Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

That is something we take incredibly seriously. We are an energy policy and industrial policy Department. We have made progress on that and are determined to make further progress.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Government have stressed the importance of energy independence, sovereignty and security. How concerned are they that it is difficult to pin down, as we have tried to do, exactly how many, and what percentage, of the wind turbines in this country are produced in China, considering that a thousand of them were recently discovered to have been manufactured using asbestos?

[Michael Shanks]

We take those issues seriously across the energy resilience and security piece. It is for individual developers to look at their individual sites and ensure that they comply with the regulations that are in place. We are also looking at what more needs to be done, because the security and resilience of all our energy infrastructure has never been more important.

Consumer Energy Bills: Government Support

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I will call Luke Taylor to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will be no opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for consumer energy bills.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Ms Jardine. This morning, hon. Members may have caught the same package on the breakfast news as I did. It followed Ukrainians on the outskirts of Kyiv who had been without heating for more than two weeks. They have suffered in conditions unthinkable to those of us in modern Britain, with temperatures in some places dropping to minus 20° overnight. The pictures —of children with frozen faces wearing four or five coats, and grandmothers slipping on sheets of ice that had formed on the floors of their apartments—were heartbreaking.

I hope that hon. Members will indulge my making that aside at the start of my remarks; as I watched those scenes, I could not help but feel alarmed at the sense that Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian energy infrastructure mirrors the shockwaves it has wilfully sent across Europe’s traditional energy mix since it first crossed the Ukrainian border nearly four years ago. Those shockwaves were amplified in the UK when they collided with the unstable economic conditions wrought by Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, whose impacts are still rumbling on today.

We are fortunate in this country not to suffer temperatures consistently way below 0°, and especially lucky not to have to contend with that while bombs rain down on our heads. But the reality of the dangers of cold is present everywhere, and our cost of energy crisis is forcing people to live without heating mere miles from where we stand today, in the world’s sixth largest economy.

It is always innocent, ordinary people—from Kyiv to Kilburn and everywhere in between—who suffer because of huge energy price shocks: ordinary people such as the pensioners in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam, who are living in homes that are sealed shut against the winter, their windows “boarded up” with blankets and towels as they try desperately to keep inside what little heat they can afford.

In the Chamber last week, I mentioned an incident in which I knocked on the door of a resident who answered in a coat and scarf—not because she was going out, but because she did not have the heating on inside; it was around 3° or 4° outside. It happened again yesterday, when I was out canvassing in Worcester Park. I have heard from households that now avoid using their ovens, not out of choice but out of fear of what switching them on will do to their finances. Local hospitals prepare for influxes after cold snaps, because the cold weather thickens blood and causes clots and heart attacks in older people. Anyone who has experienced true cold—awful, core-shaking cold—can only dare to imagine what it feels like for children and older people, whose temperature regulation is developing or fading.

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimated that 4,950 excess winter deaths in the UK were caused by living in cold homes during that first chaotic winter of 2022-23.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

First of all, what happened at Lindsey—we should be clear that the responsibility lies with the owner, which ran the business into the ground—is tragic for the workers and their families, and I have talked to those workers. The hon. Gentleman will know—my hon. Friend the Energy Minister has spoken to him about this—that the process involved the official receiver, who looked for the best and most viable bid, but there was no viable bid to keep refining going at Lindsey. That is why P66 was chosen, and we are determined to work with the company to maximise the number of jobs that it can deliver for the local community.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

13. What steps he is taking to support job creation in the renewable energy sector.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)]

The transition to clean energy is the greatest opportunity we have for good job creation across the whole country, with 40,000 extra clean energy jobs in Scotland alone. That is why we published the clean energy jobs plan in October, which sets out how we will work in partnership with industry and trade unions to deliver these jobs.

[Christine Jardine]

I appreciate the Minister’s answer. Those 40,000 jobs are vital, but they are still outnumbered by the many thousands of jobs in the oil and gas sector. The rate of job losses there is accelerating, and people are increasingly going abroad, creating a concern that the skills necessary for the green transition will be lost. What will the Government do to create transitional training and job movement within those two sectors?

[Chris McDonald]

This Government recognise the importance of the North sea oil and gas industry, and the importance of oil and gas for decades to come, but we also recognise that the North sea is a declining basin. That is why we published our North sea plan, which supports the transition of workers in the North sea into clean energy jobs, and why we are investing in our clean industry bonus, which incentivises businesses that are investing in offshore wind to ensure that those offshore wind jobs are located here in the UK—a fundamental difference between this Labour Government and the previous Conservative Government, who were happy for those jobs to be based in other countries in Europe.

