Energy Costs

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I heartily welcome this short debate from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I am just surprised that the Chamber is not packed out. We hear a lot about emergencies—public health emergencies, NHS emergencies and, of course, the mother of all emergencies, the climate change emergency—but millions not being able to afford energy in the UK in 2022 really is an emergency and will be immediately devastating for many individuals and institutions.

When we talk about climate-related deaths, I hope we count those people who could die of the cold because they cannot afford bills. This is also not just about consumers. Think of all those businesses struggling because of lockdown policies. These extra energy costs will be a hammer blow and will lead to many cafés, pubs and factories shutting up shop—hardly levelling up. Two small charities I know that work respectively with vulnerable women and the homeless have told me that they will not be able to keep their premises open because of energy bills.

Of course I welcome short-term fixes—yes, scrap green taxes and VAT—but this surely demands a major rethink of energy strategy. I understand partly that this immediate crisis is caused by international lockdown measures, but as economics writer Phil Mullan points out, we need to untangle contingent factors from long-term endemic issues affecting gas shortages and higher energy prices. I quote him:

“long-term problems … derive from the … transition … from fossil fuels, and the absence of reliable alternative energy”

supplies. I agree, and this points to how green policies and tougher and tougher targets for decarbonising energy supplies are one major reason for the hike in energy bills that has left our energy supplies so precarious and left ordinary people to foot the bill.

We need to stop letting carbon reduction policies be placed ahead of securing the supply of cheap, reliable energy. I would like the Government to address the following four areas. First, having spent millions subsidising renewables, will the Minister concede that the headlong embrace of wind power means that the UK is vulnerable to energy shocks when the wind stops blowing? Until the technology exists to store wind, surely we need to recognise that fossil fuels, gas turbines and coal-fired power stations are still needed.

Secondly, can we stop neglecting nuclear power, given that it is a clean, stable energy source that produces carbon-free electricity? The onerous, prohibitive and exorbitant regulatory bureaucracy and the years of delays in building new plants needs to stop. Indeed, I suggest that the Government emulate—wait for it—the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen; you never thought I would say that. They should label nuclear as green if they need to do so to brandish their eco credentials post COP 26.

Thirdly, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I think we should look again at fracking. A vast supply of gas lies beneath our feet, and if the UK extracted just 10% of its shale gas resources it could meet gas needs for the next 50 years. Can the Government please lift their seemingly indefinite moratorium on fracking?

Fourthly and finally, I suggest that the best way the Government can lower energy bills is to review, and indeed scrap, some of their own wrong-headed eco policies—none more so than my bête noire, the imposition of heat pump boilers. They are costly to install and you have to wait 24 hours to get a limit of 17 to 19 degrees, yet they are likely to lead to even more green levies on gas bills. They should go. What we mainly need is a complete overhaul of our energy policies so that energy price crises do not become the new normal.