Net Zero by 2050

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advanced sight of her statement. My only disappointment was that she did not read out the multiple paragraphs defending the Prime Minister’s claim about seven bins, which was in the copy sent to me. Obviously, she was too embarrassed to defend it, because it was made-up nonsense.

We profoundly disagree with the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister when they suggest that the answer to the cost of living crisis in our country is dither and delay on building a clean energy future for Britain. It will not work and their approach will make it worse. If you want the evidence, Madam Deputy Speaker, just look at their previous failures. The ban on onshore wind did not cut bills; it raised them. The slashing of home energy efficiency—cutting the “green crap”, as they called it—did not cut bills; it raised them. The fiasco of the offshore wind auction last month did not cut bills; it will raise them. It is not going too fast on climate that has caused the cost of living crisis; it is the Conservatives’ failures that have left us exposed to the worst energy bills crisis in generations. Rather than learning the lessons, they are doubling down.

The definitive analysis of the recent announcements came last Thursday from the Government’s own watchdog, the Climate Change Committee. It said this:

“The cancellation of some Net Zero measures is likely to increase both energy bills and motoring costs for households”.

Why did it say that? Let me explain. The Government now say that landlords will not have to insulate homes, but as the CCC points out, these regulations

“would have reduced renters’ energy bills significantly.”

Moreover, the cost savings would have outweighed any changes in rent. Therefore, they are not lowering costs; they are raising them.

On electric vehicles, the CCC says that

“any undermining of their roll-out will ultimately increase costs.”

That is because the lifetime costs of EVs are already cheaper than those of petrol and diesel vehicles. By 2030, the up-front costs of EVs are forecast to be at parity with petrol or diesel cars. Again, the Government are not lowering costs for families; they are raising them.

When the Secretary of State dumps other targets, I have to ask: who set these targets and then failed to take the action to meet them? The Government did. Laughably, they say that this is about long-term decisions. The biggest long-term cost that the British people face is failure to act at the scale required to tackle the climate crisis. The Secretary of State says again that the Government are on track to meet their 2030 target, but their own watchdog said in June that they were “significantly off track”. It says—this is from last Thursday—that the Government have not offered evidence to back their assurance

“that the UK’s targets will still be met.”

There is no evidence that they are on track to meet their targets.

Perhaps worst of all, imagine being a business trying to make decisions and invest in our country when they literally do not know from one day to the next what the Government policy is. Since the Prime Minister’s announcements, businesses from around the world have said that, by backing off climate action, the Prime Minister is turning his back on the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century. Meanwhile, the UK heads into yet another winter where people cannot afford their energy bills. There are still no proper plans for a roll-out of energy efficiency, no plans to properly lift the onshore wind ban, and no proper plan to get the offshore wind market back on track.

Finally, let me say to the Secretary of State that the consensus on net zero has been hard-won over two decades. We have a duty to debate it on the basis of facts, not falsehoods. I have to say to her that it is deeply regrettable that she used her first major public appearance—two weeks ago at her conference—literally to make up complete nonsense about meat taxes, which I notice she did not defend today, and for which frankly she was exposed on national television. I say to her that it demeans her, it demeans her office and it demeans public debate. The Government said that they were going to move on from the premiership of Boris Johnson, but people will be deeply disturbed to find that that appears to mean dumping commitments to net zero and keeping his peculiar relationship to the truth.

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response to my statement. He raises a number of questions that I wish to address. He mentions the prospect of the seven bins policy. He has forgotten that he voted for it. The Conservatives, by contrast, came to the good sense to course correct. He has taken leave of his senses and forgotten what he has voted for in the past.

On the question of dietary changes, the right hon. Gentleman might like to speak to his shadow climate change Minister and shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who both have pushed to treat meat like tobacco in the past. The substantial point that I would make is that we need to be practical about our net zero policy and to make sure that we are having honest debates. We on the Conservative Benches stand by our record. We are proud to be the party that has decarbonised faster than any G7 country, and it is regrettable that the Opposition cannot acknowledge that achievement. We are proud that we have secured almost £200 billion of investment in low-carbon energy projects since 2010 and that we have helped to secure this country’s energy independence by backing North sea oil and gas, protecting 200,000 jobs.

Can the right hon. Gentleman be proud of his record? He said that we should sacrifice our growth to cut emissions and that we should borrow £28 billion in his blind ambition for 2030. He supported coal, before he changed his mind and is now against it. He also said that growing our renewables sector to 40% was pie in the sky, but in the first quarter of 2023, 48% of our power came from renewable energy. He spent years at Gordon Brown’s side and as Energy Secretary but did nothing to boost British nuclear in his time in government, whereas we are forging a new path, with every operational nuclear power station in this country having started life under a Conservative Government. Members do not need to take my word for it that our energy security is safer with us, because just this weekend the owners of Grangemouth made it clear that the threat Labour’s plans pose to the future of the refinery, potentially putting thousands of jobs at risk, would be a danger for energy security. Furthermore, we cannot allow oil and gas workers to become the coalminers of our generation. It has been said that Labour

“does not properly understand energy”,

with it being “self-defeating” and “naive”. Those are not my words but those of the general secretary of the Unite union and the head of the GMB.

