Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Businesses are being crushed by the weight of energy costs in this country, and that is leading to the deindustrialisation of Great Britain, everywhere from the ceramics industry in Stoke to the chemicals industry in Grangemouth. Labour’s policies are making Britain poorer and more vulnerable, and are leading to thousands of job losses. Does the Minister think that is why Gary Smith of the GMB described Government energy policy as “batshit” and the Department as the “ministry for P45s”?

[Blair McDougall]

As has happened so often, we find ourselves rising to the Dispatch Box to answer Opposition Front Benchers’ questions about why we have not been quick enough to fix the mess that they left us. By all means criticise the speed and the scale of our ambition—we are certainly ambitious to go quicker—but the shadow Minister’s proposal is to regress to the policy of reliance on fossil fuels that got us into this mess, and does not bear any scrutiny.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State and congratulate her on her new post; I look forward to working collaboratively with her on issues on which we agree—I am sure we will find some at some point.

In the last 20 minutes, The Daily Telegraph has reported that, in an act of extreme irony, the former Secretary of State for Energy, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), has signed off on drilling for new oil in the South Atlantic, off the Falkland Islands. Why is drilling for new oil and gas okay in the south Atlantic but not in the North sea?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

The Falkland Islands is independent and self-governing. It is not a matter for us. We are and have been clear that oil and gas will be part of our energy mix for years to come. We have also been clear that we will manage existing fields, and that is what we are committed to doing. I cannot reiterate enough that, if we care about getting bills down and about energy security, we must diversify our mix. That means having clean power and renewables. The Government are pragmatic, because at the very heart of this are consumers who are under pressure. The Opposition support renewables one minute—I think I have a quote from the hon. Member himself—and are against them the next. We have a plan; they have no plan.

[Andrew Bowie]

Oil and gas workers in Scotland will be feeling cold fury. The Labour party is creating jobs in oil and gas in Port Stanley while killing them in Aberdeen. Why does the unusual pragmatism that the former Secretary of State for Energy has applied in the south Atlantic not apply to the North sea oil and gas industry?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I ask the hon. Member to show some humility. On his watch, from 2016 to 2024, 75,000 oil and gas jobs were lost, because the Conservatives had no plan. Candidly, I will not take lectures from the Conservative party. We are clear that there will be a plan for oil and gas workers in this country, because we do not do what the Tories do—industrial transition that denudes and guts our communities. That is not the Labour way. We will have a plan. They have no grounds to stand on.