Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I will happily look at that.

The UK was the first major economy to set a legally binding date for net zero. Our ambitions for 2030 are ahead of those of our peers and we have the plans in place to meet them. In fact, we have met every single one of our stretching targets to reduce carbon emissions, thanks in no small part to our clean energy success. Labour seems to have conveniently forgotten about the shameful state of our renewables sector when it left office. Just 7% of our power came from renewables in 2010; today, thanks to the actions of the Conservatives, that figure stands at near 50%. Never forget that it was the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) who described the idea of the UK getting to 40% renewables as “pie in the sky”.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I had to correct the right hon. Lady’s predecessor on the point she has just repeated. Her mistake is quite basic, confusing electricity and energy. The Guido Fawkes blog—not an institution I often praise—pointed this out when her predecessor made this mistake. What I actually said—it comes from David Laws’ memoirs—was that it was pie in the sky to say we could have 40% of our energy provided by renewables. Currently, the figure is 18%. The Secy of State’s remark is inaccurate and wrong, and I would be grateful if she withdrew it.

[Claire Coutinho]

I will happily go and look at that, and take that point on board, but I will say that it sticks with the trend of the right hon. Gentleman talking our energy and power down.

[Edward Miliband]

I will read from David Laws’ memoirs. During the coalition talks, I said,

“all this stuff about getting 40% of energy production”—

energy production—

“from renewables by 2020 is just pie in the sky.”

Energy production from renewables is currently just 18%. I would be grateful if the right hon. Lady corrected the record.

[Claire Coutinho]

As I said, I will happily look at that, but the right hon. Gentleman has made comments about nuclear—

[Edward Miliband]

I ask the Secretary of State for the third time. She claims that I said that it was “pie in the sky” that 40% of our electricity could come from renewables. I did not say that, and I have pointed out to her the exact quote, where I talk about 40% of energy coming from renewables. When one has said something inaccurate about another hon. Member in the House, the right thing to do is not to just keep reading the Conservative campaign headquarters lines, but to correct the record.

[Claire Coutinho]

As I said, I am happy to do the right hon. Gentleman the courtesy of withdrawing on this occasion, but I would also suggest that he correct the record himself about the fact that he said we needed no new nuclear in the past.

Now that I am allowed to move on, let me say that energy security means national security, and that means powering Britain from Britain and making sure we never have to worry again about generating enough power to keep the lights on or heat our homes. We saw what happened last year when Putin weaponised energy, and the full impact his illegal war in Ukraine had on energy bills for households around the world. I am proud that the Government stepped in with an unprecedented level of support, paying around half of people’s energy bills. With continued global instability, I know that households are anxious about the coming winter. That is why we have the energy price guarantee until April 2024 and why we will always protect the most vulnerable in society with targeted support such as the winter fuel payment, cost of living payments and the warm home discount.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

This Gracious Speech takes place against a backdrop of three crises facing our country: the worst cost of living crisis in memory; the long-term failure of our economy to work for working people, with stagnant growth over a decade; and the climate and nature crisis we see all around us. The question at the heart of this debate is whether the Government’s legislative programme unveiled earlier this week in any way meets the scale of those challenges. The resounding answer is no. I am sure the Government think that they are being punished by the voters because the crises this country faces are so big, and that is probably true, but it is also because the politics they offer is so small. The King’s Speech demonstrates that in abundance and nowhere is that more true than on climate and energy.

Here we are, the last King’s Speech before the next general election and the Government release a two-clause political stunt of a Bill. They released it on Monday, during the worst cost of living crisis for generations, with energy bills still double what they were three years ago. Millions of people across our country—all of our constituents—are wondering what the Government are going to offer. On the day of the announcement, the Energy Secretary was asked a simple question by an interviewer: “Will it make a difference to energy bills?” For millions watching, surely the answer had to be yes, because, after all, that is what her job is all about. But this was her answer:

“it wouldn’t necessarily bring energy bills down, that’s not what we are saying”.

