Bills are too high and the cost of living crisis is the biggest issue facing the country. That is why, at the last Budget, we took decisions to raise taxes on the wealthiest, which will enable us to take an average of £150 in costs off household energy bills from April. That builds on the… fact that the price cap and average energy bills were lower in real terms in 2025 than in 2024.
Hansard · 10 Feb 2026 · parliament.uk
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Desmond Swayne
What steps his Department is taking to reduce household energy bills.
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Claire Young
What steps he is taking to help reduce household energy bills.
AB
Aphra Brandreth
What steps he is taking to reduce energy bills.
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Desmond Swayne
We were promised a reduction in bills of £300, but they have actually gone up by just shy of £200. The impact assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026, which we passed last week, states: “we estimate that cost-pass through for most sectors could feasibly be at 80-90%”. That is a …
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Claire Young
The Government’s consultation on alternative heating that ends today does not cover installation costs, yet that is what is stopping many of my constituents in off-gas areas from switching away from oil. With National Energy Action warning of an £18 billion funding gap to meet fuel poverty targets, what action will the…
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Ed Miliband
I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman’s first point is wrong; he is taking one quarter—summer 2024 —and comparing it with today. If we look across 2025, bills are lower than in 2024. Actually, I had hoped that he would support the £150 that we have taken off energy bills, but the Opposition oppose all the measures …
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to our consultation. From talking to my ministerial colleagues, I know that we will take into account the points that she has made. We want to allow as many as people as possible across the country to convert to cheap, clean power. That is the point of our warm homes plan, and t…
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate the hon. Lady on reading out the Whips’ handout. No, I do not, and I will tell her why. The Chancellor’s action in the Budget to take the renewables obligation off bills and put it on to public expenditure was the biggest single cut in the cost of electricity that we have seen dating back to even the Con…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this morning’s auction, which saw record amounts of solar power. It is the cheapest form of power that we could possibly have in this country, and it costs less than half the price of building and operating new gas. On the point about infrastructure, he is right that we inhe…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend draws attention to the really important issue of standing charges. We have been consulting on moving the warm home discount from fixed cost standing charges to unit rates, which has been welcomed by Martin Lewis, among others. We want to bear down on standing charges, and we will announce the results of …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this important issue. As part of our warm homes plan, we are going to set up a warm homes agency to give people proper information, advice and guidance on what they can do to cut their bills. We have made the biggest public investment ever seen in this country to help people…
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Jobs10 Feb 2026
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Ed Miliband
There is huge potential from small modular reactors for both our energy security and jobs. I am proud that the decisions this Government have taken have enabled us to fund the UK’s first SMRs at Wylfa, supporting up to 3,000 jobs on site and thousands more across the supply chain. We want every part of… the country to benefit from this potential, including Scotland.
Hansard · 10 Feb 2026 · parliament.uk
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Irene Campbell
What estimate he has made of the potential impact of the construction of small modular reactors on the number of clean energy jobs.
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Irene Campbell
An SMR and new nuclear at Hunterston power station would make a huge difference to my constituency, given that nearly 650 people are already employed in highly skilled and well-paid jobs in the civil nuclear sector there. I was concerned to read a BBC article about a Scottish nuclear worker who relocated from Huntersto…
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Lindsay Hoyle
Order. Jim, you were not here—you have just appeared—and the problem is that I think you missed the first part of the question. [Interruption.] Do not worry, Jim—just get on with it!
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Jim Shannon
I thank the Secretary of State and I know he is interested in small modular reactor schemes, which we are very interested in having in Northern Ireland. The shadow Secretary of State has also giving a commitment to them. Can I please ask the Secretary of State what discussion he has had with the Northern Ireland Assemb…
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Andrew Bowie
It is unusual—indeed, unheard of, in recent months anyway—for the Secretary of State and I to agree on anything on energy policy, but it is probably not the first time this week that he secretly agrees with a Scottish politician. I know he agrees that new nuclear, particularly SMRs, offer huge potential for the UK and …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks incredibly well on this issue. It is just common sense to have nuclear as part of our energy mix. We know why it is not going to happen in Scotland under the current regime. It is because SNP politicians, for dogmatic reasons, have set their face against it. They are even embarrassed to have this …
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Ed Miliband
Obviously, this is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, but I think the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Throughout the United Kingdom, there is huge potential for SMRs. This is the technology of the future, and it can play a really important role in our energy mix across the UK.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is right about this. Let me put it this way: given the scale of the climate change challenge, only those who are dug in dogmatically can oppose new nuclear. Given the scale of the challenge we face, we need all the tools at our disposal. It provides good jobs and energy security, so it is only for do…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes his point in his own way. As I say, I believe the SNP’s position makes no sense. I gently point out to him that although he might have had grand ambitions, with no delivery they are completely worthless—and that was the Conservatives’ record on nuclear.
Clean Industry Bonus: Jobs10 Feb 2026
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Ed Miliband
The first-of-a-kind clean industry bonus as part of allocation round 7 is set to crowd in up to £3.4 billion of private investment in supply chains and support up to 7,000 jobs across the country. After a legacy of failure under the previous Government, we are determined that the clean energy future is made in… Britain.
Hansard · 10 Feb 2026 · parliament.uk
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Mark Hendrick
What estimate he has made of the potential impact of the contracts for difference clean industry bonus on the number of clean energy jobs.
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Mark Hendrick
What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the jobs generated through the clean industry bonus are directed towards communities formerly dependent on fossil fuel industries and that workers at risk of displacement during the transition are supported into those new opportunities?
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. One great thing about the clean industry bonus is that it will be focused on the industrial areas of our country, including those that are based on oil and gas. We also have, as part of our North sea future plan, a whole set of plans to help displaced oil and gas workers into th…
Topical Questions10 Feb 2026
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Ed Miliband
This morning we have announced a record-breaking auction for solar and onshore wind, and we are launching our local power plan. That follows a month in which we secured the biggest offshore wind auction in Europe’s history and launched our warm homes plan. We are determined to deliver lower bills and good jobs as we… take back control of Britain’s energy.
Hansard · 10 Feb 2026 · parliament.uk
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Olivia Blake
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
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Olivia Blake
I welcome the Secretary of State’s leadership in restoring momentum on net zero. Will he outline how the Government’s energy and climate strategies will be underpinned by clear delivery plans, milestones and transparent reporting to Parliament?
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Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Claire Coutinho
Last year, the Secretary of State signed a secret energy deal with China, which he has refused to publish. This is simply unheard of. We have heard repeatedly from intelligence services that China might seek to disrupt our energy system, so it is crucial that the public get to see what he has signed us up to. Will the …
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Claire Coutinho
That is frankly another patronising non-answer from the Secretary of State. I am not sure whether he got the memo, but his party is fed up with the sexist boys club. What is crucial is that the public have lost faith in the Labour party. This is a serious moment. Does he accept that when he stands at the Dispatch Box a…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these issues. As she knows, that is the great thing about the Climate Change Act 2008, which was passed with the support of all parties. David Cameron—my nemesis—was a great supporter of that plan. The Act gives us the milestones that my hon. Friend talks about. On top of t…
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Ed Miliband
May I give the right hon. Lady a piece of advice? Wacky conspiracy theories that she gets on the internet are no substitute for a proper policy.
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Ed Miliband
We will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady on the cost of living crisis, because her Government presided over the worst cost of living crisis in generations. Let me tell her what we are doing: £150 off bills; the warm home discount extended; the warm homes plan. We have done more in 18 months to cut bills for pe…
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Ed Miliband
Not yet, but the hon. Lady makes a really important point, which is that energy security from home-grown clean energy is important here, but that we should also work with our European allies.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I congratulate the scout group. The Minister for Energy promises that he will visit, and that is now on the record in Hansard.
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Ed Miliband
This has happened because of the fossil fuel crisis presided over by the previous Government. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are doing absolutely everything we can to help his constituents and others. We recognise the scale of the problem and that there is more to do.
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Ed Miliband
It sounds really exciting, and one of us will visit.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What is really important is not just the funding we are providing but the regulation we are introducing in the warm homes plan—promised by the last Government but never delivered—so that people who are privately renting get the decent, warm, comfortable homes they deserve.
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Ed Miliband
If my hon. Friend stays tuned, he will be hearing all about it in an hour’s time.
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Ed Miliband
Yes, if the hon. Member gives us the details.
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate Sunnyside academy. This Government and GB Energy are delivering a policy opposed by the Conservative party.
Local Power Plan10 Feb 2026
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Ed Miliband
With permission, I will make a statement about the local power plan and allocation round 7 solar and onshore wind auction results, both of which have been published today. Britain’s drive for clean energy is about helping to answer the call for a different kind of economy that works for the many, not just the… wealthy and powerful in our society. In the last few weeks, our warm homes plan has delivered the biggest public investment in upgrading homes in British history to cut bills for millions of people and to tackle fuel poverty. We have secured the largest offshore wind auction in European history, with a clean industry bonus to drive investment into our industrial communities, and we have agreed a fair work charter with business and trade unions as a first step to improving workers’ rights in renewables. Today, I can report to the House the results of the AR7 auction for onshore wind and solar. In onshore wind, we secured 1.3 GW of power at a price of £72 per megawatt-hour. In solar, we secured nearly 5 GW at a price of £65 per megawatt-hour. I can inform the House that, together, this onshore wind and solar will provide enough power for the equivalent of more than 3 million homes, further reducing our dependence on international fossil fuel markets. It represents the largest solar and onshore wind auction in UK history. I have had representations that we should have cancelled the auction and built new gas instead. I can tell the House that the price of this onshore wind and solar is less than half the price of building and operating new gas stations. Indeed, onshore wind and solar are by far the cheapest power sources available to build and operate, so I have rejected those representations. Instead, we have record-breaking results that will cut bills for families across Britain. As we get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators, we do not want this clean energy simply to be owned by big companies and multinationals. W
Hansard · 10 Feb 2026 · parliament.uk
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Greg Smith
I thank the Secretary of State for prior sight of his statement. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell whether the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box as the Energy Secretary or rehearsing for a future move to perhaps No. 11. Once again, he is more distracted by personal ambition than concerned about the …
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Caroline Nokes
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
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Bill Esterson
Select Committees look at the evidence. The evidence we have heard is that community energy is a great way of bringing down bills and giving people the confidence to take part in the energy transition. The Secretary of State talked about solar in his statement. We heard that golf courses use 10 times as much land as so…
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Caroline Nokes
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Pippa Heylings
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government recognising what communities across the country have been saying for years: community energy is one of the most powerful ways to cut bills, rebuild trust in the energy system, rebuild local resilience and take people with us on the journey to net zero. We campaigned hard to …
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Ed Miliband
Well, there were no questions, but I will reply none the less. Let me start with the AR7 auction, because this is very interesting and it will give the House a picture of what has actually changed. What has changed is the Conservative party, not the reality. We had the AR5 auction a couple of years ago, when the Conser…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend did a very good job of busting those myths in his question and he is absolutely right. The truth is that you cannot, at one and the same time, complain about bills being too high and then reject the cheapest cleanest form of power, but I am afraid that that is the position of the Conservative party. Ther…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady—I say this genuinely—for her advocacy on this issue ever since we came into government and before. She is a powerful advocate for community energy. I congratulate the group in South Cambridgeshire, too. Let me deal with the points she raised. On investment, I think that in anyone’s view the scale …
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate the Cobblers and all the organisations in my hon. Friend’s constituency. He is absolutely right. We think there are huge benefits across the country. GB Energy is, I think, now opening its website so that different groups can register an interest and work with it.
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman will know that there is a planning process for all projects. I would gently point out to him—not specifically on his project, because I want to make a more general point—that if we are going to get the benefits of cheap, clean power, we need to build the transmission infrastructure. The biggest…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Briefly, there are three important aspects to this: first, communities can have lower bills for their community centres and local institutions; secondly, they can generate a stream of income by selling power back to the grid; thirdly, there is something wider, and perhaps more …
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her advocacy on this issue. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, who is the world expert on these questions—or at least the UK expert; I will not push it too far—assures me that her important question about the statutory definition, which is, I think, on code P441, is being answered in the …
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Ed Miliband
I will take up my hon. Friend on his kind offer. I think we will see a powerful example there of community energy in practice, and what is so exciting about today’s announcement is that we can now reproduce that right across the country.
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I have had exchanges on this matter before. It is a serious issue, and he is absolutely within his rights to raise it. I would just say two things to him: first, following the Great British Energy Act 2025, GB Energy has pledged to be a leader in this area and has appointed an adviser to wo…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these issues. I am very interested in the power, introduced under the Infrastructure Act 2015, to give local community groups the right to buy a share of large-scale projects. That power has never been triggered—I think it may have been the fruit of the coalition negotiatio…
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Ed Miliband
This plan is mainly about community groups and non-profit organisations, but the right hon. Gentleman raises a serious issue. It is something that we are talking to the National Wealth Fund and others about, because it emphasises the fact that there is low-hanging fruit here. If we can make it possible for small busine…
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Ed Miliband
The two ideas that my hon. Friend puts forward sound absolutely ideal for this fund to me, but as for the eventual outcome, I must not put my thumb on the scale too much. He is right about this. We are starting something that will grow bigger and bigger over time. This is partly about raising our eyes and thinking, “We…
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Ed Miliband
Yes is the answer to that question. Community energy includes all kinds of innovative projects. As we open these funds for bidding—both from local authorities and community groups—we will find local people coming forward with innovative, imaginative ideas for how to drive this scheme forward. I suspect that we will be …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. As a super nerd, I am very interested in that kind of impact analysis. Sometimes Governments do things but do not track their impact, so they cannot prove the difference that a scheme has made. His point is very important, as is the one about Swaffham hospital. The work that GB …
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Ed Miliband
I will not go into the details of a planning decision, but areas that host energy infrastructure should see community benefits. What I say to his constituents and others is that there should always be community benefits, but if we want to bring down bills, and if we want energy security, we must build the energy infras…
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate the Welsh Government on their important initiatives in this area; they are great leaders in it. I was whispering to the Minister for Energy about whether he and I should be cycling in the Geraint Thomas national velodrome, but he thought that was probably a bad idea. From the look on her face, I see that…
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Ed Miliband
As a South Yorkshire MP, I completely agree with the hon. Member on these matters. He makes a really important point, and he has put it on the record. I am sure that GB Energy will be very conscious of the need to ensure a fair balance across the country, when it comes to the allocation of these resources.
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Ed Miliband
Another really exciting part of this plan is working with local mayors, such as the excellent Claire Ward. There is a real chance here for mayoral vision to combine with the national Government’s vision, and local people’s vision of how they can transform communities and generate resources. I am very happy to endorse t…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady asks an important question. We will work with the Welsh publicly owned energy company to make sure that Wales benefits from this plan. I made that point about a fair balance of funding across the country to the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) , and I think it is very important. I think we will find …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. Local Members of Parliament have a massive role to play in, for example, approaching their local community groups and others who have the potential to benefit from the plan. I encourage all Members to do that. One of the most important things about Members of Parliament fr…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have carried out a big overhaul of the grid connections queue, which, as he knows, was sort of like the wild west. There was a chaotic “first come, first served” queuing system. The National Energy System Operator has done a big reordering of the queue, but we still have …
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Ed Miliband
We are right into the nerdery here—and it is really important nerdery. My hon. Friend makes an essential point about the ability to sell this power back into the grid. I assure him that we are working on this with Ofgem to improve the offer to local community groups, because it is an essential part of ensuring that eco…
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Ed Miliband
Power to the people, indeed—it is a great slogan. I really do share my hon. Friend’s sentiments, both about the co-operative movement and Rochdale’s pioneering place in the movement, which is so important in our country, and about the shift in thinking about ownership that this plan represents. We want to move from the…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation, and I look forward to doing that. He makes the important point that we can look back at our history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) also pointed out, and draw inspiration from some of the pioneers who had a vision that is not the same as today’s but tha…
Warm Homes Plan21 Jan 2026
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Ed Miliband
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about the warm homes plan, which we publish today. It is a plan focused on the No. 1 issue facing our country, which is the cost of living crisis, and on the scourge of fuel poverty, which affects millions of families across Britain. At the Budget,… my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took an average of £150 off the costs of energy bills from April. This winter, we have expanded the warm home discount to a total of six million families, and today, we allocate £15 billion in our warm homes plan. That represents a more than doubling of public investment in home upgrades compared with the last Parliament—in fact, it is the biggest public investment in home upgrades in British history to cut bills and tackle fuel poverty. In making this investment, we turn the page on the lost decade of the last Government’s failure, with home insulation levels falling by more than 90% between 2010 and 2024, the promise of minimum energy efficiency standards for renters broken, the cancellation of the zero carbon homes standard, the repeated failures of schemes such as the green deal, the green homes grant and the energy company obligation scheme, and—worst of all—our dependence on fossil fuels leaving us exposed to the worst energy bills crisis in generations. The last Government failed time after time; this Government are doing the work to put it right. The starting point for this plan is that clean energy is the right choice, not only for energy security and reducing emissions, but for cutting people’s bills. The public agree: they are showing record demand for technologies such as solar, batteries and heat pumps that can save families hundreds of pounds a year. Heat pump sales in Britain have grown by around 50% annually—it is one of the fastest-growing markets in Europe—and last year saw a record number of rooftop solar installations. The driving purpose of this plan is to ensure those benefits are available, not just to the wealt
Hansard · 21 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
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Andrew Bowie
I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement. Today’s announcement is long overdue—overdue by an entire year, to be exact. During the general election, the Labour party claimed that it would cut household bills. This announcement should be part of that, but in that time, since the general electi…
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Nusrat Ghani
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
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Bill Esterson
I congratulate the Secretary of State—very warmly—on the warm homes plan, and not least on the universal nature of the offer: the support for people in fuel poverty, the health co-benefits in addressing cold, damp and mould, and the availability of cheap finance so that everybody can take part in the technical solution…
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Nusrat Ghani
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, who has two and a half minutes.
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Pippa Heylings
We have been asking for the warm homes plan for Christmas for the past two years. It is better late than never, but we have mixed feelings in unwrapping it. The Liberal Democrats have long called for an emergency home energy upgrade scheme with free insulation and heat pumps, and we have recently submitted proposals fo…
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Ed Miliband
It is always a pleasure to be opposite the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) . Let me make a few points to him, in the gentlest way I can. Let me deal first with his point about the cost of electricity. In her Budget, the Chancellor did more in one decision—namely, to transfer 75% of the …
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is shouting about bills. Let me tell him that the average bill in 2025 was lower in real terms than in 2024, and so was the price cap, as he will know from the figures. I am incredibly proud that this Government, unlike the last Government, are taking £150 of costs off bills thanks to the Chancellor’…
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Ed Miliband
Let me address my hon. Friend’s questions; he speaks with great knowledge on these issues. On the ECO scheme, I think he refers to the installers, and it is important to emphasise the point I made in my statement: we want the extra money—the £1.5 billion allocated at the Budget—to help the installers, because they are …
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Ed Miliband
I am always glad to deliver the Liberal Democrats a late Christmas present. I agree with some of the hon. Lady’s points, particularly on our dependence on fossil fuels and on why clean energy is the way to give us energy security and sovereignty in a dangerous world. I want to reassure her on insulation. As I said to m…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question, and I congratulate Green Rose CIC on its work. We see organisations like that as central to this plan, and we are working with local authorities to give local people advice. I do not know whether this applies to Green Rose CIC, but we are also working on our local power …
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Ed Miliband
I have to say to the hon. Lady that we inherited from the Conservatives—
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Ed Miliband
I will get to the question. We inherited the system from them, and we have raised the standards in the solar road map through the solar stewardship initiative with the solar industry, we have raised the standards through GB Energy, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy is working with colleagues across Government …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right. Working with the private rented sector to raise the standards is incredibly important and, frankly, we cannot let this scandalous situation, which affects so many private tenants, carry on. She makes another important point: upgrading the nation’s housing stock is a big journey. We have been le…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the right hon. Member for his really important question. We will shortly publish our local power plan, which is precisely about the community ownership he mentions. We see that as having a central role. It plays much more of a role in countries such as Germany and Denmark than it does here. We want to expand it…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I guess the shadow Minister will be wondering where his hon. Friends have gone, and whether they are going to another political party. Let me say to my hon. Friend that this is absolutely about his constituents and absolutely about cutting bills. We have a long-term affordabilit…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is because we recognise the immediacy of the affordability crisis that we took the action we did in the Budget to take £150 of costs off bills. It is because we recognise the affordability crisis that we significantly increased the numbers eligible for the warm home disco…
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Ed Miliband
The target we are setting in this plan for 2030 is 450,000. Our skills taskforce is designed to do what my hon. Friend set out, which is to meet the skills needs—the very significant skills needs—we are going to have. On the first part of my hon. Friend’s question, I do think that the Chancellor deserves real credit fo…
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Ed Miliband
What the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his question will resonate with every Member of this House, because so many people are facing a chronic and acute cost of living crisis. This has been going on for a very long time, which is what makes it really hard for people. The hon. Gentleman asked what difference w…
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Ed Miliband
We absolutely see leaseholders as being eligible for this help, and it is very important that they are. My hon. Friend, with his constituency experience, speaks compellingly about this issue. We want as many people as possible to be helped as quickly as possible through this plan.
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Ed Miliband
I thought that for the first time in 20 years, we were going to agree completely, and we nearly got there. However, three-quarters agreement is better than we have done in 20 years. On the first part of what the right hon. Member said, Barnett consequentials have already been allocated for this. It is obviously for the…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question, and I want to tell him a nerdy fact. I like nerdy facts; it is in character. Nearly half the people on the boiler upgrade scheme are in rural areas, and I think am I right in saying that a third are off the gas grid. That tells you something about the appetite, particula…
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Ed Miliband
I half thank the hon. Lady for her questions. On the second question, by anyone’s reckoning, this is a very substantial investment. It is multiple times more than was invested in the last Parliament, and there needs to be recognition of that. I recognise that there is further to go. This will help 5 million homes; ther…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it very well. We are turning the page on a decade of failure. It is really important that the public know that we get the scale of the crisis that they are facing—the long-term crisis that this Government were determined to deal with when we came into office. We are not over-claiming for this plan, …
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Ed Miliband
Any cases should be brought to the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey) . I feel a deep sense of sympathy for the people who have been badly affected by ECO4 and its problems. It was brought to our a…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I was with all the mayors on Monday, talking to them about their role in the warm homes plan. Local authorities and regional mayors have the best sense about what their area needs, and they are the people to help co-ordinate this and make it happen. Lots of people have rig…
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Ed Miliband
This scheme is really important for Wales. It will have a great impact, even if we take just the boiler upgrade scheme. We are determined to work with the Welsh Government to make sure that the scheme makes a difference for people in Wales. That is the work that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is doing.
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate Jane and Women in Retrofit. They sound like ideal people for the taskforce led by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to talk to. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) makes such a powerful point about the diversity of opportunities here, and we want as many people as possible to take adv…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. The solar road map set out some of the work that we are doing, but the whole point of the taskforce—this is a much more intentional way of thinking about the workforce challenges than the previous Government’s way—is to make sure that we have the workforce in place. Th…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I would say to the council that he talks about, “Leave your dogma at the door and help local people. Work with us to help local people.”
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Ed Miliband
First, that sounds like negative propaganda against Kirklees council, which I am sceptical about. Secondly, on the wider issue, the whole point of the plan is that we are doing it through public investment. That is the decision the Chancellor took and I think it is the right decision.
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Ed Miliband
On my hon. Friend’s first point, we want to use local partnerships that are already in place. On ECO installers, that is the work that the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West will be cracking on with. We did not want just to say that …
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Ed Miliband
Small and medium-sized enterprises will be crucial to the scheme.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We will be working urgently with the banks and others—indeed, I think a roundtable is being convened next week—to work out how quickly we can get on with this process. We want to do this as soon as possible. It will take time, and if there is one lesson from the past it is that…
EM
Ed Miliband
We are making big investment in the transmission infrastructure and I urge all hon. Members locally to support, not oppose, that. We are also doing a big reordering of the grid queue, which is crucial because we then get the projects in the places where we need them.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point about the fragility of consumer confidence. We have to support it. The point of the oversight group that the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West will chair is to make sure that we do as mu…
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Ed Miliband
I am not going to do that, but what I will say to the hon. Lady is that lots of landlords already meet the standards. Secondly, we want to provide some help for landlords to make that happen. This is an important point. Some of the schemes we have been talking about will be available to landlords. Through a combination…
EM
Ed Miliband
Absolutely, yes. I am so sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituents. We must ensure that we do not let that kind of thing happen.
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Ed Miliband
As an MP with park homes in my constituency, I am very sympathetic to the issues facing people who live in park homes. To give the hon. Lady a proper answer, I will take that away and pass it on to the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire W…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right. Small businesses are eligible for the boiler upgrade scheme and there is a substantial investment in that. We want them to benefit from the solar loans, too. We also want to help them through local authority procurement. She is right that this is a massive job creation opportunity, but we need …
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on convening people locally on the crucial issue of the cost of living crisis. I am sure that that will be a really effective and important event. She is absolutely right that home upgrades for her constituents in Portsmouth North and elsewhere are absolutely the long-term answer to the co…
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Ed Miliband
I think that remediation of the previous works should happen whatever, and residents should not be required to apply. There should be a process with TrustMark, which I think is the overseer in the case that the hon. Member is talking about. This is an issue that my Department is very focused on. It would have been much…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks eloquently, and I am sure that what he said will resonate with Members across the House when they think of constituents who are poor and vulnerable and face a choice between heating and eating. The key priority is to get the money out to local and combined authorities. They are the best people to …
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his important question. The Minister for energy consumers met the Minister for Communities yesterday to talk about how we can work together—for example on the Warm Homes Agency, which is UK-wide, and hopefully on the solar loans as well. We want to do everything we can to work with the No…
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Ed Miliband
We love Vaillant and what it does. The Minister for climate, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Katie White) , loves it so much that she is going to visit tomorrow. It is part of the £90 million heat pump investment accelerator programme. This plan is about working with companies such as Vaillant so that w…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks about a really important issue, which I am aware of from my experiences of visiting such areas. The Minister for Energy Consumers, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey) , has heard his statement, and we do need to think about this, because there are area…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with typical eloquence on this issue, which came up at the mayors meeting on Monday, when we discussed how we will ensure that the FE sector in particular is geared up to train people for these opportunities. We will work on this with Skills England and mayors, and Ministers will be taking it forw…
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Ed Miliband
I very much enjoyed the visit to Vaillant and was incredibly impressed by what it is doing. Programmes such as the heat pump investment accelerator are designed to help companies such as Vaillant capitalise on this growing market.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with very good sense on this issue. This plan is a huge opportunity for people. We are seeing record demand, and the question for this House and for all of us is whether we want that to be just for the wealthiest or for everyone. The point of the public investment is to bring opportunities within …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it very well. I am sure that the Minister for Energy Consumers will be happy to talk to her about how we can make sure that the taskforce does what she thinks is necessary to get the workforce we need.
EM
Ed Miliband
Absolutely, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work on this issue. We want the benefits to be spread as widely as possible. The Minister for Energy Consumers tells me that he will shortly visit that project with my hon. Friend. As this is the final question, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to say one final …
Offshore Wind14 Jan 2026
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Ed Miliband
With permission, I would like to make a statement about the seventh contracts for difference allocation round and the results for offshore wind. Eighteen months ago, the Government set out on our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. That was a mission rooted in a simple argument: if we want to take back… control of our energy from the petrostates and dictators, if we want to bring down bills for good and if we want to create a new generation of secure, well-paid jobs, the right choice is to get off the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets, which caused the worst cost of living crisis in memory. For a year and a half, that mission has faced determined opposition from a well-funded band of doomsters and defeatists. Today, we publish the results of our latest offshore wind auction and with it we prove those doubters and naysayers wrong. Let me set out the results to the House. On coming to office, we inherited the fiasco of the fifth allocation round—a failure of the Conservatives’ making that trashed the crown jewels of our energy system—in which not a single offshore wind project was secured. That is their legacy; that is the legacy of the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) . Our last auction round, allocation round 6, got the industry on its feet again. Today it roars back stronger than ever. We have secured 8.4 GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of more than 12 million homes. There are winning fixed offshore wind projects in every part of Great Britain: Dogger Bank South off the coast of Yorkshire and Vanguard off the coast of East Anglia, two of the largest offshore wind farms in the world; Berwick Bank in the North sea, the first new Scottish project since 2022; and Awel y Môr, the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade. On floating wind, the emerging technology of the future, we have successful projects in Wales and Scotland—the Erebus project in the Celtic sea and Pentland in Scot
Hansard · 14 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
JC
Judith Cummins
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. What the Secretary of State has done today has given a massive boost to the profits of multimillion-pound energy companies, but will be paid for by consumers through their bills. What do the prices show us? First, wind power is not getting cheaper as pr…
JC
Judith Cummins
Before I call the first Back-Bench Member, may I remind Members that we have an important debate on Ukraine later this afternoon? We will look to finish this statement at about 4 pm, which leaves us with around 30 minutes. Please keep questions and answers short.
BE
Bill Esterson
The Energy Secretary deserves enormous congratulations on moving from the “botched” auction round 5, to use the words of the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) , to the record success of auction round 7. The strike price will see no increase in consumer bills—indeed, Aurora says that it is likely to se…
NG
Nusrat Ghani
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Ed Miliband
That was a lot, as they say. Let me deal with what the right hon. Lady said point by point. First, we will take no lectures from her on energy bills. She presided over the worst cost of living crisis in history, and not once have we heard a word of apology. This Government are taking £150 of costs off bills. How are we…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People can have incredibly short memories in this House, particularly the Opposition. We are only five years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We know—
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that gas is falling, but she is just making a gamble. At the time of the greatest geopolitical instability in a generation, she is gambling on stability. I am not going to make that gamble. We will have home-grown clean power, and we are going to take back control.
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Ed Miliband
Good lines. Let me deal with that question briefly, following your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, AR8 is important, and we absolutely want to stick to the timetable—the hon. Gentleman is right—and we are rebuilding confidence in the industry. Secondly, we continue to look at proposals from him and others on d…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right—bandwagon-jumping is basically the Conservatives’ policy, and they have jumped on the anti-net zero bandwagon. She makes serious and important points about the future. Indeed, she is a brilliant champion for this industry and for her area, because there are huge opportunities for Grimsby as a re…
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Ed Miliband
No, I do not agree. The hon. Gentleman, in all seriousness, should look at the need to build new energy generation in this country—we are going to have a 50% rise in electricity demand by 2035, and we have to build something. If he wants to build a whole fleet of new gas-fired power stations, he can decide to do that, …
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Ed Miliband
That is why the clean industry bonus is so important. We will be announcing more about this tomorrow, because it is going to lever in massive amounts of private investment, including in supply chains.
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Ed Miliband
I just disagree with the hon. Lady. She is making a massive gamble on the future—she is gambling that gas prices will fall. We are giving this country the assurance that we can have clean, home-grown power and lower bills for good.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks very well on these issues, and she is absolutely right to ask that question. The great thing about the clean industry bonus is that for the first time we are rewarding manufacturers for investing in Britain. It is going to leverage in multiple amounts more private investment compared with public i…
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Ed Miliband
That is an incredibly important point, and the great thing about clean power 2030 is that it will mean gas sets the price much less of the time. With contracts for difference, the reduction in prices feeds through to bills.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Battery storage and long-duration storage, for example, are things that we are working on as a Department, as is Ofgem—they are crucial parts of the jigsaw.
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Ed Miliband
This is about an innovative technology. The hon. Member is right that it is expensive at the moment, but the experience we had with offshore wind, onshore wind and solar was that by investing in it at the front end, we then lowered the price through deployment, and that is what has meant it is a cheaper technology. We …
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Ed Miliband
I have a long-standing promise, which I will fulfil—[Interruption.] Everyone seems to know about that promise to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency to see what GE Vernova is doing. She makes an important point about ensuring that procurement, in which I know GE Vernova has a particular interest, should as much as poss…
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Ed Miliband
Even by the standards of the UK all-comers record for SNP miserabilism, that question takes some beating. I think the hon. Member gets the award. This is a great news story for Scotland, and not just in terms of Berwick Bank but in relation to floating wind. We want to carry on with that progress in AR8.
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend, because he has been a brilliant champion of this industry, and I am so glad about today’s announcement. He is absolutely right. I want developers and all of the businesses involved to hear his message and his question loud and clear: we want to see this development built in Britain, and i…
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Ed Miliband
With the greatest respect, I trust our analysts in my Department more than I do the hon. Gentleman when it comes to arithmetic. As he is somebody who I think has had an interest in the past in solar panels—
EM
Ed Miliband
Ah, so it is all right for him, but just not for anyone else. That tells us a lot.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. GB Energy has invested in the Pentland project in Scotland. GB Energy is operationally independent from us, so it makes its own decisions, but it shows that combined with the CfD, GB Energy can play a nurturing role for this technology, and that is incredibly important. It is wh…
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Ed Miliband
We will be taking £150 off bills in April, but let me refer the hon. Gentleman to a report produced by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, which explains that having renewables on the system means that we do not pay for expensive gas whose price is much higher than the average wholesale price. According to the repo…
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Ed Miliband
I assure my hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion on these issues, that we are very much engaged with Port Talbot and the port on this issue, and with Associated British Ports, because it is important that we make those investments in the port. She should watch this space.
