Public Ownership of Energy Companies

Debate between George Freeman and Alan Whitehead

Monday 31st October 2022 Westminster Hall

[George Freeman]

No, I am going to make some progress. Since privatisation, the UK’s energy sector has attracted around £20 billion a year of private capital investment into our energy infrastructure. That money would otherwise have had to come from higher taxes or additional borrowing. Those are policies that the Opposition may prefer, but we prefer to secure private capital to secure those public goods.

The cost of transporting a unit of electricity has fallen by 17% since the 1990s, while investment has increased. Energy efficiency has gone up. Reliability has increased. Customer service has improved—though it is still not perfect. The number of power cuts has almost halved. These are the real lived experiences of people over the last 30 or 40 years of privatisation. Finally, current market arrangements have allowed for massive decarbonisation of our energy system, with dramatic drops in the cost of renewables.

It is worth making the point that between 1990 and 2019, we grew the UK economy by 76%, and we cut our emissions by over 44%, decarbonising faster than any other G7 country. That is an extraordinary achievement, secured by the private sector working in partnership with Government. There is more. In the last 15 years, not only have we led the way in decarbonisation; we have also led the way in many of the specific areas of clean energy. We have put it at the heart of the UK’s commitment to reduce emissions as we expand our economy.

Personally, having arrived here following the 2010 election, I would have liked to have seen the coalition and the Lib Dem-run Department of Energy and Climate Change take the opportunity of a “buy one, get five free” nuclear deal and double and modernise our nuclear capacity. The Lib Dems were religious in opposition to anything nuclear—a position seemingly mirrored by the SNP—but they also thought it would take too long to come on stream. I have news for listeners. It would have been on stream now. We would have had a high-quality, green, resilient supply of nuclear energy for one more generation, guaranteeing clean and green resilience, and many jobs in Scotland, and we would have been able to use this period to invest in the range of renewables that hon. Members have hardly mentioned. I will come to those in a minute.

Nobody can look back and say that this was all easy. A lot of mistakes have been made, but the truth is that our net zero strategy is the most comprehensive of its kind. The British energy security strategy sets out extra ambitions to those we set out in 2010. It is on track to secure 480,000 well-paid jobs by the end of the 2030s, unlocking £100 billion in private investment by 2030 and mobilising £30 billion of Government investment. That is not the free market with no support from Government. It is a massive programme of Government in partnership with the private sector, and that is why we have driven down emissions at the fastest rate in the G7.

[Dr Whitehead]

Does the Minister agree that, as has been suggested in this debate, quite a lot of the investment that has been achieved for future energy—indeed, it is coming in now—is from companies representative of other states in Europe putting forward that investment, so we could say that he would be happy to have publicly owned investment in this country, provided it is not from the UK? Is that the right conclusion to come to?

[George Freeman]

I am not totally sure I understand the question. The point is that we live in a modern global economy. I do not think anyone other than political dinosaurs would think we can ring-fence all investment to only one country. We live in a global economy, and that is all to the good. This country benefits hugely from that investment. A huge risk of the proposed renationalisation is that, internationally, it would destroy investors’ confidence in the UK, and that is something we have to think seriously about. We do not have a right to attract international investment. We need to be competitive, and this debate has lacked that point.

We are a world leader in offshore wind, with an ambition to deliver up to 50 GW of offshore wind power by 2030, including 5 GW of floating wind. That is something to be proud of. In my part of the world in East Anglia, the southern North sea is rapidly becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. With proper interconnected offshore grid connectors, we will be able to use off-peak energy to generate green hydrogen. That is an exciting development and it has all been provided by the market—not the free and untrammelled market of the profiteering stereotype, but businesses investing in partnership with Government.

We continue to break records in renewable energy, which has more than quadrupled since 2010, with low-carbon electricity overall now giving us more than 50% of our total generation. It would have been nice to hear Members at least pay tribute to that achievement, rather than attack the profiteering businesses that have been at the frontline of delivering it.

We have installed 90% of our solar capacity in this country since 2010, which is enough for 3 million homes. That has happened—

[George Freeman]

No, I am going to make some progress.