I commend the Energy Secretary for her outburst of candour. In a Government of fake news, it is good to have the occasional warrior for the truth.

[Claire Coutinho]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Edward Miliband]

Oh, I will, definitely, yes!

[Claire Coutinho]

Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that I said it would also help fund renewable energy? Does he disagree with the view that a future with renewable energy would help to bring bills down?

[Edward Miliband]

I think that that is what we call wriggling.

As I was saying, I commend the Energy Secretary on her outburst of candour. She is right—she is telling it like it is—and, by the way, she is in good company. Let me read this to the House:

“MYTH Extracting more North Sea gas lowers prices. FACT UK production isn't large enough to…impact the global price of gas.”

Who said that? Not somebody on this side of the House. [Interruption.] No, not a former Chancellor. It was the current chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), when he was the Energy Minister.

So here they are, they really are going to the country and saying with a straight face, after all the pain and anguish that the British people have faced, “Here is our grand offer to you: the ‘we won’t cut your bills’ Bill.” That is the offer from the Secretary of State: “Vote Conservative, and we promise we won’t cut your energy bills.” No wonder the Back Benchers are despairing. The Government could have done so much. They could have lifted the onshore wind ban to cut energy bills, but they did not. They could have legislated for a proper programme of energy efficiency to cut bills, but they did not. [Interruption.] I will happily give way to the Energy Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary if he would like to intervene.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I cannot.

[Edward Miliband]

Never mind then. Keep quiet.

The Government could have legislated to change planning rules to speed up renewables and cut energy bills, but they did not. They do not seem to realise how tin-eared, how out of touch, how absurd they look.

So how did we end up with this Bill? The hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), who was not allowed to intervene, thinks it is about energy security, and that is what the Secretary of State said. The truth is, however, that she is trying to peddle an illusion, and I suspect that she knows it. Fossil fuels, with their markets controlled by petro-states and dictators and their price set internationally, cannot give us energy security. That is the obvious basic lesson of the past two years. Whether gas is produced in the North sea or imported from abroad, we pay the same price. How much did we import from Russia at the beginning of the crisis? It was 5% —but we were the worst hit country in western Europe, not because of our imports from Russia but because of the way in which the price is set on the international market.

I cannot put it any better than the National Infrastructure Commission, which said just three weeks ago:

“Reliance on fossil fuels means exposure to geopolitical shocks that impact the price of these internationally traded commodities.”

We have had North sea licensing for the last 40 years in this country. If more of it were the answer, the British people would not have faced the pain that they have. According to Energy UK, new oil and gas licences

“will not lower customer bills or significantly improve the UK’s energy security.”

[David Duguid]

The right hon. Gentleman made a very good point earlier about the difference between the percentage of renewables for electricity and the percentage of renewables for energy overall, including heat and transport. Does he acknowledge that the United Kingdom is currently 75% dependent on oil and gas, and does he agree with the members of the Climate Change Committee, who have stated that themselves, and who have predicted that by 2050, when we get to net zero, the proportion will still be about 20%?

[Edward Miliband]

I think the Climate Change Committee is actually saying that its most ambitious scenario, which we should be aiming for, is for us to cut the use of gas by 90%. Are we going to carry on using North sea oil and gas? The question for the hon. Gentleman, and for the whole House, is this: do we choose, for the future, to carry on drilling every last drop? That is the Government’s policy, in contravention of all the scientific advice, which is that we will end up in a 3° world—needing billions of pounds of taxpayer subsidy to bring about that investment through persuasion, and diverting investment from the private sector. Personally, I do not think that that is the right choice.

The lesson of this crisis is one that the Government should have learnt, and one that other countries around the world have learnt: the only way to get energy security is to sprint for clean power. That is why the Government’s onshore wind ban is such a disaster. That is why their offshore wind auction is such a disaster. That is why their energy efficiency failures are such a disaster. This Bill neither protects us on price nor gives us energy security.