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Ed Miliband
I am grateful for the tone of the hon. Lady’s question. I will return the compliment, and thank her for her kind words about this auction round. She is entirely right about the importance of our warm homes plan and investing in energy efficiency; the plan will be coming very soon, and that is what it will do.
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Ed Miliband
Yes. My hon. Friend, who speaks so well on these issues, is absolutely right. There are huge opportunities for Cornwall in this area of offshore wind. One thing that I have been doing with my Department is transforming it from simply an energy policy Department to an energy and industrial policy Department, because thi…
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Ed Miliband
We will certainly not be doing that. We want as much as possible of this to be built in Britain.
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Ed Miliband
I look forward to having conversations with my hon. Friend. I think that there are huge opportunities for Scotland, and the Government intend to maximise them.
EM
Ed Miliband
I fear that securing time in the House is way above my pay grade. [Interruption.] I promise that it is. Let me say more generally to the right hon. Lady that I agree with her, and that we are looking at the Procurement Act 2023 and how it works. Ensuring that we procure as much of this as we can in the UK is incredibly…
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Ed Miliband
I agree with my hon. Friend. I am old enough to remember Boris Johnson, and he used to trumpet the potential of this. He used to talk about it as the future and how it was going to build future jobs, but the Conservatives have abandoned all that. They are miserable pessimists about our country. As for my hon. Friend’s …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think the point about energy security is crucial because we live in an uncertain world. We need our own home-grown clean energy, and that is what we are doing.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend, with whom I have discussed this, is absolutely right. We want to do everything we can to ensure we use steel from Britain in this process. Part of this is about what we legislate for, and part of it is about the conversations we have with the developers to ensure they do that. I am setting a very clear …
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Ed Miliband
I would really like to do that. The Prime Minister and I, with the Chancellor and indeed the First Minister of Wales, had a fantastic visit to north Wales when we announced our small modular reactors there, and the excitement among the students at the college about the future we are building was so palpable to see. I m…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We will be setting up five technical excellence colleges in clean energy, and they will be incredibly important in training young people for this clean energy future. There is a huge number of opportunities out there. Part of this is about the training, but another part is…
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Ed Miliband
Those are incredibly important technologies, and we need to do more to help bring down their cost. Tidal schemes will be in the next auction pot, and we are continuing to look at how we can deploy more of them in our country.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks so well on these issues and he is so right. This is about energy sovereignty and our security as a country. When the Conservatives were in government, at least under Boris Johnson, they seemed to understand that. That is why it is so regrettable. Of course, this is about the climate crisis, good j…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks very knowledgeably on these issues and he is absolutely right. We changed the auction design not just to be able to see the so-called bid stack, which they could not under the previous regime, but to allow more projects in to increase competitive tension to get a better deal for the bill payer and…
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Ed Miliband
It was worth waiting for. I will let the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) speculate on her own future and whether she is going to join another political party. In all seriousness, I do think it is sad. The truth is that we used to pride ourselves as a country on competing, between political parties, …
Gas-fired Power Stations6 Jan 2026
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Ed Miliband
The 2023 generation costs report published under the previous Government shows the levelised cost of electricity to build and operate a new gas-fired power station to be significantly higher than the cost of onshore wind, solar and offshore wind in the most recent renewables auction round. Renewables are a cheaper technology to build and operate… than new gas-fired power stations.
Hansard · 6 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
TC
Tom Collins
What estimate he has made of the cost of building new gas-fired power stations.
PB
Polly Billington
Whether he has made an estimate of the cost of building new gas-fired power stations.
TC
Tom Collins
The National Energy System Operator’s clean power 2030 plan relies on unabated gas power stations, without a clear plan for their decarbonisation after 2030. The forthcoming hydrogen strategy presents a natural opportunity to set long-term goals for the wider integrated energy system, including hydrogen-fired combined …
PB
Polly Billington
Current global instability, from Ukraine to Venezuela, has shown the vital importance of having domestic energy security. Does the Secretary of State agree that investing in renewables will help with both security and cost, particularly because they are cheaper to build and operate, as well as providing us with vital e…
WH
Wera Hobhouse
According to Government figures, output from new solar projects costs around £41 per megawatt-hour compared with roughly £140 per megawatt-hour for the lifespan costs of new gas power. I know the Secretary of State agrees with me and RenewableUK that clean energy remains the energy with the lowest cost, but how do we e…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks an important question. In our 2030 clean power plan, we talk precisely about the importance of low-carbon dispatchable power as a way forward. I am really proud of what is happening with our carbon capture and storage plans and Net Zero Teesside. Additionally, it will be an important part of our for…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right. The figures that came out from NESO over Christmas show that we had extra renewable power in 2025 equivalent to powering 2 million homes; that is 2 million homes that will not be powered by imported gas. That gives us the price stability that we never had under the previous Government. The fund…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady has just done a good job of highlighting the importance of this matter, and she gets to the crucial point. The Opposition parties that reject solar, onshore wind and offshore wind are rejecting cheap, clean, home-grown power for the British people, which we on the Government Benches are in favour of.
EM
Ed Miliband
We have regular discussions with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive on a range of issues. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about nationally significant projects, it is absolutely right that communities have input into these questions. Certainly in the case of home-grown low-carbon power, we want communities t…
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Ed Miliband
I do not really understand what the question was about, but we are in favour of AI and we are working with our colleagues on AI. I have to say that I am glad the right hon. Lady rose to speak on this question, because she has been rumbled by the figures I produced; they came out when she was the Energy Secretary. She g…
Energy Bills Reduction6 Jan 2026
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Ed Miliband
The decision by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to take an average £150 of costs off people’s energy bills from April is a reflection of this Government’s commitment to tackling the cost of living crisis. It will make a difference to families across the country and is estimated to reduce by over 1 million… the number of people paying more than 10% of their income in energy costs.
Hansard · 6 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
PM
Perran Moon
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of reducing energy bills by £150 on family finances.
PM
Perran Moon
Kensa, based in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, is the largest manufacturer of ground source heat pumps to neighbourhoods and council flats, and I know that the Secretary of State and the Chancellor have both visited that company. This technology delivers low energy bills for family finances, but the secto…
DJ
Dr Caroline Johnson
Socialists do have a habit of taking money from people and then asking them to be grateful for getting some of it back, so could the Secretary of State tell us how much the £150 reduction in fees will actually cost taxpayers?
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I welcome the shadow Minister to the Dispatch Box.
BT
Bradley Thomas
This Government’s promise to cut energy bills by £300 is dead in the water, as bills are now £190 higher than when they took office. Now their big idea is to pull the wool over the eyes of the British public by moving some of the costs of net zero from people’s energy bill to their tax bill. Can the Secretary of State …
EM
Ed Miliband
I really enjoyed my visit to Kensa—I would recommend that all Members go—which is a really innovative company that is leading in heat pump manufacture. As my hon. Friend knows, we will shortly be publishing our warm homes plan, which will be really important in driving forward heat pump uptake and helping companies suc…
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Ed Miliband
I will tell the hon. Lady. We are proud of the fact that in the Budget we raised taxes on the wealthy so that we could cut bills for millions of families across this country. I am so grateful to her for her question, because it illustrates the difference between our parties. This was not an easy thing to do; it was a d…
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Ed Miliband
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that bills are going to be lower. [Interruption.] If he just listens, I will tell him. If we compare 2025 to 2024, energy bills are lower in real terms than they were in 2024, and the price cap is also lower. Because bills are still too high, we will make that situation better by taking £1…
National Grid: Supply Point Capacity6 Jan 2026
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Ed Miliband
The Government inherited a legacy of huge under-investment in the grid, which piled up constraint costs and created a chaotic system for grid connection, which left crucial projects facing decade-long delays. We are tackling this with a programme of investment and reform, include sweeping changes to the grid connections process, which saw the National Energy… System Operator last month set out a massive overhaul of the queue, cutting its size by two thirds and giving priority to the generation projects that we need.
Hansard · 6 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
PL
Peter Lamb
What steps his Department is taking to help increase the capacity of major national grid supply points.
PL
Peter Lamb
Despite its rural setting, Crawley’s travel-to-work area has a larger economy than many of the UK’s core cities. Despite that, it has been held back over recent years due to a lack of grid capacity at its major connection point with the national grid, resulting in the loss of several major investments under the previou…
JM
John Milne
Access to the grid for new energy suppliers is patchy across the country, and it leads to an overconcentration of solar farm and battery energy farm applications in unexpected places, such as the village of Cowfold in my constituency. What action will the Government take to ensure a fair distribution of renewable energ…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. There was this terrible backlog, where the queue had something like five times as much capacity as was required and the wrong priorities. We also had massive problems for demand connection. Our significant reform to overhaul the queue, which had not been done for years and years, w…
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Ed Miliband
I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy has had discussions with the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) , and it is important that we have those discussions with Members. One of the important things for this year—it is slightly for the trainspotters, or energy-spotters—is the strategic spatial energy plan,…
Energy Jobs: Yorkshire and the Humber6 Jan 2026
EM
Ed Miliband
Our clean energy mission offers a transformative opportunity to deliver thousands of high-quality jobs and drive prosperity across the country. In Yorkshire and the Humber, we estimate that there will be up to 20,000 additional jobs by 2030. There are opportunities in offshore wind, hydrogen and nuclear, as well as in many other areas.
Hansard · 6 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
LC
Luke Charters
What steps he is taking to create jobs in the energy sector in Yorkshire and the Humber.
LC
Luke Charters
Happy new year, Mr Speaker. I am proud of York College in my constituency, where talented students are mastering apprenticeships that will power our clean energy future. York College is considering becoming a clean energy technical excellence college under the outstanding leadership of Ken Merry. Will the Secretary of …
MV
Martin Vickers
Sadly, it is not job creation that faces many of my constituents, particularly those who work at the Lindsey oil refinery. The Secretary of State knows that Axiom and others submitted bids that would have continued production at the refinery. Instead, we now have a deal with Phillips 66 that transfers the assets but no…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate York College on its work. I know from my constituency in Doncaster, where we are to get a second university technical college specialising in green skills, the importance of that and the excitement of young people about this future. By turning their backs on clean energy, the Opposition turn their backs …
EM
Ed Miliband
First of all, what happened at Lindsey—we should be clear that the responsibility lies with the owner, which ran the business into the ground—is tragic for the workers and their families, and I have talked to those workers. The hon. Gentleman will know—my hon. Friend the Energy Minister has spoken to him about this—tha…
Topical Questions6 Jan 2026
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Ed Miliband
The affordability crisis is the No. 1 issue facing families across our country. That is why we have acted to take £150 of costs off bills for all families, with an additional £150 through the warm home discount for 6 million households this winter. Thanks to our decisions, last year was a record year for… wind and solar power, and we have embarked on the biggest nuclear building programme for half a century. That is what it means to deliver on lower bills, good jobs and energy security.
Hansard · 6 Jan 2026 · parliament.uk
CD
Carla Denyer
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
CD
Carla Denyer
Climate change made 2025 the UK’s hottest year on record and fuelled deadly extreme weather events across the globe. We know that every drop of oil and gas used makes those events more likely, so will the Secretary of State confirm how much more new oil and gas could be extracted via the tiebacks that the Government ha…
MH
Meg Hillier
Banister House in Homerton in my constituency was the first community energy scheme in Hackney with solar panels on the roof, and it is the UK’s largest such scheme on social housing. The forthcoming local power plan will provide an opportunity for others to follow where Hackney has led. Could the Secretary of State gi…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
It is freezing cold outside, and people are worried about their energy bills, yet on top of all the other costs the Secretary of State has lumped on to people’s bills, it is reported that he is about to tax people with gas boilers to pay for people having heat pumps. Can he definitively rule this out for the rest of th…
EM
Ed Miliband
I wish the hon. Lady a happy new year, but I find that question a bit churlish. We have produced a world-leading plan for the North sea, which combines the just transition—the just and prosperous transition—with environmental leadership, while keeping to our manifesto commitment not to issue new licences to explore new…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate Hackney council—Labour-led Hackney council—on the brilliant job it is doing on green energy. Unlike some who just talk about it, the council is actually delivering, and I congratulate it. I see Hackney as being at the forefront of our local power plan, which will be coming out in the coming months.
EM
Ed Miliband
I can absolutely rule out that we are going to introduce new levies to the energy system in the warm homes plan. Those reports are complete nonsense. I can tell the shadow Secretary of State that the warm homes plan is going to turn the page on a decade of the Conservatives’ failure, because we are going to invest wher…
EM
Ed Miliband
Dear, oh dear, oh dear. What can I say to that, Mr Speaker?
EM
Ed Miliband
Don’t tempt me, Mr Speaker—don’t tempt me! I want to briefly make one point. In the warm homes plan, which will come soon, we will be making £15 billion of public investment to help people cut their bills. The Conservatives can oppose that if they like, but I think it will be supported across the country, because they …
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady makes an important point, which is that we need to make sure we take advantage of co-operating with our European neighbours. One way we can do that is the internal electricity market, and we will be negotiating on that basis. We will obviously look at the costs and benefits for the UK, but anything we can…
EM
Ed Miliband
It sounds like a really interesting project. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are huge opportunities. Opportunities abound when it comes to co-operation with our near neighbours and across the world to help our energy security, deliver clean power and bring down bills.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady asks an important question. As part of the warm homes plan, we are putting in an additional £1.5 billion of public investment and replacing the ECO scheme, which I am afraid had failed in a number of different ways—no disrespect to some of the installers. That will be designed to help bridge the transitio…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is wrong, if he listened to my answer earlier, because actually bills across 2025 were lower than in 2024. He should welcome our measures to cut bills by £150, but I am afraid that those on his Front Bench do not support us.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for his constituency, and indeed for Blackpool. I would be very happy to meet him to talk about how we can ensure that the jobs that those young people want come to Blackpool.
EM
Ed Miliband
Yes; my hon. Friend is entirely right. Home-grown clean power is what will give us energy security.
EM
Ed Miliband
I do not understand the hon. Gentleman, if I am honest. The truth is that he would give up on young people. He would sell them down the river, as he would today’s generation, the future generation, and all generations to come. I do not think that is a very good platform to stand on.
EM
Ed Miliband
Absolutely. This is about delivering what we promised when we were elected: home-grown clean power, so that we can get bills down, create jobs, get energy security and, crucially, do the right thing for future generations.
EM
Ed Miliband
Our team would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. That question, and so many others, shows the huge opportunities arising from home-grown, clean power, including in fantastic Southampton.
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Ed Miliband
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am happy to respond, because we are going to deal in the facts. Bills were lower in 2025 than in 2024 in real terms, and the price cap was lower—and, of course, making a seasonal comparison makes no sense. We are going to trade in the facts.
Income tax (charge)1 Dec 2025
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Ed Miliband
It is a privilege to open this Budget debate on a theme of paramount importance to our country: the cost of living crisis facing Britain’s families. Whatever our party, we should take a step back and think about the history of the last two decades since the financial crisis, during which we have seen: the… stagnation of real wages, only this year getting back to their 2008 levels; the worst progress on living standards in the last Parliament since records began in the 1950s; an epidemic of in-work poverty such that, according to the Resolution Foundation, seven out of 10 families with children who live in poverty now have someone in work; home ownership falling from two thirds of young people in the early 1990s to less than half today; and the biggest rise in energy bills in generations earlier this decade when Russia invaded Ukraine, on top of public services facing strains as never before. Each of those on their own would cause people to doubt whether this country really works for them. Together, they represent a perfect storm that makes people question their basic assumptions about our economy, society and country. This is the condition-of-Britain question of our time, and it is the backdrop against which this Government were elected 17 months ago. The mission—the driving purpose of this Government and this Budget—is to tackle that crisis. That starts from an understanding that this crisis is due to not accidental circumstances but a governing ideology, and that our response must be to change course in three ways. First, we need to make fair choices that favour ordinary working people, not the rich and powerful, who have been favoured for too long. Secondly, we must invest in and rebuild our public services and infrastructure so that we never return to austerity, which was such a disaster for the social and economic fabric on which so many people rely. Thirdly, we must endeavour to change our economy so that it produces more good jobs at good wages that sustain a
Hansard · 1 Dec 2025 · parliament.uk
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Luke Evans
When it comes to making decisions about poverty, it is difficult, so I would be grateful to understand the Secretary of State decision to change the winter fuel payments, which the Government’s own analysis said put 100,000 people into relative poverty and 50,000 people immediately into absolute poverty. Those are deci…
AF
Ashley Fox
Will the Secretary of State give way?
WM
Wendy Morton
Will the Secretary of State give way?
WM
Wendy Morton
If the policy is so good, how will the Secretary of State explain to working people that they will be £18,000 worse off than those on benefits? How can that be fair?
HC
Harriet Cross
Will the Secretary of State give way?
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Ed Miliband
Well, the hon. Gentleman’s question is out of date, because, in case he had not noticed, we changed the policy on winter fuel payments. Let me just say this to him: he will have to answer to his constituents. Some 1,500 children in his constituency will be helped by our changes to the two-child cap, and he is saying, “…
EM
Ed Miliband
I will in a moment. On the one hand, 60% of these people are working—and the Conservatives do not really want to explain why they want to cut help for those people. But let us discuss the 40% of households that are not working and will be impacted. What we are seeing here—I am old enough to remember—is a re-run of the …
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that that is absurd, but it is not. The Conservatives believe in punishing children—
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Ed Miliband
I will give way in a moment—let me make my point. The Conservatives believe in punishing children for having another brother or sister. Children with only one sibling—two children in total—get the full amount, but if they have two siblings, they do not. How is that fair? How is that right? As the Chancellor said very p…
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Ed Miliband
This is all about working people, as I tried to explain earlier in my speech. Sixty per cent of people—[Interruption.] Please listen for a second. Sixty per cent of families who will benefit from the measure are in work. If the right hon. Lady wants to ask about the Chancellor’s wider Budget strategy, let me say that I…
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Ed Miliband
I will make a bit more progress. The second policy I wish to focus on is the Chancellor’s decision to take £150 off the cost of energy bills—that will be important for families across the country. It has been possible only thanks to a principled decision that she made to shift the cost of some levies into public spendi…
EM
Ed Miliband
I will in a moment—let me develop my argument. The Conservatives say that this was their idea in the first place, but there is a crucial difference: they proposed abolishing the renewables obligation—
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Ed Miliband
But they had with no way of paying for it. “Yes”, says the hon. Gentleman. This is quite extraordinary—all the sins of opposition combined into one. The Conservatives had 14 years to do it, but they never did, and suddenly it is such a great idea to just abolish the renewables obligation.
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Ed Miliband
“Yes”, says the hon. Gentleman—although, of course, he was an Energy Minister and he never did it. [Interruption.] He looks a bit sheepish now, doesn’t he? That is rare for him. Basically, I think the Conservatives’ argument is that they would just rip up all the contracts that the Government have signed—including lots…
EM
Ed Miliband
If we look at the average of bills in 2025 versus 2024, they are lower. I hope that the hon. Lady will support our cuts to energy bills in April, when they come in.
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Ed Miliband
Let me make a bit more progress. My second point is about public spending. In the spending review and the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made the crucial decision not to return to austerity. She could have made a different choice and cut public services—I think that is what Conservative Members would go ba…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman asks an important question; let me write to him with the detail on his point. We want as many people as possible across our country to benefit from this policy. By making different choices from those made in the past, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is able to invest in the long term. She is deli…
EM
Ed Miliband
The mandate that the British people voted for was a mandate to change this country, given the problems that we inherited from the last Government.
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Ed Miliband
Let me develop my argument, because this point is crucial: we can tackle the affordability crisis that people face only by investing in the future. Our vision of what makes an economy succeed is different from that of Conservative Members. We believe that public investment crowds in and does not crowd out private inves…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we recently announced the small modular reactor fleet at Wylfa in north Wales, we saw the huge opportunities, not just for the areas where nuclear power stations are being built, but rippling across the supply chain. That is why I am so proud of the investments that we have been…
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Ed Miliband
I will not, for a few minutes. The result is new jobs building wind turbines at Siemens Gamesa in Hull, new jobs making transformers in Stafford, new jobs making heat pumps in Derby, and new jobs at Sumitomo’s new factory at the Port of Nigg—some of the 400,000 additional clean energy jobs that we expect our mission to…
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Ed Miliband
Yes, the right hon. Lady says. The Conservatives are the people who lost it all in the fossil fuel casino, and now they say, “Let me just have one more go at the roulette wheel. This time it will be different. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.” Let us think about this. What are they betting on? In today’s world…
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Ed Miliband
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman. With Russia still at war in Ukraine, with deep tensions in the middle east, and with NATO being tested, this is ridiculous irresponsibility from the Conservatives. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) should listen to this. …
COP3025 Nov 2025
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Ed Miliband
With permission, I would like to make a statement about the COP30 climate summit. The climate crisis represents the greatest long-term threat we face as a world, but the transition also represents the greatest economic opportunity of our time. At home, we are driving for clean energy and climate action, because it is right for… energy security, lower bills, good jobs and growth for the British people, as well as for protecting future generations. We went to COP because, with the UK representing just 1% of annual global emissions, working with other countries to tackle the climate crisis is the only way to protect our home and way of life, and because there are huge investment and export opportunities for our country by accelerating the transition globally. More than 190 countries participated in this COP to build on the progress made over more than three decades of global co-operation, which has seen us move from a world heading for 4°C or more of warming to one where national commitments put us on course for around 2.3° to 2.5°; from a world where no major economy had a net zero target to one where 80% of global GDP is covered, thanks in no small part to the leadership of the UK at COP26 in Glasgow; and from a world where a majority of energy investment was in fossil fuels to one where twice as much is invested in clean energy. The energy transition is happening, the world is moving and multilateralism is working. The forces around the world—including here in Britain—who want to deny that the climate crisis exists, or to delay the action we need to address it, are losing. But at the same time, we were conscious in Belém of the further progress that needs to be made. Our Brazilian hosts were determined to make this an “implementation COP”, and the negotiations served as a focal point for action. This was the first COP to be held in the Amazon, and therefore a significant focus was on protecting forests. The UK was proud to work with Brazil to help it develop the pion
Hansard · 25 Nov 2025 · parliament.uk
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Judith Cummins
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Claire Coutinho
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Let us be clear: when this Secretary of State resumed office, he decided to impose the most punishing climate policies at home, because according to his argument, if we lead, others will follow. That is why we are the only country in the world to be shu…
JC
James Cartlidge
Because Putin invaded Ukraine!
JC
Judith Cummins
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
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Bill Esterson
My right hon. Friend rightly reminded us of the progress that was made at COP. The recommitment to limiting global warming to no more than 1.5° is hugely important. He was honest in saying that we did not get everything we wanted, and that is sensible. However, he also reminded us of the absolute seriousness of climate…
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Ed Miliband
Oh dear, oh dear! I remember a time when the Conservative party was serious about the COP negotiations. The shadow Secretary of State had advance sight of the statement, but she did not ask any questions about it. I have to say that there is a fundamental issue here: do we engage internationally on how we drive forward…
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Ed Miliband
Oh! The hon. Member says it was because Putin invaded Ukraine—excellent, excellent! I congratulate him on his sedentary intervention—exactly, exactly! Why did prices go through the roof and why were we so exposed? Because of our exposure to fossil fuels. And what do the Conservatives want to do? Double down on our expo…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The reason we have seen a movement of support for the transition away from fossil fuels is not simply climate-related, but energy security-related. Lots of countries, including Britain, recognise—unwittingly helpfully, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) sa…
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Ed Miliband
I agreed with much—not all—of what the hon. Lady said. On her overall point about the fact that we have so many countries driving forward with action, she is absolutely right. On her point about the gap to achieving 1.5°C, she is also absolutely right. In a sense, part of what the future of these COPs will be about is …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is entirely right about that. With the UK at 1% of global emissions, as I said in my statement, engaging with the world is incredibly important. There is huge respect for Britain on these issues. I give credit to some of the actions taken under the previous Government by Lord Sharma and Theresa May, beca…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and I am very happy to expand on what I said in my statement. We have worked—under the previous Government and under this Government, particularly in the last year—with the Brazilian Government on the design of the TFFF. Work was moved forward because a number of countries pl…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome the fact—I should have done so earlier—that my hon. Friend and other Members from all parties were at COP30. British Government representation is important, but so is British parliamentary representation and the more cross-party it is, as far as I am concerned, the better. My hon. Friend’s point about the NDC…
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Ed Miliband
I have had this exchange with the hon. Gentleman before—he is too pessimistic. If we had taken that approach before, we would be heading for 4°C or 5°C of global warming. Yes, it is true that the central scenario is somewhere between 2.3°C and 2.5°C depending on which figures one looks at, but the whole point is to bri…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks incredibly well about this issue, and it is worth pausing and recognising what she has said. Since I have been involved in this issue, all the way back to David Cameron—I call him my nemesis—there has been a competition in this House for climate ambition. That was good, and it was recognised acros…
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Ed Miliband
We are making big investments in farming and agriculture. In answering the hon. Lady’s question, I will take the opportunity to pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh) , and the Under-Secretary of State for Energ…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend reminds me how old I am, for which I am grateful! At various points in the middle of the night, Friday into Saturday, I could not help feeling a slight sense of Copenhagen post-traumatic stress disorder as I thought we were heading for no agreement. One of the things I consoled myself with was that the w…
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Ed Miliband
I definitely disagree with the last part of the right hon. Lady’s question, because net zero is actually the greatest economic opportunity that we have, which is why we are going to create 400,000 new clean energy jobs by 2030. On the first part of her question, which is really important, let me answer her directly: I …
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Ed Miliband
I agree 100%. For all that the Opposition say, according to the Confederation of British Industry the net zero economy is growing three times faster than the economy as a whole. There is a reason why China, India and all those other countries are driving into clean energy: they see it as a massive economic opportunity.…
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Ed Miliband
That is an absolutely fair question; it is one I ask myself a lot. Are we doing everything we can despite the global pressures and how difficult it is? I will tell the House this: as it looked like we were going to end up with no deal, I thought a lot about what signal that would send. At the same time, though, we want…
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Ed Miliband
First, I thank my hon. Friend, who is the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) , the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, for the really outstanding job they do. I think the observations from my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfie…
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Ed Miliband
I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman and his work under the previous Government on a whole range of development and climate issues, and I thank him for his question. I think my view of COP is a bit like the Churchill view of democracy: it is the least-worst system we have. For all the complaints and all the…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend draws attention to something that is relatively obscure in the big scheme of things that we talk about in this House, but which is incredibly important none the less. Article 6 on carbon markets was agreed last year after, I think, a decade of effort. I want to pay tribute, by the way, to Rachel Kyte, ou…
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Ed Miliband
First, I thank the hon. Lady for her advocacy on these issues now and over a very long period, which is widely recognised. On CCS and SAF, I think we will have to agree to disagree, based on all the evidence I have seen. For the real nerds present, among which I obviously count myself, I strongly recommend the IEA’s “W…
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Ed Miliband
I am not going to comment on planning decisions. I will, however, make the overall point that this Government had two manifesto commitments: to keep existing oil and gas fields in the North sea open for their lifetime, and not to issue new licences to explore new fields. Those were important commitments. They are how w…
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Member did not miss it. Broadly, we are supporters of green hydrogen and many other things he mentions. Our issue is to do with whether the quadrupling of biofuels can be done in a sustainable way. We think that work now needs to be done to ensure that there are proper guardrails around this issue. The b…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend has enormous expertise on these issues, which he showed with his question. BOGA, as it is known, has played a really important role in assembling this coalition of more than 80 countries over the global north and global south. Indeed, I was proud to be part of an event and this precedent we set with the …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend made a very important point with her opening remarks, which I will let Members absorb. On her specific questions, we have a very important carbon budget monitoring system within Government. It is important to say that at the same time as the Conservatives are saying that they want to rip up the Act that …
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Ed Miliband
On the second point, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) . On the first point, I think she is being a little unfair, to put it mildly, on the UK. We led the process of agreeing last year an ambitious NCQG on overall finance. We were part of an agreement …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a good and important question about keeping climate change on the agenda all year round. This is partly about international negotiations, but it is as much about the work that we do at home. Whether announcing new SMRs in north Wales, showing the jobs that come from tackling the climate crisis or pu…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her support for the SMR fleet in north Wales; the announcement that we made was a really important one. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, who is not in the Chamber, is very much involved with the Marine Energy Council. We have been proud in previous auctions to support tidal energy, whic…
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Ed Miliband
That would be telling. Those are the discussions that we need to have with colleagues across government, including in the Treasury, as we look at the ICF programme and others in the future. But I do want to reassure my hon. Friend. We are proud to have worked on the TFFF over all the time of this Government, and indeed…
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Ed Miliband
I could not disagree more with the hon. Lady. Honestly, this is a really important point: either we engage in international action on the global stage or we do not. We are 1% of global emissions, and unless we engage with the countries that produce the other 99% of global emissions, we will never keep our country safe.…
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Ed Miliband
I will be brief. My hon. Friend raises the issue of the banks. I encourage her to contribute to our consultation on transition plans for financial institutions and large companies, because that is an important part of making sure that the investments being made are aligned with net zero and the wider argument on tackli…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady should tell her constituents that we played a big role in helping to devise the TFFF, that we have absolutely not ruled out contributing to it in the future and that we are determined that the fund succeeds. As I have said, we will obviously keep the question of a UK contribution under review.
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Ed Miliband
On that question, I refer to the answer I gave a few minutes ago. My hon. Friend made a really important wider point. All hon. Members should ask this: when people look back in 10 or 20 years, will they say, “Why were they going on about that climate change business? That all turned out to be a passing fad.” I do not t…
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Ed Miliband
I just do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman—he and I have been having this disagreement for 20 years. I will concentrate on his first question. The truth is—I say this to him in all honesty—if we disengage from the world, it will not serve Britain’s interests; it will harm our interests. When we think about all t…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, and I will concentrate on the first bit of her question. This is very much about the just transition. Seventy thousand jobs were lost in the North sea under the last Government and they did not put in place the alternatives. That is why our investments in carbon capture an…
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Ed Miliband
That is a good point to end on. I congratulate the students at Ashlawn school for their interest. With the greatest of respect to all Members of this House, the young people at that school will have to live with the consequences of the decisions we make for much longer than us. I intend to live for a long time; neverth…
Net Zero: Evidence-based Policy14 Oct 2025
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Ed Miliband
This Government’s approach is founded on the bedrock of the best scientific evidence, which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says that net zero by 2050 is essential to limiting global warming to 1.5°. That is why we supported Baroness May’s decision to put net zero by 2050 into law; that was based… on advice from the Climate Change Committee. That decision was right for the climate, for energy security, and for the jobs and growth that it can bring to our country.
Hansard · 14 Oct 2025 · parliament.uk
MF
Mary Foy
What steps he is taking to ensure scientific evidence is used to support his net zero policies.
MF
Mary Foy
This Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower is not only delivering against climate targets, but delivering jobs and investment in places like Durham and the wider north-east, where around 500 renewable energy companies already employ around 17,000 people in good-quality jobs—a figure that is set…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
Order. I think the Secretary of State has got it.
LA
Lee Anderson
May I gently remind the Energy Secretary that it is his job to answer questions from MPs on behalf of their constituents? I will ask the same question that I asked him last time: if the UK became net zero tomorrow, by how much would it reduce the Earth’s temperature?
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Unfortunately, the Climate Change Act 2008 is now an issue that divides this House. I think Rain Newton-Smith, the director general of the CBI, put it very well recently when she said, “The Climate Act has been the bedrock for investment flowing into the UK.” Ripping up the framework…
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Ed Miliband
I will give the hon. Gentleman the answer I gave him last time. Action by the UK makes a difference here. Of course, we are 1% of global emissions, but our action means that other countries act. Where is the evidence for that? Well, it actually happened. When the Climate Change Act passed, 60 other countries passed the…
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Ed Miliband
The Chair of the Select Committee speaks very wisely on this matter. The net zero economy grew three times faster than the economy as a whole last year. This is the growth opportunity of the 21st century. Now, we could let China or India take that opportunity, but I say that we need that opportunity for Britain.
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Ed Miliband
No, and British business roundly condemned the Conservatives when they came out with that argument. The hon. Gentleman should have a word with the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) , sitting on the Front Bench, who said just in March last year—life comes at you fast, Mr Speaker—that Britain was the “p…
Great British Energy: Public Sector Renewable Energy Use14 Oct 2025
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Ed Miliband
Earlier this month, Great British Energy jointly funded 46 new community energy projects in Scotland, including an island solar farm, a community ice rink and a small community wind farm. Great British Energy is also helping public services in England with their energy bills through its solar for all programme, which benefits schools and hospitals.… In this way, GBE is transferring money from the pockets of energy companies to local communities and frontline services.
Hansard · 14 Oct 2025 · parliament.uk
KM
Katrina Murray
What steps Great British Energy is taking to help public services use more renewable energy.
JC
Jacob Collier
What steps Great British Energy is taking to help public services use more renewable energy.
RH
Rachel Hopkins
What steps Great British Energy is taking to help public services use more renewable energy.
