Net Zero: 2050 Target
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and to listen to this excellent and important debate. I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on securing it. Of course, I come to this debate with some trepidation, as I am facing someone who did my job previously and then, unlike me—yet, anyway—went on to be Secretary of State at what was then the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He made immense progress on our path to net zero and energy security
I would not normally be rude, but I hope that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) can perhaps move on, as we debate more often, from a rather adolescent approach to one that more genuinely engages with the substance. His was not a particularly brilliant contribution to this debate in comparison with those made by other Members, which I thought actually had some substance.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne oversaw the publication of the landmark, world-leading net zero strategy. The independent Climate Change Committee described it as
“an ambitious and comprehensive strategy that marks a significant step forward for UK climate policy”
and as
“the world’s most comprehensive plan to reach net zero”.
It is worth highlighting a couple of points. When we came to power in 2010, just 7% of this country’s electricity came from renewables; now it is well over 40%. The issue of insulation and the number of houses being insulated was also raised. I do not know why the Liberal Democrat member who raised it, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), is no longer here for the winding-up speeches, but anyway—he raised it before leaving the Chamber. It is worth noting that in 2010 the figure was just 14% and by the end of this year I expect that 50% of homes will have reached energy performance certificate level C or above, which is a huge—indeed, transformative—change, albeit one that needs to go much further and faster.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne oversaw COP26, which was the biggest summit that this country has ever hosted. It brought together 120 world leaders and over 38,000 key figures from Governments, civil society, businesses, youth and more, in order to tackle the urgent challenge of climate change. It is also worth noting that we have met all our carbon budgets to date and that we are the first major economy to legislate for net zero—done under this Government. So this country is more on track than almost any other country and certainly more than any major economy on earth. That is the context that people could be forgiven for not realising was in fact the case from the rather adolescent contribution of the Scottish National party spokesman. I will leave to one side any comments that the chairman of the Climate Change Committee has made about the Scottish Government’s performance in meeting their climate targets, because doing otherwise would be to descend to the level that the SNP spokesman stayed at throughout his speech.
Barry Gardiner
When the Minister says that this country is “more on track”, does that mean that we are “on track” or that we are just closer to being “on track” than anybody else?
Graham Stuart
That is an excellent question—we have exceeded every carbon budget to date. We not only have the net zero strategy but we had the net zero plan on 30 March, setting out how we will do it. Of course that stretches through to 2037. Not every aspect of the way in which we will fulfil that aim has been set out to date—people would not expect them to be 14 years before that date—but we are on track. What we have to do is make sure we stay on track. I would not try to represent to the House today anything other than the fact that it is an extremely challenging business to ensure that we continue on track. That is what we are working on flat-out.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne oversaw the publication of the British energy security strategy, which raised greatly the ambition set out in the net zero strategy, and since those documents came out the Government have continued to progress. In March, we published the Powering Up Britain package, which demonstrates that we are on track to reach net zero, and in the net zero growth plan we are bolstering delivery. That plan responds to the expert recommendations made in Mission Zero, the independent review of net zero, to which there has been reference in the debate, which explored how we can achieve net zero in the most pro-growth, pro-business way.
Our net zero ambition needs strong public and private partnership, and we are forging these links in a number of ways. Government policy and funding commitments are already leading to real outcomes, and we are leading the world in so many ways, not just on offshore wind.
The Government are committed to accelerating renewable electricity deployment. The Powering Up Britain package sets out our delivery plans for meeting those ambitions. It includes important announcements on a range of technologies, including up to £160 million of new funding to kick-start our investment in port infrastructure to deliver on our floating offshore wind ambitions, which were referred to earlier, and a new solar taskforce to drive deployment of that important technology as we seek to increase that fivefold by 2035. We launched the taskforce on 25 May, getting key players from Government, industry, regulatory organisations and other relevant organisations round the table to drive forward the actions required to deliver that ambition of deploying 70 GW of domestic and industrial rooftop and ground-mounted solar by 2035, all while cutting installation costs, boosting British skills and jobs, and improving grid access to support a solar power revolution.
Barry Gardiner
The Minister rightly refers to the need to improve our electricity supply from solar. Has he looked at the interconnection that is proposed from Morocco to come in at the Hinkley juncture? Are he and the Department now considering a contract for difference, which would enable that contract to go ahead?
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are looking at the Xlinks project. We have set up a team to look at it with no further commitment other than to make an assessment. It will be reporting to me shortly on that. We will look at the outline business case going forward. We are looking at it; I do not want to go further—positively or negatively—than saying that.
Gavin Newlands
I realise it is a stretch for the Minister to try to portray himself as the adult in the room with his contribution, but he mentioned good access. Will he therefore tell us what will happen with the grid constraints across the border, even in Orkney where all the energy it produces cannot actually be fed into the grid? When will that be resolved?
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Member for that question. It is a good question because the grid constraints, transmission and local connection are the biggest barriers standing in the way of decarbonising our electricity system by 2035. That is why the networks commissioner was asked to investigate that and will be reporting to us this month. That is why the Prime Minister appointed for the first time a Minister for Nuclear and Networks, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), who is working on that. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North is absolutely right to point out that the transformation we have seen in renewables, the change in our generation system and the requirement to grow our electricity capacity going forward puts enormous strain on that and creates not only supply chain, financing and deployment challenges in that space, but political ones because of the infrastructure impact on communities. A lot of work is going on in that space, and I am working closely with Scottish Government colleagues and other colleagues to try to ensure that we work in the most coherent manner possible.
We have heard mention in the debate of the need to improve the energy performance of homes across the country. Notwithstanding the transformation we have brought about—it is not enough—that is why we have established a new energy efficiency taskforce to drive forward improvements. That is why we are spending £12.6 billion over this Parliament and up to 2028 to support and provide long-term funding and certainty, supporting the growth of supply chains and ensuring that we can scale up delivery over time. Only yesterday I visited Octopus Energy’s centre, looking at how that company is trying to design heat pumps to be cheaper to install and more efficient, so they can drive the cost down and speed up the time it takes to install them, thus making the decarbonisation of heat in homes, which is a thorny and challenging subject, more realistic and deliverable.
The delivery of net zero relies on strong business action. That is why we brought together senior business and finance leaders into a new strategic net zero council co-chaired, alongside myself, by Co-op Group CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq. It includes Carl Ennis, CEO of Siemens; Ian Stuart, UK CEO of HSBC; Chris Hulatt, the co-founder of Octopus Investments, and others from UK business. The full membership reflects the cross-cutting nature of our net zero challenge. The next meeting is planned to be held in No. 10. We are mapping all the various business and sectoral organisations focused on net zero, looking to ensure that we have the most coherent architecture and that we can develop road maps for each sector, so that we can take the cross-cutting nature of Government in other policies and put it into something that people in particular sectors can more easily adjust to and adapt and that investors can invest in. The green jobs delivery group was formed after the publication of the net zero strategy and followed work by my right hon. Friend—
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I am pleased to say that the green jobs delivery group is co-ordinating across Government to ensure we maximise the number of jobs in green sectors. The group has wide Government representation, including the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and includes members from Siemens, RenewableUK and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.
Dan Jarvis
I thank the Minister for that response. He will know that South Yorkshire is fast becoming known for its green energy research. From Sheffield Hallam University’s Dext Heat Recovery project to the University of Sheffield’s Translational Energy Research Centre, there is huge potential in our region. Will the Minister look at what more he can do to work with and provide support to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, so that our region can become a world-leading energy innovation hub?
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is quite right to highlight the need for innovation and for keeping us at the cutting edge of science. We committed £4.2 billion to net zero research and innovation over the period from 2022 to 2025. Just last week it was my privilege to open, up in Blyth, the Digital, Autonomous and Robotics Engineering Centre. In his area, and all over the country, green jobs offer a tremendous opportunity.
Ellie Reeves
Last year, I visited a home in Sydenham that has been fully retrofitted. Not only does that save bills and reduce emissions; it also creates jobs. This is something we could be rolling out now, yet the Government have spent less than 40% of the home upgrade funding pledged in 2019 to make homes more energy efficient. Will the Minister commit to actually making retrofitting a national priority, and support Labour’s plan to insulate 19 million homes by the end of this decade, creating thousands of jobs along the way?
Graham Stuart
I share the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm for improving the insulation and energy efficiency of buildings, including homes, around the country. As she will be aware, we have already transformed it for the better from the frankly dismal position in 2010, when 86% of homes—the legacy from the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and the Labour party—were not properly insulated. By the end of this year that will be 50%, but I agree with her that we need to go further and faster, and ensure retrofitting wherever we can.
Mohammad Yasin
I recently had a meeting with Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, which is on track to certify a zero-emissions aircraft for passenger flight in 2026. The company is growing and has an ambition to reintroduce whole aircraft manufacturing to the UK, bringing in new jobs. The ATI—Aerospace Technology Institute—investment programme has been important in getting to this point, but, as they go beyond research and development, what more will the Government do to support ambitious companies such as Cranfield Aerospace and Hybrid Air Vehicles to manufacture the technology they have developed in Bedfordshire?
Graham Stuart
There are huge opportunities for our world-leading aerospace sector in the move towards sustainable aviation fuels. The Jet Zero Council helps to lead that work. We have set mandates to help drive take-up and ensure we are a world leader.
Chris Elmore
The Prime Minister before last, two years ago, told the country that Bridgend was going to be one of the great centres of battery manufacturing in this country, if not the world. Of course he meant Blyth, Mr Speaker, which is nowhere near Bridgend. Two years later, following the closure of the Ford factory, the people who worked in it for more than 40 years are still waiting for the UK Government to deliver on much-needed jobs across the M4 corridor. Will the Minister set out what support the Government will be offering and when they will deliver the long-anticipated battery plant for Bridgend?
