Local Power Plan
Debate between Ed Miliband and Greg Smith(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for prior sight of his statement.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell whether the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box as the Energy Secretary or rehearsing for a future move to perhaps No. 11. Once again, he is more distracted by personal ambition than concerned about the bleak reality families are facing across the country with crippling energy bills. Today’s announcement is being sold as a bold shift of power to local communities, but cutting through the fluff, this plan does not make electricity cheaper and it does not offer value for the taxpayer.
This plan does nothing to reduce wholesale prices, nothing to fix the grid connection backlog and nothing to tackle the structural costs. Instead, the Government are asking taxpayers to fund small-scale projects which, optimistically, will provide minor reductions in costs for a few local buildings while leaving families and businesses across this country still paying higher prices. There are no guarantees that the £1 billion committed through the Great British Energy scheme will deliver lower bills, no clear test of value for money and no convincing explanation of why subsidising small, piecemeal projects offers a better return for taxpayers than backing affordable, large-scale nuclear generation that would genuinely move the dial. Spread thinly across the country over several years and funnelled through yet another Whitehall-controlled body, this is not a serious intervention, but a press release masquerading as an energy strategy.
Alongside the local power plan, the results of allocation round 7 this morning raise serious questions that the Secretary of State has yet to answer. In the Government’s own press release, they rely on “internal analysis” to claim that additional solar and onshore wind procured through AR7 could lower bills in the early 2030s, but that analysis has not been published. It looks only at a narrow scenario, excludes wider system costs and does not give a full picture of future bill levels. If Ministers are so confident of their figures, why will they not release the full impact assessment? What exactly is the Secretary of State hiding?
AR7 also underlines the direction of travel under this Government: longer contracts, higher strike prices and greater risk locked in for bill payers. The extension of contracts for difference from 15 years to 20 years means that households will be tied into paying these costs for even longer, regardless of whether circumstances change. At the same time, the Government have relaxed planning requirements so some offshore wind projects can bid before planning consent has even been secured.
All of this points to the root problem, which is that electricity prices are already too high, and the policies pursued by this Government are only pushing them higher. Doubling down on carbon taxes and loading more expensive wind and solar on to a system that is not ready risks driving up costs for both households and industry, making British business less competitive and leaving families to pick up the bill. Families are being asked to pay more, not less. Labour promised to cut energy bills by £300; instead, bills have risen by £190 since Labour came to power. That is the reality behind its rhetoric, and that is the reality every family up and down the land understands as they open their energy bills.
At the centre of all this sits Great British Energy, an £8 billion taxpayer-funded quango that was meant to lower bills for everyone. So far, all we have is the promise of a highly paid chief executive, a new board and more bureaucracy. Why do we need another expensive state body to do what the market and existing institutions should already be delivering? That is the fundamental difference in approach. Our cheap power plan focuses on bringing down the underlying cost of electricity, saving the public sector and everyone else vastly more in the process, and doing so without costing taxpayers a penny. This Government are more focused on their own internal politics than on delivering the one thing people need: energy that is reliable, abundant and, above all, affordable for all our constituents.
Ed Miliband
Well, there were no questions, but I will reply none the less. Let me start with the AR7 auction, because this is very interesting and it will give the House a picture of what has actually changed. What has changed is the Conservative party, not the reality. We had the AR5 auction a couple of years ago, when the Conservatives were in power. In that auction, the price of solar was higher than it was in this auction. The then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) stated:
“our reliance on gas for electricity production today risks making power prices higher than they would be in a system with a greater share of generation from wind and solar…Moving to home-based, clean power mitigates risks to billpayers—now and in the future.”
What has changed? What has changed is that the Conservative party has gone full MAGA. Let us just be honest about this. It has decided to chase Reform into a ludicrous position, doubling down on fossil fuels and rejecting even solar and onshore wind, the cheapest, cleanest form of power you can possibly have. I guess the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) was just reading out the script.