KM
Katrina Murray
Many leisure centres, such as the Tryst in Cumbernauld, which was built and opened in 1973, are desperate to decarbonise, but face huge costs and the practical challenge of retrofitting renewable technologies into older buildings. Will my right hon. Friend set out how Great British Energy will support vital community f…
JC
Jacob Collier
Thanks to Great British Energy and this Government, Queen’s hospital in Burton will get solar panels, which will save the trust money that can be ploughed directly into the frontline and be spent on patients. Does the Secretary of State agree that there is significant opportunity to expand that programme to other publi…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks very well about these issues. GB Energy is already taking advantage of the huge potential of clean energy, and hundreds of schools, hospitals and NHS sites across the country are already benefiting. The statement of strategic priorities made it clear that GBE will work collaboratively and in partn…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right, and I hope that the massive expansion to schools and hospitals that we have already ensured in 15 months is welcomed across the House.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman says that we did not need GB Energy to do that, but the Conservatives never did it—not in 14 years. It is precisely through a publicly owned energy company that we are doing this, to the benefit of citizens across our country. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Col…
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Ed Miliband
This is really important. Public institutions face significantly high energy bills because of the legacy of the last Government. GBE, with its programme, is cutting those bills. That is a transfer of resources from energy bills to frontline public services. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew …
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Ed Miliband
The Energy Minister says that he went on a profile-raising visit to the programme two weeks ago, so many more people now know about it, thanks to that. Indeed, even more—thousands, millions—will know about it as a result of watching this question time. The hon. Lady makes an important point about how GB Energy can roll…
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Ed Miliband
I have to say that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about the work that GB Energy is doing. When I talk to industry representatives, they say that GB Energy now plays a crucial role. There is investment coming into the supply chain—a supply chain fund of £1 billion, thanks to the spending review, which the Conser…
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being a school governor and on the work the school is doing. We can talk about the tangible benefits, but the wider point is that young people want us to act on these issues, and that is part of having an education system that teaches them about the benefits of moving towards clean …
Tackling Climate Change: International Co-operation14 Oct 2025
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Ed Miliband
In the best traditions of the UK, we see it as our duty to work with other countries to tackle the climate crisis and protect future generations. It was British leadership that saw the Climate Change Act 2008 emulated in 60 countries across the world, and it was the leadership of the UK at COP26… that now sees 80% of global GDP covered by net zero. We will maintain that tradition of leadership into COP30 in Brazil and beyond.
Hansard · 14 Oct 2025 · parliament.uk
TH
Tom Hayes
What steps he is taking to increase co-operation with other countries to tackle climate change.
WJ
Warinder Juss
What discussions he has had with his international counterparts on tackling climate change.
TH
Tom Hayes
The Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the earth, but it is gasping for breath. I am pleased that COP30 will be in the heart of the Amazon. Ella, a school student from my constituency, would like to know what steps the Government will be taking to stop deforestation and back nature-based solutions. On behalf of Ella, ma…
WJ
Warinder Juss
Young people in my constituency of Wolverhampton West are particularly concerned about protecting the environment and the future of our planet. I have been contacted by students at Wolverhampton girls’ high school and St Edmund’s Catholic academy, and recently I was proud to attend a climate justice art exhibition prep…
SD
Sarah Dyke
COP30 begins next month in Brazil. The UK must play a leading role on the world stage to tackle climate change. At home, however, Somerset council is hampered in its attempts to achieve net zero by an escalating financial crisis following the maladministration of its previous Conservative administration. What steps wil…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and Ella for her interest in and enthusiasm for this incredibly important issue. Deforestation is a terrible thing for the planet, but it is also terrible for the people who are affected—the indigenous people who live in the forest. Nature-based solutions and solutions that put …
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Ed Miliband
Plastic waste is something that my colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs work on. I think my hon. Friend’s wider point is important. There is a global context to this—and sometimes that context might not actually be as it appears—which is that, when we look across the world, we see that c…
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Ed Miliband
Part of what we are doing is devolving more of the funding around warm homes, for example, so that local authorities can play a leading role. I congratulate local authorities on the interest that they are taking in this. The hon. Lady raises the wider picture of COP30, which is important—this is a crucial moment. The U…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question. Part of the answer here is that the economics have changed, so getting private finance into developing countries can make a massive difference. The “Baku to Belém road map” is being produced as part of the COP process—it is a $1.3 trillion road map—and most of that is about priv…
Topical Questions14 Oct 2025
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Ed Miliband
Since the last oral questions in July, we have reached a final investment decision for Sizewell C, creating 10,000 jobs, and surpassed the historic milestone of approving enough clean power for 7.5 million homes after just 15 months of this Government. From next month, nearly 6 million families will receive £150 off their energy bills… through the warm home discount. That is what it means to deliver on our clean power mission.
Hansard · 14 Oct 2025 · parliament.uk
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Lorraine Beavers
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
LB
Lorraine Beavers
The National Energy System Operator is currently assessing whether tidal range technology can help us meet our clean power mission. In Fleetwood, we have a huge opportunity for a tidal range project, which could bring desperately needed jobs and investment. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that opportunity and the …
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
The carbon tax on electricity pushes up the cost of gas, wind, solar and nuclear in this country. It does not need to be there—the Secretary of State could axe the carbon tax tomorrow to instantly cut bills for every single family in this country. Why will he not?
CC
Claire Coutinho
The Secretary of State is trying to conflate two emissions trading schemes. He does not want to talk about the carbon tax on electricity, because he has increased it by 70% since the start of the year, pushing up everybody’s bills in the process. He is making electricity more expensive at the same time as taxing, banni…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises the important issue of tidal energy. I am very aware of the assessment that NESO is conducting—obviously, our Department is working with it on that assessment. The Minister for Energy chairs the marine energy taskforce, and is happy to meet my hon. Friend.
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Ed Miliband
I am afraid that the right hon. Lady’s question is economically illiterate, and that is putting it politely. The EU emissions trading scheme and the carbon border adjustment mechanism mean that exporters will pay the carbon price in any case. Quite extraordinarily, her policy means that they would pay it to the EU, not…
EM
Ed Miliband
Dear, oh dear. I will be honest: I think it is sad what has happened to the right hon. Lady. When she was in government for a time, she was the great eco-champion. At COP26, she was telling people, “Follow Claire’s lead—be a great eco-champion.” Now, she has suddenly discovered that she is the anti-net zero warrior. Al…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, and not only about what the mayor has done and the effects it has had on the health of Londoners. There is a wider point here, which is too often overlooked, about what the shift to renewables and away from fossil fuels can do to help save lives and tackle air pollution.
EM
Ed Miliband
I will give the answer that was also given by the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Katie White) , which is that the Prime Minister’s diary is above my pay grade. We will be playing a very active part at COP30. The wider point that the hon. Lady m…
EM
Ed Miliband
Yes, I will. My hon. Friend makes an important point about the role of trade unions in the renewable industry, too.
EM
Ed Miliband
There is a two-decade disagreement between the right hon. Gentleman and me on these issues. The biggest threat to the countryside is the climate crisis. That is why this Government are tackling it.
Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs15 Jul 2025
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Ed Miliband
The industrial strategy published last month set out our plans to build clean energy supply chains in the UK, including a new £1 billion fund through Great British Energy to partner with the private sector to create jobs in Britain and the new clean industry bonus, which has the potential to unleash billions of pounds… of private investment in offshore wind supply chains. We are determined that the clean energy future will be made in Britain.
Hansard · 15 Jul 2025 · parliament.uk
MG
Mary Glindon
What steps he has taken with Cabinet colleagues to help increase the number of jobs in supply chains in green industries.
MG
Mary Glindon
The power cables over the Tyne are a barrier to businesses securing work for large renewable energy structures, risking possible net GVA benefits of up to £1.2 billion. It has been proposed that the removal of the cables will be completed in 2032. Will the Secretary of State help me push for it to be brought forward so…
WH
Wera Hobhouse
Despite the growing need for green jobs—obviously, we are all in favour of making sure we have green jobs—fewer than one in 10 employees receive any dedicated green skills training, according to an OVO Energy survey. What can we do to support businesses, and what can the Government do to accelerate that important train…
MT
Marie Tidball
As people fly off for their summer holidays, the chances are that the steel in the aeroplane’s engine comes from the Stocksbridge Speciality Steels plant in my constituency. I am hopeful about the news that Liberty Steel, which owns the site, has attracted potential investors for this asset. The asset is essential for …
GL
Graham Leadbitter
The workers of Grangemouth deserved far better than they got from the Labour Government. To add insult to injury, they have had to watch them pull out all the stops for Scunthorpe and Prax Lindsey. In a written answer to me, the Energy Minister refused to confirm how much money the UK Government had spent to continue o…
EM
Ed Miliband
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on being such a brilliant champion of the port of Tyne and what it offers, and she is right to draw attention to this important issue. Approval of any works to reroute the line is a matter for Ofgem, but we stand ready to engage with her and, indeed, Ofgem to try to bring this forwa…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Later this year, we will publish a clean energy skills plan to address precisely this question: how do we make sure we equip workers with the skills they need to take advantage of those jobs? That is being led by my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary in the work she is do…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important issue about her constituency and the steel industry, and I would say two things. One is that what this Government have done, which I am afraid was not done previously, is set up a dedicated fund for steel so that we are able to make the green transition. We talked about this in opposi…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is so wide of the mark it is unbelievable. The Grangemouth closure was foreshadowed before this Government came to power. We have worked hand in glove with his colleagues in the Scottish Government—all the way along, Gillian Martin and I have been working on it—and for him to try to make party politi…
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Ed Miliband
First of all, Mr Speaker, let me congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his promotion to shadow Secretary of State. [Laughter.] On the specific issue he raises, we will take no lectures from the Conservatives. Some 70,000 jobs were lost in the North sea on their watch. And here is the difference: we are building the future…
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Ed Miliband
Here is the difference between them and us. They would keep us hooked on fossil fuels for time immemorial. They have learned not a single lesson from the disaster they inflicted on this country: family finances ruined; business finances ruined; public finances ruined. A year on, there is not a word of apology.
Clean Power: Jobs15 Jul 2025
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Ed Miliband
Since coming to office, the Government have shown how clean power can create jobs across our country, with thousands of jobs in nuclear, through our investments in Sizewell C and small modular reactors; in carbon capture and storage; in offshore wind; and in home heating through our warm homes plan. This is what it means… to deliver reindustrialisation through our clean energy sprint.
Hansard · 15 Jul 2025 · parliament.uk
EF
Emma Foody
What estimate he has made of the number of additional jobs that have been created in clean power industries in the north-east since July 2024.
NL
Noah Law
What estimate he has made of the number of additional jobs that have been created in clean power industries since July 2024.
CV
Christopher Vince
What estimate he has made of the number of additional jobs that have been created in clean power industries since July 2024.
KM
Katrina Murray
What estimate he has made of the number of additional jobs that have been created in clean power industries since July 2024.
EF
Emma Foody
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The north-east is uniquely placed to be the home of the green energy revolution, with the expansion of the Energy Academy in north Tyneside providing a skills pipeline. How will the clean energy industries sector plan help to provide long-term certainty for investment and…
EM
Ed Miliband
I see the north-east as an absolute powerhouse for the clean energy jobs we want to create. Early on in this Government, we did something which again had been talked about for years by the Conservative party in delivering the east coast carbon capture, usage and storage cluster, which is projected to create thousands o…
EM
Ed Miliband
Let me first say how much I love Cornwall. I love Cornwall for many reasons, but one reason I love it is the opportunity it offers to drive the jobs of the future. I know from my visit that, whether it is through critical minerals, geothermal or offshore wind, there are huge opportunities in Cornwall. That is what the …
EM
Ed Miliband
I love Harlow, Mr Speaker, and I love Harlow college. The visits I have made to the college have been incredibly inspiring; I have seen with my own eyes the enthusiastic young people there and spoken to them about green skills and the jobs of the future. When I think about what this Government intend to deliver, it is …
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Ed Miliband
I love Cumbernauld, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend raises the important opportunities in heat pump technology. The growth in heat pumps that we are seeing is not just about a better deal for consumers, but about the manufacturing that we can see. My hon. Friend has given a great example of that.
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Ed Miliband
This is an important issue that we need to take seriously. At the moment, it comes under the health and safety regime, but we are consulting on the best arrangements to ensure that we have the highest standards of safety. There are high safety standards in place, but as we see the growth of batteries, we will endeavour…
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Ed Miliband
I warmly congratulate Steve Willis Training on its 25 years in operation and on the work it is doing. The hon. Lady makes an important point: we can help to create jobs in the private sector, but the question then is whether people will have the skills to fill them. Organisations and companies like Steve Willis Trainin…
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Ed Miliband
The answer is that we are not. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the reality is that the North sea has been a basin in decline and that 70,000 jobs were lost under the previous Government. The question is: do we create the jobs of the future as well as maintaining existing fields for their lifetime? This Government ar…
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Ed Miliband
GB Energy will create thousands of jobs across the country, including in Aberdeen. Here is why GB Energy really matters: we have chosen to put its headquarters in Aberdeen, as we recognise that Aberdeen is the clean energy capital of our country—not just for oil and gas, which is important, but for the future. SNP Memb…
Since the election last year, we have secured over £50 billion of investment into the UK’s clean energy industries. Last year’s renewables auction for allocation round 6 was the most successful in our history, and we will shortly open the AR7 auction. This is the way to deliver energy security, lower bills and good jobs… for our communities.
Hansard · 15 Jul 2025 · parliament.uk
JB
Jessica Brown-Fuller
What assessment he has made of the adequacy of mechanisms to encourage private sector investment in renewable energy sources.
JB
Jessica Brown-Fuller
Private sector investment via community energy schemes is a popular way of engaging people to get behind renewable energy projects in their area. A great example is Meadow Blue Community Energy in my constituency of Chichester, which puts money back into the community with a grant scheme and is now funding solar panels…
TC
Torcuil Crichton
I must declare an interest as a crofting tenant of Knock and Swordale common grazing, as good a definition of a community as you can ever get, but Knock and Swordale, along with several other community power schemes in my constituency, cannot get grid connections except through active network management connections, wh…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an important issue, which was also raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) . She is right about the virtues of community energy. Great British Energy is going to partner with local communities to deliver community energy up and down the country, be…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend, who I have talked to on a number of occasions about these wider issues, raises a really important point. I was just talking to the Energy Minister about it. Let me take away my hon. Friend’s point about access. We are committed to driving forward community energy, and we will talk to NESO and Ofgem to g…
Topical Questions15 Jul 2025
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Ed Miliband
Since the last oral question time for the Department, the spending review announced the largest investment in clean energy in our country’s history—investment in new nuclear; in carbon, capture and storage; and in hydrogen transport and storage. We are investing £8.3 billion through Great British Energy and £13.2 billion in our warm homes plan for… energy security, lower bills and good jobs.
Hansard · 15 Jul 2025 · parliament.uk
GS
Graham Stuart
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
GS
Graham Stuart
Evidence from the National Grid, Ofgem and Imperial College London shows that locational or zonal pricing would save billions of pounds a year, lower bills and reduce the need for expensive and often unpopular grid infrastructure. Why has the Secretary of State ruled it out?
BG
Ben Goldsborough
In the fight for energy security, every area of our country must play its part, but that means energy infrastructure projects should be distributed evenly. What is the Department doing to ensure that no community will be asked to do more than its fair share?
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
Yesterday, the Secretary of State said I was hiding when I was, in fact, with my six-month-old baby, who I know he is aware of. On behalf of all young mums who face those kinds of comments in their first few weeks back at work, may I gently suggest he reflects on those remarks? I want to ask the Secretary of State a ve…
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Ed Miliband
I made a comprehensive statement to the House on this last Thursday, and the grounds for the decision are these: first, there is the question of fairness, and secondly, there is the question of the cost of the transition and what would happen in the meantime. We need investment in our clean energy infrastructure, and w…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the strategic spatial energy plan will set out where we need our energy infrastructure, so that we can have a planned system that matches power needs and infrastructure at least cost to bill payers and taxpayers.
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Ed Miliband
On the first point, I completely respect the right hon. Lady’s decision to be with her young baby, and there was no offence intended. I think it is very important that we understand the needs of new parents and, indeed, parents across the country. On the question she asked, I do not know what she is getting at, frankly…
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Ed Miliband
I am going to be radically honest and tell the right hon. Lady the truth: she is gambling on fossil fuels—the same thing she did that led us to the worst cost of living crisis in our country’s history, with family finances, businesses’ finances and public finances wrecked. The only way to bring down bills for good is t…
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Ed Miliband
GB Energy will prioritise a whole range of projects, and that is a matter for GB Energy, as a publicly owned energy company at arm’s length from Government, but there are huge opportunities right across our country, whether in floating wind, tidal, hydrogen or offshore wind and supply chains. GB Energy is owned by the …
EM
Ed Miliband
There is no monopoly on good ideas, and the hon. Lady raises the important issue of how we adapt as a country to the climate crisis. We know we have a lot more to do, and we will listen to all good ideas.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises a great example, and I will take a risk and say yes, I will come to Stourbridge. I love Stourbridge, and I look forward to seeing that project.
EM
Ed Miliband
The most significant thing about the OBR report is that it says there is an 8% threat to our GDP by 2070 in a 3°C world, and a 56% rise in the debt to GDP ratio if we do not act on climate change. That is the most important thing from that report, which I recommend all hon. Members read over the summer.
EM
Ed Miliband
That sounds incredibly exciting, and I look forward to finding out more.
EM
Ed Miliband
It sounds like I am being educated about floating solar. I am happy to share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for it; if he has proposals about how we can take it forward, I am all ears.
State of Climate and Nature14 Jul 2025
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Ed Miliband
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the climate and nature crisis. On the day that the Met Office publishes its “State of the UK Climate” report for 2024, the Environment Secretary and I want to share with the British people what we know about the scale of the crisis… and explain the actions that we are taking in response. We intend this to become an annual statement to Parliament. Let me start by setting out what we know from the science. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the past decade has seen the 10 warmest years on record globally. It says that long-term global warming, assessed by a range of methods, is estimated to be between 1.34°C and 1.41°C above pre-industrial levels, and last year was the first time we saw an individual year above 1.5°C. Today’s Met Office report shows that, in line with what is happening globally, the UK’s climate is getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme events. The central England temperature series shows that recent warmth has far exceeded any temperatures observed in at least 300 years. Over the past 50 years, the number of days above 28°C has doubled, and the number of days above 30°C has trebled. This spring was the UK’s warmest on record, beating the record broken last year. Meanwhile, warming oceans and melting ice sheets have contributed to sea levels around the UK rising by 13.4 cm over the past three decades, and this is accelerating. The science is unequivocal about why this is happening. As the Met Office said this morning: “This…is not a natural variation in our climate…human emissions of greenhouse gasses are warming the atmosphere and changing the weather we experience”. We know that climate change and nature loss are fundamentally linked and contribute to each other. Globally, we are losing species at a much faster rate than at any other time in human history. Here in Britain, a quarter of our mammals and nearly half of our bird species are currently at risk of ext
Hansard · 14 Jul 2025 · parliament.uk
AB
Andrew Bowie
It is a rare pleasure to see the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box today, given that he turned down the opportunity to defend his plan for clean power by 2030 or the report from the National Energy System Operator that was published earlier in the year. Perhaps that is why we are being given a slightly longer stat…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
Order. We need to be careful about what we say. I think that the hon. Gentleman has suggested that the Secretary of State was not honest, and I think we are all honest Members here.
AB
Andrew Bowie
I completely agree, Mr Speaker, and I apologise if I insinuated the opposite in any way. The UK accounts for less than 1% of global emissions. That is also the truth. In fact, now that I come to think of it, it is rather shameful that the Secretary of State should be using this report from the Met Office as cover, whil…
CD
Carla Denyer
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
AB
Andrew Bowie
Members do not give way when making or responding to a statement. We are proud to have been a world leader, but it is not a race if no one else is running. If we are leading the way, we need to make sure that it is a path that others will follow. We must decarbonise in a way that creates energy security and prosperity,…
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Ed Miliband
I will be honest, Mr Speaker: I just feel incredibly sad when I listen to the hon. Gentleman—and not in a good way. The trouble is that we are now in a situation in which the shadow Secretary of State goes into hiding when there is a statement about the climate crisis, because it is just too embarrassing to try to arti…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it very well. As I have experienced over the last 20 years, we have not had a culture war on climate, because the Conservative party and the Labour party chose to say that this really matters. The Conservative party has apparently abandoned its belief in climate action at precisely the time, as the …
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Ed Miliband
Let me start off in the spirit of continued generosity by reiterating my praise for the hon. Lady for bringing forward the Bill, and for the Zero Hour campaigners whom I met in a previous incarnation of mine. Their role over a long period, in pushing forward the Bill, has been important. I am very happy to meet her and…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great authority and conviction on these subjects, and she is absolutely right about the role of nature. I add—and I will come on to her question in a second—that the biggest threat to nature that we face is the climate crisis. The figures I read out from scientific authorities show the scale …
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman asks a good question. Let me give him three examples from those five. India has a target of 500 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, and a target of reaching net zero by 2070. China has nearly half the world’s renewable capacity, is committing to peaking its emissions by 2030, and has a target to …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend, who speaks with such expertise on these matters, is 100% right. The biggest enemy of investment is uncertainty. That is why I appeal to all parties to stick to what we have legislated for in this country, in order to give that certainty.
EM
Ed Miliband
What I will say to the people of Scotland is that the Acorn carbon capture and storage project has been talked about for years, and it is happening because of a Labour Government. We have a publicly owned energy company, Great British Energy, and we have our clean industry bonus. This is a Government who are actually d…
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Ed Miliband
That bit was great, though. My hon. Friend is so right: that is not where the British people are on this issue. The British people want action on climate, not a culture war. Frankly, wherever they live in the country, people want to pass on a liveable country to their kids and grandkids.
EM
Ed Miliband
We have to get our use of imported gas down, and that is why we have to build clean energy infrastructure. This is what the Conservatives just do not seem to understand. If they go around the country opposing our clean energy infrastructure, it keeps us stuck on fossil fuels for longer—and look where that took us: to t…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks about an important issue, and I am deeply concerned for those workers and their families. There are serious questions to answer about the running of that company, and how it ended up in this state. On the day that the insolvency happened, I wrote to the Insolvency Service to ask it to look into th…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman speaks with great expertise on these matters, partly because of his constituency. He is right about the threat to farmers’ livelihoods from the climate crisis, which I talked about in my statement, and the need for food security, which my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary takes incredibly s…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important issue about the role of the City of London. There is also its potentially positive role. We are consulting on a mandatory transition plan for large companies and financial institutions, including in the City of London, precisely so that we can make sure that investment goes to the rig…
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Ed Miliband
On that last bit, that is very much part of our mission to tackle net zero. The first part of the hon. Member’s question was very important. We hear what some folks say in the House, but we see what is happening all around us. It is not like we are gazing into a crystal ball, because some boffins have told us that some…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks about an important subject. We are dealing with the grid zombies and the zombie queue. The reordering of the queue is designed to open it up to projects like those she talked about. The energy Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rut…
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Ed Miliband
All those details are set out in the Climate Change Committee report. The right hon. Member can look for herself. [Interruption.] They are set out in carbon budget 7. Actually, the cost of getting to net zero has been coming down. When I set the 80% target, the cost of getting there, according to the committee, was hig…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we take this journey, we must ensure that we do everything we can to protect existing industries and workers and give them a smooth transition. We do that by ensuring that we have levers that the Government can use, such as Great British Energy, the national wealth fund and our cl…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Member asked a complex question, so I might volunteer my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to write to him on that, so that we get it right. I know—because he was whispering the answer to me—that he takes this seriously.
EM
Ed Miliband
Following the successful roll-out to schools and hospitals, we have had a lot of requests to expand the scheme and I am very enthusiastic about doing so. It is something we are looking at.
EM
Ed Miliband
I have read the report, and the bit that the hon. Gentleman did not mention is where it says that if we end up in a 3°C world, we will add 56% of GDP to net debt. That is the cost of inaction. This is the point. Nick Stern—Lord Stern—produced a report in the 2000s which said that the costs of inaction were greater than…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is a great champion for Hexham and it is with great pleasure that I recognise the role of those groups. He and I have talked on a number of occasions about the importance of climate action to so many of his constituents, and I look forward to working with him on these issues in the months ahead.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great expertise and passion on these issues, and she is absolutely right. This is about what we do to engage with other countries. We had an environment dialogue with the Chinese Minister a couple of weeks ago in London. I engage with China, India and Brazil, all of which are absolutely key; …
EM
Ed Miliband
I warmly thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and his sponsorship of the Climate and Nature Bill. He is the voice of good sense—I hope that is not the kiss of death—on the Conservative Benches. He raises an important issue about pensions and pension investments, and it is one that I will take up.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is completely right, and it is a scheme that we want to expand. It has been incredibly successful, and it is a no-brainer—using the natural resources of the sun to cut energy bills and release money for frontline services.
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Ed Miliband
The answer, which the hon. Member just does not want to accept, is this—[Interruption.] If he just listens, the answer is this: I believe in British leadership and in Britain’s ability to make a difference. The truth is, as I said in my statement, that when we passed the Climate Change Act 2008, 60 countries followed. …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The infrastructure we inherited was in a shocking state, and there was a failure to build grid infrastructure. The best thing we can do is accelerate building that grid infrastructure. If we can do that, we can reduce those constraint payments, and I look forward to support from all …
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Ed Miliband
Yes. I can tell the hon. Member that we have never had a Chancellor of the Exchequer so committed to these issues because we had the biggest investment in clean, home-grown energy in our history in the recent spending review.
EM
Ed Miliband
We are just advocating common sense. Why not use our natural resources to have warmer homes and cut emissions? I think that Reform Members are the extremists, frankly.
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I have been arguing about these issues for about 20 years, so I think that I am unlikely to persuade him. We usually have good-natured discussions about this, but on the idea that this is scaremongering, we can see with our own eyes what is happening, as the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is very kind. To be frank with him, when I met a group of young people earlier today, I felt a sense of responsibility, because no country is yet doing enough on these issues and we need to do more. They are fearful about the world that they will inherit and look to the Government to show leadership. The…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an important issue. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has commissioned a review of the whole system of regulation of the water companies. I think I am right in saying that a new reservoir has not been built in Britain for 30 years, but we have plans…
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend’s school on what it is doing and on its green flag status, which is really important. It shows that local action can really make a difference. Globally, I can give him the assurance that he seeks. What is so important—I say this to Members across the House—is that people look to Britain an…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an issue that I believe is essentially about devolved funding, but the wider issue she raises about the costs facing farmers is so important. We are not talking about theoretical events or theoretical future costs; they are happening now. Farmers are facing those costs, and the hon. Lady is right t…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. This is an obligation that we owe to young people. We hold the planet in trust for future generations. The young people of today speak for themselves, but they also speak for future generations. Frankly, we owe it to them to act when the evidence is before our eyes.
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate the hon. Lady’s constituents on what they are doing to find regenerative ways of farming. My right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary takes the matter incredibly seriously, and we have structures in place that can help to incentivise that, but I think he would say that of course we need to do more on …
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising what sounds like an incredibly exciting project. On all sides of the House—well, on a number of sides of the House—we can hear fantastic examples of what local people are doing. In a sense, that should be our inspiration. Government is trying to do its bit, but local people in c…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right, and the emphasis that he places on national security is important. Our exposure to fossil fuel markets, controlled by petrostates and dictators, leaves us exposed, and that is what the previous Government did. This is an energy security issue and a national security issue, and that is why we ne…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right, and if we think about the recent hot weather, access to green spaces is a massive issue. It is also a massive issue of inequality, because in certain parts of the country people have such access, and in certain parts they do not, so the project that my hon. Friend talks about sounds incredibly …
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Ed Miliband
We definitely look forward to discussing those ideas, and my hon. Friend is right about the interlocking nature of the climate and nature crisis, and climate and nature solutions. Those things go together. There are big economic opportunities, and my hon. Friend is a great champion of them.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend was a fantastic champion of these issues in her previous incarnation, as she is in her current incarnation. I know her constituency, and I could not agree more with the work she is doing.
EM
Ed Miliband
I wish my hon. Friend luck with the event on Sunday, which sounds important. He is absolutely right: for millions of people the whole warm homes plans is about cutting their energy bills, creating warmer homes and cutting emissions—and they go together.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend draws attention to what sounds like an important recommendation, and as somebody whose constituency saw two once-in-100-year flooding events within about a decade, I know from local experience how serious such issues are. I am glad she has drawn my attention to that recommendation, and we will look caref…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. As the Prime Minister says, action on clean energy and net zero is “in the DNA” of this Government. I was in the last Labour Government, but now we have a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who are more supportive of this agenda, and who have moved it from the margins to the mainstr…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was not aware of that announcement, but it sounds like it is anti-job and a betrayal of future generations and will make people poorer.
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words; I am not quite sure how to deal with them—it is a tough one. It has been so interesting to hear hon. Members from across the House talking about these issues in relation to the strong feelings of their constituents, so I reassure people in Harlow, including young people, that …
Electricity Market Review10 Jul 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement about the review of electricity market arrangements. The central challenge that we face is the urgent need to get off expensive, insecure fossil fuels and to deliver an energy system that meets at least double the level of current electricity demand by 2050. In doing… so, we need to design the electricity network to ensure that infrastructure is built in the right places, so that we can effectively provide power where it is required. As a result of previous failures to do so, power now goes to waste, costing consumers in higher bills. That is one reason why reform is needed. The task of this review is to help deliver a fair, affordable, secure, and efficient clean power system. The key question has been whether to proceed with zonal pricing or a reformed national system. Under zonal pricing, we would split the country into different zones relying on price differentials to guide investment decisions. Under a reformed national price system, we would rely on more deliberate strategic co-ordination in advance of investment—planning our network and areas of intended generation more closely and then delivering. I have applied three tests to this choice in the time since the Government took office: first, what is the fairest approach for families and businesses, both now and in the long term; secondly, which reform can deliver energy security and will best protect consumers and ensure bills savings as soon as possible; and, thirdly, what will do most to ensure the investment, jobs, and growth that we need across the economy? On the basis of these tests, I have concluded that the right approach is reformed national pricing. Let me set out why. On the fairness test, under reformed national pricing, there would be one national wholesale price, as now. As I have said, under zonal pricing there would be different wholesale prices in different zones. Lower prices will tend to occur in zones with more renewable energy
Hansard · 10 Jul 2025 · parliament.uk
CN
Caroline Nokes
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I know that this has been a difficult decision for him. He told everyone that his flagship mission was to commission more renewable power than ever before by 2030—more wind than ever before and faster than ever before in a market that was already facing…
CN
Caroline Nokes
I call the Chair of the Select Committee.
BE
Bill Esterson
I am sure the Secretary of State will not be surprised to hear me say that I very much welcome what he has announced. He set out three priorities: fairness, lower bills—including and especially in industry and business, where my Committee heard as recently as yesterday that energy bills are causing real concerns and so…
CN
Caroline Nokes
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
EM
Ed Miliband
This is the first time I am at the Dispatch Box opposite the shadow Secretary of State; I congratulate her on her new baby boy and welcome her back to the House of Commons. I know from my own personal experience that crying at night is challenging, but who is surprised, given the state of the Conservative party? I thin…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great expertise on these matters. I will come to his question, but let me say first that I like to talk about issues on which both parties have been enthusiastic. We have the second largest offshore wind generation in the world. It was started when I was Secretary of State with Gordon Brown a…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. There is not necessarily a monopoly on good ideas. On the whole idea of new build housing having rooftop solar installed as standard, the last Labour Government were going to do it in 2016, but it got abolished by the previous Government. It is an absolute no brainer. It actuall…
EM
Ed Miliband
On my hon. Friend’s point about certainty, which is really important, global inflation has affected the offshore wind sector. I take it from the comments by the shadow Secretary of State that we should just say, “Well, let’s not bother with offshore wind, then. Let’s just stick to gas.” We just have a difference of vie…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman asks a bang-on question, and that is why I hope he will support clean power 2030. The key thing is that if we can get these renewables on to the system, gas will set the price much less often. As this is a CFD rather than a renewables obligation, the reductions in price feed through to the consumer. …
EM
Ed Miliband
I will come to my hon. Friend’s earlier points in a minute, but his last point is absolutely crucial. The last Government looked at this and found it difficult to find a mechanism to do it within the system. A key thing that clean power will do is that gas will set the price much less of the time, and with ROs being ph…
EM
Ed Miliband
LDES, as it is known to the super-nerds—long-duration energy storage—is really important, as indeed are batteries. We now have a cap and floor mechanism for LDES. Ofgem, along with NESO, is looking at the applications that have been made, and that will now be driven forward. That is really important. What I always say …
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for that really important question; she makes two points that are critical. One is the time it would take to get to a zonal pricing system, and the second is the arbitrary nature of who would benefit and how, and the cost differentials. I think we can see that there would be a great sense of unfa…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady makes a really important point, if I may say so, about the SSEP and, more broadly, about the role of community energy and, for example, rooftop solar. Even before we introduce the future homes standard, we are seeing an increase in the number of new homes with solar panels on their roofs. We have got comm…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for that really important question. The impact on Scotland is an important dimension here, because Scotland has really exciting plans to drive forward renewable energy, particularly offshore wind. It can be a massive job creator for the future, and it is something we are really focused on. One ot…
EM
Ed Miliband
The answer to both those questions is yes. The first point the hon. Member raises is important and goes to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) , which was on the fears that lots of people had that it would dry up the renewables industry in Scotland if we went do…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great expertise and passion on these issues. On his first point, it is worth saying something about this, and I hope to say more on it in the next week or so. The impacts of climate change that we are seeing around the world are the new normal, I am afraid, but they are not normal in comparis…
EM
Ed Miliband
The Energy Minister has just volunteered, unprompted— which rarely happens in this House—to meet my hon. Friend, so enthusiastic is he about discussing this issue. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of grid connections. We inherited an absolutely broken system that was massively oversubscribed, with a zombie qu…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it so well. When I talk to young people who are thinking about the jobs they might do in the future, from nuclear to renewables to carbon capture, I am always struck that, across the board, they know these are the growth industries of the future. There is a huge opportunity for Britain, including fo…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. The Conservatives have shown no contrition or acknowledgment, and they have not learned any lessons—not a single one. They basically say, “We were right and the electorate were wrong.” I say to them gently—or not so gently—that that is a recipe for oblivion, frankly. It is time t…
EM
Ed Miliband
That is the key: this decision provides the certainty required. It is the fairer choice. It is the choice that will not lead to seven years of uncertainty, risk premiums and higher bills. It gives us the platform to work with industry to get on and deliver. If I have one message for industry, it is that now is the time…
Rooftop Solar Power10 Jun 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. You look younger every year, if I may say so. Last week, we launched the new future homes standard, which will ensure that the vast majority of new build houses will have solar panels installed as standard. This will end the absurd situation the previous Government left where new housing was… built without solar panels. We are kick-starting a solar rooftop revolution, and the upcoming solar road map will lay out how we are bringing cheap clean power to families and businesses across the country.