Graham Stuart
What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the Government are working flat out to deliver that. I am looking to ensure that we strengthen the UK automotive industry as we move to zero-emissions vehicles.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
Last Friday, I was fortunate enough to visit the outer Greater Gabbard wind farm array with my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin). We sailed right out among the wind turbines. The plan is to bring the power ashore in my constituency of Clacton, but that does not make sense to me. I do not understand why the power cannot be brought ashore to the decommissioned Bradwell nuclear power station on the Dengie peninsular—no need for more pylons or substations; upgrade what is there. Will the Minister ask National Grid why it is insisting on spoiling untouched beautiful countryside in the Tendring peninsular and putting more pylons across the Essex countryside?
Mr Speaker
I think there must be a lot of green jobs if you come that way. Try and answer that, Minister.
Graham Stuart
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will ask the Minister who leads on networks, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), to get in touch with my hon. Friend to discuss that further.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Government’s plans for strengthening our energy security and reaching net zero have the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs in many of our communities. Does the Minister agree that the further education sector has a crucial role to play in unlocking new roles in engineering, technical and project management? The list goes on. Will he join me in commending Pembrokeshire College in my constituency, which is already working with floating offshore wind developers who are looking to bring new operations to the Celtic sea? They are showing the way forward in developing those new skills.
Graham Stuart
I congratulate Pembrokeshire College. It is so important to have the skills in place. That is what the green jobs delivery group is all about. Industry is working to make sure that we have the data on the forward expectations of need. That way, the Department for Education, through FE colleges and other institutions, can ensure that people have the right skills so that as much of the supply chain as possible for developing sectors such as floating offshore wind is here in the UK.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are proud to be home to one of the largest European deep coalmine sites at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, which has huge potential in geothermal. That is already being explored at Etruria. Will my hon. Friend meet me, Chatterley Whitfield Colliery Friends, Historic England and Stoke-on-Trent City Council, to see what green jobs can be created at that former colliery site, to bring it back into use with a green future?
Graham Stuart
I am being barracked by my Front-Bench colleagues, which is unusual even for me. I would be delighted to accept my hon. Friend’s kind offer.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the agreement at COP27 to establish funding arrangements for loss and damage under the Paris agreement. The main step that we are taking to help deliver that is the doubling of our climate finance to £11.6 billion between 2021-22 and 2025-26.
David Linden
Glasgow has a strong link with Malawi, which is one of the countries that really feels the impact of climate change. The Minister is right to reference that loss and damage fund. Will he go a bit further, as I know Christian Aid would want? Will the UK use its seat on the UN committee to mobilise that funding for loss and damage and make sure that the commitments made at COP27 come good, and countries such as Malawi are not left behind in the fight to net zero?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that. Those on the frontline suffering the impact of climate change often have done least to contribute to it. It is important that we fulfil the pledges we have made, from Paris to the breakthrough agreement on loss and damage agreed at Sharm last year.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
The Government do not subsidise fossil fuels exploration, and support international efforts to eradicate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and deliver net zero objectives. In addition, since 2021 no Government support has been provided to the sector overseas, including from UK Export Finance.
Jeff Smith
Really? At COP26 the UK signed up to a pledge to eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, but now the windfall tax has a super deduction loophole worth £11 billion to oil and gas companies—a benefit enjoyed by no other industry. That money could pay to insulate 4 million homes or build renewable power for millions of homes. This will not reduce bills, and it will drive a coach and horses through our climate commitments. Is it not a terrible way to spend public money as well as breaking our climate obligations?
Graham Stuart
Only for Labour Members—and perhaps some other people on the Opposition side of the House—is it possible to have a 75% tax on the sector, with the levy alone bringing in £25.9 billion between 2022-23 and 2027-28, and then talk about subsidy. Tens of billions of pounds come from the oil and gas sector in this country, and it provides energy security, keeps the lights on and keeps people warm. If the hon. Gentleman’s party were in power, it would cut off domestic supply, weaken energy security and slow down our transition. In every way, they get it wrong.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I think the Minister needs to look at the dictionary definition of “subsidy”. The approval of the Rosebank oilfield would be an astronomical waste of public money, handing £3.75 billion in subsidy to a Norwegian company in tax breaks and incentives without making any difference to British people’s bills. Does he accept that it will not create jobs or solve our energy security needs, and that it will be a backward step for climate targets as it pumps out carbon dioxide equivalent to running 56 coal-fired power stations a year?
Graham Stuart
Of course, we are a net importer of oil and gas and, if we do not produce domestic gas, for example, we will have more tankers—[Interruption.] We will have more tankers with higher emissions coming into this country. We will undermine a sector—[Interruption.] Oil, gas and renewables is effectively one sector—[Interruption.] It is very hard to get through my answer with all this enthusiastic barracking. It will undermine the energy security of this country if we do not produce oil and gas here while we are burning that. Thanks to the legislation of this Government, we can be confident that it is compatible with net zero because we have carbon budgets that are taking us there.
Kerry McCarthy
Rosebank is an oilfield and 80% of the fossil fuels produced will be exported. If what the Minister says is true, why has the Government’s own net zero tsar said that approving Rosebank would undermine our climate leadership on the world stage and “trash” our net zero pledge? Why are leading scientists warning that
“we already have more than enough coal, oil and gas to overshoot what is deemed our best hope of maintaining a liveable climate”?
Why is the Minister right and all the scientists wrong?
Graham Stuart
It is quite simple. We are reducing demand for fossil fuels, but we are net importers of them. Producing them here and destruction of demand have to be our focus and that is what the Government are doing. We are getting rid of the power stations burning coal. In 2012, nearly 40% of our electricity came from coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels—that was the legacy of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)—but by next year it will be zero. We have moved from 7% to well over 40% with renewables, as the Secretary of State has said. It is economic insanity for us not to produce the oil and gas that we will need for decades to come when we are a net importer.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
As a distinguished member of the Environmental Audit Committee, my hon. Friend has recently returned from the Arctic, where he saw the impacts of climate change. We recognise the importance of enabling local areas to play their part in delivering net zero. The net zero strategy and net zero growth plan set out our commitments on how we would help them to do exactly that.
Dr Offord
Local authorities have an overwhelming role in achieving net zero, but in the last hour the National Audit Office has told my office that central Government have not developed overall expectations about local authority roles in achieving net zero. There is little consistency in local authority reporting on net zero, making it difficult to gauge achievements. Neither the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities nor the Treasury has assessed the totality of funding for local authorities to achieve net zero, with the nature of grant funding hindering value for money. So will the Minister carry out an analysis of local authority funding for net zero to inform the next comprehensive spending review, set up an appropriate review to assess the extent to which local authorities in practice have been able to use wider funding for economic growth and levelling up, and work with local authorities to assess the skills gap?
Graham Stuart
The Government invest £5 million a year in the local net zero hub programme. We have established the UK Infrastructure Bank, with an initial £12 billion of capital, for the twin goals of tackling climate change and levelling up, and it includes a specific loan facility for local government to deliver net zero. We are looking at other ways of enabling and encouraging local authorities to do more. The details of a devolution deal for retrofit pilots in Manchester and the west midlands will soon be worked out, and I look forward to that being pioneered.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
One risk to net zero is the delay in grid connections. The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee wrote to the Secretary of State recently to highlight the problem of speculative applications for connections. These are applications that do not yet have planning permission and many never get it, but are clogging up the queuing system. What can be done to fix that?
Graham Stuart
The right hon. Gentleman, as so often, is absolutely right; this is a real issue. We have Nick Winser working on the transmission system and he will report next month. On the distribution level, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, we will be coming up with a connections plan later this year and working with Ofgem to make sure that we have a system that weeds out projects that are clogging up the system and yet will never be delivered, and make sure that the ones that can be delivered get to the front of the queue.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
On 30 March the Government launched a consultation to explore potential measures on carbon leakage, including a carbon border adjustment mechanism, mandatory product standards and measures to grow the market for low-carbon products. The consultation closes on 22 June and I hope my hon. Friend will consider contributing to it. It is worth noting that full implementation of the EU CBAM will not begin until 2026.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for separately sharing his detailed thoughts on REMA and its reform. This is a complex area with multiple interrelated mechanisms; it requires careful consideration to unlock the £280 billion or perhaps £400 billion of investment in generation and flexible assets that could be needed by 2035. While I share his impatience and desire to move fast, it is more important still that we get it right. I aim to publish a second REMA consultation in the autumn, which will narrow the options for reform and detail the direction of travel.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda are charging more for road fuel in my constituency than they are in neighbouring towns. Can my right hon. Friend explain what he is doing to help my hard-working constituents secure cheaper fuel?
Graham Stuart
We share my hon. Friend’s concerns. That is why we asked the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate. It is doing an inquiry. It came up with an interim report in recent days, and it will come back with a full final report and recommendations for 7 July, addressing the very issue that my hon. Friend rightly brings to us.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and her years of effort to support constituents in this respect. I would be delighted to meet her.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
There has been lots of talk in the Chamber today about green jobs. When I talk to stakeholders in the renewable and low-carbon technology sector, they talk about the need for electrical technicians, mechanical technicians, engineers, instrumentation engineers and all kinds of skills that currently exist in the oil and gas industry. Will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging young people to consider a career in oil and gas, not just to meet the energy security demands of today but to develop the skills that will be much needed in the future?