Furthermore, the right hon. Gentleman talks about uncertainty. If he would like to give the business and industry certainty, he and the shadow Chancellor need to sit down and agree how much money they will actually spend—is it £28 billion or £8 billion? Is it no new money, or is it what we heard over the weekend, which is as much as £100 billion of new borrowing for GB Energy? Conservatives will prioritise energy security. We are set on delivering the most ambitious net zero targets of any major economy, and we will do this all without forcing families to choose between protecting their family finances and protecting the planet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I wish the Clerk of the House well in the future, and I warmly welcome the Secretary of State to her new role and congratulate her on her appointment to the Cabinet. I look forward to working together. Let us start with the truth. The offshore wind auction that she inherited was a totally avoidable disaster. It means another lost year for our country and another year of higher bills, and it is because Ministers obstinately refused to listen to warning after warning from industry. RenewableUK estimates that the auction failure will add £2 billion to bills. What is the Secretary of State’s estimate of the cost to families of this fiasco?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming me to my place. I am delighted to serve opposite him and face him at the Dispatch Box.

There are a couple of things I will point out. If we had tried to do what the right hon. Gentleman suggested, we would have delayed the 3.7 GW of clean energy that we secured, which is able to power 2 million homes. If we want to look at what is going to hurt people and their bills, I would point to his disastrous policies, whether it is the ultra low emission zone, which is hitting people who can least afford it, or his borrowing spree, which will raise inflation.

[Edward Miliband]

I am afraid the Secretary of State is quite wrong about that, because Ireland adjusted the price and had 3 GW of offshore wind. Let us talk about the way that this Government are jeopardising our energy security. They have delivered—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Stuart, I know this is the last day before the recess and you are excited to get some freedom, but let’s save it.

[Edward Miliband]

This Government have delivered the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. There is a pattern here: they banned onshore wind and raised bills, they slashed energy efficiency and raised bills, and now they have trashed offshore wind, raising bills. That is why we are so exposed. I know that the right hon. Lady did not make those decisions, but now that she is the Secretary of State, she needs to tell us, after 13 years of failure, what is she going to do differently?

[Claire Coutinho]

Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman about the last 13 years. We have decarbonised faster than any G7 country, while also growing the economy. We have grown renewable energy from 7% of our electricity when Labour left power to 50% now. I am proud of what we have achieved over the last 13 years. We have a proud record when it comes to climate change and a proud record when it comes to renewable energy, and I am proud to defend it.

Offshore Wind Contracts

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if she will make a statement on the implications for offshore wind of contracts for difference allocation round 5.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

The first annual contracts for difference auction—the first that we have ever done—was completed last week and delivered a total of 3.7 GW of renewable electricity, with contracts going to a record number of projects. The auction delivered significant quantities of new solar and onshore wind generation, as well as supporting 11 new tidal stream projects and, for the first time, geothermal projects. It was a competitive auction, set against a backdrop of highly challenging macroeconomic conditions that have impacted the sector globally. Given that this was our first annual round, it was to be expected that it would have a lower capacity than the previous biennial rounds, and, because last year’s round was the first for three years, a higher annual element than that record round.

The Government remain committed to offshore and floating offshore wind projects, and this round provides valuable learning for subsequent auctions. Work has already started on allocation round 6, incorporating the results of the recent round, and we look forward to a strong pipeline of technologies being able to participate. The move to annual auctions means that allocation round 6 will open in just six months’ time, in March 2024, which means that there could be minimal or indeed no delay in the deployment of new capacity through that round.

The Government also remain committed to our target of decarbonising the power system by 2035 and our ambitions for 50 GW of offshore wind, including up to 5 GW of floating offshore wind. Our trajectory for meeting these aims, as well as our legally binding carbon budget 6 targets, is not linear. The outcome for one technology in one auction does not prevent us from reaching those goals.

[Edward Miliband]

What a load of nonsense. No wonder the Secretary of State is in hiding.

This auction is an energy security disaster for Britain, and an act of economic self- harm on the part of the Government. No new offshore wind projects means that families’ energy bills will £2 billion higher and our energy security will be weakened. Worst of all, this was totally avoidable. Ministers were warned again and again about the impacts of higher inflation—in a letter from RenewableUK in March, and again in July—and offshore wind is so much cheaper than gas that they could have raised the price in the auction and it would still have saved billions of pounds for families, but they refused to listen.

First, will the Minister tell us why the Government ignored those repeated warnings? Secondly, he said on Friday that every country was in the same boat, but that is just wrong. Ireland listened to industry and adjusted its price, and had a successful auction in March 2023. Why did the Government not learn that lesson? Thirdly, is not the terrible truth that this episode reveals a much deeper flaw in their approach? For month after month this summer, they claimed that the answer to our energy crisis was more oil and gas, and this is the result. We will now be more dependent on expensive, insecure fossil fuels. We will be more exposed to the whims of petrostates and dictators. Every wind farm that we fail to build makes us more exposed to dictators like Putin, and he knows it.

Bills higher, security worse, jobs lost, climate failure—the Government have trashed offshore wind, the crown jewels of our energy system, raising bills, just as they trashed onshore wind by banning it, raising bills, and just as they trashed home insulation, raising bills. We have seen 13 years of failed energy policy, and all this fiasco shows is that the Conservatives are, quite simply, a party unfit to govern.