Hansard · 10 Jun 2025 · parliament.uk
LB
Lee Barron
What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.
AG
Allison Gardner
What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.
CR
Connor Rand
What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.
TO
Tristan Osborne
What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.
LP
Lee Pitcher
What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate the pupils of Brigstock Latham’s primary school on their incredible spirit. Young people right across the country care about these issues. Also, they are pointing out something really important, which is that we have this free resource of the sun and we should use it. That is why putting solar panels on …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises some important points. The first is on grid connections. With the grid reforms that we are doing, we are going to end this zombie queue where projects are taking up space when they are not going to connect or not going to connect in time. That will open up the future to projects such as hers. On t…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on having hit the jackpot with the NHS benefiting from what Great British Energy is doing. He makes such an important point here, which is that the net zero agenda is about lower bills. For example, it is about cutting energy bills for frontline services and putting the money back into tho…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, and this is something that we are working on. There is huge potential in working with energy companies, with social housing providers and others to find ways in which this can be a true part of an anti-poverty strategy. This is something that we are working on, and we will…
EM
Ed Miliband
I love my hon. Friend’s idea; it is such a good one. Local sports clubs and lots of other community organisations can benefit from that project. I will suggest the idea to Great British Energy.
EM
Ed Miliband
There are a few questions in there, and I will try to answer them as briefly as I can. Even for the biggest solar ambitions, less than 1% of land would be covered. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need solar rooftops too. That is why we have put an end to years of dither and delay, and last week ann…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate the hon. Lady on having taken that step. She makes an important point: lots of people want to do this, but there is an up-front cost barrier. One thing that my Department is doing is working with the private sector, social housing providers, as I have said, and others to ask how we might break down up-fr…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his excellent question. I 100% agree with him about the role of community energy providers. I hope that he can persuade his Front Benchers to convert to supporting Great British Energy, because one of things that it will do—we will be happy to work with him on this—is unleash a wave of co…
EM
Ed Miliband
Let me first wish the hon. Member luck on her leadership bid. Anyone who wants to be a leader of a political party should take the idea under advisement, in my experience. I see the former Liberal Democrat leader, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) , nodding. We want the future homes standard to …
EM
Ed Miliband
Let me congratulate the hon. Member’s community group. This whole set of questions has shown the huge untapped potential in the constituencies of Members in all parts of the House. I will say two things in answer. First, I will take this back to GB Energy, because I think the role of community groups as potential partn…
Energy Efficiency10 Jun 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
In 2025-26 alone, we will upgrade up to 300,000 homes through the warm homes plan and other measures. That is more than double the number of homes upgraded last year. Later this year, we will set out more details of a warm homes plan to upgrade up to 5 million homes, and there will be… more details in the spending review tomorrow.
Hansard · 10 Jun 2025 · parliament.uk
LS
Lisa Smart
What steps he is taking to improve the energy efficiency of homes.
LS
Lisa Smart
Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. My Lib Dem predecessor, the much-missed Andrew Stunell, pushed for the zero carbon homes programme during his time in the 2010 to 2015 Government, having brought in his first Bill on that subject back in 2004. Sadly, those standards were scrapped as soon as the Conservatives were governing o…
SR
Sam Rushworth
What is the Secretary of State doing to make it more affordable for households to make their homes energy-efficient? The current model is that those who can afford to outlay some funding then get a taxpayer-funded subsidy, but those who cannot put down those first few thousand do not get that support.
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
PH
Pippa Heylings
Warm wishes for your birthday, Mr Speaker—and I am going to talk about warmth, as you might expect. Over the last decade, we have seen so many households living in Dickensian conditions, with dark, damp and cold homes, and having to choose between heating and eating. With the warm homes plan widely recognised as the mo…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an important question. The failure to have a zero carbon homes standard or future homes standard in place has meant that we have built over 1 million homes since then that are now going to have to be retrofitted. That makes no financial sense. It is right to put those upgrades in as standard from t…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am working with the Minister for Energy Consumers and others across Government on this as part of the warm homes plan. We have to make sure that those who can least afford it can take advantage of the huge opportunities of insulation, solar panels and batteries.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to be ambitious on these issues. Energy efficiency makes such sense for our country. We committed in our manifesto to upgrade 5 million homes and we intend to meet that commitment. I do not want to steal the Chancellor’s thunder, but we will be saying more about that tomorrow.
Topical Questions10 Jun 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Since the last Energy Security and Net Zero oral questions, the Government have confirmed that rooftop solar panels will be standard for all new build homes, delivered the first 11 solar on schools projects, scrapped the absurd 1-metre heat pump rule, secured Royal Assent for the Great British Energy Bill and, alongside Ofgem, delivered compensation… for 40,000 victims of the prepayment meter scandal that happened under the last Government.
Hansard · 10 Jun 2025 · parliament.uk
AM
Alice Macdonald
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
AM
Alice Macdonald
The east of England has a unique energy mix from offshore wind, hydrogen and nuclear. I welcome the game-changing investment in Sizewell C today. Can I ask specifically about wind? A new report from EastWind and Opergy says that in the east of England, we need more than 6,500 extra offshore wind farm workers. Does the …
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
AB
Andrew Bowie
In the dim and distant past, in 2023, the Secretary of State described the Rosebank oilfield as “a colossal waste of taxpayer money and climate vandalism”. Does he still agree with that?
BG
Becky Gittins
I forgot to say this earlier, Mr Speaker: a very happy birthday from me and my constituents. I commend the Secretary of State for seeing the need to reform our energy sector, given that people across north Wales are currently paying some of the highest energy bills in the country. Will he assure me that any proposed al…
EM
Ed Miliband
The east of England will be a clean energy powerhouse for the country. My hon. Friend raises an important issue about workforce, and we will be publishing the workforce plan soon.
EM
Ed Miliband
As with any application, there is a process that my Department will go through. We will look at any application in a fair and objective way.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises a really important point about the level of standing order charges, and this is something that Ofgem has consulted on. The complexity is that if we redistribute standing order charges, it can have significant adverse distributional effects, but Ofgem is seeking to have low standing order charges fo…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. Minimum half-hourly charges will also help customers to use smart solutions and make savings, and all the evidence collected under the last Government shows that when consumer-led flexibility was offered, people really took advantage of it.
EM
Ed Miliband
That also sounds really good, and it sounds like a really important initiative. The idea of AI growth zones, which have been promoted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Innovation, is great, and I congratulate my hon. Friend.
EM
Ed Miliband
I absolutely meet North sea workers and companies. What we need to do for them is build the clean energy future so that they can transition. That is about carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and offshore wind, and it is about nuclear as well—something that SNP Members oppose. This Government are going to make the inve…
EM
Ed Miliband
The SNP’s is an anti-jobs, anti-investment and anti-clean energy position, and SNP Members should be ashamed of themselves.
EM
Ed Miliband
We said we would cut energy bills by up to £300 by 2030, and that remains our commitment.
Nuclear Power: Investment10 Jun 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
With permission, I would like to make a statement about Government plans for investment in new nuclear power. Sixteen years ago, in 2009, as Energy Secretary I delivered a statement to this House identifying potential sites for new nuclear. I said: “We need to use all available low-carbon sources… New nuclear is right for energy… security and climate change, and it will be good for jobs too”.—[Official Report, 9 November 2009 ; Vol. 499, c. 31.] That was true back then, and it is even more true today. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis that followed showed how vulnerable we are as a country because of our dependence on fossil fuels, at the whim of markets controlled by petrostates and dictators. The imperative of energy security and the demands of the climate crisis mean that we must shift as fast as possible to clean, home-grown power. The demand for that power, as we shift away from gas, is expected to at least double by 2050, so we need all the low-carbon sources possible to meet the demands we face. The advice from experts, including the Climate Change Committee, is clear: we need new nuclear to meet our climate obligations. This Government support new nuclear because of our belief that the climate crisis is the greatest long-term threat facing our country and our world, not in spite of it; because of the imperative of energy security; and because of the good, skilled jobs that nuclear provides. In Britain today, there are too few industries that offer the secure, well-paid jobs with strong trade unions that the British people desire and deserve. Time and again, I have heard from people up and down the country about the importance of nuclear jobs to their communities. For all these reasons, the Government are taking decisive steps today to usher in a new golden age of nuclear for Britain. First, back in the late 2000s, when I was Energy Secretary, I identified Sizewell as a potential site for new nuclear. It has taken 16 years, but I am in
Hansard · 10 Jun 2025 · parliament.uk
NT
Nick Timothy
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The Conservative party is a pro-nuclear party and we welcome any decisions, backed by investment, that increase Britain’s nuclear capacity, because we cannot deliver cheap, reliable and secure energy without it. Although the investment announced today b…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
BE
Bill Esterson
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on delivering on his promise from 2009 and confirming Sizewell C, along with the vast array of commitments to a bright nuclear future for this country. The Select Committee looks forward to our inquiry in the autumn into the future of nuclear; we will be taking evidence and ma…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
PH
Pippa Heylings
We welcome the Government’s renewed focus on energy security through nuclear power as part of the energy mix. It is long overdue, after years of dither and delay from successive Conservative Governments. It has been 16 years since Sizewell C was first announced in 2009, and now, seven Prime Ministers later, we are fina…
EM
Ed Miliband
I feel a bit sorry for the hon. Gentleman; it is hard on a day like this to be an Opposition Member. Nevertheless, I will try to answer his questions, such as they are. On the question about the final investment decision, he will be aware that we are currently doing the private sector capital raise. When that is comple…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks very well on this subject. I agree with him about the huge jobs potential from new nuclear and the timelines. My priority when we came into office was to get these things over the line, because there had been so many promises made by the last Government. Long-term promises were made under Boris Jo…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I feel bad about mentioning this, but she has slightly airbrushed out the role of the current leader of the Liberal Democrats, who was Energy Secretary for a period, but we will “Trotsky”—to use a familial term of origin—that out of the record. I sincerely welcome her support…
EM
Ed Miliband
To reassure you, Mr Speaker, you look much younger than the Calder Hall nuclear power station.
EM
Ed Miliband
Absolutely right—there will be no decommissioning of you, Mr Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend on showing incredible leadership for his constituents on this issue. It has been a pleasure to work with him and other colleagues on these questions. He is right about the potential; he is also right about the regulatory…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Member for part of what he said, if not most of it. We have a fundamental disagreement. Solar and wind offer cheap power for our country—why would we possibly say no to that? The biggest threat to the countryside is the climate crisis, and solar and wind alongside nuclear are the way to tackle it.
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for her advocacy. When I was in discussions with the Chancellor, I did think that if this did not go ahead I would have to answer to my hon. Friend and to the Mayor of the East Midlands, so she was a motivating force in ensuring that the project did go ahead. Her point is crucial: this is about g…
EM
Ed Miliband
On the latter point, yes, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman of that. He asks a typically astute question, if I may say so. The truth about these technologies, I think, is that the answer is both. We cannot really make a judgment about this until we see the SMR programme developed. The SMR programme offers something…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my right hon. Friend for her incredible advocacy on this issue, including at the AMRC. She makes such an important point: this will be taxpayers’ money, and we need to ensure that as much as possible is built in Britain. I make absolutely no apologies for saying that. The answer to her question is that as we ne…
EM
Ed Miliband
Maybe a change in the SNP’s position is coming. Absolutely, if the hon. Lady wants, let us have a discussion about Scottish nuclear power stations. We are in favour of the Acorn project and will say more about that in the coming weeks. But on nuclear power, SNP Members have really got to think again. They are sticking …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To get slightly into the weeds, the new planning framework that we are consulting on opens up possibilities for new nuclear. Today we have set out the public money that we can commit to new nuclear at this stage. We are seeing this a bit in the US and in other countries with a 50% in…
EM
Ed Miliband
Good nuclear sites, including Bradwell, are always going to be possibilities as far as I am concerned. We are not going to have China building our nuclear power stations, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants to discuss this with my Department, we will be happy to do so.
EM
Ed Miliband
I am glad that my hon. Friend has asked that question. Wylfa is an incredibly important site that has huge potential for our country. Obviously, over the months ahead Great British Energy Nuclear will look at the role that Wylfa can play in relation to SMRs and large-scale nuclear.
EM
Ed Miliband
Yes, we do. Again, we are open to discussions with the hon. Lady and other colleagues.
EM
Ed Miliband
I definitely believe that Sheffield Forgemasters has an incredibly important role to play in our civil nuclear programme. Contractual details for Rolls-Royce and our discussions with the company are for a bit down the road, but in my view, Forgemasters is central to our plans.
EM
Ed Miliband
As part of the process that we go to from here, Great British Energy Nuclear will look at what is the right place for the SMR fleet and, absolutely, Oldbury is one of the candidates.
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy for Derby and for Rolls-Royce. It is important to say to the House that this was a fair and open competition, conducted at arm’s length from Ministers. Rolls-Royce came out as the winner and I am incredibly pleased about that. The possibilities for Rolls-Royce are huge in what it…
EM
Ed Miliband
On the nuclear point, there is real potential at Sizewell. I understand the implication of his views on that: to learn from what happened at Hinkley—because it is a replica of Hinkley—and therefore to cut the costs and do it quicker. The aim is to deliver it cheaper and faster. On the wider picture, we may have a diffe…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that in all respects. Sizewell alone will create 10,000 jobs at peak and 1,500 apprenticeships. For good safety and other reasons, there is a strong trade union tradition in the nuclear industry, which we intend to uphold. As for the situation in Scotland, it genuinely beggars b…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his long-standing advocacy on the issue, including when it was not popular. He makes a very good point: we need to see a change in Government in Scotland, to a Labour party that will advocate for nuclear. The supply chain in all four nations of the UK can play a crucial role i…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises such an important point. There is a good tradition of apprenticeships in nuclear. I have seen it at Hinkley Point C and we will see it at Sizewell. I am sure, and I will make sure, that we will see it in the SMR programme as well. These are fantastic opportunities for young people and opportunitie…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman will know that the RAB system that was passed through this House involves the role of bill payers. We believe that that is the right system and will cut the cost compared with Hinkley Point C. The hon. Gentleman appears to oppose many different forms of clean power. He opposes transmission infrastruc…
EM
Ed Miliband
I was incredibly impressed by what I saw at Barnoldswick. I had to maintain a position of neutrality when I became Secretary of State as to who won the competition, but I am incredibly pleased that Rolls-Royce won the competition fair and square. My hon. Friend makes an important point about making sure that the jobs g…
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman raises an important issue; let me take this away. As we embark on this golden age for nuclear, we need to make sure that the supply chain really benefits. Perhaps he could furnish my Department with the details so that we can think about how such companies can benefit?
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important point, which is that this is about planning for the long term to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels, which are insecure. We saw what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine. Let me give the House one fact: if the Sizewell C plant had been up and running at the time of that crisis,…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point that Members on both sides of the House have raised in different ways. It is absolutely part of what we are going to do to make sure that these jobs come to the UK. There are commitments around 70% of the supply chain spending being in the UK, and my Department will ensure t…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is so right about this. People in Scotland will be looking at these announcements and saying, “Why isn’t it us who are benefiting from this? Why are we not even in the race?” We have lots of Members saying that they want their area to benefit, yet the Scottish Government and the SNP are saying that they …
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I have been discussing these energy issues for about 17 years since he was the spokesperson on this, and agreement is rare between us, so I really welcome what he says. I would say to him that these are the steps we have to go through to deliver, and they are incredibly important. To reassu…
EM
Ed Miliband
I know that my hon. Friend has been strongly advocating on these issues in terms of the exciting possibilities for his constituency. My suggestion is that a Minister from my Department—perhaps the Minister for Energy—should meet him and the company concerned about the potential involved.
EM
Ed Miliband
We are looking seriously at the Xlinks project. The right hon. Gentleman is a tireless advocate for it, and I respect him for that. My answer on the baseload question is that we need a combination of things to meet the power that we need, and there are all kinds of different ways in which we can do that. I would also s…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is definitely right about the old saying on nuclear fusion. I think maybe it is coming a bit closer. There have been really important breakthroughs, particularly in the UK, and we are determined to invest in them. I do not think anyone can say for certain when it will arrive, but the prototype fusion pro…
EM
Ed Miliband
This is why these statements are important. I think I need to check the answer, because I do not want to give a flippant answer to the right hon. Lady’s incredibly serious question. Let me write to her to give her a proper answer.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it very well. I notice that SNP Members have sort of disappeared; they are probably a bit embarrassed. She is absolutely right about this. In a sense, it comes into sharp focus today because we can announce a golden age of nuclear with our investments, but not in Scotland because of the position of …
EM
Ed Miliband
We are operating under the previous Government’s planning guidance when it comes to the best agricultural land. On the hon. Lady’s wider point, we need all the clean energy resources that are at our disposal—solar, onshore and offshore wind, and nuclear. I am for all of the above.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. Derby should be incredibly proud of Rolls-Royce winning the competition, and incredibly excited about the possibilities for young people in Derby and across the wider region. Now we must ensure that, working with Rolls-Royce, we deliver on that promise, and that is what we intend…
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman asks perfectly legitimate questions. I am glad to say that decommissioning is in at the beginning of the financing model, as part of the overall costs. We will lay out total costs when the final investment decision is made. Similarly, on the regulated asset base costs—I know that he genuinely c…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point: across the lifecycle of nuclear and across the supply chain, there are important economic opportunities. The importance of realising that potential is a constant theme of the questions that we have heard today, and that is what we intend to do.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman asks good questions. On the first, GB Energy Nuclear is a development of Great British Nuclear, which is based in Warrington. On deployment, I am aware of the record of people who promise deployment that is then not delivered, but the truth is that we expect a final investment decision in the next fe…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend characteristically puts it incredibly well. The nuclear industry offers us a model of good employee relations, and there is a good, strong role for trade unions in ensuring safety and guaranteeing good terms and conditions for workers. That is a lesson that other parts of the energy industry, including t…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman puts it incredibly well. That was certainly my impression when I went to Hinkley Point C, when I saw the impact that it has on the local economy. We want to do the same at Sizewell C. There are plans to start a local college, modelling in a way some of the stuff that was done at Hinkley Point C. He i…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am glad that my hon. Friend asks that question and talks about his heritage and family history. That reflects something real. The nuclear industry has a great tradition in this country. It went through a sort of extended hiccup, I think it is fair to say, but it is really important that we bring it back. Those are go…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his two-hatted advocacy on these issues. He makes an important point. The potential of the new prototype fusion plant is huge, as is the wider potential of nuclear. I look forward to discussing that with him.
EM
Ed Miliband
It is really important that there is a four-nations approach to the supply chain contracts; that is something I am very keen to ensure. There will be thousands of contracts in the supply chain, with huge opportunities for Northern Ireland, and I am determined to deliver them.
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on that question and on the new centre, which is incredibly appropriately named. We should celebrate our history on these issues, and the way to honour our history is by building the future for nuclear—that is what today is all about.
Renewable Energy Sector: Job Creation29 Apr 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Since the last oral questions in March, the Government have consented to the Rampion 2 offshore wind farm, creating 4,000 jobs; reached the final investment decision on the HyNet carbon capture, utilisation and storage cluster, creating 2,000 jobs; invested £300 million, through Great British Energy, in UK clean energy supply chains; shortlisted 27 hydrogen companies… for hydrogen allocation round 2; and created a new £100 million fusion investment fund. This Government are building the clean energy future in Britain.
Hansard · 29 Apr 2025 · parliament.uk
JS
Jamie Stone
What steps he is taking to support job creation in the renewable energy sector.
CJ
Christine Jardine
What steps he is taking to support job creation in the renewable energy sector.
JS
Jamie Stone
The reason I was here on that Saturday when Parliament was recalled is because some of the mightiest structures in the North sea were made from British steel at the Nigg yard. On the question of renewables, may I ask the Secretary of State what we are doing about getting out the skills to fabricate floating offshore wi…
CJ
Christine Jardine
I hear what the Secretary of State is saying, but Scotland’s declining oil and gas industries have lost 40% of their jobs in the past decade, and today Grangemouth has warned that it may have to pause important projects involving a switch to greener and more sustainable forms of energy because of what it describes as s…
BL
Brian Leishman
Today marks the end of more than a century of refining at Grangemouth. Scotland is once again a victim of industrial vandalism and devastation—and I do not want anyone in this Chamber to dare mention a “just transition”, because we all know that the Conservatives when they were in power, and the Scottish National party…
EM
Ed Miliband
That is very much part of our plans. As the hon. Gentleman will know, in March we announced the provision of more than £55 million for the expansion of Port of Cromarty Firth to create offshore wind supply chains in this country, and last week, along with GB Energy, we announced that investment of £300 million in suppl…
EM
Ed Miliband
As the hon. Lady will know, we inherited this situation from the last Government, but we set aside £200 million to build the future in Grangemouth and we are working closely with the Scottish Government on precisely that, in a Government-to-Government collaboration. As for the hon. Lady’s wider question about industria…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is talking about a very important issue, and Grangemouth has a very important role in Scotland. What I will say to him and to others is that as soon as this Government saw the situation that they had inherited, they put money in to help the workers, and they have made that huge investment commitment of £…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend, who is also a really powerful advocate for his constituents, is absolutely right. Project Willow was left on the shelf by the previous Government. We put the money in to take Project Willow forward and we are now going to implement it. Absolutely crucial to that is ensuring the skills of oil and gas wor…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises a really important point. That is why we are working with the Department for Education to make sure we do not just have a clean power plan that will help to create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country and invest in supply chains, which I talked about earlier, but crucially offer opportu…
Household Energy Efficiency29 Apr 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
In 2025-26 alone we will upgrade up to 300,000 homes through the warm homes plan and other measures. That is more than double the number of homes upgraded last year. Later this year we will set out more detail of our warm homes plan to upgrade up to 5 million homes with energy-efficient technologies such… as heat pumps, solar and insulation in order to deliver warmer homes and lower bills.
Hansard · 29 Apr 2025 · parliament.uk
TM
Tessa Munt
What steps he is taking to help improve the energy efficiency of homes.
SD
Sarah Dyke
What steps he is taking to help improve the energy efficiency of homes.
TM
Tessa Munt
I recognise that there are very good schemes for those on lower incomes and that heating homes is really important. For many older properties and properties in conservation areas, as fast as we heat the homes, the heat just goes out the windows. In my area, where there are lots of older homes and homes in conservation …
SD
Sarah Dyke
Earl, a social housing tenant from Glastonbury, is disabled and has faced multiple barriers that have prevented him from self-funding improvements to the sustainability and energy efficiency of his home, in order to help him reduce his energy poverty and improve his health. What steps is the Secretary of State taking t…
JB
Julia Buckley
Royal Shrewsbury hospital in my constituency was delighted to receive a £450,000 investment for solar panels, which will see our local trust save more than £1 million by reducing its energy bills in the lifetime of the project. Will the Secretary of State join me in celebrating this excellent start to our nationalised …
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises a really important point. I am constantly on the look-out for small measures and large in the planning system that can obstruct the sensible energy efficiency measures, such as solar panels, that will make all the difference. I say to her and other Members of the House that if they have specific ex…
EM
Ed Miliband
It sounds as though the hon. Lady is raising an individual case, and if she wants to draw it to our attention, she can do so. On the more general point, I believe that her local authority has received £6 million as part of the warm homes local grant, so it would be worth talking to it about this. Again—I am sure that I…
EM
Ed Miliband
I do join my hon. Friend in that. I say to all Opposition Members who voted against GB Energy that many of them will now be getting solar panels on schools and hospitals in their constituencies. Let all their constituents know that those are local MPs who opposed cutting bills for schools and hospitals in their own con…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises a really important point about the crucial role of local authorities in relation to these issues. One of the things that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has done is devolve more funding to combined authorities on this. We want to go further, including in relation to local authoritie…
Topical Questions29 Apr 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Last week, 60 Governments and more than 50 global businesses gathered in London for the first global summit on the future of energy security with the International Energy Agency. I heard from country after country the hard-headed case for clean energy’s role in delivering energy security to free us from the global fossil fuel markets… controlled by petrostates and dictators. I also heard from many clean energy businesses that Britain was the place where they wanted to invest because of the clarity and speed of this Government’s mission.
Hansard · 29 Apr 2025 · parliament.uk
MC
Markus Campbell-Savours
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
MC
Markus Campbell-Savours
Homes in rural areas experience some of the highest rates of fuel poverty in the UK. Rural properties are less energy efficient than the national average and many are simply harder to insulate. Will the Minister confirm that my constituents in Penrith and Solway will see the additional challenge of rurality reflected i…
AB
Andrew Bowie
Voters “feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices…when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal… Present policy solutions are inadequate and…therefore unworkable… The current approach isn’t working… Any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consu…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
Order. No, Secretary of State. This is topical questions; I do not need a full statement.
AB
Andrew Bowie
To be honest, I was looking forward to hearing what I said a few weeks ago, Mr Speaker. It is okay for the Secretary of State to admit when he is wrong. As Tony Blair said yesterday, this strategy is “doomed to fail.” Why can the Secretary of State not see what the GMB and Tony Blair see, which is that clean power 2030…
EM
Ed Miliband
One hundred per cent—my hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. The Minister for Energy Consumers and I often discuss how we have to ensure that our warm homes plan takes account of the particular needs and challenges facing rural areas.
EM
Ed Miliband
The shadow Minister talks about the Tony Blair Institute report. I agree with a lot of what it says. It says that we should move ahead on carbon capture and storage, which the Government are doing. It says that we should move ahead on the role of artificial intelligence, which the Government are doing. It says that we …
EM
Ed Miliband
That is not what the report says. The shadow Minister is talking absolute nonsense. The point I was going to make was that he said: “Look, nobody’s saying that net zero was a mistake. Net zero in the round was the eminently sensible thing to do.” Those are not my words but his. Some people say that the Tory party has o…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks an important question. New nuclear is absolutely part of the energy mix. That is why we announced important reforms to the national policy statement. The previous such substantive reform was based on the one I published as Energy Secretary in 2009. We have updated the statement in order to enable ne…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady asks an important question. I was in touch with the National Energy System Operator yesterday following the events in Spain and Portugal—the UK was not affected. NESO and my Department take this incredibly seriously. I would also add, given that there has been some comment on this, that we should not jump…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right: this clean energy transition is about creating jobs. I was delighted to open the factory, which is creating 200 jobs and is a £40 million investment, manufacturing cylinders for heat pumps. This is an opportunity that this Government are going to seize for Britain.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman never ceases to amaze me, and not in a good way. Reform has made its decision; I am not sure what the Conservatives’ position is. Cheap, clean, home-grown power is the answer for Britain, because it gives us energy security and frees us from the petrostates and dictators. We are in favour of it; Refo…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady is 100% right—clean, home-grown power is the answer—so that is an unequivocal yes.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right: there is a long-standing issue around industrial energy prices. The key is getting off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets, because just as family finances were ruined in the cost of living crisis, it is the same in relation to business finances and public finances. It is an essential part…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises a really important issue about interconnectors. It is something I have been talking to the regulator about, particularly in relation to France, and indeed to my French counterpart, Marc Ferracci, who was in London for our international energy summit. I am happy for the Department to engage with he…
EM
Ed Miliband
We said we would cut bills by up to £300, and that is absolutely what we are determined to do.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman says that bills have gone up, but let me give him a little basic lesson: they have gone up because we are exposed to fossil fuel prices. The only way to bring them down is by having sources of clean, home-grown power that we control.
EM
Ed Miliband
I know the right hon. Gentleman has an important interest in this project. We continue to have discussions with Xlinks and obviously we are happy to brief him on those discussions.
EM
Ed Miliband
Yes is the answer; I look forward to it. My hon. Friend is 100% right: this is about the jobs of the future. Conservative Members might want to turn their back on them; we will not.
EM
Ed Miliband
As with Acorn, we think Viking is a really important project. I am very proud of the progress we made on track 1, and we are obviously looking at both Viking and Acorn in the spending review.
EM
Ed Miliband
My Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) , and I regularly discuss this issue, which relates to one of the first duties of Government. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that not only is this a focus for Government, but we will look at what…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am delighted to remind the House that it was the Conservative party that left us with energy insecurity, and we are never going to leave this country vulnerable in the way that it did.
EM
Ed Miliband
What is the point of the hon. Gentleman’s party?
EM
Ed Miliband
This is like conspiracy theories gone mad. I feel like we have entered a whacky world. Let us keep our eyes on the prize. As a country, we are vulnerable because of our exposure to fossil fuels. This Government have one mission alone: to get clean, home-grown power, so that we take back control.
Warm Homes Plan18 Mar 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Our warm homes plan will upgrade up to 5 million homes with technologies such as heat pumps, solar panels and insulation, helping families to lower bills and improve their homes. Last week we allocated £1.8 billion to local authorities and social housing providers to help low-income households and social housing tenants. We will publish further… plans following the spending review.
Hansard · 18 Mar 2025 · parliament.uk
ES
Euan Stainbank
What steps he is taking to introduce the warm homes plan.
DA
Debbie Abrahams
What steps he is taking to introduce the warm homes plan.
ES
Euan Stainbank
The warm homes plan delivers a welcome uplift in resources for domestic energy efficiency. Failures by Governments, energy companies and local authorities over a number of years have left my constituents paying huge energy costs, with poor connectivity, failure to install smart meters or smart meters not working when t…
DA
Debbie Abrahams
I welcome the energy efficiency measures that my right hon. Friend mentions, which will really make a difference to many families in the future, but what can the Government and energy providers do to help families struggling to pay their energy bills today?
TF
Tim Farron
I strongly support all efforts to increase energy efficiency and bring down bills. Is the Secretary of State concerned about the potential unforeseen consequences of raising the minimum level of energy performance certificates to C for long-term rented accommodation but not doing so for short-term lets and owned proper…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises a number of important issues. It is about having a tough regulator in Ofgem, it is about smart meters that work, and it is about every decision the Government take seeking to tackle fuel poverty. That is why I was incredibly pleased that we announced the extension of the warm homes discount to an …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great expertise about these issues. She will know that the Minister for Energy Consumers, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh) , put in place with the energy companies £500 million this winter to help families struggling with their bills. We also want to see Ofgem proceed…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. I believe I am right in saying—I was checking with the Minister for Energy Consumers—that as part of the consultation on energy efficiency, we are looking at the issue of short-term lets, which has been raised in the past. He is right to draw attention to what we are doing …
Clean Power by 203018 Mar 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
We are driving forward at speed to deliver clean power by 2030. Last week, the Government introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will enable the biggest expansion of the grid for generations, sweeping away the connection delays and the queue that held us back for too long under the last Government and reforming the… planning system to speed up delivery. We have also laid out for the first time legislation to provide households near new or upgraded pylons £250 a year off their energy bills for 10 years, as part of our commitment to delivering meaningful benefits for communities hosting clean energy infrastructure.
Hansard · 18 Mar 2025 · parliament.uk
DT
Dan Tomlinson
What progress he has made on achieving clean power by 2030.
DT
Dan Tomlinson
Does the Secretary of State agree that community energy has a vital role to play in the transition to cleaner and greener power? Will he accept an invitation to come to my constituency in north London to visit Community Energy Barnet, which is working on one of the largest community energy projects in the country?