Graham Stuart
When I recently visited Aberdeen, Inverness, Port of Nigg and Orkney in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), it struck me that nearly all—in fact, I think all—the companies I met were working across oil, gas and renewables. They are part of one system, whether it is fabrication, subsea engineering or any number of other things. In truth, our energy security is about oil, gas and renewables. We are reducing our use of fossil fuels, but producing it here at home is a noble career for people in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
In a few months’ time, there will be extra checks on food coming into the UK from Europe. That will require extra cold store capacity; it is being built, but the Cold Chain Federation tells me that there is a three-year to four-year wait for connection to the grid. What are the Government going to do to make sure those facilities are up and running in time?
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
We welcome the IPCC’s latest report. It is a synthesis of global scientific understanding and concludes that, in 2019, carbon dioxide levels were at their highest point in 2 million years, that rapid changes have occurred and that this has led to widespread adverse effects. It does also say that deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would lead to a discernible slowdown in warming within 20 years, but risks are increasing with each increment of warming. That is why we need the rest of the world to follow this country’s lead in cutting emissions and committing, as this Government have done, to net zero by 2050.
Ms Brown
We all know that the Government have been opposing onshore wind to appease the extreme views of their own Back Benchers, but the Secretary of State’s Department’s own polling says that, by 20 to one, people support onshore wind. Given the cost of living crisis and the price of gas, and with all that is at stake, how on earth can the Government justify acting in the interests of a very small minority?
Graham Stuart
We all remember that just 7% of our electricity came from renewables in 2010; it is now about half. Our largest single source of renewables is onshore wind. I am pleased to say that the Government are working hard to make sure that we come forward with proposals that have community support, because doing things with communities is what this party believes in; it is a pity that the other party does not believe it, too.
Catherine West
On 2 May 2019, this Parliament declared a climate emergency, yet four years on, the Government are still dragging their feet. Some 4.4 million people rent in the privately rented sector, and that number is going up due to the Government’s incompetence in building more homes. What will the Government do to bring all privately rented properties up to an A, B or C rating as soon as humanly possible?
Graham Stuart
I agree with the hon. Lady on the importance of improving our housing stock. It is not only good for the environment but, just as importantly, it helps to reduce fuel poverty and supports families. That is why, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State just pointed out, we have made such impressive strides since the rather woeful situation we inherited: just 14% of homes were properly insulated in 2010—it is about half now. I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to go further and faster, and that is why we are spending that £12.5 billion and why we have set up a dedicated energy efficiency taskforce.
Richard Burgon
New analysis shows that, if the Government allow the Rosebank oilfield off the Shetland Islands to go ahead, it will blow the UK’s climate targets. Rosebank’s developers will get billions in tax breaks due to the deliberate loopholes that the Government have put in their windfall tax, but it will do nothing to lower people’s bills. The United Nations Secretary-General, the International Energy Agency and leading scientists are all saying there should be no new oil and gas, so is it not time for the Minister to rule out Rosebank?
Graham Stuart
I cannot comment on any specific measure, but what I can say is—the hon. Gentleman should recognise this—that we will be using oil and gas for decades to come as we move to net zero. It is estimated that we will require about a quarter of the gas we use today in 2050, and bringing it in from abroad in liquified natural gas tankers will simply mean much higher emissions than gas produced here, so it makes no sense. New licences will only go to slow the very fast decline we already have in North sea production; it will not see production overall increase. Even with continued exploration and development, oil and gas production is expected to decline in this country by 7% a year.
Jeff Smith
There are 23 clean steel projects across Europe, but none in the UK. Forty electric battery factories in Europe are planned to open by 2030, but only one is set for the UK. All the Government offered on their “green day” was weak re-announcements on carbon capture and storage and nuclear, and no new funding for decarbonising industry. British businesses are crying out for more support, so why are the Government failing in their duty to help industry to decarbonise?
Graham Stuart
I share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for the greening of British steel, as it is at the base of UK manufacture. I am sure he welcomed the “Powering up Britain” proposals, which I presented to the House just before the recess. Our plans for £20 billion of investment in carbon capture and pushing forward with the £240 million fund for hydrogen are exactly the measures we need to decarbonise British industry, and we are global leaders in that respect.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I am sure the Minister will agree that one of the best ways we can contribute to achieving the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change targets is through outstandingly good British Arctic science and polar science in general, as we have through 78 universities and the British Antarctic Survey itself. Does not the Minister agree that it was disappointing, when the Environmental Audit Committee visited the Arctic over the Easter recess, that we found that the British base up there, 400 miles from the north pole, is only manned part-time? Perhaps I should say “only personned” these days. Is it not time that we had a permanent research base at Ny-Ålesund in the far north of Svalbard?
Graham Stuart
I do not believe this strictly comes under my portfolio, but my hon. Friend has, as ever, brilliantly put this matter on the record and I will ensure others on the Treasury Bench are aware of the remarks he has made.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
Our “Powering up Britain” plan seizes opportunities from our transition to a decarbonised energy system. Our policies, backed by billions of pounds of Government funding, will leverage around £100 billion of private investment and support up to 480,000 jobs in 2030. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of unlocking that private investment if we are to deliver our net zero ambitions.
Sir Alok Sharma
One of the ways to ensure more private sector investment is to support UK companies to export to key markets. With that in mind, will the Minister update the House on any discussions between the UK and the US Governments on critical minerals? Is he confident that there will be an agreement between the UK and the US on critical minerals, allowing UK companies to gain access to the financial support available in the Inflation Reduction Act, on which other blocs such as the European Union are already doing deals?
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He shares my enthusiasm for leading the world in meeting our net zero challenge and, by doing so, developing technologies and then being able to export those solutions. He is right to highlight issues following the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, and making sure that in the negotiations with the US and other partners, critical minerals and other issues are dealt with. We are engaging solidly and I know my right hon. Friend was in Japan only last week, talking to Secretary Kerry about that point.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
In 2021, approximately 60,000 heat pumps were installed in the UK, compared with 1.5 million gas boilers. According to the European Heat Pump Association, we have the lowest number of heat pumps installed in the whole of Europe, relative to population. What more can the Government do to change that?
Graham Stuart
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the decarbonisation of heat remains a major challenge and we need to do more. With the launch of “Powering up Britain”, on which I made a statement to the House just before the recess, we are using £30 million of Government money to leverage £300 million in private investment, but I agree that we need to do more to change the trajectory if we are to meet the target of 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy companies have announced more than 100,000 new jobs in the US. Nearly 10 times more new jobs have been created there in the past seven months than in the UK’s green economy in the past seven years. British business wants a proper response to IRA, yet all we have had is the Secretary of State denouncing it as “dangerous”. Is not the biggest danger that of Britain being left behind in the global race as others speed ahead?
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.
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.
Kerry McCarthy
That is just ridiculously complacent and out of touch. Only this weekend, it was reported that Britain’s only home-grown battery manufacturer is considering leaving the UK for the US, and it is not alone. The Government are absolutely at sea as to what Britain should do. They say simultaneously that IRA is dangerous, that we are doing it already and that the Chancellor will get around to responding to it in the autumn, more than a year after the Act passed. When will they realise that dogma, dither and delay are harming our country?
Graham Stuart
The truth is that the rest of the world is playing catch-up. Our regulatory systems—the contracts for difference, for instance—have entirely unlocked renewables in this country. We are continuing to accelerate that, for example with the grid, which is also an issue in the United States. We take our competitive situation extremely seriously and will continue to come forward with policies to ensure that we maintain our global leadership.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
The Government want communities to participate in and benefit from onshore wind proposals for their areas, and we will shortly issue a consultation on onshore wind partnerships in England to enable supportive communities hosting new onshore wind infrastructure to enjoy the benefits of doing so, exactly as my hon. Friend says, by getting developers to support local energy discounts, new community infrastructure projects and the like.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that we always work closely with our Treasury colleagues. We launched the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme—FLOWMIS—on 30 March, which is worth up to £160 million and will support investment in port infrastructure precisely to unlock floating offshore wind investment and deployment. The spring Budget set out the Government’s plans to launch the refocused investment zones programme to catalyse 12 high-potential growth clusters across the UK.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the technical challenges. The Labour Government said in 2003 that CCUS implementation was urgent. No one thinks there is a route to 2050 without CCUS and, as she says, it is important not only that we make the investments we are making, but that we do so in a way that is compatible with the highest possible capture percentage.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
The Government’s commitment to park home payments is welcome, but residents in Eastleigh are still awaiting their payments because the council says it does not have access to Government systems. Will the Minister make sure her officials speak to Eastleigh Borough Council today to get this sorted? Will she commit to writing to let me know what has gone wrong so that we can get my constituents the payments they need?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
In Rugby, we are proud of the rate at which we provide new homes. I recently visited Barratt Homes’ Ashlawn Gardens development, where I heard that intending purchasers of new homes now place an enormous priority on the size of their energy bills. Does the Minister agree that it is important for house builders to promote the thermal efficiency of their products?
Graham Stuart
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on that. This is why we set up the energy efficiency taskforce, to work with industry to make sure that we take forward a tremendously transformed situation from the appalling one in 2010 and accelerate and move forward even more quickly in the future.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
More than once this morning those on the Government Benches have congratulated themselves on the home insulation figures, but those figures could and should have been so much more impressive, if, after 2015, this Government had not abandoned Liberal Democrat policies to invest in renewables and insulate homes. The impact of that on my constituents has been fuel poverty. This winter, they are struggling to heat their homes, with still expensive carbon fuels, and there is a growing incidence of mould. When will the Government recognise that emergency insulation is needed?