That capacity has happened by harnessing the power of the market. I do not think anyone would suggest we have had an untrammelled free market. I am not here to make that case; others may. It has been a partnership of the private and public sector. That is why the Government continue to believe in properly regulated markets.

I have written and spoken widely about the opportunity Brexit gives us to set our own regulatory standards—not in a race to the bottom, but in a race to the top—and to set the standards in the smart grid, in digital energy and in new forms of energy. There is a huge opportunity for us to use that freedom to incentivise private capital to invest in the energy system, provide the best outcomes for consumers, and promote market competition as the drivers of efficiency, innovation and value.

My party believes profoundly that private ownership of energy assets, properly regulated, improves performance and reliability, and offers consumers greater choice and higher standards of products and services. No market is perfect. There are always pay-offs and balances, but it is very difficult to see how nationalisation would work, particularly as it has been set out this afternoon, with no detail, vague assumptions that there will be lots of money, which would come in the end only from taxation or borrowing, and very little understanding of how it would be done. Anyone listening to this debate has not heard a serious proposal for how nationalisation would happen. They have simply heard a ragtag of arguments against the private sector and against business.

The argument becomes even more important when we look at the global market and the international energy market in which we find ourselves. These days, no energy market exists in isolation. We do not exist in a vacuum. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have revealed painfully the interdependence of our global energy supplies. We are not in a position where we can unilaterally declare independence from the global markets. Any renationalised energy company would still have to buy its gas on the global market at the same price—there is no way round that. But it does heighten the urgency of reducing our dependency on foreign actors, hostile states and those who might use their energy power to exercise geopolitical influence on us.

We are absolutely committed, as we have set out, to diversifying our energy supply and resilience. We understand that sky-high global energy prices, caused by Russia’s appalling invasion of Ukraine, are having real consequences for consumer bills across the country, exacerbating the consequences of the pandemic shutdown of the global economy and its refiring up and opening, which has driven inflation into the system. European gas prices soared by more than 200% last year, and coal prices by more than 100%, leading to an inevitable increase in the cost of energy, which drives the cost of living across our economy.

That is why, through our British energy security strategy, we are absolutely committed to—and are already implementing—support for diverse sources of home-grown energy to provide greater energy security in the longer term. Let me unpack that: we have set out, first, a comprehensive long-term plan, just as today’s motion calls for, to 2050 for our energy system in 2020’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution and the energy White Paper. It needed doing and it has been done. Secondly, the British energy security strategy, published in April this year, charts a pathway to reducing our vulnerability to international energy prices by reducing our dependence on imported oil and gas.

We will achieve our ambitions by accelerating the deployment of wind, solar and new nuclear energy, supercharging our production of low-carbon hydrogen, and within my portfolio supporting next-generation energy sources including fusion and small modular nuclear. We will support North sea oil and gas in the near term for security of supply, and the important work that is being done in Scotland, particularly on the North sea transition, to turn that infrastructure into the infrastructure for clean, green energy.

Thirdly, we will ensure a more flexible and efficient system for both generators and users, undertaking our comprehensive view of electricity market arrangements to ensure that consumers fully benefit from the next phase of our energy transformation. That is why we have committed to publishing, with Ofgem, a strategic framework this year on how networks will deliver net zero. Fourthly, not only are we thinking about reforming energy supply, but we have an ambitious programme of energy efficiency measures to lower demand, and to bring down bills and emissions.

Nationalisation, however, will not solve or help to tackle those challenges, for a number of reasons. First, as I have said, nationalised energy companies would still have to buy gas on the international markets. There is no price reduction that comes with being nationalised. Secondly, if a Labour Government, or perhaps more likely a Labour-SNP-Lib Dem coalition, who were committed to renationalisation came into office, their measures would mean that the British taxpayer would have to compensate directors, shareholders and creditors to the tune of tens of billions of pounds—money that would otherwise be spent on schools, hospitals and public services. Thirdly, the sort of nationalisation that has been talked about blithely but not explained would hugely damage our ability to attract the international investment that I have set out, which is key to delivering net zero.