OD
Oliver Dowden
Does the Secretary of State share my concern about reports of persistent misconduct by Drax, regarding cutting down old-growth forest and burning it at its power station? To be clear, this is a company that chops down pristine forest, ships it halfway across the world to burn it in the United Kingdom and claims that it…
PM
Perran Moon
The Conservative party abandoned the economy, the NHS, the justice system and immigration, and now it is joining its Reform collaborators and other climate change deniers in the dunce’s corner. Does the Secretary of State agree that, unlike this Government, who recognise the triple benefit of the 2030 goal—energy secur…
SL
Seamus Logan
The plans for a green generator at the Peterhead power station in my constituency are shovel-ready, but they depend on approval for the Acorn project at St Fergus. On 12 November last year, the Minister for Industry stated in response to a question from me that more information would be available on the track 2 project…
EM
Ed Miliband
I always like visiting north London, and I would very much like to accept an invitation from my hon. Friend. He makes a really serious and important point about community energy. If we look at Germany and Denmark, we see that they have done much better on community energy than us. Great British Energy has an important …
EM
Ed Miliband
I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have great respect, was present when the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) , made a statement on precisely that issue. On the impact on bills, he will be delighted to know that u…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend should not be so shy and retiring. He makes a really important point. I listened to the interim shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) , on the radio this morning. He made net zero 2050 sound like a target dreamed up by me, but it is not. It was Th…
EM
Ed Miliband
I support the Acorn project; it is really important. For reasons that the hon. Member will understand, the right time to make decisions will be at the spending review in June.
Carbon Capture and Storage18 Mar 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
The £21.7 billion of funding to which we committed in October will kick-start the carbon capture, usage and storage industry, supporting thousands of jobs in our industrial heartlands through the east coast and HyNet clusters. We continue to engage with important future projects, such as Acorn in Scotland and Viking in the Humber, and we… will make further announcements following the spending review.
Hansard · 18 Mar 2025 · parliament.uk
MP
Matthew Patrick
What steps he is taking to support the development of carbon capture and storage technology.
RB
Richard Baker
What steps he is taking to support the development of carbon capture and storage technology.
MP
Matthew Patrick
As my right hon. Friend will recognise, Merseyside is a clean energy pioneer, a hub of carbon capture and hydrogen technology. The climate emergency is the challenge of our generation, and that challenge will be met only through the collective endeavour of communities across our country, including mine in Wirral West. …
RB
Richard Baker
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is huge potential for carbon capture and storage to play a key role in our green energy ambitions for Scotland? As we look towards the spending review, does he agree that the Acorn project presents an excellent and efficient opportunity to invest in CCUS, and to reduce the car…
RG
Roger Gale
No one who cares about the future of our children and our grandchildren will gainsay the importance of carbon capture, but does the Secretary of State not understand that he is undermining that good work—notwithstanding his answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) —by continuing to su…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is entirely right about this. We have learned over the last decade and more that this is the biggest jobs opportunity of the 21st century. Nowhere is that more true than in the investments we are making in carbon capture, usage and storage, and I am confident that my hon. Friend’s constituents will benef…
EM
Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend. He is a fantastic advocate for the Acorn project, of which we are hugely supportive. Track 1 projects were agreed in last year’s Budget—a fiscal event, a fiscal moment—and the Government are considering those projects ahead of the next phase of the spending review, which will come in June…
EM
Ed Miliband
I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have great respect. The situation that we inherited from the last Government meant that we had to consider matters such as security of supply and how we could secure the best deal for bill payers. That is what we did, and that is why we made the statement that we…
EM
Ed Miliband
I join the hon. Lady in warmly congratulating the six students from her constituency whom she mentioned. I am sure that I speak for all Members of the House when I say that when we meet young people who are engaged in the potential of clean energy technology to transform our country and our world, it is an incredibly i…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I can tell him that the Minister for Industry held a roundtable with a whole range of industry voices on this precise topic last week. He is right about this issue. There is scepticism about CCS in some parts of academia and elsewhere. All the evidence that I have seen from …
Renewable Energy: Workers’ Rights18 Mar 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
For this Government, good pay and conditions for workers and the role of trade unions must be at the heart of the renewable energy sector, because that is the only route to a fair transition. Since we came to office, EDF Renewables has announced recognition agreements with four major trade unions. We applaud it for… its decision, and we want others to follow suit. Through the Office for Clean Energy Jobs, we are also working with industry and trade unions to support fair pay, terms and conditions in the sector.
Hansard · 18 Mar 2025 · parliament.uk
AM
Anneliese Midgley
What steps he is taking to support workers’ rights in the renewable energy sector.
AM
Anneliese Midgley
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. The Employment Rights Bill is an historic step forward for workers, but these rights must go hand in hand with good jobs. What action is he taking to strengthen the UK’s manufacturing capacity and supply chains to ensure that communities such as mine in Knowsley benefit from…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Father of the House.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for her constituency, and on this issue of manufacturing jobs. If we look at what this Government are doing—from GB Energy to the national wealth fund and the clean industry bonus—we see that this Government are determined to ensure that we manufacture in Britain. We care about wh…
Topical Questions18 Mar 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Britain produces 1% of global climate emissions. China is the world’s largest emitter, yet no UK Energy Secretary has visited it in eight years to make the case for it to do more. That is why I have been in Beijing making the case for climate action. Engagement, not negligence, is what fighting for Britain… looks like. On climate, as on so much else, this Government believe that Britain can only protect our national interests by engaging on the international stage.
Hansard · 18 Mar 2025 · parliament.uk
SA
Steffan Aquarone
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
SA
Steffan Aquarone
The Bacton energy hub in my constituency is undergoing a green transition, which I support because I believe in protecting our natural environment and boosting our economy through net zero—two things the Conservatives seem to have abandoned. Green hydrogen at Bacton needs wind power to be brought in from the coast. Wil…
GJ
Gurinder Josan
I welcome the Government’s commitment to nuclear energy. I recently met representatives of Newcleo, a company developing small modular reactors using lead-cooled fast reactor technology that uses depleted uranium and plutonium: waste materials of which we have an abundance from our existing nuclear programme. Will the …
SJ
Sarah Jones
Clean energy is one of the eight growth sectors in the industrial strategy and will provide a core part of that strategy. If anybody wants to build new nuclear in this country, our door is always open.
AB
Andrew Bowie
Last month, with surprisingly little fanfare from the Department or the Secretary of State, the Climate Change Committee published carbon budget 7. Among the more eyewatering recommendations was the figure put on the cost of meeting the obligations: £319 billion over the next 15 years. Frontloading that will be a net c…
EM
Ed Miliband
This, among many others, is a very, very important potential project and the hon. Gentleman is right to make the case for it. Green hydrogen is absolutely part of our energy mix in the future.
EM
Ed Miliband
I deeply regret the direction in which the hon. Gentleman is going. The Climate Change Committee does incredibly important work. We will look at CB7, but the biggest cost we face as a country is if we do not act on the climate crisis. That is what would leave hundreds of billions of pounds of costs to future generation…
EM
Ed Miliband
It is the Tory party that has an energy surrender policy: surrendering us to fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators. The Tories would keep us locked in to fossil fuels, threaten billions of pounds of investment in net zero and leave our children and grandchildren a terrible legacy. That is the Cons…
EM
Ed Miliband
As we discussed earlier, the CCC raised an important issue that we need to look at. The key question on this so-called rebalancing is that it must be looked at in the context of understanding the principled case, while also ensuring that if we go down that or another route, we do so in a way that is fair. That is the w…
EM
Ed Miliband
Yes, that sounds really good. Community energy is a crucial part of our energy future.
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I do not necessarily agree on everything, but on this we do agree. The transformation of the West Burton site from a fossil fuel-fired power station to a fusion power plant is an incredibly exciting project, and we should all be battling for it.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises a really important issue. Rolling out electric car infrastructure is incredibly important. If he writes to my Department, we will ensure that he gets the best possible reply.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important matter. As an energy nerd, I am really interested in this 2015 power, which, despite my nerdery, I did not actually know about. We are actively looking at this really important power, which was put in place by the previous Government.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman will know that any nationally significant project goes through a proper planning process, and it would not be right for me to comment on that. None the less, I am sure that the decision makers will be looking closely at the issues that he has raised.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady is absolutely right on that. The Opposition are off to the “Wacky Races” when it comes to net zero. We in the Labour party know the truth: net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century and, under this Government, we will seize it.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We are actively working on that in government. Whatever one’s view on ground-mounted solar—we in the Labour party think that it has a role—we do need solar panels on rooftops. It is an important opportunity. While we are about it, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can start suppor…
EM
Ed Miliband
New nuclear is an essential part of our future energy plans. My Ministers and I would be absolutely delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss those plans.
EM
Ed Miliband
I speak as an old lag in these things: we have never had a Prime Minister and a Chancellor so enthusiastic and committed to the net zero agenda and what it can do economically for our country. The right hon. Gentleman should take heart from that.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it so well. This is the economic opportunity of our time. Our investment in carbon capture and storage shows what is possible. Today’s desperate request for attention from the Opposition is anti-business, anti-jobs, anti-growth, anti-investment and the wrong choice for Britain.
National Wealth Fund: Opportunities for Industry4 Feb 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
The national wealth fund is an essential part of our clean energy and growth missions. Recent investments include £20 million of investment into XLCC, a subsea cable manufacturer, to develop a new facility in Scotland, creating 900 jobs; £28 million of investment into Cornish Metals to finance lithium production, supporting more than 300 local jobs;… and £1 billion, working with Barclays and Lloyds, to upgrade social housing, giving people warmer homes and lower bills.
Hansard · 4 Feb 2025 · parliament.uk
PH
Patrick Hurley
What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on opportunities for industry under the national wealth fund.
PH
Patrick Hurley
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. In the Liverpool bay area, just off the coast of my Southport constituency, we already have a number of wind farms, including the Burbo Bank scheme. Can he outline to the House what more his Department is doing to ensure that, as we put up these wind farms, jobs are create…
HC
Harriet Cross
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Court of Session’s judgment on Rosebank and Jackdaw was to do with their consents, not their licences? When he comes to consider his decisions on those consents, he should do so on the basis that these are existing, not new, licences.
LH
Louise Haigh
GB Nuclear is about to make two decisions on small modular reactors, and I know my right hon. Friend will agree that those SMRs and their supply chains should be built here in the UK. Although we have the capability in Sheffield, we do not necessarily have the capacity, so will he work with me, my colleagues and busine…
AE
Alex Easton
Has the Secretary of State engaged in any discussions with Northern Ireland industries on the strategic use of the sovereign wealth fund?
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question, which Members from right across this House will agree with. The situation we have inherited from the last Government is that Germany has almost twice as many renewables jobs per capita as Britain, Sweden almost three times as many, and Denmark almost four times as many. …
EM
Ed Miliband
That is an individual planning case, so I will be careful about what I say. What I will say to the hon. Lady is that the last Government made an unlawful decision, according to the court. We are going to follow due process.
EM
Ed Miliband
I welcome that question from my right hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion of these issues. We will look at any proposal in detail, but she makes such an important point, which I would make to all Members of this House. People will have different views on this issue, but clean energy is the economic opportunity of …
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I discussed this issue in detail in advance of the preparation of the Great British Energy Bill, and it is also relevant to the national wealth fund. We want our institutions to serve all countries in our United Kingdom, and I encourage him and industries in his constituency…
EM
Ed Miliband
NESO made that assumption, but it does not reflect our assumption that the carbon price will be significantly lower. I will not start predicting market prices. What I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that the difference between him and us is that he believes that we should double down on fossil fuels as the answer to …
Clean Power by 20304 Feb 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
Since this Government came into office, we have taken a series of steps to deliver clean, home-grown power for Britain, including lifting the onshore wind ban, consenting to nearly 3 GW of solar and overseeing the most successful renewables auction in history. In December, we published our clean power action plan, which has been widely… welcomed by business as providing the route map that simply did not exist under the previous Government.
Hansard · 4 Feb 2025 · parliament.uk
PP
Peter Prinsley
What progress he has made on achieving clean power by 2030.
PP
Peter Prinsley
Energy projects in East Anglia will be crucial for generating the clean, cheap power that this country needs to grow, from wind and solar farms to nuclear power stations, including the much-needed Sizewell C. These projects will bring high-skilled jobs to East Anglia, including in my constituency of Bury St Edmunds and…
RG
Roger Gale
Given that the British taxpayer is paying billions of pounds in subsidies to fell trees in Canada and ship the wood across the Atlantic to burn in the Drax power station, can the Secretary of State tell the House where the clean energy lies within that? Has he read the KPMG report? If he has, will he come to the House …
CA
Catherine Atkinson
Community energy projects can help us achieve clean energy by 2030. Darley Abbey Community Energy is surging ahead with plans for 100 kW Archimedes screw on the River Derwent—the same river that powered the world’s first factory 200 years ago. The project could generate enough hydroelectricity to power all the business…
CD
Carla Denyer
Experts are clear that the savings from the Government’s clean power action plan will be wiped out by 2050 if airport expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton goes ahead, and that relying on so-called sustainable aviation fuels would use up to half the UK’s agricultural land. Does the Secretary of State agree with the …
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and congratulate him on his advocacy. Members across the House have a decision to make here. As the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh) , said earlier, we are exposed to fossil fuels and we see what …
EM
Ed Miliband
The last Government consulted on what, if any, future support there should be for biomass power stations. We are studying that consultation and we will make a statement in due course.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a fantastically important point, which is that we often think about planning reform as being about the large-scale projects, but it is also about unblocking the smaller-scale projects. Having a national energy policy statement that includes 2030, working with local authorities and making sure there…
EM
Ed Miliband
As the Chancellor said last week, any aviation expansion has to take place within carbon budgets and environmental limits. I would also point out that this Government have achieved more in six months than the last Government did in 14 years. We have lifted the onshore wind ban, consented nearly 3 GW of solar, set up GB…
EM
Ed Miliband
It is quite extraordinary. We are absolutely exposed as a country, yet the Conservatives oppose clean power. They have a blanket opposition to clean power, so let every person in the country know that when energy bills remain high, they are opposing the things that will bring them down. It is quite extraordinary. This …
EM
Ed Miliband
I am glad the hon. Lady asks, because I took no part in this decision—I recused myself. [Interruption.] Here we go. They have nothing to say about the country, just desperate scraping of the barrel. Let the whole House hear that they oppose a solar plan that will put up solar panels throughout the country and give clea…
Topical Questions4 Feb 2025
EM
Ed Miliband
In recent weeks, we have seen continuing rises in prices in global fossil fuel markets, with wholesale gas prices last month 60% higher than a year ago, which is caused by a number of factors. I want to be clear with the House: as long as Britain remains so dependent on fossil fuels, we will… be in the grip of these global markets controlled by petrostates and dictators, with direct impacts here at home. The only way to get off this rollercoaster is with clean, home-grown power that we control, and that is what the Government’s clean energy mission is all about.
Hansard · 4 Feb 2025 · parliament.uk
JL
John Lamont
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
JL
John Lamont
The Scottish Borders has some of the most beautiful countryside in the whole of the United Kingdom, but it is going to be destroyed by the massive pylons being built by ScottishPower Energy Networks in pursuit of Scottish Government and UK Government policy. Does the Secretary of State think it is right to charge ahead…
OR
Oliver Ryan
Green energy is the economic opportunity of the 21st century, and in an ever more unstable world, home-grown renewables are critical to our security and self-sufficiency. What will the Secretary of State do to make sure that Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield, and places like those, benefit from new green jobs growth?
CN
Caroline Nokes
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
AB
Andrew Bowie
This Government’s ideological obsession with intermittent renewables at the expense of stable, clean, baseload nuclear power will, we think, be their greatest mistake. They have delayed the small modular reactor down-selection competition, and we have not heard a peep about the final investment decision on Sizewell C. …
EM
Ed Miliband
I say to the hon. Gentleman, and I have said it throughout this Question Time, that local communities should have a say, but we have a decision to make as a country. Do we build the clean energy infrastructure to protect us from volatile fossil fuel markets, or do businesses, families and the public finances—£94 billio…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question. The whole point of our clean industry bonus is to incentivise British manufacturing. That is so important for the country, and it was not done by the last Government. We are determined that his constituents and constituents across the country will benefit.
EM
Ed Miliband
First, may I take this opportunity—I know we are short of time, Madam Deputy Speaker—to congratulate the permanent shadow Energy Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) , on the birth of her baby boy? I am sure the whole House will want to join me in congratulating her. I also congratulate th…
EM
Ed Miliband
I know that the hon. Lady has had long discussions with the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) , on these issues. We are absolutely determined that, as part of Great British Energy, community energy will be massively expanded. That was ou…
EM
Ed Miliband
We are absolutely determined to build the manufacturing base in this country. I mentioned the investment in XLCC. That is a crucial part of building the supply chains. The supply chains have been eroded over a decade or two; we are determined to build them up.
EM
Ed Miliband
I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman and completely concur with him on this issue. Nuclear is an essential part of our clean energy future. The demand for electricity in the years ahead—there will be a 50% increase by 2035, and demand will probably be double, if not more, by 2050—means that we need all the …
EM
Ed Miliband
There is huge potential, and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, I will chair an artificial intelligence energy council, looking at not only how we can meet the future demands of AI, but how AI and technology can help us deliver the infrastructure and energy system o…
EM
Ed Miliband
Let us be frank: the big prize that has eluded past Governments for a long time is a proper plan to upgrade all types of buildings, not just residential properties. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh) , and I are working on that c…
EM
Ed Miliband
On the second question, I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who is an eloquent champion for tackling modern slavery. I know Members from all parts of the House share her view. We need to do better as a Government, in terms of the guidelines inherited from the last Government, and the solar taskforce is looking at t…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am massively in favour of solar panels on swimming pools and lidos—I am an occasional lido user myself—so I am fully on board with the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will pass it on to colleagues in government.
EM
Ed Miliband
This is hard, partly because of the fiscal backdrop, but we are working on a comprehensive plan so that we can help not just the poorest—we want to help those in fuel poverty—but people across the income spectrum through a more universal offer. If we can get funding for up-front investments, there will be massive payba…
EM
Ed Miliband
It is a particular pleasure to end with the hon. Gentleman. Here it is: a decision for all Members of the House to make. We are on the rollercoaster of the fossil fuel markets; we have no control over them. The mission of this Government is to take back control with clean, home-grown power. I urge him and Members acros…
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme: Living Standards17 Dec 2024
EM
Ed Miliband
In the Budget, the Government decided to transfer the mineworkers’ pension scheme investment reserve to members of the scheme. At the end of last month, the first increase in payments was made to over 100,000 ex-miners and their families. That has meant an extra 32% rise in people’s pensions each month—an average of £29 per… week. The overturning of that historic injustice demonstrates the difference made by a Labour Government.
Hansard · 17 Dec 2024 · parliament.uk
LJ
Lillian Jones
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers' pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.
NS
Nick Smith
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.
GD
Graeme Downie
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.
JC
Jacob Collier
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.
JS
Josh Simons
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the mineworkers’ pension scheme on the living standards of recipients.
EM
Ed Miliband
I should say that the praise all goes to the Minister for Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones) , for the progress that has been made. She is in sole charge of the issue. I know that she has been engaging with the trustees of the BCSSS; indeed, I believe she met them yesterday. She knows th…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes his point with customary eloquence. I know from personal experience that there were people who were waiting for the injustice to be remedied but unfortunately died before that happened. He refers to part of the issue raised by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, as it then was, …
EM
Ed Miliband
I know from my constituency that there is a strong feeling about the BCSSS. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry has moved at speed to meet the trustees. The schemes are not exactly the same in some of their arrangements, but my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and (Graeme Downie) is right to say …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right about the read-across and the sense that the injustice that has been remedied in the MPS needs to be remedied in the BCSSS. There is also a real need for speed. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry is on the case, as she was so brilliantly on the MPS, delivering in less than five…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right. I think I am right in saying—my hon Friend the Minister for Industry and I have had a discussion about this—that almost every constituency—
EM
Ed Miliband
Every constituency has members of the MPS who are benefiting from this. I hope the Conservative party welcomes a Labour Government acting on this injustice—there is not much sign of that, though. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons) makes the point about commemorating the work of miners, which is some…
EM
Ed Miliband
This is actually to do with the disastrous economic legacy that was left by the Conservative party. The truth is that, even in tough times, the Labour Government are showing with their decisions on the MPS how we can make our society more just.
EM
Ed Miliband
That is an excellent question, Mr Speaker. I will write to the hon. Lady with a good answer.
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Member and I both have constituency interests in this matter, and he is right to say that. None the less, I say gently to him that no action was taken on this for a very, very long time—indeed, since privatisation. This Government took action in the Budget in less than five months. That is the difference. I ha…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am glad that he, too—like everyone else in this House, according to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry—has constituents who will be benefiting from this work. The best I can say to him on this issue, which has now been rightly raised a number of times, is that the Mi…
Energy Security17 Dec 2024
EM
Ed Miliband
Last Friday, we published our landmark clean power action plan, which sets out the route towards our world-leading 2030 clean power mission, including wholesale reform of the grid and planning to make it happen. This is the route to getting off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets and delivering energy security, lower bills and good… jobs for the British people, as well as tackling the climate crisis.
Hansard · 17 Dec 2024 · parliament.uk
AB
Alex Barros-Curtis
What steps he is taking to improve energy security.
PM
Perran Moon
What steps he is taking to improve energy security.
AB
Alex Barros-Curtis
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Given Wales’s tradition and history of fuelling the UK’s energy needs, can the Secretary of State tell us what his plans are to put Wales at the heart of our energy security and net zero agenda?
PM
Perran Moon
Meur ras, ha myttin da, Mr Speaker. We have seen the terrible consequences for households of fossil fuel energy insecurity, and we cannot allow this to happen with the transition to renewables. However, to achieve our net zero goals, we will have to see a massive increase in demand for critical minerals such as tin and…
GS
Greg Smith
Small modular reactors are less land intensive, are very efficient and would get us to clean energy very quickly if the Government were to get on and actually support some orders. As land is in scarce supply, when will the Government get on board with nuclear, instead of shackling themselves to the inefficient, land-de…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question. The whole clean power plan is about benefiting all four nations of the United Kingdom, including Wales, and we work closely with the Welsh Government on these issues. Before this Labour Government came to office, they were actually trailblazers on how we could have publi…
EM
Ed Miliband
I very much enjoyed my trip to my hon. Friend’s constituency before the general election. He is an incredibly powerful advocate for the way his area can source some of the critical minerals we need, including lithium, and he is right about this. The concentration of supply chains, including critical minerals, has taken…
EM
Ed Miliband
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we support the SMR programme, and we are driving it forward through Great British Nuclear. I am afraid he is making a terrible mistake, which is that we need all of these clean technologies at our disposal—we need nuclear, we need renewables, we need carbon capture and storage—and the…
EM
Ed Miliband
I have to say to the hon. Lady that I do not see it that way. The reality is that the country is totally vulnerable to the rollercoaster of the fossil fuel markets. We do not need to look into a crystal ball; we just need to look at the record: we saw the worst cost of living crisis in generations. So long as we are ex…
EM
Ed Miliband
I find the hon. Gentleman quite extraordinary, and not in a good way. The last Government left not only a generalised absolute mess in the public finances, but lots of the programmes that he is talking about were not even funded. The difference with this Government and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is that she pu…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman’s story about Wylfa says it all. He says his Government had this great plan for Wylfa, but they had no money behind it.
EM
Ed Miliband
Yes, but the hon. Gentleman does not say how the power station will be funded. The truth is that this is elementary economics. If things are announced, they need to be able to be funded, and the Conservatives need to learn that lesson.
Topical Questions17 Dec 2024
EM
Ed Miliband
We are already seeing the benefits of our energy superpower mission and investment in jobs. Since the start of November, we have seen a £1 billion investment in Hull by Siemens Gamesa, supporting 1,300 jobs in blade manufacturing. Ørsted has announced £100 million of orders for UK firms, and we have reached financial close on… the UK’s first carbon capture in Teesside. That is what it means to have a Government delivering jobs and investment for the British people.
Hansard · 17 Dec 2024 · parliament.uk
CD
Charlie Dewhirst
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
CD
Charlie Dewhirst
There appears to be inconsistency between what Ministers are saying about the report by the National Energy System Operator and what the CEO of NESO told the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee last week. Can the Secretary of State answer this clearly: does the NESO report forecast higher or lower energy bills under…
MW
Michelle Welsh
My constituency has the second highest number of members on the British Coal staff superannuation scheme in the country; we have more than 1,000 members. Does the Minister agree that we need to end the injustice for all former employees on that scheme? Will she visit my beautiful constituency to meet me and members of …
SJ
Sarah Jones
I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend and members of the scheme. I met the trustees of the scheme yesterday, and I have committed to talking to the Treasury about their proposals.
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
EM
Ed Miliband
I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question, as the shadow Secretary of State has asked me about that. [Interruption.] I will answer the question. Page 77 of the NESO report says very clearly what happens to overall costs in the system: electricity costs are reduced by £10 per MWh. As NESO says, it i…
EM
Ed Miliband
These are more fantasy numbers from the right hon. Lady. The truth is that the North sea has lost a third of its employment in the past decade. The only future for the North sea is in what this Government are doing: investing in carbon capture and storage, in offshore wind and in hydrogen. That is the future.
EM
Ed Miliband
No. The case is that the Conservatives left us dependent on fossil fuels, which led to the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. The tragedy is that they are doubling down on their failed policy. The only answer for lower bills is clean, home-grown energy that we control.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Great British Energy—headquartered in Aberdeen—is already up and running. Our plans for Great British Energy will be rolled out in the new year. Those plans include working with local communities for solar on schools and hospitals, so that we can start cutting bills for public servic…
EM
Ed Miliband
The truth is that there is only one way to get bills down sustainably in this country, which is to drive towards clean energy. The Conservatives used to believe that, too; then, in September 2023, the former Prime Minister took them on an anti-net zero crusade, and it is only getting worse.
EM
Ed Miliband
I will not answer the hon. Gentleman directly, but I will say that I am working with my colleagues across Government on this crucial issue. We will do everything we can to drive down Russia’s benefits from its oil and gas industry, because that is a crucial part of the war effort to help Ukraine.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right about this. We must not have short memories here, because the truth is that the cost of living crisis that we saw after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine not only hit families and businesses across Britain, but continues to hit them today. That is why the drive for clean power is so important. Every …
EM
Ed Miliband
We will look at the scheme in the spending review. I believe that it is important not just to Scotland but to the whole UK, but I want to level with the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, the House: it requires significant financial resources. We found the resources for track 1 of carbon capture, usage and storage and we want…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am very sympathetic towards this issue, and we are in discussions with our colleagues across Government. Watch this space.
EM
Ed Miliband
I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman. The truth is that we need to build the grid, regardless of whether the target is 2030 or 2035. This Government are being honest and open with people in saying that the grid needs to be built. If we do not build the grid, we will remain massively vulnerable as a country…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. It is about energy independence for Britain, and about becoming a clean energy superpower that can export energy and benefit as a country. The opportunities are huge, which is why we are getting on with it.
EM
Ed Miliband
I am disappointed in the right hon. Gentleman, but perhaps I should not be surprised. The truth is that there is only one future for Britain that reduces bills for good: a clean power mission. We can carry on being vulnerable, and we can carry on with fossil fuels, but we will be in the grip of petrostates and dictator…
EM
Ed Miliband
This is a Government with a world-leading position when it comes to oil and gas, and we will do the right thing for the environment and climate change and the right thing to ensure that there is a just transition in the North sea.
EM
Ed Miliband
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has been a brilliant campaigner on this issue for a very long time. My hon. Friend the Minister of State will have heard what he said. This is the difference: this is a Labour Government delivering justice for mineworkers across our country and their families, which is all part of d…
COP2926 Nov 2024
EM
Ed Miliband
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement about COP29. May I start by extending my sympathy to all those affected by Storm Bert? It has been a devastating event for people in different parts of our country, particularly in Wales, and my heart goes out to the families of those who have lost… their lives and to all those whose lives have been disrupted. With permission, Mr Speaker, I also want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Lord Prescott. He was a fighter for social justice and a champion of the environment. He rightfully has global recognition for his role in negotiating the Kyoto protocol, and he showed how politics can change lives for the better. I send my deepest condolences to Pauline and his family. The UK attended COP29 to fight for our national interest—speeding up the clean energy transition in the interests of jobs, energy security and economic growth, and tackling the climate crisis for today’s and future generations. In Baku, our message was clear: Britain is back in the business of global climate leadership. We know that the impacts of the climate crisis know no borders. We have already seen the extreme impacts we can face here in Britain, and we know that if we do not act those impacts will get much worse. That is why, as the Prime Minister said at COP29, there is no national security without climate security. It is precisely because Britain represents only around 1% of annual global emissions that we have to work with others to ensure the remaining 99% of emissions are addressed to protect the British people. The focus of this COP was on finance for developing countries, because the reality is that unless we persuade developing countries to go down the path of clean energy development, we cannot hope to reduce emissions and prevent climate disaster. Those countries face the triple challenges of needing to invest in the clean energy transition, coping with the costs of climate vulnerability and needing to develop to take their pop
Hansard · 26 Nov 2024 · parliament.uk
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State, Claire Coutinho.
CC
Claire Coutinho
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I echo his comments on Storm Bert and thank the emergency services for all that they have done to help those in need. I start by passing on my personal condolences to the right hon. Gentleman on the passing of John Prescott. I know that he wanted him to…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I just remind those on the Front Benches that the reply to a statement should last no longer than five minutes.
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
BE
Bill Esterson
May I gently say to the shadow Secretary of State that she really should not believe dodgy headlines in The Daily Telegraph? In fact, I am not sure whether headlines in The Daily Telegraph are ever not dodgy, based on what she was quoting. More importantly, though, let me congratulate the Prime Minister on his leadersh…
EM
Ed Miliband
Oh dear, oh dear! Let me deal with the shadow Secretary of State’s questions, such as they are. Let us start with our nationally determined contribution, announced at the conference of the parties. It is so interesting that she now opposes it, because the 2035 NDC announced by the Prime Minister is exactly the target t…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks an important question. Two truths came out of COP: first, the transition is unstoppable and, secondly, it is not going fast enough. There is such a difference from a decade ago—my hon. Friend, who was there with me, is nodding in agreement—because every country knows that the climate crisis is happe…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and support for ambitious action, which is important. Let me pick out a couple of the points she made. First, the point about the devastating effects of the climate crisis already being apparent is important. Part of the danger is that those effects will end up being the new norma…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks absolutely the right question. The truth on the finance side is that this represents a significant scaling up at a time when developed and developing countries face extreme pressures on the public finances. There is a significant development whereby the flows to multilateral development banks from l…
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he speaks with customary eloquence on the issue. This is literally an existential issue for the small island states. Their testimony at COP was compelling and deeply distressing, and that is why the finance deal is important. It was not everything they wanted, but it is…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right. She was with me at Copenhagen, and I definitely had Copenhagen post-traumatic stress disorder at the talks at various moments in the middle of the night. Her point about the target and actions is absolutely right, and there is global recognition that this Government have upped the pace in the m…
EM
Ed Miliband
As far as COP29 is concerned, we are speeding up global action. As I described in my statement, this finance deal could mean a reduction equivalent to 15 times the emissions of Britain. That is hard going, but it is the way to reduce the temperature rises that will take place. The world is in danger of busting through …
EM
Ed Miliband
That is an important agreement and I am glad that my hon. Friend has drawn attention to it. This is about the next generation of nuclear power stations. The truth is—and this applies across clean energy, in nuclear, renewables and so on—that we can learn so much from and work with each other in global and bilateral co-…
EM
Ed Miliband
The National Energy System Operator report, which is the advice given to us by the independent body, shows that this will lead to lower electricity bills. That is so important, because we get two protections from “Clean Power 2030”: one is lower bills, and the second is that we are protected against the devastating pri…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right: although we have party political disagreements on some issues, this country has avoided a fraying and splitting of this consensus, as has happened in other countries. The consensus on climate action is so important precisely because of what he has set out: the fate of his grandchildren and all …
EM
Ed Miliband
I understand why the hon. Lady expresses that disappointment—indeed, a number of developing countries expressed that disappointment. However, I think that this is a considerable scaling-up of resources. That is to state the obvious, because $100 billion was the previous commitment. It is the provision and mobilisation …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is absolutely right about that. This is where the opportunities are huge. For South Yorkshire, there are opportunities around hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and the jobs in insulating homes. We know that many of our industrial heartlands have been crying out for good job…
EM
Ed Miliband
That is not the way it works. We set a global total and then it is for individual countries to come forward with their contribution—that is the way it works.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are working—through my Department and the Office for Clean Energy Jobs—with Skills England to ensure that we have that workforce plan. There are huge job opportunities here. We must ensure that we have the workforce plan, and that people have the assurance that work will be p…
EM
Ed Miliband
Thanks so much for the support. Let me deal with the hon. Gentleman’s questions in turn. It has always been the case that climate finance is part of the aid budget—that is not some new announcement I have made. Obviously, that is a decision that we make, along with the Foreign Office and other colleagues across Governm…
EM
Ed Miliband
We obviously have to look at all these issues. These global levies and taxes are always quite complex and difficult things to make happen. We have said that we will support the idea of the maritime levy, but we need to proceed cautiously on these issues, because frankly it is important that the finance is provided, and…
EM
Ed Miliband
We just disagree on the idea that we should not have taxed the unearned profits of the energy companies, which were paid for directly by the British people. If the hon. Gentleman wants to say that we should not have had a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies, he is way out of line with his constituents.