Powering Up Britain
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
Cheap, abundant and reliable energy is a foundation stone of a thriving economy. We rely on it to power our homes, our infrastructure, and industry. Affordable and plentiful energy makes businesses more competitive, generating growth, jobs and prosperity. It keeps the cost of living down, and will help bring down inflation.
A global pandemic, Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, and Britain’s continued reliance on imported oil and gas have pushed up energy prices to unprecedented levels over the past year. The Government have stepped in to pay half of the typical household’s bills over winter and around half of wholesale energy costs for some businesses. This was the right thing to do, but this approach is not sustainable.
The creation of a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in February was a clear statement of intent by this Prime Minister and this Government. Energy security and net zero are two sides of the same coin. Cheaper, cleaner, domestic sources of energy can break our link with reliance on imported fossil fuels, meet our long term energy needs, bring our bills down and keep them down.
We are in a strong position to drive the energy transition. We have seen huge investment in our renewables sector since 2010. We currently have the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm project, Hornsea 2, and the second, third and fourth largest operational offshore wind farm projects in the world. We have delivered the second highest amount of recorded low-carbon investment cumulatively across Europe over the last 5 years and estimate that since 2010, the UK has seen £198 billion of investment into low-carbon energy, through a mixture of Government funding, private investment and levies on consumer bills. Now is the time to go further.
“Powering Up Britain” announces the Government plans to diversify, decarbonise and domesticate energy production. The plans launched today will set out a blueprint for the future of energy in this country—boosting the UK’s energy security and energy independence—and help to achieve wholesale UK electricity prices that rank amongst the cheapest in Europe by 2035. It will underpin the UK’s clean energy transition, create new jobs and investment, protect consumers and businesses from volatile international energy markets, and drive us towards net zero by 2050. To meet this ambition, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will deliver:
Energy security: setting the UK on a path to greater energy independence.
Consumer security: bringing bills down, and keeping them affordable, and making wholesale electricity prices among the cheapest in Europe.
Climate security: supporting industry to move away from expensive and dirty fossil fuels.
Economic security: playing our part in reducing inflation and boosting growth, delivering high skilled jobs for the future.
Our plan contains significant new policy and Government investment across different sectors of the economy, including:
Delivering Great British Nuclear (GBN): We are matching the global competition and scaling-up our nuclear programme by having launched GBN, responsible for driving delivery of new nuclear projects, backed with the funding it needs. The organisation will be initially led by an interim chair and CEO and will be based in or around the Greater Manchester area. This body will support our ambition to ramp up nuclear capacity in the UK to up to 24GW by 2050. The first priority of GBN is to launch a competitive process to select the best small modular reactor technologies. This will commence in April with market engagement as the first phase. The second phase—the down-selection process—will be launched in the summer, with an ambition to assess and decide on the leading technologies by autumn. The Government are committed to a programme of new nuclear projects beyond Sizewell C, giving industry and investors the confidence they need to deliver projects at speed.
Making a world-leading commitment to Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage: We are announcing the eight projects to progress to negotiations to form the first two CCUS clusters, in Wales, the North West and the East Coast of England, and that we will launch a process to enable expansion of those Track-1 clusters later this year. We are also launching the process for confirming the next clusters for deployment in Track-2. Our initial view is that Acorn and Viking are the leading contenders for Track-2 transport and storage systems.
Delivering a Hydrogen economy: Our 2030 hydrogen production ambition could generate enough clean electricity to power all of London for a year. We are announcing a suite of developments that get that ambition under way: confirming the first winning projects from the £240 million net zero hydrogen fund, naming the two CCUS-enabled hydrogen projects moving forward on the Track-1 clusters, publishing a shortlist of 20 projects we intend to enter due diligence with for the first electrolytic hydrogen allocation round (HAR1); and announcing our intention to open two further hydrogen funding rounds in 2023.
Accelerating deployment of renewables: Our goal is to develop up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 and to quintuple our solar power by 2035. We are opening the latest allocation round of the UK’s world leading contracts for difference (CfD) scheme to incentivise investment in renewable energy. UK levy funded support for renewable power since 2010 has totalled around £80 billion. The UK is a world leader in offshore wind and floating turbines represent the next frontier. We are launching £160 million of funding for pilots of the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme to build UK port infrastructure to further reduce the cost of offshore wind.
Reducing household bills by increasing energy efficiency: We are confirming plans for our new energy company obligation scheme the Great British insulation scheme, extending help to a wider group of households. This will mean that around 300,000 of the country’s least energy efficient homes could save £300 to £400 each year as part of a £1 billion energy efficiency programme by March 2026. This will form part of our work to meet our 15% demand reduction target by 2030 which will not only help lower bills, but also support our net zero objectives.
Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels to heat our buildings: The Government has an ambition to phase out all new and replacement natural gas boilers by 2035 at the latest. People's homes will increasingly be heated by British electricity, not imported gas. The heat pump investment accelerator will mean heat pumps are manufactured in the UK at a scale never seen before. We want to make it as cheap to buy and run a heat pump as a gas boiler by extending the boiler upgrade scheme by three years.
Decarbonising transport: We are signalling our long-term plans for decarbonising road and air travel, continuing to provide strong market signals and incentives to drive supply chain development. We are publishing a final consultation on the zero emission vehicle mandate: requiring that from 2024 an increasing percentage of manufacturers’ new car and van sales are zero emission. We are announcing more than £350 million investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. We are also consulting on a long-term trajectory for sustainable aviation fuel uptake in the UK through a mandate to be introduced from 2025.
Speeding up planning and networks: We will be publishing a revised set of energy national policy statements for consultation, covering overarching energy, renewables, electricity networks, gas generation, and pipelines. On 23 February 2023 the Government published our nationally significant infrastructure project action plan, which sets out how the Government will reform the consenting process to ensure the planning system can deliver for the future, to meet the demands of a greater number and complexity of cases and deliver against Government ambitions. The Electricity Networks Commissioner, Nick Winser, has been tasked to advise Government on what more can be done to accelerate grid delivery, and will present recommendations to Ministers in June. We will respond with an action plan this year.
Mobilising private investment: Our updated 2023 green finance strategy will strengthen the UK’s position at the forefront of the growing global green finance market while supporting the investment needed to meet our targets. This includes maximising the impact of the UK’s public financing institutions, for example through the UK Infrastructure Bank with its £22 billion of financial capital. It also sets out our pathway for the UK to become the world’s first net zero aligned financial centre, equipping the market with the information and tools necessary to meet this goal.
Supporting industry through the transition: The Government are exploring a package of potential carbon leakage measures to mitigate this risk at all stages of the UK’s net zero transition. Doing so will give industry confidence to invest in the UK in the knowledge their decarbonisation efforts will not be undermined. We are also announcing a new phase of the industrial energy transformation fund to support the development and deployment of technologies that enable businesses with high energy use transition.
Building on our COP26 Presidency: The UK will continue to lead internationally, building on our COP26 presidency. Two of the documents we are publishing today—the 2030 strategic framework for international climate and nature action and the HMG international climate finance strategy—show what this leadership will look like in practice. We are delivering on our commitments—including our £11.6 billion contribution from 2021-22 to 2025-26 to the $100 billion per year global climate finance goal for developing countries. Our international work delivers on the UK’s domestic agenda—improving energy security by accelerating the energy transition, bringing down costs of new technologies for our own net zero plans, and opening up huge economic opportunities for trade and investment.
Detail of these announcements is included across a suite of publications, notably:
Powering Up Britain—The Energy Security Plan: which sets out the steps the Government are taking to achieve our vision to power the UK through affordable, home-grown, clean energy.
Powering Up Britain—The Net Zero Growth Plan: which builds upon the plan laid out in the net zero strategy, strengthening delivery by focusing on the action we can take to ensure the UK remains a leader in the net zero transition, and meets our carbon budgets. We are also responding to the independent review of net zero, led by my right hon. Friend Chris Skidmore, and partly or fully acting on 23 of his 25 recommendations for 2025, demonstrating that the Government are committed to delivering our decarbonisation targets in a pro-growth way.
The importance of this Department is clear. The aims of this Department are clear. We will deliver for amongst the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, powered primarily by renewables, domestically sourced, ensuring the security of our energy supply. We will maintain our position as a global leader on the net zero transition, ensuring we bring the world with us to meet this global challenge. Making Britain an energy secure, net zero nation, is one of the greatest opportunities of our time. This Department, and the plans we have outlined today, lay the roadmap to get us there.
I will place copies of “Powering Up Britain—The Energy Security Plan”, “Powering Up Britain—the Net Zero Growth Plan”, the 2023 green finance strategy, 2030 strategic framework and international climate finance strategy in the Libraries of both Houses.
I will continue to update Parliament on progress towards these aims.
Full list of publications
Powering Up Britain–The Energy Security Plan.
Powering Up Britain–The Net Zero Growth Plan.
NZGP annex–Technical Annex.
NZGP annex–Carbon Budget Delivery Plan.
NZGP annex–Government response to the CCC Progress Report.
NZGP annex–Government response to Net Zero Review.
2030 Green Finance Strategy.
2030 Strategic Framework for International Climate and Nature Action.
UK International Climate Finance Strategy.
Consultation on addressing carbon leakage risk to support decarbonisation.
Net Zero Research & Innovation Delivery Plan.
National Policy Statement.
Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme announcement.
Launch of floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme.
Consultation on the Clean Heat Market Mechanism.
Heat Pump Investment Accelerator Competition.
Launch of the draft scheme guidance and expressions of interest in the competition.