Here is the thing, the Bill is not motivated by millions of people lying awake at night, worrying about the cost of living crisis; it is motivated by a Prime Minister lying awake at night, worrying about the Conservative party crisis. The interesting thing is that this Bill was planned well before the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) became Energy Secretary. It is the last desperate throw of the dice by what we might call the No. 10 galaxy brains, to use climate change as what they call a “wedge issue.” They say this to the newspapers all the time. Series 1 of this new strategy was aired in September, when the party of Churchill and Thatcher became the peddlers of wacky conspiracy theories they found on the internet: abolishing the mythical seven bins; ending the imaginary threat of compulsory car sharing; saying no to invented conspiracy theories on 15-minute cities; and fighting the fictional meat tax. And now we have a sequel. No longer a few throw-away conspiracy theories, this is now the central strategy of their legislative programme.

Members should not take my word for it. It is what the Prime Minister’s advisers brief to the papers day after day. One paper I read on Monday reported that the Prime Minister wants to “weaponise climate change” as a wedge issue. Where the British people see an energy crisis forcing up their bills, the Government see a wedge issue. Where the British people ask how they can have liveable towns and cities with good transport, the Government see a wedge issue. Where the British people worry about the effect of the climate crisis on their kids and grandkids, the Government see a wedge issue. The point is that the Government cannot really deny it, because they know this is what they are saying every day. “We think there is a big opportunity for the Conservative party to try to create division on climate change.” That is why the Prime Minister uses words like “eco-zealots.” It is all very transparent. They are locked in the boot of a strategy. Whether they agree with it or not, that is what is happening.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

This is the problem. The right hon. Gentleman calls it a wedge issue but, in his own language, he boils it down to a binary issue. It is not a binary question of whether we have oil and gas or whether we have renewables; it is about an energy mix. Does he realise that, last year, there were 260 days—by my maths, that is getting on for nearly three quarters of the year—when there was not enough wind to generate enough power for this nation’s needs? Whether he likes it or not, we will need to have an energy mix. It is something that he just does not seem to understand.

[Edward Miliband]

I am afraid that all the hon. Gentleman is pointing out is the Government’s failure to go fast enough in driving towards renewables. Of course we need a mix of energy, but this is the question for the House and the country: do we decide that drilling every last drop, which is the Government’s position and which would be a climate disaster, is the right strategy? Or do we decide that the right way to go is home-grown clean power? We say it is home-grown clean power.

The problem is that all the nonsense the Government are coming out with really matters, and it worries me. By the way, I think it will be an electoral disaster for them, and we already see that because the intelligent Conservatives are asking, “Why are we doing all this?” Members on both sides of the House did this together. We built a consensus on climate over the past 20 years, to work across parties and not to weaponise it. People look at America and say. “Well, America has a culture war on climate. Thank goodness we do not have that in Britain.” That was the case until this Prime Minister—not the previous Prime Minister, or the Prime Minister before her—decided to do it.

On the day of the Prime Minister’s climate U-turns, the Home Secretary had a licence to go out and say that the danger of climate action is that it will “bankrupt” the country. The Home Secretary freelances on most issues, but on this issue she is actually speaking for the Prime Minister, because it is echoed by other Cabinet Ministers. This is a massive retreat from the position of both parties for two decades, that leadership on climate is not somehow a danger to our economy but is the way to seize and build our economic future. They have opened the door to the old, discredited idea that we can choose either our economy or the climate, but not both.

It is not just a retreat from the consensus; it is a retreat from reality. The reality is that there is a global race, with countries seeking to go further and faster to create the jobs of the future. No wonder business is horrified. Just last Monday, Amanda Blanc, the chief executive of Aviva, warned about the Government’s commitment to unlimited oil and gas drilling. She said that our climate goals as a country are “under threat”, which

“puts at clear risk the jobs, growth and the additional investment the UK requires”.

The Government try to claim that this is somehow consistent with climate leadership. I mean, come off it!

