Energy Security
Alison Griffiths Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Claire Coutinho
People change their minds when they look at facts—[Interruption.] I am not hiding from this. I think the hon. Gentleman needs to look at the overall record of the things I said in government. The first thing I said when I went into position was that we cannot impoverish ourselves in the name of net zero. I started a true costing of renewables in the Department, because we did not have a proper costing of energy. Who cancelled that work? It was the Secretary of State. I backed the North sea; I signed off Rosebank; I legislated to protect those North sea licences. Who is turning all of that around? The Secretary of State. We all know the real reason that he is doing it. He is shutting down British oil and gas to show climate leadership. He put that in the King’s Speech. Let us be crystal clear, though. What he is saying is that he is willing to turn his back on British industry, even though we will not need any less energy. We will rely on higher-emission imports from abroad because he cares more about the climate bureaucrats than about the jobs of British workers. That is what climate leadership means to him.
Where exactly is this meant to be leading us—bankruptcy? Where does it end—cheering as the lights go out as the last factory in Britain closes? That is what the Secretary of State’s North sea and carbon tax policies are doing. They are simply offshoring British emissions to the coal-powered refineries of India, the diesel tankers bringing us gas from the US and Qatar, and the factories in Trinidad from where we are now getting our ammonia. That does not help the climate and it does not help British workers.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
Businesses in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton need stable and affordable energy to grow and invest, so does my right hon. Friend agree that our “get Britain drilling” Bill is vital not just for energy security but for our future economic security?
Claire Coutinho
The North sea is a vital part of our industry. It provides us not only with the gas that we need for energy security but with the feedstock that feeds into our chemicals and plastics industries. There is a whole supply chain of other industries that rely on the North sea and on our having a successful industrial base. If we lose just one of those foundational industries, it is like dominoes: the rest will go. If we keep offshoring British emissions, it will not help the climate and it will not help British workers. Do the Government understand how bad it looks when they make speeches patting themselves on the back here in Westminster while hard-working Brits out there lose their jobs so that we can import more goods with higher emissions from abroad? That is why the vote on the North sea today should be a litmus test for them. Do they reject decarbonisation by deindustrialisation or not?
Energy
Alison Griffiths Excerpts(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
My constituents are looking at their rising energy bills, already the second highest in the world, with a real sense of fear. People should not have to choose between heating and eating because of the direct choices—the political choices—of the Labour party.
It is not just residents I am hearing from. Many local organisations, from hospices to food manufacturers to the local pub, are worried about the rising costs. The Secretary of State’s ideological attacks on North sea oil and gas production are devastating not just communities across Scotland but high streets right across the country. Businesses are already struggling with lower footfall as customers rein in spending, worried about the security of their own jobs. It is a doom loop and the Government simply do not get it, but our small businesses do—businesses such as Wicks Farm in my constituency. It produces some of the best strawberries in the country, which, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would love to invite you to try. David, its director of agriculture, feels that there is no plan and no support—not for energy, not for infrastructure and certainly not for growth.
Rich and Mark, who run East Beach Guest House, a beautiful boutique hotel on the shoreline of Littlehampton beach, tell me they face a cliff edge of costs imposed by the Chancellor: the jobs tax, the family business tax and the costs of the Employment Rights Bill, as well as eye-watering energy bills. The Government are an existential threat to small businesses, and the families and communities they support. Enough is enough.
The reality is that every pound spent just to keep the lights on is a pound not spent in our shops. When businesses suffer, we lose jobs, skills and the very places where people meet, work and build a community. That is why I welcome the work done by the shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) in setting out what we on the Conservative Benches will do to support families and businesses right across the country.
Alison Griffiths
I will not, given the time constraints.
Our cheap power plan would axe the carbon tax, scrap renewable levies on household bills and put money back into the pockets of hard-working people, because if we give families certainty and give businesses room to breathe, the growth will follow. This is how we build an economy that works for everyone, not just on paper, but on every high street and in every town.
Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits
Alison Griffiths Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Mr MacDonald
I think my hon. Friend will be thrilled with the next part of my speech, which will answer that question. We have a huge financial need, and we have the renewables revenue, which we will talk about in a second. Money and need—bingo, we have a match. Is that not exactly what we are here in Parliament to facilitate?
I am pleased to hear that the Great British Energy Bill is largely here, as it holds the prosperity of much of rural Britain in its hands. It can insist that communities have a stake in local renewables projects and that we legislate to require all renewables projects to pay a significant sum to impacted areas. Amazingly, it made no mention of community ownership of renewables projects or of community benefits.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
I have been fortunate enough to visit your beautiful constituency, but in my beautiful constituency of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, we have Rampion 2, a renewable wind farm that is due to go on to the sea closer to land than Rampion 1, with huge environmental and visible impacts. On your point about where the benefits sit, there is currently no requirement for any visitor centre to sit within the constituency impacted by the wind farm. Do you agree that any commercial benefits, such as a visitor centre, which will bring tourism and jobs, should reside in the most impacted constituency?
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Order. For the benefit of everyone in the room, we avoid the word “you” because it refers to me. I remind all hon. Members that we speak in the third person.