Budget Resolutions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). He will forgive me for wondering whether some of his Scottish Labour colleagues perhaps believe that Christmas arrived early for them last week, given that much of the Red Book reads like the Christmas wish list of a potential First Minister of Scotland. There is the investment in Inchgreen dock in Inverclyde, regeneration projects in Kirkcaldy, the Forth Green port and £14.5 million for Grangemouth—I think we know which target seats Santa will be visiting this year—and £820 million in consequentials.

It is not all good news, however. Of course, the investment in Scotland is welcome, including the vital support for the Forth Green port, which should unlock high-skilled jobs for my constituents through growth in green industries, but at the same time we are seeing further job losses at Harbour Energy in Aberdeen. Any investment in renewables must not mean that we turn our backs on oil and gas workers and lose skills and investment.

I am particularly pleased to see that the Government have reaffirmed their commitment to £750 million for Edinburgh University’s new exascale computer—investment that I have consistently campaigned for since the election. That is set to become the UK’s new national supercomputer, with the potential to unlock world-leading research in artificial intelligence, medicine, physics and space, making Edinburgh a strong contender to be the home of the Scottish AI growth zone that the Budget document commits to—a wee hint to the Minister that something else could be popped into a Christmas stocking.

I thank the Chancellor for finally listening to calls, including from the Liberal Democrats, to scrap the two-child cap on universal credit, lifting 95,000 Scottish children out of poverty and helping 300 households in Edinburgh West. However, it is shameful that it has taken this Government so long to finally reverse the cap and the perverse “rape clause”.

Despite that progress, it is not all good news. I am disappointed by the gaps in the Budget, including on things that would have boosted Edinburgh’s economy and helped families in my constituency. I have mentioned the hospitality sector many times in this House. It generates £198 million every year in my constituency alone, where it supports 6,000 jobs. Pubs, restaurants and cafés across Edinburgh are still feeling the pinch from increased energy costs, the impact of employer national insurance hikes, and inflation. The Chancellor could have used this opportunity to cut VAT for hospitality, putting money back into people’s pockets as they go out to celebrate Christmas.

Similarly, there was nothing for the whisky industry, which is also feeling the effects of Trump’s tariffs. Analysis by the Scotch Whisky Association has shown a tax revenue loss of £150 million, following the previous hike in alcohol duty, so the increase in this Budget puts further pressure on a sector that is critical for Scotland’s economy.

I will finish with this thought. In Scotland, many of us hope for a change of Government at Holyrood next year. I heard that from people in my constituency at the weekend. They have the same concerns as people in any other part of the country; they are worried about the cost of energy bills and the state of our public services. Small business owners told me about the pressure that they are feeling without business rates relief in Scotland. They are looking to this Budget to give them some idea of what they might expect from the Labour party in an election campaign in Scotland next year, and whether they will like it. It will be the people of Scotland who decide whether this Budget and its creators have been naughty or nice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

Perhaps if the right hon. Member had been here yesterday, she would have been able to engage with the Secretary of State on this. The science is absolutely clear: every avoided fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to the severity of climate impacts. That is why the Prime Minister went to the global leaders summit at COP29 last year to announce a new 1.5°C-aligned nationally determined contribution, and we will continue to show international leadership.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

15. What steps he is taking to manage the radio teleswitch service switch-off.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

The Government have stepped in to ensure a more controlled and carefully managed phase-out of the radio teleswitch service. I have been engaging directly on this and meeting Energy UK and Ofgem fortnightly to discuss progress and the suppliers’ phase-out plan. My focus and priority is absolutely clear: to ensure that there is no impact on consumers and that we minimise any consumer detriment.

