Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Coutinho Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

Last week, the National Energy System Operator published a full systems cost analysis of the Secretary of State’s flagship project to carbonise the grid by 2030. This morning, the Secretary of State said on several media outlets that the report shows that his plans will lower bills. I remind the House that the report assumes that gas prices are 40% higher than the Department’s own estimates, that the price of carbon price is at least double what it is now, that the Government can commission more offshore wind in the next two years than in the last six combined without moving prices, and that they can build the grid at a pace we have never seen before in this country, without any delays. Even if all that is achieved, page 78 of the report shows that the cost of the system will be higher. For clarity, would the Minister like to repeat at the Dispatch Box the Secretary of State’s claim that the NESO report shows that Labour’s system will lead to a lower cost of electricity?

[Michael Shanks]

What the shadow Secretary of State has just outlined quite coherently is that the Conservatives have no ambition in this space whatsoever, but we do. I am very happy for the right hon. Lady to outline where our ambition is. We will build faster than the previous Government, although I have to say that that would not be difficult. The shadow Minister sitting next to her, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), said quite clearly at their conference that the previous Government had built infrastructure far too slowly, and their former Energy Minister, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), said that their onshore wind ban was “always mad”. We are quite happy to pick up where they left off and deliver the clean power that this country needs.

[Claire Coutinho]

This is the ministerial team who told the electorate they were going to cut their bills by £300, without doing any homework to find out how those plans would work. They voted against our amendment to hold them to account on their own pledge just two weeks ago, and now they are trying to claim that the NESO report shows that their approach will lower bills when in fact it shows in black and white that the system will be much more expensive. Does the Minister not see that if they follow this plan, we will be a warning, not an example, to the rest of the world and that the British people will be colder and poorer as a result?

[Michael Shanks]

Time and again, the Conservatives run away from their record on this in office. The reason why people right across this country are paying more on their energy bills is that the Conservatives did not get us off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets, but we are now moving at pace. The right hon. Lady may want to keep us in the vulnerable state where we are reliant on international gas markets, but we are determined that we will not do that. We will bring down bills and deliver energy security. I am not ashamed to say that we will move with great ambition to deliver what this country needs and to deliver the good jobs that go with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is set to announce at the conference of the parties that he is making the UK’s already stringent carbon emission targets even higher. That is despite the fact that we contribute only 1% of global emissions, while the leaders of the world’s highest-emitting countries—making up over 60% of emissions—are not attending. The Climate Change Committee has said that this target will require, for example, an accelerated shift away from meat and dairy, less travel and a gas boiler ban for the British people, yet the Government’s approach would see our reliance on imports from China—which is 60% powered by coal—go through the roof. Does the Minister agree that an approach that is asking for more sacrifice and hardship from the British people, in return for more goods from one of the world’s largest carbon emitters, would mean fewer jobs in Britain and more carbon in the atmosphere?

[Mr Speaker]

Too long.