[Graham Stuart]

I was pleased to see the other day that the rumours of the right hon. Gentleman no longer being in his position were not true. It is perhaps understandable in that context that he is so passionate about this highly successful round that has seen 3.7 GW on an annualised basis. I think that is a record round. He was a member of the previous Labour Government who left this country with 6.7% of its electricity coming from renewables. In the first quarter of this year, 48% of our electricity was from renewables. It was this Government, with our contracts for difference system, who transformed the economics of offshore wind. We have 77 GW of offshore wind in the pipeline—more than enough. We have 7.5—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman understandably, given the weakness of his arguments, wants to heckle at all times, knowing how easy it is to dismantle them. He asks me where that capacity is, and I can tell him that 7.5 GW is currently under construction.

As ever, the right hon. Gentleman fails to be on the side of consumers. We moved to an annualised auction precisely to ensure that we could learn the lessons from each round, add them to our industry insight and ensure that we could move forward. The projects take multiple years to be developed, and none of them has disappeared. I predict that, moving on from the triumph of 3.7 GW of renewables, which came through successfully on Friday, allocation round 6 will be more successful still. We will continue to build our reputation as the country that has cut emissions more than any other major economy and that has transformed our electricity generation. He mentioned insulation—how he has the gall, I do not know. We have moved from 14% of homes being properly insulated when he left power to over 50% by the end of this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Six days ago, the Climate Change Committee delivered its most scathing assessment in its history on the Government’s record, saying that they were off track on 41 out of 50 key targets. It said that we have gone “markedly” backwards in the past year, on the Secretary of State’s watch. Who does he blame for this failure?

[Grant Shapps]

As has been discussed more than once in these questions and answers, we have taken this country from having only 7% renewable energy to over 40%. We have decarbonised faster than any other G7 nation and we are on track for carbon budget 4, having already overdelivered on carbon budgets 1, 2 and 3. Based on our record to date, we are doing a pretty good job.

[Edward Miliband]

That answer is total complacency from a Secretary of State who has just been proven to be failing on every major aspect of his agenda. That is why Lord Goldsmith resigned. Lord Deben has said he is failing, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) has said that we are losing the global race. Is not the truth now that even the Tories do not trust the Tories on the climate crisis?

[Grant Shapps]

This is one of the problems with not being prepared to follow the data, which shows us overdelivering on the commitments of carbon budgets 1, 2 and 3, and that we are more likely to meet carbon budget 4 than we were a year ago. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to ignore all that and still roll out his pre-written question, that is how we get to his conclusions. The truth is that the Government are delivering on the issues of climate change while protecting every single household in the country from Putin’s tyranny. I am afraid that has already been surrendered by the right hon. Gentleman, who subscribes to the Just Stop Oil approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to Question 11. Is anyone from the Government Front Bench going to bother? They are still thinking about the last question, but I would like a Minister to answer.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

They are too busy laughing at their own jokes.

[Grant Shapps]

I was laughing at the right hon. Gentleman, actually.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

The US has created almost 10 times more green jobs in the seven months since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act than the UK has created in the past seven years. That is why British business is deeply worried. Frankly, the Secretary of State is all over the place on this, because his only significant response to IRA, passed last August, was to describe it as “dangerous”. Can he explain why IRA is dangerous? Is not the real danger to Britain a Government who are standing on the sidelines while others win the race for green jobs?

[Grant Shapps]

I take the opportunity to clear this up, because I have heard the right hon. Gentleman mention that quote several times. I actually said that aspects of the way in which some Senators passed the Act were in danger of being protectionist. He refuses to quote in full and he therefore misquotes.

As I discovered when I was in the US just last week, the reality is that the US does not have the world’s largest, second largest, third largest or fourth largest offshore wind farm. Do you know why, Mr Speaker? They are all being built here in the UK, where we are decades ahead.

[Edward Miliband]

That is exactly the kind of complacency that is costing jobs. Let us talk about offshore wind. The Kincardine floating wind farm, off the coast of Scotland, is indeed the largest in the world. Its foundations were made in Spain, its turbines were made in Rotterdam, where it was also assembled, and the finished product was simply towed into Scottish waters—jobs that could have come to Britain but did not because we have no industrial strategy and the Government refuse to invest in our ports. Is not the truth that we will never win the global race with this Government because they think that public investment in green industry to bring jobs to Britain is dangerous?

[Grant Shapps]

If there was a failure to develop the supply chain, I wonder whether it could have been anything to do with the former Energy Secretary, who only managed 7% of electricity coming from renewables in Labour’s 13 years in office. As I mentioned, we are coming up to 50% of electricity coming from renewables. It is worth mentioning that we had the world’s first floating offshore wind farm and the largest floating offshore wind farm. It is also worth mentioning that we have just invested £160 million through FLOWMIS—the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme–and that we have just succeeded in getting a monopiles factory, which will produce up to half of the monopiles for future offshore wind factories.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Ed Miliband Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I will begin by welcoming the arrival of the Bill to the House. I thank the Secretary of State and his Ministers for their willingness to engage in discussions on the Bill, which, as I will explain, we support. Given his speech, after the next election I look forward to him providing some AI consultancy for my house, once he has some more time on his hands.

For us, the central truth that frames this Bill is, as the Secretary of State said in his speech, the energy bills crisis, with bills still double what they were 18 months ago. This crisis demonstrates the urgency of getting off expensive fossil fuels and moving to clean power. Clean power is the route to cheaper bills, energy security, long-term sustainable jobs and tackling the climate emergency. The peril for Britain is the deep uncertainty about whether the Government are doing what is required to make the transition happen with the urgency needed. Let us look at the last couple of months alone. In March the Climate Change Committee stated that the Government are “asleep at the wheel” on their 2035 decarbonisation target. In the same month the National Infrastructure Commission said that

“movement has stuttered further just as the need for acceleration has heightened.”