Patrick Vallance’s Pro Innovation Regulation of Technologies Review: Green Industries report and HMG response.
Government Response on Secure, Smart Energy Systems.
Strategy and Policy Statement for Energy.
Consultation on the draft SPS.
Power Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) Government response to consultation on the power BECCS business model Cluster Sequencing Process Phase-2: Track-1 Project Negotiation List.
Cluster sequencing for Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS): Track-2 guidance.
Notice on gov.uk announcing the shortlist for the first electrolytic hydrogen allocation round (HAR1).
Notice on gov.uk announcing the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF) strands 1&2 competition winners.
Consultation on Community Benefits for Electricity Transmission Network Infrastructure.
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Powering Up Britain
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
For much of the past 50 years, since the oil crises of the 1970s, we have taken cheap, plentiful energy for granted. Indeed, one of the catalysts for Britain’s economic transformation over that period has been affordable, abundant energy powering our homes, infrastructure, businesses and industry. Yet today, this cornerstone of our prosperity is under threat. Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine and decades of overreliance on imported fossil fuels have combined to push up energy prices. Even though we have very little exposure to Russian gas, we have suffered the consequences of volatile international energy markets. That is why the Government have stepped in this winter to pay around half of the typical household energy bill, and I am pleased to say that that support was extended in the Chancellor’s recent Budget.
The much bigger challenge long term is to bolster our energy resilience as a nation, so that a tyrant like Putin can never again hit the pockets of every family and business in Britain. We must diversify, decarbonise and domesticate our energy supplies to secure the cheap, clean power that Britain needs to prosper in the future. That is why last month the Prime Minister created the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to give these two closely entwined objectives—energy security and net zero—the full and dedicated attention within Government that they clearly merit. It was a statement of intent to put energy security among the Government’s top priorities. By doing so, we will bring wholesale electricity prices down to among the cheapest in Europe by 2035, drastically reduce carbon emissions and deliver the long-term boost that our economy needs, using Britain’s unique talents and assets to drive the energy transition.
Following the Department’s launch just 50 days ago, I am pleased to announce how the Government will be powering up Britain, including through our energy security plan, which sets out the steps we are taking to become more energy independent by powering Britain from Britain, and through our net zero growth plan, which builds on the measures laid out in the net zero strategy to keep us on track to achieve our carbon budgets. That plan meets our statutory obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008 to respond to the Climate Change Committee’s annual progress report from 2022, and sets out a package of proposals and policies that will enable carbon budgets to be met, to ensure that Britain remains the leader among the fastest decarbonising nations in the world.
Before starting on the announcements, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for his excellent work in this area, investigating how to deliver net zero in a way that is both pro-growth and pro-business. In January, he submitted his detailed report and recommendations to Government. I can confirm that we are partly or fully acting on 23 recommendations of the independent review of net zero report’s 25 recommendations for 2025. On behalf of the whole House, I thank my right hon. Friend again for his work.
Let me start on the announcements, if I may. As part of powering up Britain, the Government are launching Great British Nuclear, to put clean nuclear power at the heart of Britain’s energy security and spearhead a busy programme of new nuclear projects, starting with a competitive down-selection this year to choose the best small modular reactor technologies. We are launching the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme, providing up to £160 million to kick-start funding in port infrastructure so that we can move forward with that exciting new technology, and we are publishing plans for investing in carbon capture and storage, a key area for cleaning up energy and one in which Britain can lead the world.
To drive our hydrogen ambitions, we are announcing a shortlist and funding for the first round of electrolytic hydrogen allocation, with a second round to come, and setting out our longer-term hydrogen plans. We are providing an extra £1 billion for energy efficiency upgrades through the new great British insulation scheme, and we are investing to speed up the market for heat pump installation to decarbonise home heating and leverage up to £300 million of overall funding, including private funding.
This country is already ahead of the game when it comes to decarbonising its economy. We are a global leader in offshore wind power and currently have the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm project, named after a town in my constituency: Hornsea 2. We also have the second, third and fourth largest offshore wind farm projects, but the measures we are unveiling today will accelerate our transition, rolling out existing technologies and bringing transformative new technologies to market.
We are truly on the verge of a new industrial revolution, but just like the first industrial revolution, investment will be key to our success, delivering not just energy security and ambitious reductions in carbon but the jobs, exports and productivity gains of the future. With that in mind, we are publishing today a new green finance strategy, which sets out a range of measures to mobilise private investment into net zero. That will support the UK in maintaining its position as a world-leading centre for green finance, and it sets us on a pathway to becoming the world’s first net zero-aligned financial centre.
It is imperative that we do not just focus on reducing emissions at home. The UK will work with international partners through the green transition to share the benefits of an improved environment that is good for business, because all economies need to take decisive steps to reduce their emissions. Indeed, increased investment in net zero technologies globally will unlock innovation and drive costs down, as well as create opportunities for green UK exports—in carbon capture and hydrogen, for example.
As such, today we are publishing two additional documents. The first is the 2030 strategic framework for international climate and nature action, which outlines our vision to halve global emissions, halt and reverse nature loss, and build resilience to climate impacts this decade. The second is the international climate finance strategy, which details our commitment to £11.6 billion of international climate finance up to 2025-26, after we pledged to double it. Both reinforce our climate leadership during what is a critical decade for delivery, showing that Britain is credible and committed to meeting its promises.
It is no exaggeration to say that Britain’s prospects as a nation, our ability to compete as an economy, and our capacity to decarbonise and tackle climate change all depend on energy security. Now, with a dedicated Department to deliver that vital objective, we will not only wean ourselves off fossil fuel imports but deliver cheaper, cleaner energy from domestic renewables and nuclear, protecting British households from turbulent international energy markets and creating hundreds of thousands of green jobs to level up Britain in the process. Making Britain an energy secure, net zero nation is one of the greatest opportunities of our time. Today, we have shown how we will grasp that opportunity for the benefit of everyone in this country for generations to come.
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.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
May I thank the Minister for his kind words about the net zero review, and indeed the Government’s full response so soon after the review was submitted? I hope that the UK’s net zero pathway is now in a better place as a result of the recommendations. I should say that they are not my recommendations, but those of all the sectors I went to speak to and thousands of individuals, businesses and companies that want to get on with delivering decarbonisation, because they see the economic opportunity for the UK.
Does the Minister agree that we now need to slay this myth that somehow net zero will make us colder and poorer? Net zero will make us warmer and richer, and it is the economic opportunity of the decade, if not this century, to create a new economy, just as other countries such as the United States have recognised. Will he also accept that rather than talk down what the US has done, we need to work with our allies and democratic partners in creating a new special relationship around green energy?
Lastly, just to reflect on the comments made by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), net zero is not just about 2050. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road. We do not have 28 years; we have seven years to deliver on the most ambitious nationally determined contribution of a 68% emissions reduction. If the UK achieves that, it is an economic prize that every single country across the world will look to us on how to achieve, and it will deliver further growth. There are economic consequences to not meeting that 2030 target, just as there will be severe economic consequences to not delivering net zero. I hope the Minister will urge both this party and any other climate delayers, who become the new deniers, that ultimately net zero is the future for the UK.
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend and again pay tribute to him for all his work. This is the economic opportunity. If we look at a map of Europe, we can see the opportunity around the British Isles, and we will capture that energy. We are also blessed with around a third of all carbon storage in Europe. We can operationalise that to decarbonise the UK and provide a service to Europe, and we will do so. It will lead to the reindustrialisation of the north-west, north-east, Wales and Scotland. The opportunities are immense, and colleagues have been fighting hard.
On the NDC, we have set that ambitious world-leading 2030 target, and we are committed to delivering our commitments, including the 2030 NDC. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Doncaster North is a little out of touch. Countries are not due to start reporting to the United Nations framework convention on climate change on progress towards meeting NDCs until 2024, but we have quantified proposals and policies already to cover 92%, and we will go further. Just as we have done with our carbon budgets, we will exceed, not fall short. It was the Labour party that fell short on insulation and renewables; this party has a record of delivery, and our policies are supplemented by others that we have not quantified yet as we work hard to roll out these things. We will meet that 2030 target. We will continue our leadership role as arguably the only major economy in the world that is on that net zero pathway to 2050.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I think the greenest aspect of these announcements is the level of recycling in them without the actual funding to back them up. Starting with nuclear, there is no successful European pressurised water reactor project anywhere in the world. Hinkley has almost doubled in price to £33 billion, so we know that Sizewell C will cost something like £35 billion. That is a huge, scandalous waste of money that could be better utilised elsewhere. On SMRs, there is not even an approved design with the regulator yet. At £2 billion a pop, SMRs are not cheap either, and it is a myth that they will lower energy bills and provide security. Nuclear is the only energy technology to get more expensive rather than cheaper over the years.
We need more storage. I keep asking about pumped storage hydro. Please will the Government agree a carbon floor mechanism so that SSE can get on with Coire Glas and Drax can get on with the Cruachan extension? While the United States has the Inflation Reduction Act, when we look at the budget for allocation round 5, funding has been cut by a third from £285 million to £205 million, while we have inflationary pressures of 30%. The reality is that it will not deliver what we need it to deliver. Has the Minister looked at the lessons from the Spanish auction, which failed miserably and did not deliver on allocations?
The Minister knows that we need a greater ringfenced pot for tidal. At the moment, tidal stream energy has a 80% to 90% UK supply chain. If the Government do not increase the ringfenced budget, we risk offshoring manufacturing again. If he is talking about being powered by Britain, he needs to increase that funding for tidal stream so that we are building the UK supply chain.