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question. I met with some of the youth campaigners and the youth coalition at COP, and I agreed with them. The UK has signed up to a youth clause in our NDC, which is about recognising young people as agents of change when it comes to climate and the need to engage with young peop…
EM
Ed Miliband
I will deal with the wider issues of peatlands, because money was allocated in the Budget for these issues through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That is a very important issue, and the wider issue is also important. We also need to make progress at a global level. The other issues are actually…
EM
Ed Miliband
I will resist the second half of my hon. Friend’s question, if you don’t mind, Mr Speaker. On the first part of his question, the COP process does have its critics, so I will say a couple of things. First, 15 years ago, when I last attended the COP as Secretary of State in Copenhagen, no country was signed up to net ze…
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I have been debating these issues for 15 years, and I hazard a guess that we will not end up agreeing. The truth about the climate crisis is that it is the biggest potential cost that future generations can face. There will be trillions of costs across the world and tens and hundreds of bil…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point—it may be a slight counter to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) . Beneath the headlines, this is where the hard yards of work at COP happened. It has taken 10 years to do these article 6 negotiations and complete them, but this is about voluntary carbon m…
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that. The truth is that the last Government left the public finances in an appalling state, which is why those decisions were made. As I have explained, we have agreed a global total when it comes to climate, but UK contributions are a matter for us and our spending reviews and depend…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right about that and has been a great champion on these issues. It shows the opportunities—there are countless opportunities across the world, including in relation to this finance deal, because this will create huge business opportunities. The truth is that Governments all across the world are alive …
EM
Ed Miliband
There is a long tradition of civil servants playing a really important role at these COPs. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that we sent 100 fewer civil servants to this COP than to the last one under the previous Government. I absolutely defend public servants doing a brilliant job and going…
EM
Ed Miliband
There are indeed members of the UK Youth Climate Coalition who go to COPs. I do not want to interfere in UKYCC’s processes for picking those people, but my hon. Friend makes an important point about the voice of young people. They represent young people, but they also represent future generations, and hearing how those…
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Ed Miliband
We do think that Wylfa has very important prospects. There is an important pipeline of nuclear projects that we are moving forward with, and we look forward to discussions about Wylfa in the coming months.
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Ed Miliband
Both the points that my hon. Friend makes are right. I am happy to acknowledge the role of Theresa May in putting net zero into law, as well as that of Alok Sharma and even Boris Johnson, who fought to champion some of these issues. It is a real shame, and it speaks volumes, that we can say those things and the Conserv…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the truth, which is that, unfortunately, fossil fuels do not give us energy security. Whether those fossil fuels came from the North sea or were imported, prices shot through the roof; our constituents paid the price, and the Government p…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks absolutely the right question. That is the work that we will be undertaking with Brazil and other like-minded countries in the year ahead. Next year marks a very important moment: we have to set our nationally determined contributions for 2035, five years on from the last time the world did so. This…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. As much as developing countries wanted the biggest possible sum to support them, they were as worried about the quality of finance and their access to funds as they were about the quantum. Time and again, I heard from developing countries that they wait years to acces…
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Ed Miliband
Both parts of what my hon. Friend says are right. Since we contribute only 1% of global emissions, we must work with others to ensure that we tackle this problem. The biggest thing I find in this job is that clarity of purpose and direction makes a huge difference to private investors. Uncertainty is the enemy of inves…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the route to reindustrialisation, and nuclear is a central part of this Government’s clean energy mission. As I always say, electricity use will at least double by 2050, so we need all the technologies at our disposal.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My constituents in Doncaster have faced two supposedly one-in-100-year flooding events over the past 10 years or so, and we know that those events will become much more extreme if we do not act, but the truth is that we cannot act on our own; we must act with others. That is the fund…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are chuckling away but the truth is that this is a very serious and important point. The British people want us to act. They want us to act across parties on this issue. They know it is a massive threat to our country because they see it in their …
Clause 5 - Strategic priorities and plans29 Oct 2024
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Ed Miliband
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. It is a privilege to open the Third Reading debate—another milestone in setting up Great British Energy. In less than four months, this Government have incorporated GBE as a company, appointed Juergen Maier as its start-up chair, and launched its first partnership… with the Crown Estate. Next will be the national wealth fund. Earlier this month, we announced GBE’s partnership with key public bodies in Scotland. We have also announced its headquarters in Aberdeen. We are acting on our mandate from the British people. I want to thank everyone who has played a role in getting the Bill to this stage: the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) , who has done an incredible job steering the Bill through Committee; Members across the House who have scrutinised the Bill in Committee; all the parliamentary staff who have worked on the Bill; and the fantastic officials in my Department who have moved at such speed over the last four months. I also want to thank the witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee, all of whom were in support of establishing Great British Energy. I am sure that the House will be interested in the list. They include SSE, EDF, Energy UK, RenewableUK, Scottish Renewables, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, Nesta, the Green Alliance, the Net Zero Technology Centre, the TUC, Prospect and the GMB. And they are not the only ones. I can inform the House that they join a growing list of supporters, including the CBI, the Aldersgate Group, Octopus Energy, E.ON, the Hydrogen Energy Association, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, the Port of Aberdeen, the University of Aberdeen and, of course, the British people themselves, who overwhelmingly backed Great British Energy at the general election. Sadly, the only people you can find to oppose Great British Energy are the faction of a sect of a once-great party sitting on t
Hansard · 29 Oct 2024 · parliament.uk
SC
Sarah Champion
I am fully supportive of GB Energy, but what assurances can my right hon. Friend give to the House that it will be a just transition, that it will be adopted across Government, and that the broadest sector will buy into it?
NG
Nusrat Ghani
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
When we said that we could not support the Bill in its original form, it was because we had no detail to justify giving this Secretary of State a blank cheque for £8 billion of taxpayers’ money. In the intervening two months, I am afraid that we have not learned anything to give us confidence. We have not seen a busine…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend has made really important interventions on this point. We have been clear that no company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chain, and we will be working with colleagues across Government to tackle the issue of the Uyghur forced labour in supply chains that she has raised during the passa…
Zero Carbon Electricity System8 Oct 2024
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Ed Miliband
In 12 weeks, this Government have hit the ground running for our 2030 target by ending the onshore wind ban in place for nine years under the Conservative party, consenting to more nationally significant solar projects than in 14 years of the last Government, and overseeing the most successful renewables auction in history compared with… the Conservatives’ disastrous auction round that crashed offshore wind. This is a Government in a hurry to meet our mandate from the British people, and we are just getting started.
Hansard · 8 Oct 2024 · parliament.uk
SO
Simon Opher
What recent progress he has made on meeting his target to have a zero carbon electricity system by 2030.
AB
Alex Barros-Curtis
What recent progress he has made on meeting his target to have a zero carbon electricity system by 2030.
SO
Simon Opher
I thank the Secretary of State for his really rapid action to reach our 100% sustainable goals by 2030. It has developed a real excitement in this country, and the people I speak to are genuinely behind this action. In Stroud, we are developing a community energy programme of putting solar panels on every school and pu…
AB
Alex Barros-Curtis
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Cantonian high school in my constituency of Cardiff West will be the first Cardiff school to be operationally net zero in line with Welsh Government standards, while the building work itself will feature a significant reduction in embodied carbon. Fairwater community camp…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
Order. Just to help everybody, the hon. Gentleman is meant to go through the Chair, but he was looking at the Secretary of State. As good looking as the Secretary of State is, it is easier if the hon. Gentleman speaks to me, and then I can pick up what he says.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of both rooftop solar and ground-mounted solar. I can tell him that, as part of Great British Energy’s plans, we want to work with local schools, local hospitals and, indeed, local leaders to have a solar panels programme, because this is a way to rapidly decarbon…
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Ed Miliband
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker—and you, too, if I may say so. [Laughter.] I congratulate my hon. Friend, but particularly the Fairwater community campus on the work it is doing. I think he highlights a very important issue. By helping to decarbonise public buildings, including schools, we help not only to cut our carb…
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Ed Miliband
Of course, that work is ongoing—in fact, I think the right hon. Lady the shadow Secretary of State has written me a letter about it—and we will be announcing our plans in due course.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman—and he knows this—will obviously want to stand up for what he sees as the best benefits for his constituency. I will be cautious about what I say, because there are proper procedures for planning decisions, including my quasi-judicial role. I will make this general point to the House, because I think…
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Ed Miliband
Let me tell the hon. Gentleman a little about the situation that we inherited from the last Government, because it is very relevant—obviously, he was not a Minister in that last Government. We inherited a situation where there was no plan: no plan for their target of 95% clean power by 2030, no plan for their target of…
Climate Change: International Work8 Oct 2024
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Ed Miliband
This Government believe that we can only ensure climate security for further generations in the UK if we lead globally. That was the message of the Prime Minister at the United Nations General Assembly with our world-leading 2030 clean power plan, no new oil and gas licences, and playing our part in reforming the global… financial system. Next month I will be attending the COP29 talks in Azerbaijan to stand up for Britain’s interests.
Hansard · 8 Oct 2024 · parliament.uk
JB
Johanna Baxter
What steps he is taking with his international counterparts to tackle climate change.
CV
Christopher Vince
What steps he is taking with his international counterparts to tackle climate change.
PW
Paul Waugh
What steps he is taking with his international counterparts to tackle climate change.
JB
Johanna Baxter
It is brilliant to see the Secretary of State commit to putting climate diplomacy back at the heart of Cabinet, and I know he will bring a great amount of experience to that role. Sir David Attenborough has repeatedly warned that our planet hangs in the balance, so will my right hon. Friend explain to the House what he…
CV
Christopher Vince
Thank you Mr Speaker—I’ve done the training. I welcome the Secretary of State’s warm words about our leadership on international climate issues, which is in stark contrast to the previous Government’s failings. I also publicly welcome his recent visit to Harlow college—less said about the racing game, which he won, the…
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Ed Miliband
It sounds like my hon. Friend’s constituents are doing important work. She is absolutely right. The last Government used to say that we have only 1% of global emissions, as if that was a sort of excuse for inaction on the world stage. We see it differently. We see that only by leading at home can we provide the platfor…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend did very well, and I agree with him. Part of the problem with the last Government—I do not doubt that there were people making good endeavours—is that when we do something different at home to what we preach internationally, such as say we are going to power past coal by opening a new coalmine, people sa…
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Ed Miliband
I will say one thing in particular to my hon. Friend. The Prime Minister said at the United Nations General Assembly that we will be unveiling our nationally determined contribution—our target for 2035—at COP29. We are doing that because the danger is that the world settles into a low-ambition equilibrium when it comes…
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Ed Miliband
The beauty of carbon budgets and the system that was introduced when I was last in government—to be fair, it was carried on by the previous Government of the past 14 years—is that they do at least in theory constrain what the Government do. It is very important that we take carbon budgets seriously in our plans. The pl…
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Ed Miliband
I take the hon. Gentleman seriously on these issues, and I undertake to write to him or to have one of the Ministers write to him. I make the general point that rewilding and nature-based solutions are an essential part of tackling the climate crisis.
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Ed Miliband
Yes, and that is something I am already discussing with my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary.
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Ed Miliband
All the proper processes were followed by the Foreign Office, which was in charge of the appointment. I have to say that this is a very sad reflection on the Conservative party. Rachel Kyte is an esteemed person who is recognised for her leadership, and all the Conservatives can do is fling around baseless allegations.
Onshore Wind Energy8 Oct 2024
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Ed Miliband
After nine years of the disastrous, bill-raising ban on onshore wind in England, this Government overturned the ban in our first 72 hours in office. We have also set up the onshore wind taskforce to restore the pipeline of projects destroyed by the last Government. In the recent renewables auction, almost 1 GW of onshore… wind was secured at prices that make it among the lowest-cost power sources to build and operate.
Hansard · 8 Oct 2024 · parliament.uk
GA
Gideon Amos
What steps he is taking to help increase levels of onshore wind energy production.
GA
Gideon Amos
When will the Secretary of State bring forward proposals for community benefit for those living alongside wind and solar farms to greater incentivise the permitting of wind and solar farms, including Ham solar farm in my constituency? Will that include a minimum level of compensation for the communities affected?
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Ed Miliband
I am sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says. We are working on proposals on community benefit. I believe that when communities host clean energy infrastructure, they should automatically get benefit from it. I am also sympathetic to what he said about minimum levels of support. We are discussing that with industry…
Topical Questions8 Oct 2024
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Ed Miliband
As well as our measures on onshore wind, solar and renewables, this Government have begun legislating for Great British Energy and setting out our plan for proper standards for private and social renters to take 1 million families out of fuel poverty, and on Friday we announced deals to kick-start Britain’s carbon capture industry. All… of this will deliver our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. It is right for bills, right for energy security, right for jobs and right for climate leadership.
Hansard · 8 Oct 2024 · parliament.uk
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Tracy Gilbert
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
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Tracy Gilbert
I welcome the actions outlined by my right hon. Friend, particularly the recent announcement that GB Energy will be headquartered in Aberdeen, with satellite offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Can he outline the role that he expects the satellite offices to take? Given the investment already under way in the port of Lei…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
The Secretary of State promised in the general election to cut everyone’s bills by £300 by 2030—a pledge he will not repeat now that he is in office. In fact, one of his first acts has been to snatch the same amount away from millions of pensioners in poverty. The right hon. Gentleman likes to preach, to politicise and…
CC
Claire Coutinho
There we have it: no apology; no recognition that it is the right hon. Gentleman’s Government’s decisions that are going to leave pensioners in the cold this winter. He has to acknowledge this: from the trade unions to the CBI, from blue Labour to Blairites and from the left to the right of his party, people are soundi…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to our announcement on Aberdeen as the headquarters of Great British Energy and the important role that it will play, and also to the importance of the satellite offices. I know from my visit to her constituency of the huge potential of her area on these issues, and …
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Ed Miliband
The people who should be apologising are the last Government, who left this country in a total mess—a £22 billion black hole. I have to say to the right hon. Lady that she does have a brass neck. She said of the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) , whom she is backing in the leadership contest, that …
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Ed Miliband
Oh dear, oh dear. The truth is that after three months of this Government, people have breathed a sigh of relief that there is finally a Government with a plan for the country. [Interruption.] I think the right hon. Lady should listen to what her own ministerial team has been saying about her. The former networks Minis…
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Ed Miliband
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Nuclear is an essential part of the energy mix. We are mainly going to have a renewable system, but nuclear is an essential accompaniment. I fully support all the projects he mentions.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises a question about the problems of grid connection that is familiar to many Members. We are building on work done by Nick Winser, the former electricity networks commissioner, and we want to go further to tackle the problem of grid connections once and for all.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important issue that I am afraid was not solved by the last Government. We are working at pace with National Grid, and I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) , will be happy to talk to him furthe…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises the important issue that, as a country, we are massively underpowered on community energy. As part of the GB Energy local power plan we will be trying to change that, learning from countries such as Germany and Denmark, which do much better than us. We will certainly look at the issues she raises.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises the important issue that what will define the future for North sea workers is whether there is a plan for future jobs in offshore wind, carbon capture and hydrogen. There was no plan from the previous Government; this Government are absolutely determined to ensure a just transition for those worke…
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Ed Miliband
I will not comment on the Budget, obviously. We are very sympathetic to pumpwatch—it is important that there is a fair deal for consumers at the pump.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises such an important issue. Across the House, we can have different views on ground-mounted solar, but we need to do more on rooftops and to ensure that tenants, for example council tenants, benefit from such technologies. That is a huge priority for us and we are working on it with colleagues in the…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman will understand that I have to be careful in what I say about planning issues, but he should rest assured that I have frequent conversations with my counterpart in the Scottish Government and, no doubt, that is one issue we will be discussing.
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Ed Miliband
Every planning application and development consent order is assessed on its merits. Importantly, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed) , is polishing a land use framework, which has long been needed in this country. I…
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Ed Miliband
I know from the questions that I have received from the Opposition that the right hon. Lady has been a tireless advocate on these issues. I do understand the concerns of local communities about clean energy infrastructure, which is why I am so keen on the idea of community benefit. It is important that communities rece…
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Ed Miliband
Yes, we will be bringing forward a spatial energy plan. That is one of the responsibilities of the National Energy System Operator. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: we need a plan for the system. We can have a plan for the 2030 system done by the NESO and, indeed, a wider strategic spatial energy plan, whic…
Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage7 Oct 2024
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Ed Miliband
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I heard your statement, and Mr Speaker’s earlier. With permission, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s carbon capture programme. Last week was a historic week for our energy system. On Monday, 142 years of coal-fired electricity generation came to an end, as Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station closed… for the last time. I pay tribute to the generations of coal workers, at Ratcliffe and elsewhere, who powered our country for more than a century, and to power station workers; we owe them a huge debt. I am sure that sentiment is shared across the whole House. As one era ends and we begin the next stage of Britain’s energy journey, the Government are determined to create a new generation of good jobs in our industrial heartlands. On Friday, we began a new era, as Government and industry agreed the deals that will launch Britain’s carbon capture industry. This has been a long time coming. I was proud, as Energy Secretary, to kick-start the process of developing carbon capture way back in 2009—some hon. Members were then still at school, and I am much greyer now—with a £1 billion competition. In 2011, that programme was cancelled by the coalition Government. In 2012, a new competition was announced, and in 2015, it too was cancelled. When we came to office, we inherited an in-principle aspiration to go ahead, but the very significant Government funding required had not yet been accounted for, so under the last Government we had fits and starts, dither and delay. By contrast, just three months since we came to office, this Government have turned promise into reality. I can confirm to the House that we have agreed commercial terms, and £21.7 billion of funding over 25 years for five carbon capture, usage and storage projects across two clusters: HyNet in the north-west, and the East Coast Cluster in the north-east. This announcement will enable the construction of two transport and storage networks that will underpin this new ind
Hansard · 7 Oct 2024 · parliament.uk
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Caroline Nokes
Before we come to the next statement, may I reiterate the comments that Mr Speaker made earlier today? While the whole House understands that the business of government will go on during recess and that Ministers are required to respond to events, it is frustrating for hon. Members when statements are made during sched…
CN
Caroline Nokes
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement. While I welcome the news today, I am saddened, if not surprised, that he has not had the grace to acknowledge the work of the last Government in getting us to this place. I know that his opinion is not that of the many partners who have come t…
CN
Caroline Nokes
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
BE
Bill Esterson
Unlike the shadow Secretary of State, I am very pleased that the Secretary of State has announced jobs in Teesside—jobs from which my constituents in the north-west of England will potentially benefit. I am also very pleased that we have a Government who are committed to an industrial strategy, and who believe in Gover…
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Ed Miliband
I know that the right hon. Lady is in a difficult position, and it rather showed today. Let us be honest: the truth is quite painful for her. She failed, as Energy Secretary, to get carbon capture over the line, year after year—well, to be fair, she was only in the job for 10 months, but certainly month after month. Th…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he makes a really important point. Some people are sceptical about the use of carbon capture and storage. The truth is that for hard-to-abate industries—cement, for example—unless we have CCS technology, either there will be no future for these industries or they will not be abl…
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Ed Miliband
May I begin by welcoming the hon. Lady to her place, and thanking her for the tone and substance of her remarks? She is right to underline the fact that we are marking a new era but also marking the passing of an era, and it is right to pay tribute to all the people who worked in our coal-fired power stations and, inde…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he speaks with great knowledge and expertise on these issues. He is absolutely right about the hard-to-abate sectors. I say to him what I said to the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) : there is a ro…
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Ed Miliband
Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that this is a point of agreement between us. These are very important projects, and I thank him for his question. They were always envisaged as being two tracks, and we inherited a significant degree of delay from the last Government. We want these projects to happen as soon as possibl…
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Ed Miliband
This is something that my hon. Friend and I have talked about. On Grangemouth, we are advancing at speed—in a way that the last Government completely failed to do, because the project had not even started—with Project Willow, which is seeking an industrial future for the Grangemouth site. He has my absolute commitment …
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Ed Miliband
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I talked to the UK chair of ExxonMobil last week about this issue, and I believe that the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones) , is going to meet him later this week. For the benefit of…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge of this subject. She is unusual in this House, in that she is an engineer by background and actually knows about these issues. She is absolutely right about this. Our world-leading scientists and engineers are a crucial part of our playing a world-leading role in this technolo…
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Ed Miliband
I concur completely with what the hon. Lady says. We are absolutely committed to Acorn; it is very important. We came into Government with track 1 not accounted for, so part of the challenge was getting track 1 over the line because it just seemed so important to send a signal that there was not going to be more of the…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is entirely right. This is part of a whole set of things this Government are doing, including lifting the onshore wind ban, releasing private investment and dealing with solar projects that had frankly been sitting on desks for far too long, with nearly 2 GW consented. In fact, more has been consented in…
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Ed Miliband
On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, that is very much part of our plans for the future. On his second point, we will obviously set out all those details in response to the work of the Climate Change Committee. Frankly, one thing that we are struggling with is the delays under the last Government. I have set out the im…
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for her brilliant advocacy on this issue. She raises an important point, which is that people will look at this investment and think that it is a big investment, albeit over 25 years. Is it the right thing to do for the country? Emphatically, yes. It is right for our industr…
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Ed Miliband
I am sorry about the hon. Gentleman’s tone, but it is entirely predictable. He knows that there have always been two tracks. This Government have moved at speed to fund track 1, and I have made absolutely clear our commitment to Acorn and track 2.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is entirely right. The challenge for the Government, and for the companies that have won these contracts, is to make sure that we create jobs in the supply chain, including in her constituency. I look forward to meeting her to discuss this.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and it is why one of the projects we funded is an energy from waste project. This is exactly the kind of role that CCS can play.
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Ed Miliband
I pay tribute to Alex Cunningham and my hon. Friend for being tireless advocates. He makes such an important point. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) , we must ensure that the jobs we are delivering get to the people and places that have not seen such opportunities for far too lo…
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Ed Miliband
I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s question, although I do not agree. First, this is a long-term investment in the country’s future, and I think the Chancellor is far-sighted in recognising its importance. Secondly, there are hard-to-abate industries that, without carbon capture, will find it very hard to enter a dec…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend always speaks with great eloquence on these issues, and he is completely right. When we talk about the transition to clean energy creating the jobs of the future, and about it being the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century, we have to show that it can actually happen. The problem with the la…
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Ed Miliband
It is early, but I worry about the hon. Gentleman’s opposition to new grid infrastructure, so goodness knows what will happen to the renewables. He also opposes carbon capture, so goodness knows what will happen to the hard-to-abate industries. I am all in favour of investing in woodlands, but we need all of these thin…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend also speaks with customary eloquence on these issues. This is potentially an important part of the solution. We owe a debt to the workers at Port Talbot, and we must ensure that we leave no stone unturned in looking to the future. I look forward to continuing these discussions with him.
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Ed Miliband
I will let the House into a secret: the conversation—if I can put it that way—between myself and the right hon. Gentleman goes back to 2008 or 2009, when he was shadowing me, so this is a long-running saga, and I fear I will not convince him. I disagree with him on so many levels that it is hard to listen. I respect hi…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes such an important point. I was with the Prime Minister in New York in the last couple of weeks, talking to international partners about where the new British Government stood, and there is a sense that British leadership is back. However, if I had said to them, “We can’t do carbon capture; that’s j…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome the hon. Member to the House. We have all kinds of projects in place to encourage business to decarbonise; indeed, our drive for clean power by 2030 is part of ensuring that we decarbonise the electricity system to help businesses to be part of the decarbonisation journey. However, I just do not recognise the…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said before in the House, Cornwall has a crucial role to play in our clean energy future. She is a brilliant champion for Cornwall and for floating wind. As she says, there is huge opportunity, and we look forward to working with her to make it happen.
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Ed Miliband
That is indeed done as part of this. I gently say to some of those asking me this question that this Government have a world-leading position on no new oil and gas licences, and that position is recognised around the world. I say to the hon. Member—this goes back to what I have said throughout this statement—that we ne…
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Ed Miliband
My hon Friend is absolutely right. The last Government cancelled the project twice, which tells us all we need to know about them. I had forgotten about the second cancellation; I actually had to check—I could not believe that they had cancelled it not just once but twice. That is going some. After three months, here i…
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Ed Miliband
I listened to what oil and gas companies such as BP and Equinor said: they warmly welcomed this announcement. Frankly, there was a sigh of relief; after years of promises and delay, we finally had a Government getting this done.
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Ed Miliband
Let us be absolutely clear about this, because that was a significant intervention from the hon. Gentleman. Here we have what claims to be the party of working people opposing jobs for working people right across the country. That says all we need to know about the hon. Gentleman: outside this House, he pretends to be …
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Ed Miliband
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tone of his question. I do understand that, just as track 1 was led a merry dance by the last Government, so too was track 2. The current Government have been in power for three months. We are moving at speed, and we have got track 1 over the line. These are obviously decisio…
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Ed Miliband
I am all in favour of big tomatoes and improving our food security. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the potential uses of CCUS. On Friday, we were at a glass factory that will be using hydrogen from a new project and will be the beneficiary of a decarbonised supply. I look forward to further discussio…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I hope he has a conversation with his right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) —[Interruption.] I see the right hon. Member does not want to talk to him right now. A good point to end on is the fact that, of course, jobs will be created in certain parts of…
Great British Energy Bill5 Sep 2024
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Ed Miliband
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. May I congratulate you on your elevation to your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker? At the general election, the British people voted for change, and they voted for our party’s promise of the first new national, publicly owned energy generation company in… our country for more than 75 years: Great British Energy. Today, with this Bill, we deliver. British public ownership is back at the heart of our energy system. To every right hon. and hon. Member behind me, I say that it is thanks to each and every one of their victories in their constituencies that today we can start to create a lasting legacy for the country, which breaks from 14 years of failure—14 years of leaving Britain exposed to fossil fuel markets, which led directly to the worst cost of living crisis and energy bills crisis in generations.
Hansard · 5 Sep 2024 · parliament.uk
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Nusrat Ghani
The reasoned amendment in the name of Claire Coutinho has been selected.
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Graham Stuart
Will the Secretary of State give way?
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Graham Stuart
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is normally a fair man, but what he did not mention was the risible state of renewable energy when we took power in 2010. It accounted for less than 7% of electricity, and we increased the figure to nearly 50%. We are a country that has led the world in this …
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Sammy Wilson
I will not support this Bill tonight. The Secretary of State claims that it will put the British people in ownership of the renewable electricity supply market, but that market is estimated is £50 billion a year. He is proposing to invest £1.6 billion a year. Can he not see the difference that £1.6 billion will make to…
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Grahame Morris
I completely agree with the basis of my right hon. Friend’s argument for ending the offshoring of jobs, energy assets and employment opportunities. Almost all solar panels are currently sourced from China. Power Roll, a company in my constituency, has developed a lightweight, flexible and cost-effective solar module an…
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Ed Miliband
Not at the moment. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman needs to calm down a little bit; I know he gets very angry. We have had 14 years of blind faith in free markets and a refusal to have an industrial policy, which offshored clean energy jobs, and 14 years of a Government who were perfectly happy with state owne…
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman surprises me; he is a brilliant set-up man, and he is welcome any time. I will now explain to him what state ownership will do. Here is why it is the right idea for our time. It is the right idea for energy security, because Great British Energy will invest in home-grown, clean energy that we c…
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Ed Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman and I have a long history on these issues, which makes me rather old. Indeed, we used to spar about them 15 years ago. He is wrong about £1.6 billion; it is £8.3 billion of investment over the Parliament—a significant sum. Great British Energy will not become EDF overnight—of course not —but th…
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Ed Miliband
I am going to make some more progress. Let me go through what Great British Energy will do. First, it will invest in and own clean energy projects, particularly leading-edge technologies such as floating offshore wind, by working with the private sector and taking stakes in the projects it supports. The truth is that w…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is a brilliant champion of his constituency and these issues, and he is absolutely right that part of the challenge we face is to expand our supply chains in Britain. I am very interested in the example he gives.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend anticipates my point about how we build the supply chains, and about the lessons we have learned from what state-owned companies in other countries have done to help catalyse a supply chain of jobs and to work with the private sector.
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Ed Miliband
I will give way one more time before making some more progress.
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is part of what this Government have done. In less than two months, we have overturned the onshore wind ban, consented large amounts of solar power and, on Tuesday, had the most successful renewables auction in British history.
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Ed Miliband
I will not give way to the right hon. Gentleman again. We have heard quite enough from him. Secondly—I know this is a concern of the Liberal Democrats and of other Members on both sides of the House—Great British Energy will deliver our local power plan, working with local authorities, combined authorities and communit…
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Ed Miliband
I will make a bit more progress. I had the chance to visit the Lawrence Weston turbine in Bristol, which Members may know about. It is England’s tallest onshore wind turbine, and it is 100% owned by the local community, powering at least 3,000 local homes and reinvesting revenues into local projects.
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Ed Miliband
I have caught the eye of an infrequent contributor to this House, so I will give way.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Member is absolutely right. This is a massive concern for all our constituents, and Great British Energy is a crucial tool to bring down prices for our constituents. The truth is that every Member in this House has to make a judgment on this. Do they believe that business as usual, staying on fossil fuels, wil…
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Ed Miliband
I am going to make a bit more progress. Thirdly, Great British Energy will work with industry to develop supply chains across the UK to boost energy independence and create good jobs. The reality is that the last Government spectacularly underdelivered on the promise of creating jobs in clean energy. It is true that Br…
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Ed Miliband
I looked carefully at that issue before we made that decision. I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but we cannot justify spending public money on a scheme that will not work and will not deliver for the British people, which is why we did not go ahead with the second phase. All the advice and all the evidence …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is a great champion for his area and he is right. I am sure he reflects the feelings of every right hon. and hon. Member, whatever side of the House they are on, that there are huge opportunities in this sector. We intend to exploit them. I look forward to seeing his constituency.
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Ed Miliband
I will make a bit more progress. I have set out our case—a case that the British people overwhelmingly support. According to post-election polling by More in Common, Great British Energy was supported by an overwhelming 73% of voters and opposed by just 8%. It appears from the Conservative’s reasoned amendment—so-calle…
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Ed Miliband
I will make a bit more progress. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are still in the “the show was great but the audience was poor” stage of Opposition. Let me give them some advice—they will get out of that over time, but they are in the early stages now. Because I get my kicks in strange ways, for a bit of light en…
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Ed Miliband
I am very surprised by the Liberal Democrats saying that. It is slightly “orange book” Liberal Democrats, if I may put it that way, for those old enough to remember. I say respectfully to the hon. Lady and all Members of the House: look around the world at what is happening before our eyes. There is catalytic public in…
Contracts for Difference3 Sep 2024
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate you on your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker. With permission, I would like to make a statement about the sixth contracts for difference allocation round. It is less than two months since the Government came into office with a mandate to fix the foundations and make Britain a clean energy superpower. The last… Government left this country exposed to international fossil fuel markets. As a result, every household and business paid the price in the worst cost of living and energy bills crisis in memory; because of Britain’s particular exposure, families and businesses in our country were hit harder than others. The only way to provide this country with the energy security that the British people deserve is through home-grown clean energy that we control. That is the mandate on which this Government were elected, and that is what we will deliver. Last year’s contracts for difference auction, under the previous Government, was a fiasco. No offshore wind projects were awarded, which was a disaster for the industry and for our efforts to move away from dependence on fossil fuels. In July, when we came into office, I made the decision to expand the budget for this year’s auction by 50% to maximise the amount of home-grown clean power we could secure while delivering value for the British people, and today the results are in. I can announce to the House that we have secured a record-breaking 131 new clean energy projects: more projects for our country as a whole than any previous auction; more projects in England, more projects in Scotland and more projects in Wales than any previous auction; over two and a half times the capacity secured in last year’s auction; nearly 10 GW of clean, home-grown power, enough to power the equivalent of 11 million homes; the most successful renewables auction in British history; and a major step forward in our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and to help Britain get off the rollercoaster of volatile global gas ma
Hansard · 3 Sep 2024 · parliament.uk
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Caroline Nokes
I call Ed Miliband to make a statement on contracts for difference.
