Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts
Tuesday 12th July 2022

(1 year, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Wales is the part of the UK with the highest percentage of those off the gas grid, and I know that her rural part of Wales is therefore likely to be among the areas most affected by the rise in the price of heating oil. We have made sure that those off the gas grid but on the electricity grid will benefit from the £400 energy bill rebate. We have also put £1.1 billion into the home upgrade grant to provide energy efficiency and clean heating upgrades to support lower-income households living off the main gas grid. Obviously, we are continuing to monitor the situation extremely closely, particularly for the most vulnerable, most rural constituents such as my hon. Friend’s.

Caroline Lucas Portrait Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

The UK already has the lowest tax take anywhere in the world from an offshore oil and gas regime, so it is perverse that the Government’s new investment allowance will essentially incentivise yet more oil and gas exploration at a time when we know that we absolutely need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Given that the Secretary of State himself has said that it will take up to a decade to extract sufficient volumes from fracking, will he undertake to speak to his Treasury colleagues and make sure that fracking at the very least is excluded from this perverse investment allowance?

Greg Hands Portrait Greg Hands
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I must say I find the Green party’s attitude to these issues bizarre: it seems to be resolutely against any oil and gas extraction in this country, which could only mean it would be in favour of imports, and those imports would be higher priced, more volatile, likely to be from more dangerous parts of the world, and come with higher embedded emissions. The embedded emissions of liquified natural gas are about 2.5 times higher than the emissions from the gas we get from the UK continental shelf. The hon. Lady describes herself as a Green party politician, but I find her approach distinctly ungreen compared to that of this Conservative Government.