Seven hundred British climate scientists oppose the changes, and so do the International Energy Agency and the Climate Change Committee, which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) quoted:

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”

The Government’s own net zero tsar, the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who is in his place, also opposes them. They appointed him to advise them on climate and energy. They said how brilliant he is, and I agree—sorry to ruin his career even further. He is a very intelligent guy. [Interruption.] He is denying it. He has great ideas, and what did he say?

“There is no such thing as a new net zero oilfield.”

Those are not my words, and they are not the words of eco-zealots or Just Stop Oil; they are the words of the right hon. Gentleman, who sits on the Government Benches. He signed the net zero target into law, for goodness’ sake. We have to grow up.

In contrast to the right hon. Gentleman, we have the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, whom I like —[Interruption.] I do. We have worked together on climate, but I will now say something not so nice about him. This is what he said yesterday:

“There is nothing fundamentally wrong with oil and gas, it’s emissions from oil and gas that are the problem”.

For goodness’ sake—what does that even mean? Here we are: the people who know what they are talking about do not speak for the Conservative party, and the people who speak for the Conservative party do not know what they are talking about.

I can tell the Secretary of State and her colleagues that this strategy is doomed to fail. The British people do not want a Government who say, “We are going to weaponise the climate crisis.” They do not want a Government who say, “We are desperate. We are behind in the polls”—I remember that feeling—“and we therefore have to turn this into a wedge issue.” They want a Government who will cut bills and tackle the climate crisis. All the Government are doing day after day with all this nonsense is proving that they are not the answer.

What would a Labour King’s Speech have done? Today, every family is paying £180 more on their bill as a result of the onshore wind ban that has been in place since 2015. The Government could have lifted the ban but, two months ago, they did not. They offered a weak, half-hearted compromise that will make no difference. As RenewableUK says,

“the planning system is still stacked against onshore wind”.

Why not lift the onshore wind ban? Why is it harder to build an onshore wind farm than an incinerator? The Government had to shell out billions of pounds in subsidies when the energy crisis hit. I think those subsidies would have been something like £5 billion less if we had not had the onshore wind ban. Then we have offshore wind and the disastrous auction, which added £2 billion to bills, according to the industry.

A Labour King’s Speech would legislate to lift the ban on onshore wind, to speed up the planning process and to sort out the grid, so we can decarbonise our power system by 2030. Clean power is the foundation, and next comes energy efficiency. I am afraid that here the Government have utterly failed, and their complacency is extraordinary. This is what the Climate Change Committee said about the whole sector:

“since 2010 progress has stalled, with no further substantive reductions in emissions.”

It has been a shambolic 13 years. We all know the litany: the disaster of the green deal, the green homes grant, David Cameron’s “cut the green crap”. Insulation measures were running at 1.6 million in 2010, and last year—any offers?—they were running at 78,000, which is 20 times lower. A Labour Government would do what the country is crying out for and have a proper plan, funded by public investment, ramping up to £6 billion a year to provide support for home insulation and low-carbon heating.

Next, let us talk about the green economy and building our economic future. The Government are never short of boasting about their record, but we are actually eighth out of eight major countries in Energy UK’s projections for renewable investment up to 2030. And get this: in the seven months after the passage of the US Inflation Reduction Act, which the Government do not like, the US created almost 10 times more green jobs than the UK created in the previous seven years. So in seven months, the US created 10 times more jobs than we did in seven years. What is the Government’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act? They say it is “dangerous”, “distortive” and “protectionist”. This is not some accident; they do believe that this is a role Government. I am afraid to say that that is a recipe for Britain losing the global race.

What would Labour do differently? We would have a national wealth fund, not with one-off, ad-hoc investments, but a proper plan. We would be investing in ports, our steel industry and electric battery factories. We would also have a new publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, which I am glad the Secretary of State mentioned. It would be partnering the private sector in the industries of the future. The Government object to GB Energy, because they say that we do not need public ownership of energy in Britain. I have to say to the House that the Government may not realise it, but we already have public ownership of energy in Britain, with EDF, Vattenfall, Ørsted and Statkraft. They are all companies wholly or partly owned by states—foreign states. They own our industry. In fact, nearly half of our offshore wind industry is owned by foreign states—by state-owned foreign companies. So the Government take the extraordinary position that it is okay for state-run companies to invest in Britain, so long as they are not British state-owned companies; let French, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian citizens get the wealth from our energy industry, just not British citizens. That is the Government’s position.

