsaxfXQ" width="575" height="323"]

She went on to explain although Brexit offers valuable financial opportunities, the UK must concentrate on making sure it doesn't negatively affect the development of low carbon industries and progress.

She added: "There are opportunities for export presented by Brexit, both in terms of the currency movements but also in terms of operating outside the EU.

"But ultimately we don't want to do anything through Brexit that harms or reduces the rate of progress that we've made in the UK because the energy sector in the UK is a real success story and we want to keep that moving."