Energy Security

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Britain is becoming harder to govern. That is not principally the result of disruptive, destabilising societal change, or even because an increasingly complicated world is creating more uncertainty for all Governments; the problem lies in governance itself. The Prime Minister complains that when he pulls levers in Downing Street, they have less practical effect than he had hoped. Simon Case, on leaving office, put that very clearly. He said that

“an increasing number of English devolution settlements, independent quangos and arm’s length bodies, courts, statutory consultees and the like, block the path from what a winning political party promises at an election to what it can then achieve in power.”

Successive Governments have delegated power to all kinds of unelected, unaccountable bodies, from the Office for Budget Responsibility to Network Rail, the Environment Agency to all kinds of other quangos, the names of which we barely know—and neither do we know how their memberships are chosen or to whom they are accountable. It is time for a more radical programme than this King’s Speech offers. It is time for Parliament and Government to be more confident about the difference that they can make.

The Secretary of State, in opening the debate, talked about economic resilience, and he was right to do so. It is absolutely right that in the age in which we live we need to build greater national economic resilience. But that means facing up to the fact that we manufacture too little of what we consume and we grow too little of the food we need to feed the nation.

The sort of economic resilience that he describes requires us to look again at the balance of payments. It is said that Harold Wilson, the then Labour Prime Minister, lost the 1970 election against expectations because there were bad balance of trade figures. No one now speaks of the balance of trade, yet the truth is that we import far more than we did then. In the mid-1980s we grew about 75% of the food we consumed; the import figure is now 40%.

It is preposterous that we have lengthened supply lines and, as a result, decreased traceability. We do not really know where much of what we consume is made, or how or by whom it is made. In the far east, there are all kinds of unacceptable conditions that would not be tolerated in this country, and yet we still choose to import large amounts of those kinds of goods.

If we really want to build more national economic resilience, let us have a fresh look at the character and shape of our economy. To do that, we will also need to look at productivity. As the Father of House described, it is not good enough for Government to spend endlessly without looking at the value they get from that expenditure. We know that both public sector and private sector productivity has stalled for a considerable time. That is not unique to this country; it is a problem for the whole of western Europe and most modern economies. None the less, we need new measures to focus on productivity, so that what we get for what we spend becomes the issue, not how much we spend as a whole.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is giving a good lecture on what needs to happen. What incentives do we need to provide to farmers to grow more and to use their land as effectively as possible, as well as to employers to use their time as effectively as possible, so that we can literally operate on a 24-hour day, three-shift production operation?

[Sir John Hayes]

Before I deal with that excellent point—I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making it—I remind the House that the current trade deficit is about £25 billion, which would have been unthinkable a generation or two ago. On the question my hon. Friend asks, we have to rebalance the food chain. For too long, major retailers have held a gun to the head of primary and secondary producers. What matters is not the size of the cake, but who is getting what sort of slice of the cake.

While major retailers continue to make huge profits, the people who actually grow and make the food have had their livelihoods under persistent pressure for the whole time I have been in this House, and no Government have had the courage to face up to that fact. We need to give more power to the Groceries Code Adjudicator to intervene where sharp practice takes place and to stand up for the hard-working farmers in Lincolnshire—farmers elsewhere, yes, but particularly those in Lincolnshire—who grow so much of the food that we consume across the kingdom.

If we are going to build productivity, we have to invest in skills. When I was the Minister for Skills, I am proud to say that we built up apprenticeship starts to around half a million a year. That was still not enough, in my view—I think we should have more apprenticeships than that. Nevertheless, we got it up to about half a million a year, but that has fallen to about 350,000 now. That we have fewer apprenticeship starts than we did then means that we have to re-evaluate what advanced learning looks like. Higher education is all very well, but higher learning matters just as much. Vocational, practical and technical skills both deliver for the economy, because they satisfy economic need, and give a chance for fulfilment to people whose aptitudes, tastes and talents lie in that direction. To build productivity, we need to invest in skills.

That is the kind of radical programme—boosting productivity, tackling the trade deficit and building skills—that I had hoped to see. I implore the Government to address those kinds of issues in the common interest, for the national good, for the common good, in the national interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody).