This makes me a nerd, but let me say that the late Ian Gilmour wrote an autobiography—[Interruption.] It is not that that makes me a nerd. [Laughter.] He wrote an autobiography about his time in Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet, and some here will know that its title was “Dancing with Dogma”. That is what we are seeing here, because the Government are in favour of public ownership of our energy assets, so long as it is by foreign states. That does not sound very Conservative to me.

GB Energy would be investing in the industries of the future, partnering local communities to create jobs and wealth for Britain. A Labour King’s Speech would have contained an energy independence Act to make all of this possible: clean power by 2030 to cut bills; a proper energy efficiency plan; a national wealth fund; and GB Energy. That is an energy Bill equal to the scale of the crises we face.

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Edward Miliband]

I am going to finish.

The Prime Minister has been in the job for more than a year and he has been rumbled, just as his party has been in power for 13 years and it has been rumbled. For all his talk of change, the public know, as does the House, that he cannot bring the change this country needs. The Government’s pathetic, small legislative programme shows it, and they all know it. They are out of ideas and out of time, and the only solution for our country is for them to be out of office.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I warmly welcome this historic King’s Speech and the “clean energy superpower” theme of today’s debate. As the House will imagine, I will also look at the broader context within which this King’s Speech has to be viewed.

Before I go on to that, I wish to pick up on the comments of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). I did agree with one thing he said: we should not play politics with climate change. I do not think the people we represent want that, but he just gave us a 20-minute masterclass in just that. I hope that he will reflect on his speech, because to be playing such petty politics with such an important issue was not worthy of the work that I know he has done over many years. It is just not credible for him to simply dismiss the past 10 years of achievements, as he did in one fell swoop. I am sure that on reflection he will wish that he had spent more time acknowledging what this Government have done.

[Edward Miliband]

No, I will not.

[Dame Maria Miller]

If he does not, people will judge him all the more badly for that.

As I said, I warmly welcome this historic King’s Speech, which comes at a time when the challenges our country faces are starting to crystallise. We have had three major impacts to our economy in the past few years, and the doorstep conversations we were having at the time of the last general election in 2019 were nothing like the ones I am having with my constituents now. Whether we are dealing with the impact of the war in Ukraine, the appalling situation currently in Israel, our leaving the European Union or the impact of the global pandemic, the things that people are talking about now are interest rates and inflation—issues that have not been on the lips of our electorate for a number of years. I am pleased to see that the Government have understood this challenge and are looking at the long-term challenges our country now faces, rather than simply looking at what has happened in the past 10 years. We need to look forward to make sure that we are planning for the very different set of challenges that our economy faces. The King’s Speech will be just the beginning of that process.

When we consider clean energy, it is worth looking first at the track record of this Government. We were the first major economy to legislate for a net zero target, and since 1990 we have cut emissions by 48%. One could be forgiven for not understanding that, given the right hon. Gentleman’s initial contribution. We are aiming to reduce emissions by 68% by 2030. Until we start to agree that there is success we can talk about, the electorate will continue to be confused. When we look at the progress that is being made and applaud it, we can then start to plan properly for the future.

In the first quarter of this year, 48% of our energy came from renewables, which was an increase from just 7% when the Conservatives took power in 2010. Perhaps some of the questions the right hon. Gentleman should be answering are why we were in such a relatively poor situation in 2010 and why more had not been done by the previous Administration. We are now an acknowledged world leader in offshore wind. I will address that later in my speech, because we could be working more with our friends, particularly countries such as Canada, to see how we can make sure that our renewable energy goes from strength to strength.