Energy

Debate between Claire Coutinho and Wera Hobhouse

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for his time and willingness in going through the plan. Costs were not always so high; we actually had the lowest gas prices before the crisis, and we had lower electricity prices as well. What has happened is that we have switched a lot of costs into fixed costs, and those costs are increasing. It is something everybody is looking at, from the Tony Blair Institute to the trade unions—people right across the political spectrum. We need to address this issue because there is a huge amount on the line, whether that is growth or living standards. As I have said, AI is here in the near term; we cannot wait until the 2040s, which is the Government’s plan. Even then, it is not clear that their plan would bring down bills at all.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Is it not the truth that the reason energy bills are still so high is because we still produce a lot of electricity by burning gas? Burning gas, which is sold on the global market, keeps energy prices high. That is the main problem. We need to decouple electricity from gas prices, and particularly to get away from gas.

[Claire Coutinho]

As the Chair of the Select Committee was happy to spend some time with me on this, I hope that the hon. Lady would be too, because she might learn something. Some 40% of our electricity prices are wholesale prices, while 60% are fixed costs, which covers things like building out the networks, which is going up phenomenally under the Government’s plans, as even Ofgem has pointed out; it also covers switching off wind farms when it gets too windy, which we spent £1 billion on this year, and will spend £8 billion on in 2030. I urge the hon. Lady to go and look at the numbers.

Our imports of foreign gas, which has four times the emissions of British gas, have soared because of what the Government are doing to the North sea; they were up 40% year on year at the beginning of this year. When the unions, the chief executive of Octopus and even the chair of Great British Energy have said that we should keep drilling in the North sea, do Government Members not wonder whether their Secretary of State has got this wrong?

Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Claire Coutinho and Wera Hobhouse

2nd reading
Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

If the hon. Lady would bravely like to say that the company will generate energy, I am sure that she would like to tell us how much, because no one else seems able to.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Claire Coutinho]

I am sorry, but I will make some progress.

Finally—this is really important—the Secretary of State pays lip service to nuclear, but we know that when Labour was last in power it did not start a single nuclear power plant in all its 14 years. All summer, there has been an eerie silence. On the capital raise for Sizewell C, which should be out by now—nothing. On the small modular reactor competition, which should be deciding its final projects now—nothing. We committed to a third large-scale nuclear power plant at Wylfa—again, nothing. We wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen, but once again he has refused to confirm any detail or, with regard to Wylfa, whether those plans are even in place. Can the Secretary of State say whether the creation of GB Energy is slowing down those projects and causing the timetable of these programmes, which will provide clean, cheap energy, to slip?

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

That is a very fair question. I hope that the energy Minister, who I assume will wrap up the debate, will be able to provide some detail.

Far from being a super-nerd, the truth is that the Secretary of State is the ultimate career politician. He comes up with big titles and makes big promises to the public, but he has no idea how to deliver. My big fear—[Interruption.] He should listen, because it is an important point. My big fear is that he is losing focus on all the amazing technologies that will come online after 2030, whether it is fusion energy, the next generation of nuclear reactors or carbon capture. These are the innovative new technologies that will not just deal with the 1% of emissions in the UK but the 99% produced overseas. In Government, I focused a lot of my time on speeding up the development of those technologies. We launched the £1 billion green industries growth accelerator specifically to reduce any supply chain constraints, for example on cables. We provided almost £200 million to help the UK become the first commercial producer of advanced nuclear fuel outside Russia. We were making Britain one of the most exciting places in the world for fusion energy development, with £600 million of funding.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank the right hon. Member for giving way—finally. She is criticising the Government for the rushed target of decarbonising the grid by 2030. Can she enlighten the House on when the Conservative party would do it?

[Claire Coutinho]

I will. This is a critical point, which I have made in recent weeks. The point about having longer to decarbonise is that it gives time to develop British supply chains. That is exactly what I was doing. The green industries growth accelerator and some of the other things that I have talked about gave us time to set up British companies. Those things cannot be done in five years. There is a need to get project finance, to hire workers and train them, and to get planning permission. There is a huge amount that needs to be done. The fact that the Secretary of State wants to rush the transition and make it happen at breakneck speed is risking British jobs and livelihoods, and making us dependent on Chinese supply chains.

The Secretary of State has promised many things with the Bill, but he simply cannot set out any detail about the things that he wants to deliver. It would be a blank cheque for £8 billion of taxpayers’ money, with no plan, no evidence, and no numbers for the bill savings or profits that he has been promising the British public. That is why we cannot support the Bill as it stands.