The cross-party Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee said in April:

“At the current pace of change, the UK is set to fail to hit its target of decarbonising the power sector”.

The common theme is one we have heard many times about this Government: they act as if this was not the emergency it is. The Bill needs to put that right, so we apply three tests to it: does it represent an all-out sprint for zero-carbon power, the linchpin of a net-zero country; does it provide a proper plan to spread the benefits of cheap, clean power to working families across Britain; and does it provide an industrial policy that means we can win the global race for the jobs of the future? In that context, we will give our support to the Bill, because we welcome many of the measures in it and believe they are long overdue. We have long called for the independent system operator and planner—I will come on to that—as well as the CO₂ licensing regime, because, as the Secretary of State said, carbon capture and storage is important for the future. We welcome measures to support hydrogen, nuclear and action on the grid, and a number of other aspects of what we might call “green plumbing”, which is largely what the Bill is about. We also welcome the improvements made in the other place, for which I thank their lordships. I will come on to those in the course of my speech.

But despite the things we welcome, set against the tests I listed we believe that the Bill still lacks the urgency and long-term strategy required. If the pace and scale at which we need to transform our energy system is akin to climbing a mountain, the Bill is a route map to basecamp, but it will not take us to the summit. It is too half-hearted on the zero carbon sprint that we need, it does not take sufficient measures to make working people the priority in the energy transition, and with the pace being set by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act—I am sure Members hear this in their constituencies—it does not put Britain enough at the forefront of the race for low-carbon jobs. That is why we will be seeking further improvements to the Bill during its passage.

Let me start with the sprint for zero-carbon power. Last summer, renewables were nine times cheaper than oil and gas. Today, even after the recent fall in gas prices, they remain multiple times lower. However, onshore wind—among the cheapest, cleanest, and most quickly deployed sources of energy available to us—remains effectively banned in England. That is thanks to the decision in 2015 to put it in a unique category of difficulty compared with other local infrastructure, so that one objection can defeat a project. Indeed, it is now far easier to build an incinerator or a landfill site than an onshore wind farm.

This ban has meant that in the eight years since 2015—the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero was candid about this earlier this year—just three wind farms have been built in the whole of England. Since 2015, we have had five Prime Ministers and just three onshore wind farms. I make that to be three fifths of the wind farm per Prime Minister—that is my great maths. That is quite the record.

Members across the House will have different views on wind farms, but the cost of the ban—[Interruption.] The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero is chuntering from a sedentary position, but these are his figures, which he said at Energy questions. According to Carbon Brief, the cost of the ban is more than £5 billion. That is £180 per household because of the expensive gas that we are importing when we could be using onshore wind. In future, failing to achieve the doubling of onshore wind deprives us of another 20 GW of power. Any self-respecting energy Bill would lift that ban. Even the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who is sadly no longer in his place, called for the ban to be lifted when he was briefly Energy Secretary—that was not a glorious time, but he got it right when he argued for bringing that position into line with other infrastructure. In December, in a promise made by the Government, the Communities Secretary said that, by the end of April, the ban would be lifted. We have gone beyond the end of April.

I hate to say this, but the dinosaur tendency in the Conservative party seems to have prevailed once again, and I am afraid that, on this, the Energy Secretary is actually the dinosaur-in-chief. Despite all of the evidence, and despite 78% of the public supporting onshore wind, according to his own Department’s polling, he said in the midst of the energy crisis that he was not in favour of onshore wind because it is “an eyesore”. He is the self-styled TikTok moderniser, but he is more of a pterodactyl nimby stuck in the past on this. [Interruption.] I will take Wallace and Gromit over a pterodactyl nimby.

As well as that drive for all forms of zero-carbon power, we need this. I therefore appeal to right hon. and hon. Members across the House, because this should not be a party political issue. Labour will seek to amend the Bill to bring about the simple position of the right hon. Member for North East Somerset that onshore wind, which is supported 20:1 by the public, should have the same planning rules as other local infrastructure.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman was engaging in palaeontological analysis. If I can bring him to the slightly more recent past, he named the number of wind farms given planning permission since 2015, but could he name the number of Labour Energy Ministers between 1997 and 2010 and how many nuclear projects they commissioned?

[Edward Miliband]

Actually, I was talking about onshore wind farms that had not just planning permission and consent—[Interruption.] I will tell the hon. Lady simply. In 2006, Tony Blair changed the policy to be in favour of nuclear. When I left office in 2010, we identified 10 new nuclear sites, and there have been 13 years since then. How many nuclear plants had been built and made operational? Precisely zero. The Secretary of State had to talk about the previous Conservative Government, who left office 25 years ago—that is indeed stuck in the past.

[Chris Grayling]

Given the importance of nuclear and what the right hon. Member has just said, why did the last Labour Government sell off Westinghouse, which was owned by Britain and was the main repository of our nuclear skills?

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Member wants to re-litigate the last Labour Government. Let us talk about the future. We want nuclear to move ahead, and actually the Government have had 13 years and failed to do it.

[Alan Brown]

Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

[Edward Miliband]

No, I will not.

Let us talk about how we can get an energy system that is fit for purpose. Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the grid, where the delays that have been allowed to build up are a disgrace. For all of the Conservative party’s boasts, this is what Keith Anderson of Scottish Power says about the delays to the grid:

“The wind farms that are coming online today were approved when Gordon Brown was in power—that’s a long time ago and we need to be much faster to move beyond this crisis”.

