John was pleased to welcome Minister Kwasi Kwarteng, Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to the constituency. The Minister visited Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and then went to Monument Park in Chalgrove to meet with the Commercial Director, Chris Williams and a Director of EnergyMyWay, James Eades, a tenant of the park. The Minister’s responsibilities include carbon budgets, energy efficiency and heat, clean heat, and low carbon generation.
John said: “It is always a delight to welcome a Minister to the Constituency and give people a chance to speak directly to them to share their thoughts and concerns. Having first seen what is happening with fusion it was good to be able to showcase the work on Monument Park to move towards the whole park being carbon neutral by 2030. It was also good to have James join the conversation and share his thoughts from his work in the installation of sustainable technologies in properties. We had a robust discussion and I think the Minister took back food for thought.”
Chris Williams said: "We were delighted to welcome John and Minister Kwasi Kwarteng to Monument Park last week. It was a chance to show them small & micro businesses at work, discuss the Green Agenda and talk about ways we can all work together better to improve sustainability in business; something we are very passionate about here.”
Everyone agreed on the importance of the work being done and is grateful for the direction of travel being set out by the Government. However the concern that some funding streams to encourage investment was short term and thus may deter proper investment was shared. It was good to be able to talk through issues around implementation of Government initiatives on the ground. The Minister agreed to pass the feedback to the Department.
John added: “This is an important issue and I am keen to see green energy installations in new builds as it is so much more cost effective that retrofit. I agree that we need Government initiatives tool encourage long term sustainable business models which can contribute to our carbon reduction goals.”
