Renewables Obligation Certificate Scheme

Debate between Angus MacDonald and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

I should have known the hon. Gentleman would be on top of things and would be aware of the Minister for Energy’s visit, but it is important that we have that continual dialogue and that the hon. Gentleman comes along to these debates to ensure that the Northern Ireland voice is heard.

I do not want to go too far off piste from the subject of the debate, but to respond to what the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), had to say, I am an MP from Bristol, so the Severn estuary, the Severn barrage, the Severn tidal lagoons or whatever are very much on my radar. I went up to the Orkneys last summer to look at what they are doing on harnessing wave energy there, and it was very interesting.

On grid capacity, we know that grid capacity is a real issue, in terms of both our ambition for clean power by 2030 and our wider industrial decarbonisation. The Secretary of State likes to talk about the “four horsemen” standing in the way of us getting there, and grid is very much one of those. We have brought in Chris Stark, the former chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, to head up mission control on that issue, and he is working daily on how we can unblock and accelerate projects within the grid.

To the hon. Member’s point on farmers, I agree with giving farmers support to diversify, and energy from waste or anaerobic digestion and so on is part of that. I met two of the DEFRA Ministers earlier this week—although it might have been last week; it all becomes a bit of a blur—and I am in constant conversation with them about how we can work together on that and on our local power plan, which will be part of GB Energy. Hopefully there will be pots of money available for some of those community projects in rural areas, possibly on farms that he has talked about.

I understand that the company that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) mentioned, GE Vernova, is doing innovative things on grid solutions. That is the sort of high-tech new approach that we need if we are to solve the problems that we have talked about, and I congratulate her on speaking up on behalf of a company in her constituency.

Turning to the actual debate, the experience of recent years has reinforced what we already knew: we cannot rely on fossil fuels. We need clean power to reduce vulnerability to volatile global fossil fuel markets, to give us energy security and reduce the cost of energy, and to tackle the climate crisis. That is why one of the Prime Minister’s five missions is to make Britain a clean energy superpower by delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero. Electricity generated by renewables and nuclear power will be the backbone of a clean electricity system by 2030.

I have told the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) how disappointed I am with the Opposition’s U-turn on this issue. I understand the position they are coming from and that there has been a change from the stance that they adopted in Government, but I have not heard from him what the answer is for our future energy security. What is the answer to dealing with the global fossil fuel markets? What is the answer to tackling the climate crisis? What is the answer to bringing down bills in the long term?

[Mr Angus MacDonald]

I wonder if the Minister could put herself in the position of somebody from the island of Skye who wakes up in the morning, opens his windows, and sees beautiful mountains in the background —it is always sunny there and there are no midges. He sees the wind turbines, but then he goes and looks at his heating and realises he is paying four times as much to get energy from those turbines. Meanwhile, there is negligible community benefit coming to that area. Can she position herself in that person’s or that household’s shoes?

[Kerry McCarthy]

As I said to the hon. Member, that issue that has been debated numerous times here, and it is not really the subject of today’s debate—but nice try on getting it in there. He might want to secure his own Westminster Hall or Adjournment debate on it. As I said, it is very much on our radar to look at the fairness in the system and to make sure that energy is affordable for everybody and that there are community benefits as we roll out that clean power ambition. All those issues are talked about in the Department on a daily basis.

Before I move on from the hon. Member for West Suffolk, I will say that the urgent question on carbon budget 7 was not granted because there is a process for the Government to respond to the analysis given to us from carbon budgets, and we will follow that process. First, though, we have to deal with the carbon budget delivery plan. Before looking to CB7, we must look at how we meet the obligations contained in current carbon budgets.

The previous Government were taken to court because their plan was not deemed adequate. They presented another plan, and the courts again found that it was not adequate, so we now have a deadline from the courts to produce our carbon budget delivery plan this year to show that we are back on track. That is very much our first priority. I am sure that once that is published, we will debate that and then carbon budget 7 as well, but we have to show that we are back on track before we start looking into the future.