As a scientist by background, I welcome the cross-party agreement on nuclear power forming a key part of our energy supply for the future. That was not always the case. There was certainly opposition to nuclear power previously on the Labour Benches, as indeed there was among Liberal Democrat Back Benchers, so I am delighted that we have agreement on this positive way forward.

The key is ensuring a mixed economy in energy supply. I welcomed the use of solar power on the roof of the Aspire leisure centre adjacent to the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital, which was granted by the previous Conservative Government. The centre and the hospital are supplied by that solar energy, which also contributes towards the grid. That is welcome news, but I cannot understand why the Government will not agree to exploit the North sea to a further extent. That would not come on stream straight away, but surely we must think about it for the future.

Let me cover one or two other areas. The Vagrancy Act 1824 is coming to an end, but we still require from the Government the necessary statutory instrument to make that happen—there was no commitment in the King’s Speech. Can we see that? On the social housing renewal Bill, the Government’s ambition is huge but timid. We must go faster and further to provide the much-needed social housing required in this country, which has not been built for more than 30 years.

We live in a dangerous world. With the war in Ukraine causing energy price hikes, we must think about what that has done to the windfall from the petrol pumps going to the Treasury. At the same time, we have a fragile truce in the middle east, the civil war in Sudan, in which more people are being killed than in any other conflict, and half a million Christians in Nigeria have been massacred by Islamists.

This is the sad reality. I was absolutely appalled that on 7 October 2023, after the attempt by Hamas to commit genocide against the people of Israel, we saw people celebrating on our streets. We have subsequently turned a blind eye to the hate marches that have assembled 100 yards away from a synagogue in London at midday, just as the Shabbat services were coming to an end. That has continued for week after week, and the congregation have been intimidated while going about their lawful business.

The Prime Minister has quite rightly talked about combating antisemitism, but words are not enough; we need action now. A blind eye was turned to the Hamas and Hezbollah flags in those marches. A deaf ear was cocked to the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which means the destruction of the state of Israel. Equally, a deaf ear was cocked to the phrase, “Globalise the intifada”. What have we seen as a result? Jewish businesses and restaurants have been attacked, synagogues have been attacked, and we now see Jewish people on the streets being attacked purely because of their religion. That is absolutely unacceptable.

We have to start somewhere, so I welcome the decision by the Government to bring forward legislation on proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is long overdue. I have led the campaign for that in Parliament for many years, but we must go further. Why is the Iranian ambassador still here? He should be kicked out. The embassy should be closed down, and all the so-called diplomats should be refused entry to this country. Iran is the head of the snake that controls all the terrorism in the middle east, and we must recognise that.

[Jim Shannon]

There is one thing the Government have not done that they could do, which I know the hon. Gentleman would like to happen, as would I and many others in this House. There are assets in London owned by the Iranian Government, and it is well known where they all are. Does he feel, as I do, that here in London, where we have some control, it is time that those assets were taken away from Iran?

[Bob Blackman]

The assets of the IRGC and the despotic regime in Iran must be sequestrated and brought into use for the people of this country. There are 11 well-known properties—detached houses—owned by this despotic regime that are not used at the moment. They could be used for homeless families and Brits who need somewhere to live, but we do not take the necessary action. As I have raised previously, we have 13 charities that get their funding from Iran. They have their headquarters in the UK, and they are banned in Arab countries. Why are they allowed to exist and spread their poison?

We must also go further on university campuses. Vice-chancellors have a duty to protect Jewish students, but they do not carry out that duty. Perhaps we could start in our schools by teaching our children the true history of the middle east. In 1948, the Arab countries tried to prevent Israel from being set up and encouraged and almost forced the Arabs to leave the state of Israel so that they could go in and kill everyone. Israel won that war, and no one has forgiven it since. We can also look to 1967 and 1973, when Israel fought wars once again to protect itself. The sad fact is that that is not taught in our schools. We need to understand that if we do not educate our children in the right way, propaganda will unfortunately be allowed to grow.

Why was one of our Labour colleagues banned from going into a school in his constituency solely because he is Jewish? That cannot be acceptable. Words are not enough; we need prompt, firm action to root out antisemitism and anti-Jewish hatred once and for all.