On CCS, Acorn was not even mentioned in the statement. It was promised to us in 2014, and now it is not even mentioned. Is there going to be a definitive funding allocation for Acorn and are there going to be timescales for that funding, or is it a further betrayal when the Government are taking in £60-odd billion in additional oil and gas revenues? The reality is clear: Scotland has the energy, but Westminster keeps the powers.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman’s party of course opposes nuclear, despite the opportunity it provides to this country, and it means that Scotland does not benefit as it should. He talked about pumped hydro, and I would be happy to meet him to discuss that further.
We are the world leader in tidal energy, although we would be hard pushed to understand that from the hon. Gentleman. We have put a ringfenced number on that, and budgets can be changed. The budgets were set on the basis of those projects that were ready and were coming forward. As that changes through this year, as I very much hope it will, we have the flexibility to change those budgets upwards appropriately. Like him, I believe that tidal has a great future, and I love the fact that we are the global leader. There are many jobs in Scotland and around the rest of the country from it.
On carbon capture and storage, this is a major announcement today. I am delighted about the eight projects for carbon capture that have come forward as part of track 1. Today, we have launched track 2, and we have said in the papers, as the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to hear, that we think the Scottish cluster—and Acorn—and Viking in the Humber are the two best placed at the moment to go ahead, although there will be a competition and we are opening that now. We will be having an extension of track 1, we will be having track 2 and we are cracking on with it. I very much look forward to seeing what the Scottish cluster has to offer, because I know it is particularly well prepared, and that is why it was not a reserve, but the reserve in our track 1 process.
Sir Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for calling me. Could I start by saying that I welcome the announcements that have been made? I think this does move us forward on the road to decarbonising our economy. I want to thank the Minister and particularly his officials for all of the work that has gone into this and the thousands of pages that have now been published. He made a really important point when he talked about how
“investment will be key to our success”.
I could not agree more. I agree with him that, over the last 10 or 12 years, we have managed to attract tens of billions of pounds of private sector investment, but we have to deal with the world as we find it now. The reality is that the US, the EU and other nations are speeding up and attracting billions and billions of private sector investment right now. Why are we waiting until the autumn to respond to that? Do we not need to speed up and respond now to the Inflation Reduction Act and measures by other nations?
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to him for his role as COP President and all the leadership he has given in this area. He is absolutely right to highlight the investment competition, but as I think The Economist mentioned last week, the US approach, with its direct subsidy regime, is not as effective—not as cost-effective—as the UK regime. I am confident in our system, and we are rolling this forward. We have attracted £50 billion of green investment from 2021 to 2022. [Interruption.] Since 2010—when the right hon. Member for Doncaster North, who does not stop chuntering, left power, fortunately—we have had 50% more expenditure per share of GDP in this country than in the US, and we are opening up today the policies to ensure that that continues. My right hon. Friend will be delighted to learn that the CBI has said:
“The package of measures announced by the government represents a gear shift to boost energy security, reduce household bills and re-establish the UK’s credentials as a leader in green technologies.”
That is the CBI speaking for British business, and I believe that the policies today will deliver implementation, which is our main aim as we go forward.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
After more than eight years championing carbon capture and storage, I welcome today’s positive news, even the repeated bits, but particularly the projects for Teesside. That said, the Government’s ambition falls short of the industry’s, and the Department’s website shows that projects for CF Fertilisers, Alfanar and Kellas Midstream have not made it. Why is that, and what impact will the decision to ditch the Humber projects, in the Minister’s own backyard, have on the innovative, collaborative and excellent Humber-Tees carbon capture, utilisation and storage project?
Graham Stuart
I think there was some recognition of good news in there from the hon. Gentleman. He and, unfortunately, all the Labour MPs in his area seem endlessly to talk down Teesside, as it goes from success to success under its excellent Mayor. Today is fantastic news for Teesside, and as I have said, this is just the beginning. We are starting projects now, we are accelerating track 2 and we are promising an extension this year to track 1. We are doing it. The hon. Gentleman, of whom I am a friend and admirer, should stop talking down the success of his area, get behind the development and look at how we have moved from the dire situation in 2010 to the world leadership position we hold today.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
There is much to be welcomed in the Minister’s statement, but excluding Drax from the track 1 CCS projects will come as a surprise to many and a blow to the company’s employees in my constituency and the wider region. I do not think there are any projects in the Humber region that have got through on track 1. The management at Drax will now have to urgently consider what to do with their UK operations, especially when we consider the challenging economics of biomass operations post March 2027. Could the Minister clear something up for me? The Yorkshire Post reported last August that the Prime Minister backed Drax’s BECCS—bioenergy with carbon capture and storage—plans. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that The Yorkshire Post reporting was accurate, and if so, why has the Government’s position now changed?
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for being such an active campaigner for Drax and probably the foremost champion of power BECCS in this place. He is absolutely right that power BECCS and Drax are critically important to this country and the future of our net zero strategy. There are no power BECCS projects going ahead in the first phase of the track 1 process due to infrastructure constraints. We remain committed to our ambitious CCUS targets, which include 5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas removals by 2030, and power BECCS has a key role to play in that. That is why we have put so much emphasis on track 1 expansion and track 2, both of which will get further CCUS projects operationalised by 2030. To respond to the specific point my right hon. Friend made, the Department totally understands that we need to work with Drax on a bridging option between 2027 and 2030, and the Secretary of State has charged our officials with working with Drax on what those options look like.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Just a week ago, the UN Secretary-General said we needed a “quantum leap” when it comes to climate action. This Government have laboured and, frankly, brought forth a mouse. There is no new funding, no street-by-street home insulation plan, no mandatory rooftop solar and no unblocking of onshore wind. Instead, Ministers are gambling with technologies that are slow and costly at best, and unproven at worst. While some CCS might have a role for carbon-intensive industry, will the Minister accept that—given its very high cost, high life-cycle emissions and appalling record of delivery, and since it cannot achieve energy security because fossil fuels will simply be sold on global markets at global prices—CCS cannot be used as an excuse for licensing new oil and gas in the middle of a climate emergency?
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. [Interruption.] I think I was disappearing like a mouse underneath the Dispatch Box there. We of course made major announcements in the Budget. What today is all about is giving the detail of how we are going to unlock that. She raises the question of carbon capture and storage. There is not a way for us to get to net zero without using carbon capture and storage. I remember that it was said by the Labour Government in 2003, if I recall correctly, that it was urgent. Here we are, 20 years later, but I am delighted to say—[Interruption.] I am delighted to say that, having had to come into government with nobody insulated and practically no renewables, and a note on a piece of paper saying there was no money left, we are coming forward with proposals to put that right.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I had the great pleasure of opening the Siemens wind turbine blade factory in Hull, very close to my right hon. Friend’s constituency, which is living proof that net zero, low-cost energy, energy security and jobs and prosperity can go hand in hand. Does my right hon. Friend recognise the export opportunities for the next generation of offshore wind—floating offshore wind—working with countries including Japan? On nuclear, will he consider accelerating the national planning statement so that developers of small modular reactors do not have to wait until 2025 to plan deployment? And on hydrogen, will the road map include a target date for phasing out polluting grey hydrogen, as recommended in a recent Science and Technology Committee report?
Graham Stuart
I share my right hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for the export opportunities that lie ahead of us. By leaning in ahead of others, as we have done and are doing, we can develop technologies and solutions which can then be exported all around the world, to the good of those other countries and ourselves. It is great to see us brokering support for just energy transition partnerships with the likes of Indonesia and Vietnam, who are great partners for us going forward. We are setting out today our vision for hydrogen and our commissioning of electrolytic hydrogen projects as part of our effort to transform the situation and move to a position where we have no unabated hydrogen as soon as that can possibly be delivered.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I am not sure what the Minister had for breakfast but it is probably best avoided because his aggressive and belligerent approach has undermined much of the good cross-party consensus that there is on this important issue. No one can look at the home insulation schemes of the last decade and imagine they are anything other than a painful failure, so for cities such as mine that have historical housing and need an insulation scheme, how will the new schemes be different from the failures of the last few years?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman talked about getting the tone right; perhaps I responded in the appropriate tone to the way that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) addressed me. When I consider that he was a Minister in the Government who so spectacularly failed, it is all the more likely that I might be a little spikey. [Interruption.] If he stops barracking for a moment, I will respond to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who asked about insulation over the last 10 or so years: we have gone from 14% of homes effectively insulated to half of all homes, and we have set up the energy efficiency taskforce. We are driving forward and putting a budget in place precisely to take this forward and improve it further. With our support for heat pumps, we are looking to green our houses and lower costs for families, as well as meeting the climate challenge, on which the last Government singularly failed and I am pleased to say that this Government are making progress.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Who will pay for CCS as it does not generate any direct revenue from retail customers?
Graham Stuart
To decarbonise industry, we will need CCS and hydrogen. We are socialising the funding requirements across the piece to ensure that we deliver what is necessary to meet our carbon targets, at the lowest possible cost to consumers. This year we are also consulting on measures to prevent carbon leakage, ensure that we do not drive UK industry abroad, which I know my right hon. Friend is concerned about, and instead maintain our competitiveness as we move towards net zero.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
If the Government were so serious about climate action why did they need to be dragged into court and told by the High Court that their existing plans are not sufficient? Now we have a new strategy, but there is not very much new in it and still a de facto ban on onshore wind. Will the Minister commit to cancel the planned expansion of fossil fuel subsidies and instead commit to a significant increase in onshore wind?