[Dr Whitehead]

The Minister is either not hearing what is being said by the Opposition, or he is going out of his way to put it in an entirely different light. Neither the Scottish nationalists nor the Opposition have said that we want to renationalise the whole energy industry; we have said that different ways of working from the complete market fetishism that has been going on would be much better for attracting investment from the private sector. A reliable partner in Government could, among other things, bring the cost of capital down. That is very different from what he is talking about.

[George Freeman]

It is. It is also different, as the record will show, from what Opposition Members said. For an hour, I listened to a reheated hash of the same old anti-capitalist, anti-business, easy—

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[Dr Whitehead]

Did you?

[George Freeman]

Yes, I did, and the record will show it. Those interested in how we might build a modern energy economy will observe that there was very little detail on how nationalisation will be done. Very little was said about innovation, new sectors, or how we create exciting areas of innovation, use the smart grid, create a network of incentives, penalties, rewards and points, and empower consumers. There was none of that. It was a litany of the same old Labour and SNP anti-business, anti-capitalist talk of profiteering companies. Those are, by the way, the same companies that pay dividends into the pension funds of our constituents—and probably the trade union barons who are lobbying for this nationalisation. It is old-fashioned economics that has been proven not to work. I was hoping to come this afternoon and hear—

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about the particular circumstances of those people on prepayment meters and those who are most prone to energy poverty and vulnerability. Again, I am not the energy Minister so, with permission, I will allow the Minister for Climate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness, to follow up that point with her.

This is a long journey. It is one that we, as a country, started on a little late, but we have led the world in moving at pace, and that is a tribute to all the parties involved, to be fair. The last Labour Government before 2010 began some important measures; we in the coalition took things forward; and the Conservative Governments have pursued things at pace since. I believe that we are on the road to success and I have no doubt that consumers will be at the heart of Government policy every step of the way.

Right now, that means we are focused on doing all we can to support consumers through the very difficult winter ahead, but nationalisation is not the right solution. I will just say that it has been rather extraordinary for me this afternoon to see how strongly the old anti-capitalist politics of the hard left have been shown to continue to thrive in the Labour party and the Scottish National party. We have heard aeons about anti-business millionaires and profiteering, and there has been no talk about companies generating the profits that drive dividends that supply pensioners with revenue, or public sector workers with their pensions, or, for that matter, the trade unions with their pensions.

We have heard nothing serious from the SNP about how it would pay for independence, which has traditionally been based—on its own assumptions—on the revenues from oil and gas. The SNP is anti-nuclear—it appears to be anti-everything that will score a point—but there is no serious and costed plan for how Scotland could be in the vanguard of the new energy economy. The Liberal Democrats, who are not present here today in Westminster Hall, have described Labour’s policy of nationalisation as “pointless and costly”.

[Dr Whitehead]

We have not got a policy of nationalisation. The Minister is not telling the truth.

[Dr Whitehead]

Sorry—I am getting very annoyed about this.

[George Freeman]

Thank you, Mrs Murray.

We have heard nothing today about the really exciting opportunities in our energy sector: the new renewables, including those in marine, tidal, geothermal, hydrogen and fusion, that this Government and I, as Minister with responsibility for research, are supporting. There are also opportunities for the UK’s cleantech sector—the small and large companies that are in the frontline of developing global solutions for new energy. We have heard nothing about the smart grid, the importance of incentives or the digitalisation of the grid to create a micro-market and bring net zero down to the ground in different communities. We have heard very little about energy use. We have heard a lot about generation, but very little about how transport and agriculture—the two big industries on the frontline of energy usage—are making huge strides in decreasing their reliance on energy. Instead, we have heard quite a lot of the old dogma of decline.

To be honest, I think that explains why there are so few colleagues from other parties here this afternoon; most of them are more interested in trying to develop practical solutions. I honestly think that the 100,000 people who petitioned for a proper debate about long-term energy strategy deserve something slightly better than we have heard today, and the Government are determined to provide it.