On community energy, I have to congratulate the hon. Gentleman, because he has given a brilliant example of why the previous Government were so hopeless on community energy. He obviously thinks it is a terrible idea. He is very welcome to do so, but he is sending a message to every Member of Parliament and all their constituents that the Conservative party is against community energy projects and against the things that will cut bills for local community groups. To every sports club, community centre and library that will benefit from this funding, there is a very clear answer: the Conservative party says, “No, you don’t deserve it. We don’t want you to have those lower bills. We don’t want you to have that cheap clean power. We don’t want you to have the income and resources to reinvest in our local community.” If the Conservatives want that as a dividing line, bring it on, I say. This Government are on the side of local communities, on the side of cutting bills and on the side of reinvesting money into communities. The Conservative party, in its new incarnation, is against it.
Nuclear Power: Investment
Debate between Ed Miliband and Greg Smith(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Ed Miliband
Absolutely right—there will be no decommissioning of you, Mr Speaker.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on showing incredible leadership for his constituents on this issue. It has been a pleasure to work with him and other colleagues on these questions. He is right about the potential; he is also right about the regulatory question. We have some of the highest standards of regulation in the world, but it is always right that we look at how we can improve standards of regulation and avoid changes in regulation during the course of projects, which is crucial for success. That is the work we are getting on with.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. To give credit where it is due, I totally welcome today’s announcement on nuclear. Where I disagree with the Secretary of State is on his persistence to plough ahead with inefficient technologies such as solar and the associated paraphernalia, such as battery storage, which trash the Buckinghamshire countryside and, indeed, the wider British countryside. Nuclear works 24/7; solar works about 10% of the time. Will he have greater courage and plough ahead with this much more efficient 24/7 nuclear technology and drop solar?
Ed Miliband
I thank the hon. Member for part of what he said, if not most of it. We have a fundamental disagreement. Solar and wind offer cheap power for our country—why would we possibly say no to that? The biggest threat to the countryside is the climate crisis, and solar and wind alongside nuclear are the way to tackle it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Miliband and Greg Smith(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Small modular reactors are less land intensive, are very efficient and would get us to clean energy very quickly if the Government were to get on and actually support some orders. As land is in scarce supply, when will the Government get on board with nuclear, instead of shackling themselves to the inefficient, land-destroying, countryside beauty-destroying and inefficient solar.
Ed Miliband
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we support the SMR programme, and we are driving it forward through Great British Nuclear. I am afraid he is making a terrible mistake, which is that we need all of these clean technologies at our disposal—we need nuclear, we need renewables, we need carbon capture and storage—and the difference is that this Government are getting on with it. We have delivered more in five months than the last Government did in 14 years.
Clean Energy Superpower Mission
Debate between Ed Miliband and Greg Smith(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Edward Miliband
I was delighted to visit the port of Milford Haven during the election campaign. There is an interesting issue here: the £1.8 billion investment that this Government are making in our ports will hopefully allow us to invest in floating offshore wind at more ports than the last Government were able to. I cannot make promises about particular ports from the Dispatch Box, but this is so important, because if we are to get the jobs here, we must invest in our port infrastructure.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State referred multiple times to community consent, yet the 6,000 acres of solar installation in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) had no community consent. That sends shivers down the spine of my constituents in and around the villages known as the Claydons, who are looking down the barrel of a 2,100-acre solar installation called Rosefield. That is on top of a proposed battery storage plant next door, and on top of the National Grid wanting to build a brand-new substation to take the thing in; it is the tail wagging the dog. What will change to make community consent a reality?
Edward Miliband
What the hon. Gentleman wants for nationally significant projects is community veto.
Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman nods his head. I will be honest with him: we are not going to give community veto. The last Government did not give it either. There are nationally significant projects that the Government have to make decisions on. Obviously, we have to take into account the views of local communities, but the whole point of decision making on the nationally significant infrastructure programme is that we look at the needs of the nation as well. That is why community benefit is important. If we ask local communities to host clean energy infrastructure, sometimes they will not want it, or sometimes a minority will not want it—I am not making presumptions in this case—and then we should ensure that those communities benefit from it.