The new independent system operator is a step forward, but there are questions remaining about whether it goes far enough in its powers, remit and independence.

What the energy system sorely lacks at the moment—this goes to the question that the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) asked the Secretary of State—is a guiding mind. It is about not simply balancing the system day to day and hoping that the market provides—this is the purpose of the regulator—but planning for the future of the system as we transition. This is the point: at the moment, that planning role is a job for everyone—the Energy Department, Ofgem and the network companies—but the ultimate responsibility of nobody. That needs to change with the ISOP so that we auction offshore wind in the right places, we plan and build the grid in the right places and on the right timescale, and we have the right amount of power in the system in the years ahead. For us, that is the purpose of ISOP, and during the Bill’s passage we will test out whether its proposals for ISOP adequately meet that vision.

If the regime is to work—I concur with the interventions on the Secretary of State—we need a price regulator in Ofgem that supports and never stands in the way of change. I hope that the Secretary of State’s failure to say that he would oppose such an amendment is a good sign, but obviously Ofgem should have a formal net zero duty. I think that was recommended by the net zero tsar, the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), and it was rightly inserted by the House of Lords. However—this is boring but very important—we also need to sort out the issues of planning.

The National Infrastructure Commission recently produced an important report about the delays to planning. It said that, in part, that was the fault of Government, who have not updated their energy national policy statements for a decade. It also said that there should be a statutory duty on the Government to review them every five years, and we agree. Here is the other thing that is important: all relevant regulators, including the Planning Inspectorate, should have a net zero duty, because otherwise we will find the system being slowed down and gummed up. Of course, the views of local people are important and must be taken into account, but we must also make progress.

The Bill could achieve those things to speed up the planning process. However, even if we get all the forms of low-carbon power that we need—I think that we should have all of them—and we sort out the grid and planning, there is an obvious question that the Secretary of State did not address. Even if we get all of those renewables and indeed nuclear, the price of electricity is currently tied to the prevailing price of gas. We do need reform of that system. Labour first called for that in January last year, and I say to the Secretary of State that we will be talking about that in the Bill Committee. We believe that there should be a commitment in the Bill to a timetable for that delinking; otherwise, we will get more drift and delay and we will not reap the benefits of the move to zero-carbon power.

On the one hand, we need the drive to zero-carbon power, but we also need a decisive shift away from the high-carbon expensive path—again, that was raised earlier—and unfortunately the Bill does not attempt to make that shift; it is business as usual on fossil fuels.

On coal, the Secretary of State rather dismissed the intervention of the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). Yes, there has been a good record on coal in the last decade. [Interruption.] He says “Thank you”, and he wants to chunter away, but opening a new coalmine drives a coach and horses through that record. [Interruption.] He says that it does not. We cannot go around the world, as did the former President of COP, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), telling everybody that they have to power past coal, and then say, “But not us,” because that totally undermines our moral authority. Here is the thing: the steel industry in Britain says it will not use the coking coal, it will not provide the long-term jobs that Cumbria needs and it sends utterly the wrong message on climate. That is why their lordships inserted a provision to ban new coalmines. Labour supports that amendment.

Labour will also table an amendment to ban dangerous, expensive, unpopular fracking. I know that Conservative Members want to say the Truss period was a bad dream—Bobby Ewing in the shower and all that. [Interruption.] I am showing my age, that is true. I am a big “Dallas” fan, actually. Labour will table an amendment on fracking.

We also believe—this is an important point—that the Bill should remove the 2015 duty to extract every last drop, the so-called maximum economic recovery, from the North sea. I can do no better than to quote the net zero tsar, the right hon. Member for Kingswood, praised by the Secretary of State, who did a very serious piece of work—Government Front Benchers are nodding. What he said could not be clearer:

“developing new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°… There is no such thing as a new net zero oilfield.”

Those are not my words, or those of the Liberal Democrats or any other party in this place. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State starts chuntering, but he should talk to his own net zero tsar, who did a brilliant report that he himself praised.

Let me just explain, for the benefit of right hon. and hon. Members, why that is the right position. That approach will have no impact on bringing down bills. How do we know that? Because every previous Energy Minister has said that. Gas and oil are traded on an inter—[Interruption.] Just pipe down for a minute. The price is set on the international market and 80% of our oil is exported. It drives a coach and horses through any possibility of keeping global warming to 1.5°, according to hundreds of leading scientists and the right hon. Member for Kingswood.

Here is the other thing, which is a new part of this. We now know how much the Government are having to shell out to the oil and gas industry to persuade it to make this investment, because it is in the detail of the Budget Red Book: over £11 billion. The current Prime Minister, the previous Chancellor, introduced a windfall tax, but then he introduced an absolutely massive super-deduction—not available now to any other industry, including renewables—of over £11 billion. Massive, massive cost to the taxpayer, no impact on bills, the oil from Rosebank exported, and driving a coach and horses through our climate commitments—no wonder the net zero tsar concluded that it is the wrong policy for Britain. It is. Government Members can carry on pretending that business as usual is consistent with the science and consistent with what we go around the world saying, but it is not and the net zero tsar has rightly said so. Labour will seek to improve the Bill so that it delivers on the zero-carbon sprint we need.