Graham Stuart
I am afraid the hon. Lady may want to correct the record because she misled the House. The courts did not say our policies were insufficient; they said they wished to have more detail on them. We are responding to that technical point today, providing further detail. [Interruption.] Absolutely, it was not a reflection on the quality of those policies. We have met all our carbon budgets to date and have set out today the way we will meet our carbon budget 6, and, even though it is far ahead, we have already set out policies to cover 97% of it. As I have also said, we are looking to make sure that we come forward with more opportunities for onshore wind, but with the consent of local communities.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to a new generation of nuclear power stations, which are going to play an essential part in delivering both energy security and net zero. Can he confirm that, while a new Chinese-designed reactor may no longer be in prospect, Bradwell-on-Sea in my constituency remains a designated site for new nuclear investment?
Graham Stuart
The current nuclear policy statement identified Bradwell as a site for nuclear electricity, as my right hon. Friend rightly says, until the end of 2025. That statement continues to have effect for any nuclear infrastructure deployable before the end of that year, and of course with the launch today of Great British Nuclear, its first job is to look at the process for down-selecting technologies for small modular reactors, but it will also be involved in a renewed siting policy that will look at both gigawatt and SMR-scale nuclear projects.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The Minister talks up energy security but fails to prioritise onshore wind, the best value renewable energy. By when will the Government remove the ban on onshore wind?
Graham Stuart
I have set out our position on onshore wind. The great thing about the CfD system we have set up is that it has helped to reveal costs. Ground-mounted solar might actually prove to be the lowest cost generator, but thanks to the system this Government have set up, we have competition between the various types of energy, and we are continuing with that. Having led the world on offshore wind and transformed the parlous situation we inherited, with just 7% of electricity coming from renewables in 2010, I am delighted to say that wind, both onshore and offshore, has a brilliant future under this Conservative Government.
Sir Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I am sure the Minister will have read reports this morning that his Department intends to bring forward a code that will initially be voluntary but will then become mandatory saying that mortgage lenders should ensure that their loan book only includes properties that have an energy performance certificate of C or above. Does the Minister accept that for those who live in an older property, a doer-upper, a national park or a listed property, the net effect of this policy is that they will have zero chance of a mortgage?
Graham Stuart
No policy decision has been made in this area. We have consulted and gone out and found ideas about the best way of doing this. My right hon. Friend is right to identify that any system needs to take account of the particularities of certain property types, and we will ensure we do that so that we both align with net zero and align with the reality of existing properties.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
I am pleased the statement mentioned the importance of energy efficiency schemes, both for their contribution to our net zero ambitions and the help they can offer households. The New Economics Foundation estimates that had all homes across England and Wales been upgraded to EPC rating C over the past decade, energy bills would on average have been £530 cheaper per household. I take it that the £1 billion allocated for the great British insulation scheme is in addition to the £6 billion committed at the autumn statement for expenditure post-2025. Is the Minister considering ways of bringing forward some of this spending so that even greater progress can be made?
Graham Stuart
We would be in a very different and much better situation if, instead of inheriting such a tiny—derisory—number of properly insulated homes when we came into power, we had had the 50% we are at today. With the energy efficiency taskforce and my colleague Lord Callanan, we are bringing industry and other stakeholders together, working with the Welsh Government and others to make sure that we have all the right policies, because the best form of energy is energy we do not use: it is demand that we can remove and destroy. That is the cheapest, and it can help us be a lean and efficient economy, and with fewer people in fuel poverty.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Anglesey is known as energy island. We have wind, wave, solar, tidal, hydrogen and, hopefully, new nuclear at Wylfa, and we have projects like Morlais, Minesto, bp Mona, the Holyhead hydrogen hub and Lightsource bp, so I welcome the statement to power up Britain. Will the Minister confirm to me and my Ynys Môn constituents, particularly those in Cemlyn, Cemaes and Amlwch, that the UK Government are committed to new nuclear at Wylfa, and will he accept my invitation to visit Wylfa, one of the best new nuclear sites in the UK?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend will understand that I cannot make policy commitments to Wylfa on the hoof. What I can tell her is that it has already been assessed as one of the best nuclear sites in the UK and that if the energy focus, determination and sheer drive of the Member of Parliament has anything to do with it, Wylfa has a very positive and strong nuclear future ahead of it. I look forward to working with her. I am sure that if he has not visited already, the new Minister for Nuclear and Networks—the first time this country has ever had a Minister with “nuclear” in their title—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), will visit her in her constituency.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The way to deliver energy security, tackle the climate crisis and lower bills as quickly as possible is through renewables, yet the Government are hooked on ever more oil and gas production, and on handing massive subsidies to polluting companies. Over 700 scientists have written to the Prime Minister to ask him to grant no new oil and gas licences, a call backed by the United Nations Secretary-General. Is it not time that the Minister used his powers to prevent the development of the Rosebank oilfield?
Graham Stuart
We are accelerating renewables as quickly as we possibly can. As I say, we have transformed the dire situation we inherited and we are moving as fast as we can on that, but we are going to need, and be dependent on, oil and gas for decades to come. Under net zero, we will still be using a quarter of the gas we use today. The hon. Gentleman is saying to his constituents, “Let’s pay billions to foreign, sometimes hostile, states, rather than producing our own.” That is economic madness. The gas we bring in on tankers has two and a half times the emissions of our domestically produced gas. On what planet would any rational and reasonable constituency MP want to propose that, unless they had some strange affinity with somewhere like Russia?
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Minister is exactly right that we are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution. Floating offshore wind will be a key part of that picture, so I welcome the confirmation he has given today of the £160 million FLOMIS—floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme—port infrastructure package. Will he confirm when he is likely to start awarding that funding? Does he agree with me that it needs to be used in a really targeted way to unlock private sector investment and ensure we capture first mover advantage with floating offshore wind? Will he visit the port of Milford Haven to see the really exciting things happening in the energy sector there?
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), is relentless in promoting and pursuing these interests. He can see that moving towards net zero and capitalising on the huge natural assets around Wales, can contribute to jobs, prosperity and industrial renaissance, as well as help us to deliver the transition. I would be delighted to visit him. In answer to his earlier question, we want to do that as soon as possible. We announced the opening of it today. We want to move forward. We have to accelerate everything we can do right across the piece.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
RenewableUK commented that the budget and parameters set for the most recent contract for difference auction are currently too low and too tight to unlock all the potential investment in wind, solar and tidal stream. Tidal alone could produce huge amounts—up to 11 GW —of reliable clean electricity for far less than the cost of nuclear. The Minister claims he supports tidal, so why have the Government cut their funding commitments to it?
Graham Stuart
We have not cut our funding commitments; we have moved to a one-year allocation. The budgets are set based on our assessment of projects and where they are in the planning and permissions process. Those budgets, if projects can come forward and put themselves in a different position, can be altered by Ministers. I think we are in a fantastic position. We are the world leader and we have put in a ring-fenced pot specifically for tidal, so I suggest to the hon. Lady and her constituents that they should be celebrating Government support for tidal. We are the world leader, we are going further and our support continues. I look forward to visiting Scotland, and indeed Orkney, next week with a view to learning more about tidal potential, an enthusiasm for which I share with her.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend not just on his statement, but on his long-standing passion for this subject. Perhaps he can expand on something he referenced a moment ago: the fact that liquid gas imported in tankers creates two and a half times as many emissions as domestically produced gas in the North sea. Does he not agree with me that it is incomprehensible that the SNP and now Labour oppose domestic production, which is not only bad for jobs, but bad for the environment?
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) talked about growing our oil and gas. We are net importers of oil and gas, and production in the mature basin of the North sea is falling. Only new investment can unlock the greening and electrification of production, with even lower emissions in sight from the North sea than from tankered gas coming in from abroad. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we did as the leader of the Labour party, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), said at Davos and had no new oil and gas licences, we would not stop using gas; we would just import more of it from abroad with higher emissions attached, with no jobs, no tax and no long-term benefit to the United Kingdom. That is not a tenable policy. I hope that, apart from their far-left colleagues on the far Labour Back Benches, everyone else in the Labour party recognises that is a crazy position and it needs to change.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I take the Minister’s recent comments to be a notification that I will be having a constituency visit from him. I look forward to that.
However, can I take him back to the question of energy security and just remind him that there is more to energy security than what we produce and where? It is also about the protection of infrastructure and the assets around it. All this week, we have had a Russian tug, the Nikolay Chiker, steaming up and down to the east of Shetland in the vicinity of the pipeline servicing Brent and Ninian. This morning, the tug has gone around to the north-west of Shetland and is now doing the same thing in the vicinity of the pipeline servicing the Laggan field to the west of Shetland. It is a merchant vessel, but we know that the Russian military often purpose merchant vessels in this way. Will the Minister speak to his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to see, first, if they know what is going on? Secondly, if they do not, will they find out? Thirdly, what will we be doing in the long term to protect these vital national assets?
Graham Stuart
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Perhaps we can follow up offline on that. As appropriate, I would certainly be happy to engage with my colleagues in the MOD. As a Minister for energy security, I keep all that under advisement. We will formally notify him of my intention to come to his constituency and, whether next week or another time, we can discuss this matter further and make sure I can reassure him on what are very well expressed concerns.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I love the energy the Government are putting behind energy, particularly nuclear. I hope that Berkeley and Oldbury will get a small modular reactor, because the western gateway is working really hard. Supersmart Stroud businesses are still coming up against things like planning barriers for solar rooftop and tracking, and Competition and Markets Authority problems for financing options for renewables. The UK also needs to look really lively to win the race on the hydrogen ICE—internal combustion engine. I welcome the big announcements today, but will the Government move the machine to resolve a raft of smaller daily frustrations, so we can unleash some amazing British businesses, many of which are in the Stroud district?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If there was one priority above all else in the Department, it would be ensuring that we get the grid sorted and the infrastructure in place to allow that transformation. We will publish an action plan this year in response to the Electricity Networks Commissioner Nick Winser’s recommendations, when he reports in June on halving the development time for transmission network projects. However, across the piece, we need to speed up connections, and sort out the queue and perverse incentives in that system. We have a lot to do and we are working at it. Only last week in No. 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister hosted an event looking at the networks piece. The offshore wind acceleration taskforce had its final meeting this week, which looked at grids, among other things.