[Christine Jardine]

I welcome the Government’s change in course, because the previous hard deadline would have left many people, including people in my constituency of Edinburgh West, vulnerable and, indeed, unaware that there was any need to change their meter, but there is still a big problem in Scotland, as 100,000 people are still waiting on meters, and may be unaware of this issue. On engaging with the community, will the Minister please tell us what she is doing in Scotland to ensure that rural communities are approached about this, and vulnerable people get protection?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We have been working closely with the Scottish Government and engaging with Scottish MPs. We know that about 97,000 meters needs to be replaced in Scotland. All those households have been contacted multiple times. In addition, because we know that there are particular challenges in some rural communities, we have done a sprint, in which suppliers are working in collaboration with the local authority to bring down the number of replacements needed. I can reassure the hon. Member that no area will be switched off without us contacting consumers to inform them, without us allowing them to book in emergency appointments, and, critically, without us informing MPs and local authorities, so that we do this in the best possible way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

As always, my hon. Friend is a great champion for his local area and its different energy sources. I am very happy to meet him, as geothermal has huge opportunities. I think some of it has yet to come to market, but we look at all opportunities for delivering clean power.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Happy birthday, Mr Speaker—I suspect you may be relieved that we cannot sing in the Chamber.

I was recently approached by a small business owner in my constituency of Edinburgh West who faces bill of almost £30,000 for the period of lockdown when her business was closed. She is getting no sense out of British Gas Lite about why she is facing this bill, and I am getting no response from it. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can find out what is happening?

[Mr Speaker]

A quick yes will do.

Energy Grid Resilience

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for drawing attention to my appalling time in the marathon. [Interruption.] That is kind of the shadow Secretary of State.

My hon. Friend made an important point. The serious response to an unprecedented incident like this is to take stock of what happened, to introduce some facts into the debate—some people do not like to see facts in these debates—to allow a proper investigation to find out what caused it and, yes, to learn lessons from it. There will be lessons to learn, but I will not rush headlong into an ideological argument that damages our energy security by suggesting that somehow we should go back to the past and then everything will be fine. The clean energy transition is right for climate, right for jobs in the supply chains, right for bringing down bills and right for this country.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I welcome what the Minister has outlined and his reassurances about resilience, particularly to a cyber-attack. However, there is also the danger that if we hand over the on/off switch for vital energy supplies to a foreign country, they can be switched off without our control. What mitigations are the Government considering for projects like the vast wind farm in the North sea for which the Chinese company Mingyang wants to provide the hardware?

[Michael Shanks]

I will not be drawn on an individual commercial arrangement that a project may or may not have. As I have outlined, in any investment case the Government will carry out a number of checks, one of which will always be a national security check, so these questions will be looked at. I reject the suggestion that there would somehow be an on/off switch—that is not the position that the Government would take—but we look at all these investment decisions individually, and that is not for me to do on the Floor of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

13. What steps he is taking to support job creation in the renewable energy sector.

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)]

Since the last oral questions in March, the Government have consented to the Rampion 2 offshore wind farm, creating 4,000 jobs; reached the final investment decision on the HyNet carbon capture, utilisation and storage cluster, creating 2,000 jobs; invested £300 million, through Great British Energy, in UK clean energy supply chains; shortlisted 27 hydrogen companies for hydrogen allocation round 2; and created a new £100 million fusion investment fund. This Government are building the clean energy future in Britain.

[Ed Miliband]

That is very much part of our plans. As the hon. Gentleman will know, in March we announced the provision of more than £55 million for the expansion of Port of Cromarty Firth to create offshore wind supply chains in this country, and last week, along with GB Energy, we announced that investment of £300 million in supply chains. We are determined not just to generate offshore wind in Britain, but to take advantage of the huge economic opportunity that it represents.

[Christine Jardine]

I hear what the Secretary of State is saying, but Scotland’s declining oil and gas industries have lost 40% of their jobs in the past decade, and today Grangemouth has warned that it may have to pause important projects involving a switch to greener and more sustainable forms of energy because of what it describes as soaring energy bills and the pressures of income tax. We know that Grangemouth needs investment, but it also needs more than the Government are doing at the moment. What intervention are they planning to protect jobs and the communities that could be hollowed out if Grangemouth is not saved?

[Ed Miliband]

As the hon. Lady will know, we inherited this situation from the last Government, but we set aside £200 million to build the future in Grangemouth and we are working closely with the Scottish Government on precisely that, in a Government-to-Government collaboration. As for the hon. Lady’s wider question about industrial energy prices, we should obviously look at what different sectors are saying.

A lot of nonsense is being talked about steel. UK Steel has said categorically that the difference between our prices and those of continental Europe is a result of our reliance on natural gas power generation. [Interruption.] Opposition Members say “Rubbish”, but that is what UK Steel has said, and that is why our clean power mission is right for families and right for business.

Energy Infrastructure: Chinese Companies

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the potential security implications of the involvement of Chinese companies, including Mingyang, in energy infrastructure projects.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Kerry McCarthy)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing the urgent question to the House.