Next, I want to turn to the second part of my remarks —I will try to speed up, Mr Deputy Speaker—on what the Bill can do to ensure the fairness of the transition. We know that the fairness of the transition is essential if we are to take the public with us, and we know there are huge opportunities. I want to come back to the issue of energy efficiency, because Government Members go on and on about their great record on energy efficiency. Here are the facts. In 2010, there were 1.6 million energy efficiency upgrades. In 2022, there were 160,000 equivalent measures. In other words, there were 10 times more when the last Labour Government left office than there are now.

We know why that has happened. The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), has done many important and learned reports on this question. Massive cuts were imposed on energy efficiency schemes when David Cameron said, “cut the green crap” and the investment has not recovered. That is why the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development says it will take almost 200 years at the current rate to get all homes up to EPC C—200 years. That is not just bad for the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who intervened earlier, and the constituents of many others in this House; it also means we import more gas and use more gas supplies. The estimates are that we could cut gas demand by 20% if we got all homes up to EPC C.

[Bim Afolami]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way in an unexpectedly amusing speech from the Opposition Front Bench. On gas and fossil fuels, he made a serious point which should be responded to. The International Energy Authority said that even by 2045 fossil fuels will still make up between 28% and 30% of our total energy mix. Fossil fuels will be with us for decades to come, although of course everybody in this House is working to bring their use down as fast as possible. In the transition period, particularly in relation to gas, does he accept that we will have to, as best we can in existing areas that are within our control, improve our energy security and resilience by exploiting our own gas rather than importing more, as he has just referred to?

[Edward Miliband]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman. Let me try to explain the position. Nobody is talking about turning off the taps in the North sea. The question is this: do we defy the International Energy Agency? He cites the IEA. The IEA says, in absolutely clear terms, that if we invest in new fields in the North sea and have new exploration, we will bust way through 1.5°. The point is that every country can say, “Well, we’re going to do it, but you shouldn’t.” But if we do that, we will end up at a 3° world. That is what all the scientists tell us.

One great thing in this House, compared with other countries, is that we have established a cross-party consensus on following the science. But the science could not be clearer. That is why 700 scientists wrote to the newspapers a few weeks ago to say, “This is our view.” That is why the IEA says it. That is why the UN Secretary-General says it. That is why the net zero tsar, when he looked at the evidence, said it. It is not me making it up; it is what the clear evidence is. The hon. Gentleman is right that we will continue to use our existing fields, but to grant new licences and new exploration, defying what all the science tells us, would be a betrayal of future generations. I do not pretend it is easy—I do not—but it is absolutely crystal clear. [Interruption.] They say, “More imports.” No, the answer is to get off fossil fuels and drive towards low carbon.

On fairness, energy efficiency—the Lords have done us a favour and I hope that we keep their amendments in the Bill—is incredibly important. Part of making the transition fair is striking the right balance between levies on bills and public expenditure. When I was Energy Secretary we introduced things through levies, so I am not saying that the Labour Government did not do it, but there is a balance. The Treasury is never keen on investing public money—not just under this Government, although it may be particularly true under this Government—but we have a problem and I have to be honest with the House about it.

If any cost in green investment must be borne through levies, we will pile more and more on to bill payers. Take hydrogen. There is a strong economic case for investing in hydrogen through public investment. That is what the US is doing. Much of the benefit of new investment in hydrogen will go to industry—not consumers directly—which will be at the front of the queue for its use. Putting the cost of hydrogen on consumer bills, as the legislation originally proposed, is not the right way forward. I know that discussions in Government are tricky, to put it mildly, but I say to the Secretary of State that the right thing to do is surely to make public investment, through public expenditure, in hydrogen, not just bung the money on to bill payers. In the course of discussing the Bill, I hope we know how much will be put on to bill payers. We cannot just add levy after levy because the Treasury says, “We don’t want to invest.”

I shall conclude on Britain’s place in the race for the low-carbon jobs of the future. The Inflation Reduction Act has had a massive impact in the US, where nearly 10 times more jobs have been created in low carbon and renewables in seven months than we have seen in the UK over the last seven years. The Bill should be our answer to IRA but, in truth, the Government face a number of different ways: first, they say, as the Secretary of State did, that it is “dangerous”; then they say that we are already doing it; then they say that we will have a response in the autumn. With every day that goes by, we hear another business say, “We are losing the global race.” It may interest the House to know that there are 23 clean steel demonstration projects across Europe. There are none in the UK. Forty gigafactories are due to open across Europe by 2030, but just one is certain in the UK. Where is the national wealth fund in the Bill to invest in our ports, clean steel and gigafactories? It is in the interests of all parties in the House to put pressure on the Government to make the investments to put us in the lead in the race for green jobs. Today, the chief executive of Johnson Matthey said that we have lost the race for gigafactories and are in danger of losing the race for green hydrogen.

Every country that leads the world in renewables has a publicly owned energy generation company. Why doesn’t Britain? This is not a matter of ideology. EDF, Ørsted, Vattenfall and Statkraft all invest in our infrastructure. These are state-owned companies. It is an extraordinary fact that 46% of our offshore wind assets are owned not by foreign companies but by state-owned foreign companies. That means that the proceeds go back to those countries and they build the supply chains. I welcome GB Nuclear, but GB Energy is a much wider version of that. GB Energy is about understanding that reality and saying, “Why not Britain?” This is a moment of peril for Britain in the race for low-carbon jobs. This Bill is not the answer.