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Mark Garnier
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the timely advance sight of his statement. I would like to put on record that Members on the Opposition Benches welcome the success of the contracts for difference allocation round 6. The Secretary of State is right to be proud of that achievement by the Government. It is to …
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Toby Perkins
It is great to see my right hon. Friend in such ebullient spirits. I have to say that his enthusiasm can only be matched by that of the industry, which today has roundly welcomed the decision that he took back in July to increase the size of this auction. That demonstrates that, if we have a Government who are consiste…
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Caroline Nokes
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Wera Hobhouse
We Liberal Democrats very much welcome the results of this round. It is a significant improvement on last year, when the previous Conservative Government completely failed, with zero bids from the onshore wind developers. The results show that the CfD programme is back on track. They demonstrate the power of industry a…
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Ed Miliband
At a lower price. This floating offshore wind farm alone is double the size of all of Europe’s installed floating offshore wind capacity. In addition, on tidal, where Britain has huge leadership opportunities, we have secured six new tidal stream projects at the lowest ever price. Fourthly, on fixed offshore wind, in c…
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his elevation since the election. I look forward to our exchanges in this House. I say him to gently that the crucial first phase of Opposition, in my experience, is having a bit of humility to admit where they have got things wrong. I do not deny that some of the things that the pr…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a typically eloquent point. This is about a partnership with private industry. The truth is that much of the investment that we need for the clean power mission will come from the private sector, and I suspect that there is cross-party agreement on that. We on the Government Benches have a differen…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her support and the warm tone that she uses. She is right that we face a big challenge as a country to get moving on the offshore wind Bill, the onshore wind Bill, solar on rooftops and ground-mounted solar. The truth is that CfD auctions have served us well and continue to do so. We inherited…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks with great experience—from both inside and outside this House—and I welcome her expertise on these issues. She is absolutely right that we have to face up to the fact that we are in a global race for these jobs. Investors are trying to decide whether to locate their blade factories and other inves…
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Ed Miliband
I shall address this question at a more general level, for reasons the right hon. Gentleman might understand. I think we should be looking at all proposals that can maximise energy security. He is talking about the Xlinks proposal. I am obviously aware of that proposal, and know that we need to look at it in the broade…
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Ed Miliband
Again, my hon. Friend speaks with great expertise. Part of it is about is having a Government who are committed to a proper industrial strategy and have the levers to make that strategy happen. There was an interesting divide between the Opposition, when they were in government, and us. Although, of course, America is …
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Ed Miliband
I am interested by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because his manifesto is basically higher bills and to make people poorer. We do not need to look into the crystal ball; we just need to look at the record. The truth is that the cost of living crisis—the energy bills crisis—casts a long shadow in this country. It w…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. We need to be honest about this: we face what we can only describe as a crisis with our grid situation, because we have people wanting to connect to cheap, clean renewables and being offered dates in the 2030s—often late in the 2030s. We have industrial investments that we need to h…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, and even the second part. The only way this will work is if, whatever our differences—and we have large differences—we work on this task with every Government across the United Kingdom, whatever kind of Government that is. Gillian Martin, the Cabinet Secretary …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is 100% right, and she puts it incredibly well. It is hard for Governments of all stripes to admit this truth, but when the 1 October price cap was announced, these matters were not within the previous Government’s control, and would not have been within ours, because of our exposure. These prices are se…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. He raises an incredibly serious and important issue. When I came into Government, I asked for discussions across Government on this. Controls were in place, to be fair to the last Government, and as part of the ongoing solar taskforce, these issues were being looked …
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a very important question, which gives me a chance to advertise the Second Reading of the Great British Energy Bill on Thursday. All are welcome—standing room only! As part of our plans for Great British Energy, we allocated £3 billion of the £8.3 billion that we set out in the election for what we …
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Ed Miliband
When I came into office and examined the issues around pot 2, which covers tidal, I was very keen to make sure that we increased the tidal minimum, which we did by 50%. These are important discussions to continue. There is a dilemma here, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, which is that tidal remains relatively exp…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the legacy of the last Government. To widen her point, I would say to Members across the House—we need to be candid that this is hard for us as constituency MPs—that there is a need to connect debates in this House about fuel poverty and energy bills and the decisions that …
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Ed Miliband
I think that tonight, the hon. Gentleman will think that that was not a very smart point to make. Weeks after we came into office, the price cap went up. I have explained why the price cap went up—because of our reliance on international gas markets. The decision that he has to make is this: does he support our mission…
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Ed Miliband
I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised that point. We face planning decisions and questions at a policy level, if I can put it that way, right across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland and in England. We will work with the Scottish Government and others to make sure that we have a planning system that is fit f…
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Ed Miliband
I thought that the hon. Gentleman’s party supported a publicly owned energy company, but I may be wrong about that. I can absolutely say that this is the way to deliver lower bills for his constituents. [Hon. Members: “When?”] Members can shout all they like—I know that this is hard for the hon. Gentleman—but the reali…
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Ed Miliband
I agree 100%. The notion that our exposure to fossil fuels as a country gives us security is belied by what has happened over the last few years; as the Prime Minister often says, it means that Putin’s boot is on our throat. My hon. Friend talks about this patriotic mission, and he is completely right. Other parties in…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady, whom I welcome to her place, makes an important point. We often get questions about what to do in an intermittent system. We need different forms of both dispatchable power and energy storage. One project that my Department is working on—continuing some of the work of the previous Government—is long-dura…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend, who has great expertise on these issues, makes an important point. We welcome the success of Ørsted in today’s allocation round for the Hornsea wind farms. It is great for Danish taxpayers that they will get some benefit from it, and it is great for Britain that we will get the investment, but as the Pr…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I very much enjoyed my visit to Telford, where I spoke with local business. It is easy to think about these things in very macro terms, of how many gigawatts and so on—the kind of thing I like talking about—but he is right that this is as much, if not more, about all the jobs that we…
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Ed Miliband
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s embrace of solar as part of the energy mix. It is really important to say this: we need more rooftop solar. Lots of people in this House ask, “Why don’t we do more on rooftops?”, and I agree with them. There is also an important role for ground-mounted solar, however. I very much lo…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is a great champion of floating wind in the Celtic sea. He is right: we are proud of the 400 MW project in this round. We need to look—including in the auction round, through GB Energy and in other ways—at how we can build on our advantages in crucial floating wind technology, take the opportunities that…
Clean Energy Superpower Mission18 Jul 2024
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Ed Miliband
With permission, I would like to make a statement about the Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. This Government were elected two weeks ago. Since then, we have lifted the onshore wind ban in England, which had been in place since 2015; consented more than 1.3 GW of solar projects, powering the… equivalent of almost 400,000 homes; established the 2030 mission control centre in my Department under Chris Stark to plan and deliver our mission; and established under the Chancellor a national wealth fund to create good clean energy jobs across our country. We are just getting started. We are moving at this pace for one overriding reason: the urgency of the challenges we face. We have the challenge of our energy insecurity, laid bare by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and paid for by the British people in the worst cost of living crisis in generations. We have the challenge of an economy that does not work for working people, with too few good jobs at decent wages. We have the challenge of the climate crisis—not a future threat, but a present reality. This Government have a driving philosophy: homegrown clean energy can help us tackle all those challenges, including crucially energy security. Today the Climate Change Committee publishes its progress report to Parliament. I thank the interim chair Piers Forster and the interim chief executive James Richardson for their excellent work. The Committee says in its report: “British-based renewable energy is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce vulnerability to volatile global fossil fuel markets. The faster we get off fossil fuels, the more secure we become.” It is right. That is why making Britain a clean energy superpower is one of the five missions of this Government, delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero across the economy. Today, the committee’s report also lays bare the truth about the last Government. Despite achievements, which I am happy to acknowledge, the report is corusc
Hansard · 18 Jul 2024 · parliament.uk
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Lindsay Hoyle
Before I call the Secretary of State, I note that there is disappointment from the Opposition that the statement was not provided in time. The statement was not provided to my office in time either. I know we want to set off in the right way. I am sure that the officials will make note when they arrive that we need to …
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Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Claire Coutinho
I would like to put on the record my disappointment not to get the statement in good time. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will want to provide us with the same courtesy that we tried to provide him when we were in government. That being said, I congratulate him on his return to government. I was sad not to see mo…
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Lindsay Hoyle
Order. Can I just say that I do not need any advice? I will decide whether it is a question. It is an answer, actually.
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Bill Esterson
It is great to see you back in the Chair, Mr Speaker. It is also great to see the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box on this side of the House again. I welcome what he said about the jobs, lower bills, energy security and climate action that lie at the heart of this Government’s plans. That is very true in respect …
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Ed Miliband
May I start by congratulating the right hon. Lady on her recent engagement? I wish her and her fiancé all the best for the future. We may disagree on some issues, but I believe this Government and the right hon. Lady can at least share a belief in long honeymoons. [Laughter.] On the right hon. Lady’s response, I have t…
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Ed Miliband
On the points the right hon. Lady made, there is a fundamental issue, which is that unless we drive for clean energy—this is what the Climate Change Committee said; I strongly recommend that right hon. and hon. Members read it—we will end up energy insecure. We had the worst cost of living crisis in generations because…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend has long been an eloquent advocate for the role that business can play in generating the clean energy of our future and generating prosperity. I can absolutely confirm that we want to embrace the widest range of technologies. Obviously we must ensure that that gives value for money, but what I always say…
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Ed Miliband
May I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? I welcome the hon. Lady’s questions; we worked together on these issues when we were in opposition. Let me deal with her two substantive points. On the question of public consent, this is absolutely something that we need to do, and I see it in three ways. First, co…
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Ed Miliband
I definitely concur with what my hon. Friend says about ITM Power—an incredibly impressive company that I have visited. I also concur with him on the SMR programme. Our manifesto made it clear that we support new nuclear, including at Sizewell, and we also support the SMR programme. Part of our challenge is to examine …
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As with any planning decisions, there are clear parameters in the legislation on the consultation that needs to take place with local communities. I gently point out to her that, nine years ago, the last Government banned onshore wind in England for some of the reasons that she s…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is an incredibly eloquent advocate for his port, which I was delighted to visit during the election campaign. He makes such an important point: for an island nation looking to take advantage—in terms of jobs as well as generation—of the opportunities of offshore wind, including floating offshore wind, ou…
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Ed Miliband
In the spirit that I spoke about in my statement, may I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his work on deep geothermal? It was an outstanding example of how Members of Parliament can advance the role that particular technologies can play. He is a most eloquent advocate for this technology. Among the many places I went …
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her election. May I say that she is a great person to go out on a boat with and that I very much enjoyed our tour? My hon. Friend makes such an important point about the Celtic sea and about the opportunity that we have. One of the decisions on my desk will be how we make sure that we a…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place. Great British Energy will of course have a strong interest in nuclear power, working with Great British Nuclear. It is very important for the future. This Government were very clear in our manifesto about the role that nuclear power—both large-scale nuclear and SMRs—can play. I kno…
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Ed Miliband
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing this project to my attention. In a way, the questions from both sides of the House demonstrate the huge potential we have in this area, not just to tackle the climate crisis and energy insecurity but to create the good jobs of the future. I undertake that the Department will …
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Ed Miliband
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I certainly took an interest in the project when I was in opposition. I have met Xlinks, the company involved. I need to be careful about what I say on these matters, as he will appreciate, but it is certainly a project that my Department will want to consider.
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Ed Miliband
That is the kind of question I like. My hon. Friend makes a serious and important point about air pollution, which is another reason why we need to move away from fossil fuels. In a sense, the tragedy of air pollution is that it is a silent killer. Tens of thousands of people a year die prematurely in our country as a …
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Ed Miliband
On the right hon. Gentleman’s first question, I am proud to have been supported by the GMB and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers during the election campaign. I think the sums are below the declarable limit, but I am very happy to put that on the record. As a constituency MP, I understand local people’…
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Ed Miliband
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for being such an eloquent advocate for Grangemouth so early in his time as a Member of Parliament. His counsel, advice and work on this subject have been very important. I have had three conversations with my counterpart in the Scottish Government over the last two weeks, which is a sig…
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Ed Miliband
I am slightly disappointed but not surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s tone. I would have thought that the Scottish National party would welcome a publicly owned energy generation company located in Scotland—my counterpart in the Scottish Government certainly welcomed it. Let us be absolutely clear that it will be a gene…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend has been an incredibly eloquent advocate on these issues, including in the last Parliament. This is an important point for all parties in the House to reckon with. The energy insecurity case for action on clean energy is totally transformed from when I was Energy Secretary 15 years ago. Why? Partly becau…
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Ed Miliband
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a super-nerd. I take all of my responsibilities, particularly my quasi-judicial responsibilities, incredibly seriously, and I did in all the judgments I made.
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Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his important question. He draws attention to a fact in the Climate Change Committee report that is worth underlining: we have an internationally set, nationally determined contribution of 68% reductions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. However, the Climate Change Committee said this morning …
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Ed Miliband
Characteristically, the hon. Lady makes an important point. To deliver this agenda, we have to get the central-local relationship right, because if we try to deliver it all from the centre we will not succeed. To take the example of improving the appalling state of energy efficiency in our homes, much of that work will…
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Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her election. I have worked with her in the past and I know she will be an outstanding Member of Parliament. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen, is going to be very busy, but I am sure he will happily meet her to discu…
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Ed Miliband
The most important thing is to secure a just transition for those communities, as set out in our manifesto, through £8.3 billion from Great British Energy and over £7 billion from our national wealth fund. The truth is that there is massive debate in the House about licensing. The right hon. Gentleman will not have bee…
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Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is also a great guy to go on a boat with. As he says, Cornwall and our coastal communities have an incredibly important part to play. Some of the biggest economic challenges we face as a country are in our coastal communities. It is not easy, but if we get this right it will be a massive opportunity, not…
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Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. In the last few days, I have sometimes sai3d to people that I feel that I am going back to the job I did 15 years ago, but getting to try and do it better. I am sure Members on the Opposition Benches would agree with that. It is an amazing opportunity and a big responsibil…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome my hon. Friend back to the House. It is fantastic to see her back in her place—I congratulate her. She knows much about this subject through working for RenewableUK when she was outside the House, and she makes an important point. The shadow Secretary of State drew attention to our generation of offshore wind…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place. I can confirm that GB Energy will play a role in all kinds of ways, and that we are certainly not restricting it in the way that she suggests. Furthermore, in the constructive spirit of these exchanges, I would ask that the Green party thinks about its commitment to tackling the cl…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He was head of policy when I was Leader of the Opposition, and I tended to do what he told me, rather than the other way round, so it is a particular pleasure to see him in his place. He makes such an important point. Tidal is an area where Britain is in the lead, but we want to g…
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Ed Miliband
I am afraid that we have to conduct these debates on the basis of fact, not myth. Some 0.1% of our land, and around that amount of agricultural land, is being used for solar panels. We cannot proceed on the basis of myth. The hon. Gentleman talks about the farming community. Farmers want this. The National Farmers Unio…
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Ed Miliband
I really welcome my hon. Friend’s advocacy on this issue. The hydrogen economy is a really important part of our future. It is yet another example of where we can succeed as a country and generate good jobs and good wages. I look forward to engaging with him on these issues.
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Ed Miliband
I thank the right hon. Member for that invitation, and I will very much consider it, because I care a lot about this area. Obviously, I have to make decisions, in a certain capacity, about allocation round 6, but I have heard what he has said.
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Ed Miliband
Let me welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He raises a very important issue. There were some standards put in place by the previous Government, but I think that we should take this issue incredibly seriously. I look forward to discussions with him on these issues.
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Ed Miliband
First of all, let me explain to the hon. Gentleman that Robin Hood Energy was a supply company; this is a generation company. Robin Hood was a retailer, so it is different, but I have to say that I am surprised at the position that he takes. I thought his party was in favour of publicly owned energy. I think it produce…
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Ed Miliband
I think to be called a kid at my time of life is stretching things a bit, but I am nevertheless grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution. He makes the important point that huge opportunities exist right across our country. The United States has used the Inflation Reduction Act to seize those opportunities. Our e…
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an important issue. The previous Government had a whole series of consultations out on community benefit. We will respond to those, but I want to be very clear that I believe that when a community takes on the responsibility of hosting clean energy infrastructure, it should benefit from it.
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Ed Miliband
Let me welcome my hon. Friend to her place, and congratulate her on her election; she will be a great Member of Parliament. She raises such an important issue. More than 3 million people are in fuel poverty in our country. One thing that this Government will do that the last Government did not is demand that landlords …
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Ed Miliband
I will look at all proposals, but I think the hon. Gentleman knows that underground cables cost six to 10 times more; that is why the last Government did not agree to them.[Official Report, 2 September 2024 ; Vol. 753, c. 1WC.] (Correction) If part of our challenge is to cut bills for people, that is not a sustainable …
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Ed Miliband
I was delighted to visit the port of Milford Haven during the election campaign. There is an interesting issue here: the £1.8 billion investment that this Government are making in our ports will hopefully allow us to invest in floating offshore wind at more ports than the last Government were able to. I cannot make pro…
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Ed Miliband
What the hon. Gentleman wants for nationally significant projects is community veto.
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Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman nods his head. I will be honest with him: we are not going to give community veto. The last Government did not give it either. There are nationally significant projects that the Government have to make decisions on. Obviously, we have to take into account the views of local communities, but the whole…
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Ed Miliband
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He raises the important question of how we ensure—this issue will be familiar to Members across the House—that we not only have the capacity to generate jobs in clean energy but can meet the skills needs of the country in order to fill them. This is frankly something on which we n…
EM
Ed Miliband
I was delighted to visit the Cheyne Court wind farm with my hon. Friend—a wind farm that I opened 15 years ago on my first visit as the Secretary of State. Pictures of how much I have aged between then and now are available on request. He raises a really important issue. He is an important advocate for clean energy, wh…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am pleased that my hon. Friend has asked me that question. The world wants to see British leadership, but British leadership starts at home with the power of example. If we do not show that we are acting at home then people say, “You’re telling us one thing abroad, but doing something different when it comes to your …
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend, who I welcome to his place, makes such an important point about the role Teesside can play. I saw on a recent visit how much potential there is and we look forward to working with him on these issues.
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend and welcome him to the House. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience on these issues. I enjoyed my visit to Basingstoke. What really came home to me on that visit was young people’s enthusiasm for this agenda—not simply because they care about the climate crisis, but because they see this…
EM
Ed Miliband
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place and congratulate him on his election, and I commend his housing association for what it is doing. He raises one of the biggest issues that the previous Government faced and that this Government face. The flipside of all the Conservative Members saying that they do not want the grid…
EM
Ed Miliband
Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend. He raises an important point that we have not touched on: the role of citizens in this change. My sense is that, while of course there are specific planning issues that people raise about their own communities, the view of many citizens in our country is, “What can I do? What diffe…
EM
Ed Miliband
I welcome my hon. Friend to this House and thank him for the work we did together in opposition on all these issues. As this is the final question, he ends on a really important point: this Government have a completely different attitude to the role that trade unions can play in the future of our energy system, and we …
Net Zero Target21 May 2024
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Ed Miliband
Two weeks ago the Government were found, for a second time, to be in breach of the law over their climate targets. That failure will mean that families across the country will pay higher energy bills. The Court found: “The Secretary of State’s conclusion that the proposals and policies will enable the carbon budgets to… be met was irrational”. Last time, the Government claimed that their breach of the law was just on a technicality. What is the right hon. Lady’s “dog ate my homework” excuse this time?
Hansard · 21 May 2024 · parliament.uk
HS
Henry Smith
What progress she has made on reaching the Government’s 2050 net zero target.
CC
Claire Coutinho
We are on track to reach net zero by 2050, and we will do so in a way that brings the public with us. We overachieved on our third carbon budget by 15%, and we announce today that we will not be rolling that over as we think that we will be able to overperform on carbon budget 4 as well.
HS
Henry Smith
I congratulate the Government on us being one of the first major economies in the world to set out the ambition for net zero carbon emissions by 2050. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Transport with regard to a revenue support mechanism for sustainable a…
CC
Claire Coutinho
I know from experience that my hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his local area and for the aviation sector. My Department is in regular contact with the Department for Transport and the Treasury on aviation decarbonisation and the important role for sustainable aviation fuel in that transition. On 25 April , DFT p…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
EM
Ed Miliband
With a defence like that, I can see why the Government lost in court not just once but twice. Buried in the court documents is the confidential memo that reveals the real reason they lost the case—officials were telling Ministers that they had low or very low confidence that half their carbon reductions would be achiev…
Topical Questions16 Apr 2024
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Ed Miliband
Mr Speaker, can I start by paying tribute to your father, Doug? He was a remarkable fighter for social justice, and we share your sense of loss. A year ago, after presiding over the absolute scandal of the forced installation of prepayment meters, the right hon. Lady’s predecessor promised full compensation for anyone affected. Unbelievably,… she has left it to the energy companies to decide who gets compensation and how much. They have assessed 150,000 people and just 1,500 got anything—99% got nothing. Why has she so catastrophically failed to deliver justice for those affected by the PPM scandal?
Hansard · 16 Apr 2024 · parliament.uk
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Greg Smith
If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
CC
Claire Coutinho
I would first like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) , who served this Government for eight years, including as Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero since 2022. He will be missed in the role for his expertise. He attended his first COP in 2005 and was ins…
GS
Greg Smith
The consultation on renewable liquid fuels from September is welcome, but the recent survey by the Future Ready Fuel campaign showed that 88% of respondents from off-grid households actively want the option of switching to a renewable liquid fuel. Will my right hon. Friend work with me to ensure that we can get consume…
CC
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend. I know that he is a fantastic champion for people living off the gas grid. We are supporting off-grid homes to transition to heat pumps or biomass boilers through the boiler upgrade scheme, with grants of up to £7,500. Renewable fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil have the potential to play…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
We now come to the shadow Secretary of State.
EM
Ed Miliband
That is simply not good enough. It is a year on. The right hon. Lady is the Energy Secretary; she should be delivering that compensation to people, and she is failing across the board. The onshore wind ban remains; the offshore wind market crashes; the insulation schemes are a disaster, while she spends her time appeas…
Topical Questions27 Feb 2024
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Ed Miliband
Last September, the Energy Secretary claimed she was lifting the onshore wind ban, but in the whole of 2023 and so far in 2024 there have been zero applications for new onshore wind farms designed for domestic electricity supply in England. She said that her decision would speed up the delivery of projects. Why does… she think it has not worked?
Hansard · 27 Feb 2024 · parliament.uk
SB
Simon Baynes
If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
CC
Claire Coutinho
A lot has happened since I was last at the Dispatch Box. Not only have energy bills fallen to their lowest level in two years—welcome news for families up and down the country—but Britain has become the first major economy to halve our emissions, which is a huge milestone on our journey to net zero, our Offshore Petrol…
SB
Simon Baynes
Residents in Esclusham in my constituency are alarmed by Innova’s plans for the UK’s largest lithium-ion battery storage facility near Bersham. Can my right hon. Friend give any reassurance about the safety of this technology to my constituents, who are concerned about the dangers of pollution, given the noise emitted …
CC
Claire Coutinho
Electricity storage allows us to use energy more flexibly and to minimise energy bills. Grid-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage systems are covered by a robust regulatory framework that is principally over- seen by the Health and Safety Executive. Planning guidance encourages developers and local authorities to c…
DD
Dave Doogan
Some 23% of households in Scotland are living in extreme fuel poverty. Energy debt across the United Kingdom has reached £3.1 billion. Age UK estimates that, had the UK Government implemented a social tariff this winter, 2.2 million households would have been lifted out of poverty. The latest costs of unpayable energy …
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Lady did not answer the question. I will tell her why it has not worked: because she has left a uniquely restrictive planning regime in place for onshore wind. Her failure is costing families across this country £180 a year on their bills. We know that her policy has failed. She could dump the ban at the…
Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill22 Jan 2024
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Ed Miliband
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House, while affirming the need for urgent action to tackle the UK’s energy insecurity, the cost of living crisis, and the climate crisis, and for a managed, fair and prosperous transition for workers and communities,… declines to give a Second Reading to the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill because mandating annual oil and gas licensing rounds will not reduce energy costs for households and businesses as the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has stated, will not enhance energy security, offers no plan for the future of the UK’s offshore energy communities, will ensure the UK remains at the mercy of petrostates and dictators who control fossil fuel markets, is entirely incompatible with the UK’s international climate change commitments and is a totally unnecessary piece of legislation which will do nothing to serve the UK’s national interest.” I want first to express my deep condolences to the families of the two people killed by storm Isha and my sympathies to all those facing power cuts and disruption from the storm. The proposed legislation we are considering today will not cut bills or give us energy security, drives a coach and horses through our climate commitments and learns nothing from the worst cost of living crisis in memory, which the British people are still going through—a cost of living crisis caused by our dependence on fossil fuels. Since the launch of the Bill two months ago, the case for it has disintegrated on contact with reality. Let me remind the House of the series of unfortunate events that has befallen the Bill since its publication. On day one—launch day—the Energy Secretary went on TV with the big reveal, telling the public the Bill would not cut bills. Next we discovered from confidential minutes of the North Sea Transition Authority that it thought the Bill was unnecessary and compromised its independence. [Interruption.] The
Hansard · 22 Jan 2024 · parliament.uk
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Claire Coutinho
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Britain is the first major economy to halve its emissions. That is an incredible achievement. How have we done it? We have increased our renewable electricity capacity fivefold since 2010—nearly half our electricity comes from renewables now, up from 7% in 2010—an…
SC
Sarah Champion
The Secretary of State paints a very rosy picture, particularly on renewables, so why has her own energy tsar resigned in protest?
CC
Claire Coutinho
We do not actually have an energy tsar, but we have an energy Secretary of State. I respect the former Member for Kingswood and wish him well in his next job, but if we care about reducing emissions, the question that everybody in this Chamber needs to answer is, “Why would you import fuel with higher emissions from ab…
CE
Clive Efford
Is the right hon. Lady saying that the only licences the Government intend to issue are for gas and oil destined for the British market?
CC
Claire Coutinho
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman asks that question, because the Labour party has been spouting an awful lot of nonsense when it comes to this area. In the UK, we are blessed with the geological gift that is the North sea—it is an incredible national asset. Virtually all the gas produced there goes straight into the U…
EM
Ed Miliband
That is not the NSTA position, as I have discussed with it. Next, Lord Browne, the former CEO of BP, attacked the Bill and said it was “not going to not make any difference” to energy security. Then Britain’s most respected climate expert, Lord Stern, pilloried it as “a deeply damaging mistake”. Then on the eve of COP—…
EM
Ed Miliband
Of course I don’t. Then the former COP president—[Interruption.] Let’s be serious. Then the former COP president the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) , a man respected around the world who we were lucky to have playing that role at COP26, said the Bill was “smoke and mirrors…not being serious…the op…
EM
Ed Miliband
The Secretary of State nods, but I put on record my thanks to her, because she has been an internal one-woman rebuttal unit against the Prime Minister. She went on breakfast TV—before the tweet, so we might call it a prebuttal—and said that the Bill “wouldn’t necessarily bring energy bills down, that’s not what we’re s…
EM
Ed Miliband
That is great, because the Secretary of State anticipates my rebuttal of the second bad argument for this Bill, which is the argument she has just gone on to make. She said that the tax revenues we get from fossil fuels justify this policy, and we have heard it again today. If anything, that is an even more complete lo…
EM
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She takes me to the fifth and final bad argument that the Government are making for the Bill.
EM
Ed Miliband
In a moment. The Government argue that the Bill can somehow be justified on climate grounds, which demands a level of absurdity that should make even them deeply embarrassed. Let us get this straight. We signed a global agreement at COP28 for a transition away from fossil fuels in line with the science. That science is…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am very happy to talk about Ian Wood. We had a good roundtable with him in Aberdeen in November. I totally accept that it is for a Government of either party to show that there is a proper transition plan. I firmly believe that we can do it, but honestly, the hon. Gentleman knows that it is not the case that new lice…
EM
Ed Miliband
Eighty per cent. of what we get from UK waters is exported, not used here. We said clearly that we would continue with existing oil and gas fields. There must be a transition, and we cannot carry on regardless and max out the North sea. I know the right hon. Gentleman cares about the climate. It is important to listen …
EM
Ed Miliband
I do not believe that it fulfils the kind of climate leadership that we pride ourselves on in this country. Here is another interesting fact for the House. UK Export Finance, I think with the guidance of the right hon. Member for Reading West, decided at COP26 that we would not finance oil and gas projects abroad. Now,…
EM
Ed Miliband
Oh go on. That is very tempting, so I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
EM
Ed Miliband
I will tell the hon. Gentleman exactly what we would do. I am really grateful to him for intervening, but I am sorry he has lengthened my speech. We would establish a national wealth fund to invest in British jobs to give a future in steel and automotive, and to invest in our ports. We would set up GB Energy to generat…
EM
Ed Miliband
I will not give way. The truth is that there are two roads for Britain’s future: driving to clean energy by 2030 to cut bills and make us energy independent, and GB Energy to bring jobs in clean energy here at home and be a climate leader; or a Government who take the wrong path, cling to expensive and insecure fossil …
Topical Questions16 Jan 2024
EM
Ed Miliband
In the past month, the former Prime Minister who legislated for net zero has condemned the Minister’s oil and gas policy. His colleague the former COP President has accused the Government of “not being serious” and the Government’s net zero tsar has resigned his seat in disgust. Why does the Minister think that that is?
Hansard · 16 Jan 2024 · parliament.uk
MF
Mary Foy
If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
GS
Graham Stuart
The UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions. Since the Prime Minister’s speech in September, we have announced the £960 million green industries growth accelerator, helped to deliver the first global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels at COP28, acted to protect motorists from unfair prices at p…
MF
Mary Foy
My constituents have told me they are no longer eligible to receive the warm home discount, which, along with Ofgem’s price increase, is making the cost of living even more severe in the City of Durham. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that? What, if any, discussions has he had with the Minister for Disabled People…
GS
Graham Stuart
We are providing targeted support for the most vulnerable through the warm home discount. I am pleased to say that we have raised it to £150 and extended it so that it now reaches 3 million low-income households, giving them a rebate on their energy bills every winter.
PH
Philip Hollobone
Kettering is one of the greenest constituencies in the country, because the wind turbines and solar panels in the constituency generate enough electricity to power all 45,000 homes. For the country as a whole, what percentage of our electricity was generated from renewables when the Conservatives came to power in 2010,…
EM
Ed Miliband
It is not just us who oppose the Minister’s Bill, but those on his own side—he has lost an MP over it. I know he brought down the last Government over fracking; he is trying to do it again with his new Bill. That is the reason that people have lost confidence. They see the hottest year on record and a Government backsl…
COP2814 Dec 2023
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Ed Miliband
I thank the Minister for his statement and, indeed, for his regular commuting between Dubai and Westminster. Given that he brought the last Government down over fracking, I think he did not want a repeat performance, hence his return. I welcome some of the key outcomes from COP28, including in particular the commitments on renewables… and, crucially, a transition away from fossil fuels. That shows that the COP process, however flawed and imperfect, can provide a forcing mechanism for action by Governments. I pay tribute to the civil servants in the Minister’s Department for their hard work. Indeed, by a remarkable coincidence, the breakthrough in the negotiations occurred in the 24 hours when the Minister came home and they were left in charge. But, for all the advances made, the truth is that the world is still hurtling towards disaster, way off track for keeping 1.5° alive. While we need an over-40% reduction in emissions by 2030, we are currently on track for emissions not to fall but to rise, and a temperature rise of approaching 3°. Even after the agreement, that is the reality, so the question for the world in the run-up to COP29 in Azerbaijan and COP30 in Brazil is whether good words at COP28 are finally matched by actions equal to the scale of the emergency. These will be the defining two years in this decisive decade, which will shape the lives of generations to come, so we need a Government in the UK who will stop congratulating themselves and using the UK’s record as an excuse for future inaction and instead lead at home in a way that is consistent with what we are demanding of others. The Minister complained about a lack of action on coal at the COP, but the Government are opening a new coalmine, watering down emissions targets, seeking to drill every last drop in the North sea and starting a culture war on net zero. That has sent a terrible message to business, investors and other Governments; one that was heard loud and clear by people at the COP. Let m
Hansard · 14 Dec 2023 · parliament.uk
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Graham Stuart
May I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as all the staff of this House and colleagues across the House, for all your hard work this year? I wish everyone a very happy Christmas. It was a privilege to attend the summit in Dubai over the past two weeks. I was proud to represent a country that has cut greenhouse ga…
RW
Rosie Winterton
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
GS
Graham Stuart
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I welcome what he said about the overall COP result and the need to celebrate it and build on it, and the fact that we need to ensure actions match words in this critical decade. That was one of the things we were wrestling with most, because new NDCs for 2035 are bei…
AS
Alok Sharma
I agree that we saw significant progress at COP28, particularly the agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in the energy system. However, that agreement and all previous agreements are literally just words on a page; they will come to fruition only if all countries follow through in their domestic policies. …
GS
Graham Stuart
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his efforts at COP26 in Glasgow, including the significant measure on phasing down coal. [Interruption.] Could the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) be quiet for one second? He did so little in government, and he has so much to say now—it is quite a contra…
Topical Questions28 Nov 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
The world sorely needs leadership at COP28, but the verdict of our most globally respected climate expert, Lord Stern, earlier this month was damning. He said that the Government’s backsliding on climate action is a “deeply damaging mistake”—damaging for the UK, the world and the future of us all. Will the Secretary of State take… this opportunity to place on record her response to Lord Stern?
Hansard · 28 Nov 2023 · parliament.uk
JB
Jack Brereton
If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
CC
Claire Coutinho
Since my last appearance at departmental questions in September, we have shown that Britain remains open for business. Through our announcement on AR6, we have taken the next steps towards 50 GW of offshore wind energy. We have announced £960 million of investment in advanced manufacturing for key net zero sectors, inc…
JB
Jack Brereton
Given the success of exempting the ceramics sector from the climate change levy, and the risks of carbon leakage from offshoring the industry, will my right hon. Friend seriously consider exempting the ceramics sector from the emissions trading scheme?
