(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend raises a very important point. The Department is reviewing the NAO report at the moment. This area will need investment, but we also need a concerted effort to understand what some of the barriers are. It is very clear that carbon capture and storage will be a critical part of the North sea infrastructure in the future, so we are taking those issues very seriously.
I very much welcome much of what the Minister has said in this announcement, including on the need for a just transition for those working in the oil and gas sector. However, before the election, the Government made a commitment to end new oil and gas licences, although they are still planning to allow the new Rosebank oil field to open, despite it being connected to a level of carbon emissions that we simply cannot allow in this country. I have two questions about the future of oil and gas. First, will the Minister confirm how and when the ending of new oil and gas licences will happen? Secondly, will the Government reconsider the opening of the disastrous Rosebank oil and gas field?
I was hopeful that that was going to be a very positive question, but then we got to a “however”. I thank the hon. Lady for her support of what I have said so far. North sea licensing is an important issue. We were clear throughout the election that we do not intend to issue any further licences in the North sea. We are looking at how exactly that will come into force, and a lot of detailed work is going on because we want to give assurances to the industry.
On the question of Rosebank and some of those other fields, we have said that we will not bring to an end any of the licences that are currently in place. I cannot speak on some of the particular issues, because there are, of course, cases before the courts, but we will come back to the House in due course to set out the detail. What is important is that we have said that we do not want any new licences in the North sea and we stand by that commitment. We now want to work out a detailed plan, so that that just transition, to which the hon. Lady rightly referred, can come into effect.
I wish to finish on the warm homes plan, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) mentioned earlier and is so committed to supporting, and we are grateful to her for that. It will invest £13.2 billion in clean heat and energy efficiency over the lifetime of this Parliament, doubling the previously planned investment to upgrade 5 million homes, with grants and low-interest loans to support investment in insulation, low-carbon heating and other home improvements.
The latest Government figures show that 3 million households in England are in fuel poverty. In the private rented sector, the figure is one in four. Shamefully, the last Government abandoned their commitment to get those homes up to decent standards of energy efficiency, but we will not abandon tenants. We will ensure that homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy standards by 2030, saving renters hundreds of pounds a year.
I will make some progress, because I have only four minutes. If I have time, I will come back to the hon. Lady.
The hon. Gentleman has repeated the point about food insecurity, despite me just saying what the National Farmers Union—which I think is an expert on this topic—has said about it. He has also made a point about the amount of infrastructure in one given area, which is why it is really important that we co-ordinate that infrastructure much better than we do at the moment. That is why the spatial energy plan is so important; the previous Government commenced that work, and we will continue it, because we need a holistic view of all this energy infrastructure so that individual communities do not become saturated with one particular type of infrastructure.
However, I say gently to all hon. Members that at some point we have to accept that some of that infrastructure is nationally important and will have to be sited somewhere. Even if we have offshore cables, that infrastructure, by its very nature, has to come onshore at some point. There will have to be a recognition of the need for infrastructure in communities, but I take the point about the importance of it being well planned.
I will first give way briefly to the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer).
The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) raised a concern about solar threatening our ability to grow our own food in this country. I respectfully suggest that he checks out the recent research by Exeter University, which shows that we could increase the amount of renewable energy we generate in this country 13 times over using, I believe, less than 3% of the UK’s land, and none of the highest-grade agricultural land—
(1 month, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberI welcome my hon. Friend back to the House. It is fantastic to see her back in her place—I congratulate her. She knows much about this subject through working for RenewableUK when she was outside the House, and she makes an important point. The shadow Secretary of State drew attention to our generation of offshore wind, which we have done well, but it is commonly accepted that we have not done nearly so well in generating the jobs that should come with that. Part of what I will be doing with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade is developing a proper green industrial strategy, including in the supply chain. That will provide clarity about the plan to ensure that we have not just energy generation, but job generation too.
I welcome the Secretary of State to his role, and welcome the Government’s recognition that public investment must play a substantial role in decarbonising power. I have seen that from my previous career in offshore wind. However, this public investment must not be only about de-risking private sector investment, though some of his colleagues have implied that that would be the principal role of Great British Energy. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Great British Energy will invest in fully publicly owned, or at least majority publicly owned, renewable generation projects, and will not confine itself to taking minority stakes in private sector-led projects that would give it very little control?
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place. I can confirm that GB Energy will play a role in all kinds of ways, and that we are certainly not restricting it in the way that she suggests. Furthermore, in the constructive spirit of these exchanges, I would ask that the Green party thinks about its commitment to tackling the climate crisis, which we all share, and then thinks about this question of infrastructure. If it wants to tackle the climate crisis, it should know that that simply will not happen if its leading members say no to new energy infrastructure.