The protection and security of the energy sector is an absolute priority for this Government. We have a range of effective measures in place that give the Government powers to balance an open investment environment to facilitate growth with protecting the areas of our economy that are most sensitive to national security.

The Government firmly believe that the biggest risk to our energy system and energy security is remaining dependent on international fossil fuel markets, controlled by petrostates and dictators. That is why we have a mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower to end that dependence. We have a world-leading offshore wind industry in the UK and international investment plays a crucial role in supporting jobs across the country. As part of that mission, my Department engages in discussions with a wide range of investors, including those from other countries. We are also clear that alongside that, the growth of UK supply chains is critical. That is why we have set out plans for a clean industry bonus to drive investment in manufacturing, as well as setting up Great British Energy and the national wealth fund.

The Government will not hesitate to use our powers to protect national security whenever we identify concerns, and we will take a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the UK’s relations with China, rooted in UK and global interests. The Government will co-operate with China where it can, compete where it needs to and challenge where it must.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the Minister for her comments and general reassurances, but there are specific concerns at the moment. China can produce what is useful to us for the development of renewables, particularly in the North sea, and we can benefit from those investments. China also needs access to our markets. However, security issues involving companies working in offshore renewable development have become apparent in recent weeks and have been raised numerous times.

It has been reported that the Chinese company Mingyang is interested in producing turbines for a new project in the North sea. Around £60 million of Scottish Government funding has been earmarked for a wind turbine factory near Inverness, in addition to a potential £27 million for Orient Cable to provide subsea cables for island communities. That is despite the European Union bringing anti-trust cases against China and the Norwegian Government blocking Mingyang from its green infrastructure projects.

Will the Minister reassure the House that the Department will follow the same rigorous processes to assess those risks as the previous Government, which ultimately blocked Huawei from the 5G network? This must include an assessment of any opportunities for remote access to the turbines, as the software will normally remain in the control of the manufacturers even once commissioned, leaving them vulnerable to being switched off. We need local control.

Will the Department reassure the House that discussions are ongoing with the Scottish Government to ensure that no public money is invested before this risk assessment has taken place? How will Ministers work with the Scottish Government and Cabinet colleagues to ensure that offshore and undersea infrastructure is safe?

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Lady raises important concerns that we are very much alive to. As I said in my first answer, energy security is critical to the Department’s work and that is why we have the clean power mission to end our dependency on fossil fuels. International investment is a crucial part of that and helps to support growth and jobs across the country. As part of that, we have discussions with a wide range of international investors, but we absolutely recognise that this needs to be balanced against national security implications. We work on that constantly across Government with input from a number of Departments, and I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Minister for Security from the Home Office here for the urgent question.

The Government have to consider both those aspects together: the need for investment and for greater capacity in our supply chains, and the security risk. While I cannot get into the details of the individual case, given the nature of the ongoing discussions, I reassure the hon. Lady that we are taking these factors into account. We do want to make sure that the most robust processes are followed as we look at the details of this particular issue.

ECO4 and Insulation Schemes

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I thank my hon. Friend, and we are absolutely committed to upgrading people’s homes. We believe that that is the route to delivering warmer homes that are cheaper to run, and that commitment stands for all communities. We want to move at pace with our warm homes plan because we want to deliver upgrades in people’s homes. However, we are very clear that part of that has to be an overhaul of the system, because if consumers want to go on this journey, they need to be confident that the work done will be of the utmost quality and standard, and that if things go wrong, we have proper redress systems in place. That is not what we inherited, but it is absolutely what we must deliver.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I welcome what the Government are saying about the need to address this issue, and it will be reassuring for the very many people who have raised the problem with their MPs. However, are they also going to look at whether there is a wider problem with insulation generally, as has been mentioned, and have they had discussions with the devolved Administrations about schemes in the wider UK?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I thank the hon. Member, and yes, we have spoken to the devolved Administrations. We have spoken to the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, and we are working closely and collaborating with them. It is important to stress that schemes operate in slightly different ways. In the case of the Welsh Administration, we think greater checks and balances are in place in the schemes with local authorities and social housing providers. I think there is a collective appetite and desire to work together, because everyone agrees that home upgrades are fundamental to delivering warmer homes and cheaper bills. We need to get the delivery right to make sure we deliver at the scale and pace of our ambition, but do so with quality at the heart of it.