Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Charlie Maynard(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
New small modular reactors have real potential to help reduce our reliance on foreign gas and bring down energy bills, as well as bringing a welcome boost to jobs and investment in Anglesey. SMRs should be where the focus is when it comes to nuclear, not big, expensive nuclear power stations that cost multiples more and take far longer to build.
The Liberal Democrats are pleased to see SMRs coming forward as part of a mix of cost-effective and safe decarbonised power generation, but will the Government please confirm that they will also maintain focus on boosting wind and solar power generation in order to bring down everyone’s energy bills? My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) has been working closely with constituents who will now be disappointed that the alternative site of Oldbury has not gone forward, so can the Minister clarify what the future is for that site?
Taxes
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Charlie Maynard(1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. When the hon. Gentleman makes an intervention, he should do that via me, facing the Chair and not the Back Benches.
Charlie Maynard
Let us talk about trade, Madam Deputy Speaker. I find it extraordinary if we look at the future. I think it was Stephen Bush in the Financial Times who talked about the permanent lobotomy that the Tory party needs to have when talking about Brexit. If we are talking about getting money into the Exchequer, let us get our economy moving again and get growth back into the economy. Let us open up a customs union with Europe and get our economy growing. Let us look to the future.
Dr Spencer
I have to apologise to the hon. Member. I came into the House in 2019, and it strikes me that this debate is probably better suited to 2018, before I was elected.
On the situation that we find ourselves in, many Labour Members have spoken about the Chancellor or the Government bringing in free this and free that. The Government do not have money and the Chancellor does not have money. It is not even just taxpayers’ money that they are pledging to spend; it is our children’s money. That goes to the core of the problem that we face.
The decisions that the Government are taking to keep on and not cut spending and to keep on borrowing and borrowing are not on my head. They are not on the heads of anyone in this room. Those decisions are on the heads of our children. Families know how to budget, and this is the equivalent of a parent saying, “We fancy going on holiday to—I do not know—Lanzarote this year and we are going to borrow money to do it. I am not going to borrow it on me, though; I am going to borrow it on my kids. They will take out the loan and they can pay it back in future.”
It is fundamentally and morally unacceptable that we are in this position and that the Government do not have an approach to try and drive down the deficit and pay back the debt. That is why I am so pleased that the Leader of the Opposition announced the golden rule for making sure that policies going forward recognise that we cannot keep on spending money that we do not have.
In the last Government, from 2010 onwards, we worked really hard on driving down debt, and we had almost got there, in terms of reducing the deficit, when covid kicked off. Can people imagine the situation we would have been in if covid had kicked off without the work we had done to balance the books and without the fiscal firepower that we had to get through it? I remember the debates that we had around covid, and I remember well the first year—I am sure everyone in this Chamber does, whether they were a Member or not. I remember early on being desperately worried that the shadow of covid would loom long and loom hard, and that, over the next decade, we would see the impact of turning off the economy for two years.
Industrial Strategy
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Charlie Maynard
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I can run this only until 2 pm, so can questions and answers be brief, please?
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
I thank the Chair for his leadership; we enjoy being under it. To focus on one thing, energy costs are causing havoc around the country, leading to many companies going to the wall. Does he think this emergency should be to dealt with by cutting energy costs, dealing with the distortions between gas and electricity, and giving better access to manufacturers so that they can get the power they need?
Sewage
Debate between Caroline Nokes and Charlie Maynard(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Charlie Maynard
I thank my hon. Friend, and, yes, I absolutely do.
Ofwat is also failing to innovate. It appears to do little, if anything, to push companies to do this. This is so critical because, if we are going to increase capacity in sewage treatment works, there are many better ways of doing so. There is a host of new technologies out there from leak detection, pipeline monitoring and predictive maintenance equipment to trenchless pipe repair and pressure management technologies. Yet I have heard from firms in my constituency that it is easier to sell sewer technology solutions in the US and Europe than in the UK. This is where the issues of the dire state of water companies’ finances and the sewage scandal intersect, because companies cannot make basic repairs, let alone properly innovate and improve, when so much of their revenue is going straight out of the door in interest payments.
The previous Government have a lot to answer for. It was on their watch that dumping sewage in our rivers and lakes reached record levels, as water companies piled up billions in debt. All the while, bosses rewarded themselves with generous bonuses for mismanagement and failure on so many levels. Many people who work so hard in those companies suffered under that mismanagement.
There is only so much point in looking backwards. What I am appalled by is that the new Government, who came into power with promises to get tough with the water companies and sort out the scandal, have so far shown themselves to be about as tough as Ofwat. The Water (Special Measures) Act—by the way, I say to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) that it was not voted on by us—was, well, just about nothing. Government Members and Conservative Members rejected a whole host of basic common sense steps, proposed as amendments, which could have made the legislation genuinely impactful. I will give some examples.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I would just like to suggest that the hon. Gentleman bring his remarks to a close rather than give us some examples, because we want to hear from the Minister. He has 30 seconds at most.
Charlie Maynard
I will make that three. Thank you very much, and over to you.