It is Labour’s view that the Bill is necessary but not sufficient given the scale of challenge and opportunity that we face. We welcome many of its measures, which are long overdue reforms that will make the delivery of net zero easier. On the basis of the common ground that does exist, we will work constructively with the Government. The Bill will be useful to whoever is in government after the next election, but for all its length, the truth is that it is further proof that Britain will require a new Government to do what is truly needed to lower bills, give us energy security, create jobs and show the climate leadership that we need.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

It is ironic that the hon. Lady says that. We have already set out the position: our energy efficiency figures have gone from 14% to about 50%, and our renewable electricity figures have gone from 7% to about 50%. The rest of the world, I am pleased to say, is playing catch-up.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

indicated dissent.

[Graham Stuart]

It is playing catch-up. The Opposition do not believe in powering Britain from Britain, and they do not believe in supporting the record. The truth is that the UK has cut its emissions by more than any other major economy. Rather than hosing credits in the direction of businesses, we have a regulatory system that encourages investment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Today’s announcement on prepayment meters is simply not good enough. The new rules ban forced installations for only a very narrow group and do not do so for what is called the medium-risk group. I am reading from the document here. That group includes

“those with Alzheimer’s, clinical depression, learning difficulties, multiple sclerosis…the elderly up to age 85, the recently bereaved, and those with the youngest children.”

How has the Secretary of State allowed this to happen?

[Grant Shapps]

I think the House recognises that we have moved very fast on prepayment meters—[Interruption.] The same rules were in place when Labour was in power for 13 years. We are the ones—[Interruption.] I am reminded that the right hon. Gentleman probably set the rules in the first place, but I will have to fact check that for the record. We have taken a number of steps to relieve that pressure and I am pleased to see the Ofgem announcement today. We will keep this matter under review and go further if required.

[Edward Miliband]

What a completely hopeless answer. There is a high-risk group for whom a ban is being put in place and a medium-risk group for whom the Government are leaving this at the discretion of the energy companies, which is simply not good enough. Will the Secretary of State now instruct the regulator to keep the forced installation ban in place until he meets the promise he made—which is being broken today—to protect all vulnerable customers?

[Grant Shapps]

It is an Ofgem announcement today, which I welcome because I asked Ofgem to go away and come to a voluntary agreement. It is actual action that makes a difference. What the right hon. Gentleman needs to explain is how, if we did not have some sort of measure in place to allow people to install meters to manage those finances, he would deal with all the additional cases that would end up in court. As ever, he gives simplistic answers in a complex world that I would not expect him to even start to address.

Powering Up Britain

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, but let me tell him that although there may have been thousands of pages published this morning, this is not the green day that the Government promised, but a groundhog day of reannouncements, reheated policy and no new investment. The documents are most notable for their glaring omissions: there is no removal of the onshore wind ban that is costing families hundreds of pounds on bills a year. There is no new money for energy efficiency to insulate homes and cut bills, just a reannouncement of a feeble offer made last year. There is no net zero mandate for Ofgem, as recommended by the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore)—to whom I too pay tribute—and as demanded by industry. There is no proper response to the Inflation Reduction Act, even as the rest of the world speeds ahead.

The biggest indictment of all, buried in the fine print and not mentioned by the Minister, is the admission that the policies announced today do not deliver the promise, solemnly made in front of the world at COP26 in Glasgow barely a year ago, to meet the UK’s 2030 climate target. The Government waited until noon, five hours after all the other documents were published, to release the carbon budget delivery plan—which is more like the failure to deliver the carbon budget plan. This is what it says:

“We have quantified emissions savings to deliver…92% of the NDC.”

A target for less than seven years’ time, and now almost 10% off—what an indictment of all the verbiage we have heard today. All the policies and all the hot air do not meet the promise that the Government made on the world stage under the presidency of the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), to whom I also pay tribute. That means higher bills, energy insecurity, fewer jobs and climate failure.

Let me ask the Minister five questions. First, if the Government really wanted a sprint for clean power, they would go for onshore wind. They even promised to lift the ban last December, but the proposals in their consultation have been written off by industry as doing

“almost nothing to lift the draconian ban”.

The previous Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg)—hardly an eco-warrior—promised to bring the planning regime for onshore wind into line with other infrastructure. Why will the Minister not take that step?

Secondly, there is no new investment in hydrogen. Germany is investing €9 billion in hydrogen, compared with £240 million from the UK. Does the Minister recognise the failure of ambition? Thirdly, it is good that the Government have finally allocated some resources to CCS, although I am old enough to remember the £1 billion CCS competition announced in 2008, 15 years ago, which they cancelled. However, they still appear to have no clue where the up to £20 billion of support is coming from, and it was not in the Budget documents. Can the Minister clear that up?

Fourthly, on the response to the Inflation Reduction Act, British businesses are crying out for action now, yet the Minister’s own documents published today show that the UK is investing less than France and less than Germany, and once the Inflation Reduction Act kicks in, we will be investing less than the USA. Is that not a clear admission that we are falling behind? Finally, can the Minister confirm from the Dispatch Box that as I said, the Government’s 2030 target announced at COP26 will not be met by these policies, and can he tell us how the UK can possibly claim the mantle of delivering on climate leadership when it is way off track to deliver the promise it made at the COP we hosted?

At the same time, the Government pursue their “every last drop” strategy on oil and gas. Let me tell the House what that means: it means funnelling £11.4 billion to the oil and gas companies making record profits, and ignoring what 700 leading scientists told the Government yesterday, which is that new exploration will not cut bills, will not deliver energy security and will severely undermine UK climate leadership. [Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) should listen to the scientists.

