Energy Bill [Lords]

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I welcome the Bill. I hope all parties will recognise that the Bill is an important and much needed piece of legislation, which I hope we can find consensus to support tonight. Many across the energy sector have waited too long for the provisions in the Bill; we cannot afford any further delay.

It is to the issue of delay that I wish to speak today. As the former Energy Minister who signed net zero into law and most recently, as has been noted, chaired the independent review on net zero, I believe the greatest threat to our future ambition to deliver on net zero is the endemic and systemic delay in creating the capacity and capability needed to decarbonise our energy systems. We simply cannot will the means, expecting that because we say we will deliver, net zero will happen. It will not. Unless we address the fundamental challenges of grid infrastructure, storage and capacity, we will not get there.

The net zero review set out how the Government can tackle those delays and implement their climate commitments, both by taking action now—the Bill is a huge opportunity to achieve that—and by providing the certainty, clarity, consistency and continuity of long-term policy direction that is needed to unlock future private inward investment. We can provide certainty in this place by working across parties to build on the long-term political consensus for net zero. Indeed, the Climate Change Act 2008, led by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), has been held up globally as a model for what stable political action on climate change can deliver.

Back then, it was the Conservative party in opposition that pushed the Labour Government to go further, to be more ambitious, in their climate leadership on emissions reduction. Thanks to the actions taken by both parties, and across all divides, the UK is a global leader in the G7, having reduced our emissions further than any other industrialised nation, and we can do the same now.

Although many provisions in the Bill are welcome, we can once again, with cross-party support, go further faster and raise our ambitions. The amendments made in the Lords are all welcome additions. Indeed, many were recommended in the net zero review. I therefore support their continued inclusion and, if needed, will seek to re-table many of them. I will also seek to work across the House, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the environment, to table additional amendments that I believe are realistic and achievable to help the Government meet both the needs of the energy sector and their own legal and net zero commitments.

It is in that spirit of cross-party consensus that I believe it is our duty as legislators not only to make this Bill the best it can be, but to ensure that we do not delay any further the reforms that are needed to make our regulatory and planning systems, which are holding back net zero, fit for a net zero purpose.

This opportunity to reform our energy system will not come again in this Parliament. For me, as someone whose constituency is being abolished at the next general election and who is standing down, the opportunity will perhaps never come again. I hope the Minister and the Government will recognise that I stand here tonight, and throughout the passage of this Bill, to be helpful, although they might not feel that I am being helpful, and to raise our ambition by amending the Bill. Although they might not thank me today, in time I hope the Minister and the Government will understand that I and others who seek to improve the Bill have no choice, for there is no time left in which to act.