CC
Claire Coutinho
I know that my hon. Friend is a long-standing champion of the ceramics sector. The sector receives free allocations under the ETS, reducing carbon price exposure and mitigating its risk of carbon leakage. The Government are reviewing the free allocations policy and will consult this year to ensure that we effectively s…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Ed Miliband
The Secretary of State has no response to Lord Stern. The problem is that he sees a Government preaching one thing and doing another. Her negotiators at COP will argue to phase out fossil fuels, but she wants to drill every last drop at home and open new coalmines. She will tell developing countries that climate action…
Parliamentary Debate9 Nov 2023
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Ed Miliband
I think the Climate Change Committee is actually saying that its most ambitious scenario, which we should be aiming for, is for us to cut the use of gas by 90%. Are we going to carry on using North sea oil and gas? The question for the hon. Gentleman, and for the whole House, is… this: do we choose, for the future, to carry on drilling every last drop? That is the Government’s policy, in contravention of all the scientific advice, which is that we will end up in a 3° world—needing billions of pounds of taxpayer subsidy to bring about that investment through persuasion, and diverting investment from the private sector. Personally, I do not think that that is the right choice. The lesson of this crisis is one that the Government should have learnt, and one that other countries around the world have learnt: the only way to get energy security is to sprint for clean power. That is why the Government’s onshore wind ban is such a disaster. That is why their offshore wind auction is such a disaster. That is why their energy efficiency failures are such a disaster. This Bill neither protects us on price nor gives us energy security. Here is the thing, the Bill is not motivated by millions of people lying awake at night, worrying about the cost of living crisis; it is motivated by a Prime Minister lying awake at night, worrying about the Conservative party crisis. The interesting thing is that this Bill was planned well before the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) became Energy Secretary. It is the last desperate throw of the dice by what we might call the No. 10 galaxy brains, to use climate change as what they call a “wedge issue.” They say this to the newspapers all the time. Series 1 of this new strategy was aired in September, when the party of Churchill and Thatcher became the peddlers of wacky conspiracy theories they found on the internet: abolishing the mythical seven bins; ending the imaginary threat of compulsory car sharing; saying no to invented
Hansard · 9 Nov 2023 · parliament.uk
TH
Trudy Harrison
Certainly, and I will come on to just how much funding has been made available. I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which has provided £454 million recently to a couple of projects. Moreover, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, through levelling-up funding,…
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower9 Nov 2023
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Ed Miliband
I had to correct the right hon. Lady’s predecessor on the point she has just repeated. Her mistake is quite basic, confusing electricity and energy. The Guido Fawkes blog—not an institution I often praise—pointed this out when her predecessor made this mistake. What I actually said—it comes from David Laws’ memoirs—was that it was pie… in the sky to say we could have 40% of our energy provided by renewables. Currently, the figure is 18%. The Secy of State’s remark is inaccurate and wrong, and I would be grateful if she withdrew it.
Hansard · 9 Nov 2023 · parliament.uk
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Claire Coutinho
It is a pleasure to open today’s King’s Speech debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Government. Throughout history, economies have succeeded when they can source enough cheap and secure energy. Now, as we face a new challenge—the global challenge of climate change—it is important that we source enough clean energy too. We…
JS
Jim Shannon
I am very conscious that the net zero targets are set for the United Kingdom, but unfortunately Northern Ireland cannot participate nor can we add our physical support to achieving those targets, because the contracts for difference scheme is not in place in Northern Ireland. I have spoken to our Ministers about this. …
CC
Claire Coutinho
I will happily look at that. The UK was the first major economy to set a legally binding date for net zero. Our ambitions for 2030 are ahead of those of our peers and we have the plans in place to meet them. In fact, we have met every single one of our stretching targets to reduce carbon emissions, thanks in no small p…
CC
Claire Coutinho
I will happily go and look at that, and take that point on board, but I will say that it sticks with the trend of the right hon. Gentleman talking our energy and power down.
CC
Claire Coutinho
As I said, I will happily look at that, but the right hon. Gentleman has made comments about nuclear—
EM
Ed Miliband
I will read from David Laws’ memoirs. During the coalition talks, I said, “all this stuff about getting 40% of energy production”— energy production— “from renewables by 2020 is just pie in the sky.” Energy production from renewables is currently just 18%. I would be grateful if the right hon. Lady corrected the record…
EM
Ed Miliband
I ask the Secretary of State for the third time. She claims that I said that it was “pie in the sky” that 40% of our electricity could come from renewables. I did not say that, and I have pointed out to her the exact quote, where I talk about 40% of energy coming from renewables. When one has said something inaccurate …
EM
Ed Miliband
This Gracious Speech takes place against a backdrop of three crises facing our country: the worst cost of living crisis in memory; the long-term failure of our economy to work for working people, with stagnant growth over a decade; and the climate and nature crisis we see all around us. The question at the heart of thi…
EM
Ed Miliband
I think that that is what we call wriggling. As I was saying, I commend the Energy Secretary on her outburst of candour. She is right—she is telling it like it is—and, by the way, she is in good company. Let me read this to the House: “MYTH Extracting more North Sea gas lowers prices. FACT UK production isn't large eno…
EM
Ed Miliband
Never mind then. Keep quiet. The Government could have legislated to change planning rules to speed up renewables and cut energy bills, but they did not. They do not seem to realise how tin-eared, how out of touch, how absurd they look. So how did we end up with this Bill? The hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) , who …
EM
Ed Miliband
I think the Climate Change Committee is actually saying that its most ambitious scenario, which we should be aiming for, is for us to cut the use of gas by 90%. We are going to carry on using North sea oil and gas, but the question for the hon. Gentleman, and for the whole House, is this: do we choose, for the future, …
EM
Ed Miliband
I am afraid that all the hon. Gentleman is pointing out is the Government’s failure to go fast enough in driving towards renewables. Of course we need a mix of energy, but this is the question for the House and the country: do we decide that drilling every last drop, which is the Government’s position and which would b…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am going to finish. The Prime Minister has been in the job for more than a year and he has been rumbled, just as his party has been in power for 13 years and it has been rumbled. For all his talk of change, the public know, as does the House, that he cannot bring the change this country needs. The Government’s pathet…
Net Zero by 205016 Oct 2023
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Ed Miliband
I thank the Secretary of State for advanced sight of her statement. My only disappointment was that she did not read out the multiple paragraphs defending the Prime Minister’s claim about seven bins, which was in the copy sent to me. Obviously, she was too embarrassed to defend it, because it was made-up nonsense. We… profoundly disagree with the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister when they suggest that the answer to the cost of living crisis in our country is dither and delay on building a clean energy future for Britain. It will not work and their approach will make it worse. If you want the evidence, Madam Deputy Speaker, just look at their previous failures. The ban on onshore wind did not cut bills; it raised them. The slashing of home energy efficiency—cutting the “green crap”, as they called it—did not cut bills; it raised them. The fiasco of the offshore wind auction last month did not cut bills; it will raise them. It is not going too fast on climate that has caused the cost of living crisis; it is the Conservatives’ failures that have left us exposed to the worst energy bills crisis in generations. Rather than learning the lessons, they are doubling down. The definitive analysis of the recent announcements came last Thursday from the Government’s own watchdog, the Climate Change Committee. It said this: “The cancellation of some Net Zero measures is likely to increase both energy bills and motoring costs for households”. Why did it say that? Let me explain. The Government now say that landlords will not have to insulate homes, but as the CCC points out, these regulations “would have reduced renters’ energy bills significantly.” Moreover, the cost savings would have outweighed any changes in rent. Therefore, they are not lowering costs; they are raising them. On electric vehicles, the CCC says that “any undermining of their roll-out will ultimately increase costs.” That is because the lifetime costs of EVs are already cheaper than those of petrol and
Hansard · 16 Oct 2023 · parliament.uk
CC
Claire Coutinho
With permission, I would like to make a statement on the Prime Minister’s announcement on net zero. Britain has led the world on tackling climate change. We have cut our carbon emissions in half over the past 30 years. We have boosted our share of renewables from just 7% in 2010 to almost half today. We have delivered …
RW
Rosie Winterton
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response to my statement. He raises a number of questions that I wish to address. He mentions the prospect of the seven bins policy. He has forgotten that he voted for it. The Conservatives, by contrast, came to the good sense to course correct. He has taken leave of his senses …
RW
Rosie Winterton
I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.
PD
Philip Dunne
I warmly welcome what my right hon. Friend has just said about the focus on the grid and accelerating grid access. I hope she will be able to pick up on the report that my Committee is undertaking on that subject and that we can contribute to her deliberations. As she will be aware, I wrote to the Prime Minister on beh…
Contracts for Difference Scheme19 Sep 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
I wish the Clerk of the House well in the future, and I warmly welcome the Secretary of State to her new role and congratulate her on her appointment to the Cabinet. I look forward to working together. Let us start with the truth. The offshore wind auction that she inherited was a totally avoidable… disaster. It means another lost year for our country and another year of higher bills, and it is because Ministers obstinately refused to listen to warning after warning from industry. RenewableUK estimates that the auction failure will add £2 billion to bills. What is the Secretary of State’s estimate of the cost to families of this fiasco?
Hansard · 19 Sep 2023 · parliament.uk
PA
Peter Aldous
What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the contracts for difference scheme in supporting low-carbon electricity generation.
SS
Selaine Saxby
What assessment she has made of the potential implications of the outcome of the contracts for difference allocation round 5 on the future development of floating offshore wind.
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I welcome the Secretary of State.
CC
Claire Coutinho
Our contracts for difference scheme is a UK success story, having contracted more than 30 GW of capacity, including 20 GW of offshore wind, since 2014. AR5 delivered a record number of clean energy projects, enough to power the equivalent of 2 million homes, and the Government’s commitment to offshore wind remains unch…
PA
Peter Aldous
I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place. The great advantage of the CfD scheme is that with forward planning it has the flexibility to adapt to changing economic conditions. Can she therefore confirm that the Government will be working collaboratively and straightaway with industry to ensure a successful round 6 so…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am afraid the Secretary of State is quite wrong about that, because Ireland adjusted the price and had 3 GW of offshore wind. Let us talk about the way that this Government are jeopardising our energy security. They have delivered—[Interruption.]
EM
Ed Miliband
This Government have delivered the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. There is a pattern here: they banned onshore wind and raised bills, they slashed energy efficiency and raised bills, and now they have trashed offshore wind, raising bills. That is why we are so exposed. I know that the right hon. Lady did …
Offshore Wind Contracts12 Sep 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if she will make a statement on the implications for offshore wind of contracts for difference allocation round 5.
Hansard · 12 Sep 2023 · parliament.uk
GS
Graham Stuart
The first annual contracts for difference auction—the first that we have ever done—was completed last week and delivered a total of 3.7 GW of renewable electricity, with contracts going to a record number of projects. The auction delivered significant quantities of new solar and onshore wind generation, as well as supp…
GS
Graham Stuart
I was pleased to see the other day that the rumours of the right hon. Gentleman no longer being in his position were not true. It is perhaps understandable in that context that he is so passionate about this highly successful round that has seen 3.7 GW on an annualised basis. I think that is a record round. He was a me…
SS
Selaine Saxby
I thank the Minister for his engagement with this process, particularly with the new technology of floating offshore wind. Three floating offshore wind projects were due to bid in allocation round 5 but none did, due to the low administrative strike price. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Celtic se…
GS
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend, who is an absolute champion of floating wind and the economic opportunities it offers for her area and the rest of the UK. I was delighted to speak to her last week and meet her yesterday, and I pay tribute to her efforts. We have the largest floating wind pipeline in the world, based on confirm…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.
EM
Ed Miliband
What a load of nonsense. No wonder the Secretary of State is in hiding. This auction is an energy security disaster for Britain, and an act of economic self- harm on the part of the Government. No new offshore wind projects means that families’ energy bills will £2 billion higher and our energy security will be weakene…
Topical Questions4 Jul 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
Six days ago, the Climate Change Committee delivered its most scathing assessment in its history on the Government’s record, saying that they were off track on 41 out of 50 key targets. It said that we have gone “markedly” backwards in the past year, on the Secretary of State’s watch. Who does he blame for… this failure?
Hansard · 4 Jul 2023 · parliament.uk
RC
Ruth Cadbury
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
GS
Grant Shapps
Next week will mark the 500-day anniversary since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine and began trying to blackmail the world on energy. As ever, Britain stood strong in the face of tyranny, and I am pleased to report that from Saturday just past, energy bills are falling by an average of 17% for households. We are …
RC
Ruth Cadbury
The Climate Change Committee’s report published last week found that of the policies and consultations that are the responsibility of the Secretary of State’s Department, no less than 33 are overdue. He cannot blame anyone else. Will he now own up to the Government’s appalling failure?
GS
Grant Shapps
The actual data argues the opposite way. We have met all our carbon budgets to date. The Climate Change Committee last week said that the chances of reaching carbon budget 4 are “slightly increased”. We are confident of meeting it, and we have set out our plans for carbon budgets 5 and 6. I have to say that given that …
MF
Mark Fletcher
Our domestic nuclear sector and our military are struggling to recruit and retain enough nuclear engineers. What discussions is the Minister having with the sector and the Department for Education to create a long-term workforce plan to solve the issue?
EM
Ed Miliband
That answer is total complacency from a Secretary of State who has just been proven to be failing on every major aspect of his agenda. That is why Lord Goldsmith resigned. Lord Deben has said he is failing, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has said that we are losing the global race. Is not the truth …
Carbon Capture and Storage23 May 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
They are too busy laughing at their own jokes.
Hansard · 23 May 2023 · parliament.uk
AC
Alistair Carmichael
What recent assessment he has made of the potential role of North sea oil and gas infrastructure in developing carbon capture and underground storage capacity.
GS
Grant Shapps
North Sea oil and gas infrastructure can play a crucial role in lowering costs and speeding up deployment if it is repurposed for carbon capture and storage, therefore improving our energy security.
AC
Alistair Carmichael
The Greensand project in Denmark has proven the concept of carbon capture, usage and storage, but we know that the supply chain in this country is fragile. Indeed, if others go ahead and develop CCUS, that is where they will go. Companies such as EnQuest in Shetland, which operates the Sullom Voe oil terminal, are keen…
GS
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about this, but the UK is playing a leading role with its recent £20 billion investment in carbon capture, usage and storage. We have sufficient space to store potentially 78 billion tonnes of carbon under the North sea—equivalent, I am told, to the space occupied by over 15…
DD
David Duguid
Unlike the SNP, who continue to talk down the fantastic Acorn project, which by the way has never actually stopped—[Interruption.]. One of the reasons it has not stopped is because of the over £40 million invested by this Government in the Scottish cluster; £80 million was promised by the SNP but never delivered. What …
Low-carbon Industries: Investment23 May 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
The US has created almost 10 times more green jobs in the seven months since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act than the UK has created in the past seven years. That is why British business is deeply worried. Frankly, the Secretary of State is all over the place on this, because his only… significant response to IRA, passed last August, was to describe it as “dangerous”. Can he explain why IRA is dangerous? Is not the real danger to Britain a Government who are standing on the sidelines while others win the race for green jobs?
Hansard · 23 May 2023 · parliament.uk
JM
Justin Madders
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the US Inflation Reduction Act on levels of investment in low-carbon industries.
GS
Grant Shapps
Nearly £200 billion has been invested in low-carbon sectors since 2010, which is 50% higher than has been invested in the US as a share of GDP.
JM
Justin Madders
This is a global race and I fear that, with the US Inflation Reduction Act, we are being left behind. I am sure the Secretary of State will be aware of last week’s comments by Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall Ellesmere Port, about the need for urgent investment in the move to electric vehicle production. The Faraday Ins…
GS
Grant Shapps
First, it is good news that the US has woken up to the need for this energy transition. I was in the US last week and they were pointing out to me that we had already spent £200 billion on this, with another £100 billion being leveraged in over the next six and half years to 2030. The point is we are ahead of the US, i…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
EM
Ed Miliband
That is exactly the kind of complacency that is costing jobs. Let us talk about offshore wind. The Kincardine floating wind farm, off the coast of Scotland, is indeed the largest in the world. Its foundations were made in Spain, its turbines were made in Rotterdam, where it was also assembled, and the finished product …
Energy Bill [Lords]9 May 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I will begin by welcoming the arrival of the Bill to the House. I thank the Secretary of State and his Ministers for their willingness to engage in discussions on the Bill, which, as I will explain, we support. Given his speech, after the next election I look forward to… him providing some AI consultancy for my house, once he has some more time on his hands. For us, the central truth that frames this Bill is, as the Secretary of State said in his speech, the energy bills crisis, with bills still double what they were 18 months ago. This crisis demonstrates the urgency of getting off expensive fossil fuels and moving to clean power. Clean power is the route to cheaper bills, energy security, long-term sustainable jobs and tackling the climate emergency. The peril for Britain is the deep uncertainty about whether the Government are doing what is required to make the transition happen with the urgency needed. Let us look at the last couple of months alone. In March the Climate Change Committee stated that the Government are “asleep at the wheel” on their 2035 decarbonisation target. In the same month the National Infrastructure Commission said that “movement has stuttered further just as the need for acceleration has heightened.” The cross-party Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee said in April: “At the current pace of change, the UK is set to fail to hit its target of decarbonising the power sector”. The common theme is one we have heard many times about this Government: they act as if this was not the emergency it is. The Bill needs to put that right, so we apply three tests to it: does it represent an all-out sprint for zero-carbon power, the linchpin of a net-zero country; does it provide a proper plan to spread the benefits of cheap, clean power to working families across Britain; and does it provide an industrial policy that means we can win the global race for the jobs of the future? In that context, we will give our
Hansard · 9 May 2023 · parliament.uk
GS
Grant Shapps
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. For much of the past 50 years since the oil shock and energy crisis in the 1970s, Britain has enjoyed abundant and reliable electricity. Over these years, some may have traded in their teasmades for barista coffee machines, swapped their electric fondue sets for a…
DS
Desmond Swayne
I know it is early, but will my right hon. Friend allow me to intervene?
GS
Grant Shapps
If my right hon. Friend will give me a moment, I will make a little progress first, and he can be sure that I will give way shortly. We will replace those oil and gas imports with home-grown renewables and, critically, nuclear power to deliver resilient and reliable energy, powering Britain from Britain. We will reduce…
JR
John Redwood
I agree with the Secretary of State that we need more energy independence and more domestic energy, so why does the Bill propose a 140% increase in imported energy through interconnectors, which will make us more dependent and very vulnerable?
GS
Grant Shapps
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent comment, as ever, on interconnectors, but I would point out that with the growing number of interconnectors, particularly electricity interconnectors, last winter, for example, we were able to export 10 TW to France through interconnectors, providing us with income. The answer is…
EM
Ed Miliband
Actually, I was talking about onshore wind farms that had not just planning permission and consent—[Interruption.] I will tell the hon. Lady simply. In 2006, Tony Blair changed the policy to be in favour of nuclear. When I left office in 2010, we identified 10 new nuclear sites, and there have been 13 years since then.…
EM
Ed Miliband
The right hon. Member wants to re-litigate the last Labour Government. Let us talk about the future. We want nuclear to move ahead, and actually the Government have had 13 years and failed to do it.
EM
Ed Miliband
No, I will not. Let us talk about how we can get an energy system that is fit for purpose. Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the grid, where the delays that have been allowed to build up are a disgrace. For all of the Conservative party’s boasts, this is what Keith Anderson of Scottish Power says about th…
EM
Ed Miliband
I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman. Let me try to explain the position. Nobody is talking about turning off the taps in the North sea. The question is this: do we defy the International Energy Agency? He cites the IEA. The IEA says, in absolutely clear terms, that if we invest in new fields in the North sea an…
Topical Questions18 Apr 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
Today’s announcement on prepayment meters is simply not good enough. The new rules ban forced installations for only a very narrow group and do not do so for what is called the medium-risk group. I am reading from the document here. That group includes “those with Alzheimer’s, clinical depression, learning difficulties, multiple sclerosis…the elderly up… to age 85, the recently bereaved, and those with the youngest children.” How has the Secretary of State allowed this to happen?
Hansard · 18 Apr 2023 · parliament.uk
JB
Jack Brereton
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
GS
Grant Shapps
Since we last met, the Department has been active in, for instance, publishing the “Powering up Britain” document. In the last week, I have been in South Korea and Japan, where we negotiated with the G7 an update to the climate energy security plan, and a large number of our partner G7 countries expressed the view—not …
JB
Jack Brereton
Energy costs remain a major concern for many businesses. In particular, as has been recognised, the tying of electricity prices to the price of gas is raising energy prices to unnecessarily high levels, which is deterring investment in electrical technologies and forcing businesses to continue to invest in gas-powered …
GS
Grant Shapps
This decoupling is a particularly complex matter, but we are absolutely into the detail of it. As my hon. Friend knows, the connection between electricity and gas prices is to do with the way in which the contracts have been written. We are conducting a review of the electricity market, and we are also looking at the w…
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
EM
Ed Miliband
What a completely hopeless answer. There is a high-risk group for whom a ban is being put in place and a medium-risk group for whom the Government are leaving this at the discretion of the energy companies, which is simply not good enough. Will the Secretary of State now instruct the regulator to keep the forced instal…
Powering Up Britain30 Mar 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank the Minister for his statement, but let me tell him that although there may have been thousands of pages published this morning, this is not the green day that the Government promised, but a groundhog day of reannouncements, reheated policy and no new investment. The documents are most notable for their glaring omissions:… there is no removal of the onshore wind ban that is costing families hundreds of pounds on bills a year. There is no new money for energy efficiency to insulate homes and cut bills, just a reannouncement of a feeble offer made last year. There is no net zero mandate for Ofgem, as recommended by the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) —to whom I too pay tribute—and as demanded by industry. There is no proper response to the Inflation Reduction Act, even as the rest of the world speeds ahead. The biggest indictment of all, buried in the fine print and not mentioned by the Minister, is the admission that the policies announced today do not deliver the promise, solemnly made in front of the world at COP26 in Glasgow barely a year ago, to meet the UK’s 2030 climate target. The Government waited until noon, five hours after all the other documents were published, to release the carbon budget delivery plan—which is more like the failure to deliver the carbon budget plan. This is what it says: “We have quantified emissions savings to deliver…92% of the NDC.” A target for less than seven years’ time, and now almost 10% off—what an indictment of all the verbiage we have heard today. All the policies and all the hot air do not meet the promise that the Government made on the world stage under the presidency of the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) , to whom I also pay tribute. That means higher bills, energy insecurity, fewer jobs and climate failure. Let me ask the Minister five questions. First, if the Government really wanted a sprint for clean power, they would go for onshore wind. They even promised to lift the ban
Hansard · 30 Mar 2023 · parliament.uk
GS
Graham Stuart
For much of the past 50 years, since the oil crises of the 1970s, we have taken cheap, plentiful energy for granted. Indeed, one of the catalysts for Britain’s economic transformation over that period has been affordable, abundant energy powering our homes, infrastructure, businesses and industry. Yet today, this corne…
GS
Graham Stuart
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response, but Members on the Government Benches will have been listening with a certain degree of incredulity, because we remember that in 2010 he left the people of this country in the worst housing stock in Europe. They were cold, their bills were unmanageable and just 14% of …
CS
Chris Skidmore
May I thank the Minister for his kind words about the net zero review, and indeed the Government’s full response so soon after the review was submitted? I hope that the UK’s net zero pathway is now in a better place as a result of the recommendations. I should say that they are not my recommendations, but those of all …
GS
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend and again pay tribute to him for all his work. This is the economic opportunity. If we look at a map of Europe, we can see the opportunity around the British Isles, and we will capture that energy. We are also blessed with around a third of all carbon storage in Europe. We can operationalis…
NE
Nigel Evans
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation - Income Tax (Charge)21 Mar 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
May I return the compliment to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and say what a pleasure it is to face him? That was a typically eloquent and entertaining speech, and he has a very happy future in opposition on the Tory rubber chicken fundraising circuit. The defining questions at the… heart of the Budget are these. Does it show a proper understanding of what is really going on in the country? Does it have the right priorities in facing that reality? Does it have a long-term plan that can tackle the deep-seated challenges the country faces? I want to start with the alternate reality that the Chancellor described six days ago. He told us that “the plan is working.” Many will have heard that and thought to themselves, as they struggle to pay their bills and as their wages stagnate, “What planet are these people living on?” They are right to think that. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that we are in the midst of the biggest fall in living standards on record. Not a mention of that in the Chancellor’s pantomime speech. That record goes back 70 years. How can that be a plan that is working? The Budget came a week after Which? said that one in seven people in our country are skipping meals because they cannot afford to eat, and six in 10 are cutting back on essentials, selling items or dipping into savings. How can that be a plan that is working? The OBR says that even by 2028 we will not get back to the living standards we had before the pandemic. How can that be a plan that is working? Finally, and most damningly, the Resolution Foundation shows that even by 2024 wages will still be lower than they were in 2010. Let us just take in the scale of that failure. For all the boasts, all the promises and all the hype we have heard from the Government Benches at multiple Budgets over the last decade or more, people will be worse off at the next election than they were when the Tories came to power 13 long years ago. Because I am a bit of
Hansard · 21 Mar 2023 · parliament.uk
MG
Michael Gove
It is a pleasure to open this final day of the Budget debate. It is a particular pleasure to be opposite my old friend, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) . It is a pleasure that both of us now—I think I can fairly say as elder statesmen of our respective parties—have a chance to be taken aroun…
MG
Michael Gove
He was against Brexit, that is true. We all have our flaws, myself included. I am pleased to say that many people were in favour of Brexit, including well over 70% of the members of the constituency of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North. Brexit has been delivered by this Government, Brexit is a settled fact and …
JE
Jonathan Edwards
Before the right hon. Gentleman gets too excited, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report provides a rather sobering analysis about economic stagnation for the duration of the forecasting period. That is predominantly down to the same old problems, including low productivity—according to the OBR, productivity has…
MG
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, which goes to the heart of what the Budget addresses. It is the case that there is a productivity challenge that has bedevilled Governments of different colours for years now in this country. Whether Labour Governments, coalition Governments or Conservative Governments, we …
TF
Tim Farron
Like the two gentlemen on the Front Benches, I was also the future once. The point that the Secretary of State makes about labour market reforms is extremely important; in the lakes and dales of Cumbria, 63% of our employers are operating below capacity because there are not enough workers in the area. The big problem …
EM
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is wrong. If he can be patient, I will give him the answer. First, the Library staff told me, “Well, certainly not under any Government since the second world war.” I asked them to go back further, and they went back to the first world war, but they said, “No, not since the first world war.” They had…
Energy Price Guarantee: Fuel Poverty28 Feb 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
I welcome the Minister to her new role. Her Department’s responsibility is to tackle fuel poverty, so the planned rise in the price cap is the first big test. If it goes ahead, the number of people in fuel poverty will jump by almost 2 million, which is why many people, including those from leading… energy charities, are telling her Department to stop the cap rising. Will she and the Secretary of State now do their jobs and tell the Chancellor to cancel the rise?
Hansard · 28 Feb 2023 · parliament.uk
SL
Simon Lightwood
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the rise in the energy price guarantee in April 2023 on levels of fuel poverty.
AS
Amanda Solloway
The energy price guarantee has been supporting households and will continue to do so from April ’23 by limiting the amount that suppliers can charge per unit of energy used.
SL
Simon Lightwood
The latest figures from 2020 show that, in parts of Lupset and Thornes in my constituency, more than two in five households were in fuel poverty. People are being left unable to heat their homes, have a shower or cook a hot meal. Since 2020, fuel poverty has continued to rise and the crisis has only got worse. Can the …
AS
Amanda Solloway
The Government announced in the autumn statement that the energy price guarantee will continue from April ’23. An analysis for 2022, which was published today, shows that 350,000 households in England were kept out of fuel poverty as a result of the support offered to households with energy bills.
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
EM
Ed Miliband
I am afraid that is no answer to the question. We have millions of families across the country, and we have bills going out this week. People do not want sympathy or warm words: they want certainty from the Government. This is a political choice, because the Government are saying that they cannot afford to do any more …
Topical Questions28 Feb 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
It is important to welcome ex-party leaders to their place, Mr Speaker. My only advice is that it is important to not want your old job back. Can I ask the Secretary of State to tell the House which member of the new Department’s ministerial team in April last year described onshore wind farms as… “an eyesore” on the hills?
Hansard · 28 Feb 2023 · parliament.uk
BJ
Boris Johnson
I congratulate my right hon. Friend— Oh sorry, question 1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
GS
Grant Shapps
I know my right hon. Friend is new to this House. This winter, as I mentioned, the Government have been paying half the energy bills of most British households. In these difficult times, that has been an extraordinary intervention that we are all very proud of. But it has taught us a valuable lesson—we can never again …
BJ
Boris Johnson
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his continuing commitment to Great British Nuclear, but is it not vital that we reaffirm the target of 24 gigawatts by 2050 and that we accelerate the tech selection process, so that small modular reactors, whether made by Rolls-Royce or anybody else—it would be wonderful if they …
LH
Lindsay Hoyle
Order. I have the greatest respect, but these are Topicals and I want to get everybody else in as well. And I agree—nuclear reactors from Lancashire could be fantastic.
GS
Grant Shapps
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know, as will the whole House, that every single nuclear reactor currently operational in the UK was given permission under the Conservative party. He is right to champion Great British Nuclear and we will get the nuclear industry going again. Indeed, I was the first En…
EM
Ed Miliband
The problem is that the right hon. Gentleman is not the cheerleader for clean energy; he is the roadblock. We have had three wind farms in the last eight years. His own Department says 79% of the public support onshore wind. Let me ask him, plan and simple: will he bring the local planning regime for onshore wind in li…
Prepayment Meters: Ofgem Decision6 Feb 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on Ofgem’s decision to suspend the forced installation of prepayment meters.
Hansard · 6 Feb 2023 · parliament.uk
GS
Graham Stuart
As I have set out to the House previously, it is critical that our most vulnerable energy users are protected, which is why we have already put in place a generous package of support to help people with their energy bills this winter. I was appalled, however, to see reports that vulnerable customers struggling with the…
GS
Graham Stuart
The right hon. Gentleman asks how long the pause will last. That is up to Ofgem, as the regulator. It looked at this process before, as he rightly said, and it had assurances that have not proven to be accurate. Ofgem needs to ensure that the processes are properly observed, because it should be an absolute last resort…
AS
Alexander Stafford
An Englishman’s home is his castle, so it is disgusting that British Gas is forcing its way into people’s homes. What is especially galling is that, five years ago, Ofcom sent a missive to British Gas warning it not to do this, and British Gas is clearly ignoring Ofcom—[Hon. Members: “ Ofgem.”] Ofgem. What further powe…
GS
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should all be grateful to The Times and its journalists for going undercover and revealing such behaviour—the processes were not followed. Ultimately, as a final resort, we need a forcible installation of prepayment meters in order to ensure that someone is not cut off entirely; t…
AM
Anne McLaughlin
It should never have got this far. We should never have ended up in a situation in which we are now talking about compensating people for something that should never have been allowed to happen to them in the first place. Nor would it have happened if the Government had listened to the many voices who have been telling…
EM
Ed Miliband
I thank the Minister for his reply, but it is simply not good enough. The story of this scandal is of a Government sitting on their hands and being far too slow to act. Ofgem did reviews in September and November and highlighted the problem—where were the Government? In early January, Citizens Advice reported that 3 mi…
Prepayment Meters23 Jan 2023
EM
Ed Miliband
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on families having prepayment meters forcibly installed in their homes by energy companies.
Hansard · 23 Jan 2023 · parliament.uk
GS
Graham Stuart
The Government recognise the importance of protecting customers, including those on a prepayment meter. That is why this weekend, the Secretary of State set out a five-point plan on prepayment meters. He wrote to energy suppliers to call on them to take every step to support consumers in difficulty. The Government want…
GS
Graham Stuart
We have today already seen a response from suppliers to the Government’s calls. We must look to be as effective as possible in effecting change now, and we believe that the Government’s calls on and engagement with suppliers, alongside that of Ofgem, is the right approach. Suppliers must exhaust—as they are required to…
PH
Philip Hollobone
Energy consumers on prepayment meters are among the most vulnerable energy consumers. In the face of the biggest ever hike in domestic energy prices, getting financial support to those people is more important than ever. While it is good news that 99% of energy bill support payment vouchers have been issued, it is alar…
GS
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is one of the reasons we have published the list today. Transparency is the best form of disinfectant. We expect the suppliers’ chief executive officers to have conversations with their teams and to ask, “Why are we at the bottom of this list?”. We want competition between s…
YF
Yvonne Fovargue
Recently, the i newspaper reported that Wigan magistrates court had been granting around 2,000 disconnection warrants each month. On one day in December, 496 were granted in under four minutes without magistrates even knowing the names and addresses of those people, let alone their circumstances or vulnerabilities. For…
EM
Ed Miliband
I am glad that the Government have in the last few days finally woken up to the fact that we have a national scandal around prepayment meters. The question is whether their actions will stop the scandal; I fear the answer is no. The Secretary of State could only say in his letter published yesterday that he “would expe…
