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Green Jobs

Volume 490: debated on Thursday 26 March 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the Government’s definition of a green job is. (264690)

There is no single definition of a ‘green job’ because we do not believe that some jobs should be green and others not. On 6 March we published our vision of a low carbon economy for the UK. Achieving that vision means that every job should be a green job. Every plumber should know how to fit a biomass boiler, and every welder should be equipped to work in construction of green technologies. This is not about creating a wholly separate part of our economy, but about allowing people from all sectors to benefit from the move to low carbon by developing and using the core skills for their job. A full Low Carbon Industrial Strategy will be published in the summer. By continuing efforts to build a low carbon economy we will create the jobs and growth we need now. Turnover in the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector, which already employs 880,000 people in the UK, could rise to over £150 billion and employment could rise to 1.3 million by 2015.