We know what a proper plan looks like: in 2030, zero carbon power; insulating 19 million cold, draughty homes in a decade; GB Energy to invest in all forms of low-carbon generation; and a national wealth fund investing in everything from clean steel to ports and electric vehicles to win the global race for Britain. [Interruption.] Yes, and nuclear power, too. This may be the fifth energy relaunch in two and a half years, but it is more of the same from this Government. They can relaunch their policies as many times as they like, but they fail and fail again.

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response, but Members on the Government Benches will have been listening with a certain degree of incredulity, because we remember that in 2010 he left the people of this country in the worst housing stock in Europe. They were cold, their bills were unmanageable and just 14% of houses were properly insulated. Now it is half, and we need to go further and faster, which is why we have the energy efficiency taskforce. It is why we have announced £6.5 billion in this Parliament, and it is why we are announcing today our new initiative on insulation. It is why there is another £6 billion to be spent between 2025 and 2028. The Labour party failed absolutely on the most basic thing: looking after people in their homes so they could pay their bills.

That is not all, however, because on renewables the Labour party now talks about this transformation by 2030, which no one other than the Labour party—it is not involved, I fear, in an entirely open, transparent, and possibly even honest exercise—believes can be delivered by 2030. What was Labour’s record on power? In 2010, 7% of our electricity came from renewables. If Labour in government had unleashed renewables the way we did, families this last winter would not have needed the Government to step in, because we would not have been so reliant on gas. It was Labour’s failure. It was 7% of electricity then, but it is nearly half today. This Government have transformed our performance, while the Labour party failed in power.

What are Labour’s ideas going forward? What do they consist of? While we have unlocked £200 billion of investment since we came into power, the Labour party, led by the hard left, with whom the right hon. Gentleman has always had more than a passing association, want through its GB Energy to nationalise an industry in which we have brought in global investment. Instead of unlocking renewables, Labour will, if it gets back into power, do exactly what it did in power last time: fail to deliver renewables, reverse the green transformation, fail to meet our carbon budget targets and let down Britain and every family, who will be back in cold, freezing homes with overly expensive bills to boot. That is what the Labour party offers.

We are internationally competitive. It is great that other countries, such as America with the Inflation Reduction Act, are seeking to catch up with us on things such as offshore wind. We support that. On onshore wind, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, as I have said, we are committed to reviewing it and ensuring that we can take it forward in a way that runs with the support and consent of local people.

In response to what the right hon. Gentleman said at the end of his words, three quarters of the power of this country today comes from fossil fuels, and we are the most decarbonised country in the G7. The right hon. Gentleman, the Labour party and the Scottish National party do not have a plan to stop using fossil fuels. What they have a plan for—this is unbelievable—is to make sure that we do not produce our own, that we import energy from abroad at the cost of billions and billions, that we make ourselves less energy secure, that we lose the 120,000 jobs, most of which are in Scotland, in the oil and gas industry and that we lose their capability to help deliver the hydrogen and carbon capture and storage industries upon which our decarbonisation path depends. The Labour party failed when it was in power. Its analysis of what it needs to do now is failing, too, and the British people will not be fooled.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to her new role. Her Department’s responsibility is to tackle fuel poverty, so the planned rise in the price cap is the first big test. If it goes ahead, the number of people in fuel poverty will jump by almost 2 million, which is why many people, including those from leading energy charities, are telling her Department to stop the cap rising. Will she and the Secretary of State now do their jobs and tell the Chancellor to cancel the rise?

[Amanda Solloway]

To reiterate, the Government have been looking at this issue incredibly closely. The analysis so far for 2022 shows that 350,000 households in England were kept out of fuel poverty.

[Edward Miliband]

I am afraid that is no answer to the question. We have millions of families across the country, and we have bills going out this week. People do not want sympathy or warm words: they want certainty from the Government.

This is a political choice, because the Government are saying that they cannot afford to do any more to help families, but at the same time, they refuse a proper windfall tax and bung billions of pounds in handouts to the oil and gas companies. Is not the truth that the reason people are sick and tired of this Government is that they put the balance sheet of fossil fuel companies ahead of the family budgets of the British people?

[Amanda Solloway]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we have been paying half of household energy bills, and that we will continue to look at this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is the same for the Secretary of State. It is everybody’s questions, not just yours and the former Prime Minister’s. Let’s go to Ed Miliband for a good example of a quick question.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

It is important to welcome ex-party leaders to their place, Mr Speaker. My only advice is that it is important to not want your old job back.

Can I ask the Secretary of State to tell the House which member of the new Department’s ministerial team in April last year described onshore wind farms as “an eyesore” on the hills?

[Grant Shapps]

I was just having a debate about whether it was me or my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The point is that they have to be done with local consent. That is why a proper energy mix that includes not just wind farms but nuclear for about a quarter of our energy production is so important and why we have just appointed the first ever nuclear Minister, who some are calling “Atomic Bowie”.

[Edward Miliband]

The problem is that the right hon. Gentleman is not the cheerleader for clean energy; he is the roadblock. We have had three wind farms in the last eight years. His own Department says 79% of the public support onshore wind. Let me ask him, plan and simple: will he bring the local planning regime for onshore wind in line with all other infrastructure—yes or no?

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman calls me the roadblock, but perhaps he missed me saying that I was installing solar before it was fashionable to do so. I absolutely want more onshore and offshore wind in this country. We are ensuring that we are helping with that process, but it has to be with local consent.