I thank the offshore wind champion Tim Pick for all his work, as well as Nick Winser. I also take the opportunity to thank officials in the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, who have put a huge amount of work into producing all these policies and are working hard to ensure that implementation can follow as fast as possible. Officials in my new Department have absolutely shone and I look forward to taking forward our work with their help.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Too many homes in places such as Chopwell in my constituency urgently need insulation and energy efficiency. They, and people across the country, face additional charges of up to £1,000. How will the Government take active steps to address issues such as those in Chopwell, to ensure that they are energy efficient and that people can benefit from better homes?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the issue. That is why we have set up the energy efficiency taskforce. We are putting in £6.5 billion in this Parliament, as well as announcing the major insulation scheme today. We have another £6 billion between 2025 and 2028. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that homes are insulated. I am pleased that today’s announcements will see 300,000 of the most energy-inefficient homes in the country tackled, reducing families’ bills by hundreds of pounds a year as a result.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
With energy security a key strategic imperative for our Union, I thank the Minister not only for this statement but for his common-sense approach to investments in oil and gas as we transition to a greener economy. Building on other Members’ comments about investment in British nuclear, such projects are notoriously slow at being delivered. Can we look at how to very quickly get spades in the ground and invest in small nuclear reactors for the benefit of the country?
Graham Stuart
The reason for setting up Great British Nuclear is precisely to de-risk, roll the pitch and accelerate technologies. One of the benefits of small modular reactors as opposed to gigawatt scale is quicker replicability. The hope is that it can move to a factory-like process, eliminate errors iteratively and then deliver nuclear energy safely, cheaply and more quickly than previous technologies have allowed.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
In relation to the Acorn project, I get a feeling of déjà vu. It was promised in 2008 and ahead of the 2014 referendum, which to some of us feels like a generation ago. Can the Minister do something that none of his predecessors has ever been able to do: tell us exactly the difference between a track 1 reserve project and a track 2 project? Can he tell us what difference that will make to the timescale for funding and delivery, should the Acorn project finally be favoured by his colleagues?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is a little unfair. If one of the two selected track 1 projects were to come off track, the reserve would move up—that was the point. It was an indicator of the maturity and viability of the Scottish cluster. We are moving fast. We have announced the launch of track 2 now. We believe that the Scottish cluster and the Viking cluster in the Humber are the two leading contenders best placed to do it, and we will move forward with speed. I look forward to working with him and colleagues to make sure that the Scottish cluster can play a full part in our future.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for today’s announcements and for his ongoing engagement on the new Department’s work. Will he reaffirm his commitment to rapid delivery of floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea, along with the vital UK-based supply chain and port infrastructure right around the Celtic sea coast?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is a member of a small, elite group of colleagues who are relentlessly focused on ensuring that the energy transition is done in the right way, leading to jobs and prosperity for her constituents and others. I can confirm that. Having announced the launch of FLOWMIS today, we look forward rapidly to supporting the port infrastructure that is critical to the delivery of floating offshore wind, and the maintenance of the UK as the world leader on this vital technology. Estimates show that only about 8% of potential offshore wind capacity globally is on a fixed bed. For those who have a shallow continental shelf like us, 92% is floating. There is enormous opportunity for the UK if we unlock the infrastructure and the jobs, because then we can export that capability all around the world.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
The Minister spoke of making policy on the hoof, so I wonder why the Government’s policy seems to be chasing a unicorn. What happens if the unicorn of carbon capture and storage turns out to be a donkey with an ice cream on its head? Would it not be better to unlock the stables of the reliable horses of home insulation, solar and onshore wind?
Graham Stuart
So can I take it that the hon. Lady’s party is opposed? It failed to support the regulated asset base regulations in Committee to allow new nuclear to go ahead, despite its protestations to the contrary. Now, she seems to be opposed to carbon capture and storage, which offers enormous opportunities for all sorts of industrial parts of the United Kingdom—another failure. On solar, I am delighted to announce the launch of a solar taskforce precisely to accelerate the take-up.
I cannot believe the gall of the Opposition party, which left Government with just 11% of our electricity from renewables, when it is around half now. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) failed in government, and now he chunters from a sedentary position. We will drive forward the solar taskforce. Having transformed our solar base, which is greater than that of France—despite the larger area—and about equivalent to the radiated country of Spain, we will increase it fivefold by 2035. That is why we have the taskforce—because we deliver. We do not just talk or chunter from a sedentary position. We transform the UK’s energy system.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
If we are truly serious about speeding up the planning process for energy production, the Minister’s new Department needs exclusive planning control over all matters. Is that Government policy? If it is, when is it likely to happen?
Graham Stuart
Talking of making policy on the hoof, my announcement today that the Department would take over the entirety of the planning system would cause something of a Whitehall ruckus. At least twice this week I have met colleagues from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure a joined-up approach across Government. That Department is alive to these issues, as is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my Department and the Ministry of Defence, which has equities here. Joining up and working across Government so that this is as seamless as possible—it is never entirely seamless—is at the heart of delivering the changes in the system that we need. My hon. Friend is right that planning is vital to that.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement. I have listened attentively to him, I have read the Government publication and, unfortunately, I did not see any reference to tidal energy. In Strangford lough we have a ready-made project. I was pleased to have the Minister over to visit the Queens University biology station. The scientists there were very happy to see him there and to have his input on the projects that we feel can make a difference. Will he outline whether the potential of tidal energy is getting the appropriate attention it deserves?
Graham Stuart
It was my great pleasure to be hosted by the hon. Gentleman at Strangford lough and to hear all about the potential strengths of the tides. I am delighted to see the growth of tidal energy. For offshore wind, it took quite a while to build up what was a nascent market. People said that we would never be able to lower costs offshore, yet we did. I think that tidal is on that pathway. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the ringfence, our continued support and our flexibility on budget as and when projects come through. We seek to drive the cost curves down so that, ultimately, we are technology neutral but support and nurse new technologies such as that, which have great potential.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
There is much to welcome in my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly in the Humber region, as he will recognise. He referenced a £160 million fund for port infrastructure. Clearly, improvements will be needed to cope with many of these projects. Can he indicate when that is likely to come forward? I presume there will be a bidding process. Will that be open fairly soon?
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Let me follow up with him to talk about more of the details, but I welcome, as he does, the success of the Gigastack Phillips 66 project, the initial hydrogen project. We are leading the world and, having met with Phillips 66, I know that that type of refinery of the future has a real opportunity to play an important part in delivering the green transition on a number of fronts. It is fantastic to see it successful in today’s announcements.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. This strategy rightly focuses on security of energy, its cost and decarbonisation. I would be grateful if he could confirm that the Government will also concentrate on the enormous opportunity to create jobs, and that they will come forward quickly with both a skills strategy and a plan for investment in infrastructure, which should include both the grid and ports such as Lowestoft?
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for his constructive contribution, as ever. I co-chair the green jobs delivery group. We are working closely with industry to ensure that we get the signals from them across multiple trades, and engaging with the Department for Education to ensure that it can use those inputs to construct various courses to support that. We are absolutely focused. The reason we have a Minister for nuclear and networks is that we recognise that we have to get that infrastructure right. If we get it right—look at the success we have already had and at our investability going forward—it will be a tremendous transition, generating lower-cost energy and making us one of the most competitive economies in the world.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Minister for his statement and for responding to questions for over an hour. Could he stay in his place a little longer, as this point of order relates to him?
Graham Stuart
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Court asked for more detail and I am delighted to say that is precisely what we have provided today. There was no suggestion from the Court that our policies were not adequate. It wished for more detail and we have been delighted to share that.
Solar Rooftop Installations
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate and giving such an impassioned, well-informed, moderate and fair speech. I say that all the more so because I think I chided her the last time we were in this Chamber. She has continued to be a champion for rooftop solar, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), and that is a passion that I think we all share.
Deploying commercial and domestic rooftop solar is a key priority for the Government, and it is one of the most popular and easily deployed renewable energy sources, with 1 million homes now having solar panels installed. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion graciously referred to the progress that has been made, and I was delighted to see that. There were 138,000 installations last year—nearly as many as in the previous three years combined. In addition, we have around the same level of solar capacity as they do in the sunshine-radiated country of Spain, and more than that of France, so, on a comparative basis, I think we have been doing pretty well. I have rehearsed this fact many times, but it is always worth sharing that just 7% of our electricity came from renewables in 2010, before we had a Conservative-led Government, and it is now heading towards half. I am proud of that.
However, I agree with the hon. Lady that that is not enough. If we are to fulfil our net zero pledges and Government aspirations in this area, we need to go further. Solar can benefit households and businesses by allowing them to reduce electricity bills significantly and receive payment for excess electricity generated. Warehouses, distribution centres and industrial buildings with high electricity demand can also offer significant potential for solar deployment, which can rapidly pay for itself through energy bill savings. Projects can be installed quickly and relatively cheaply, and that creates new local jobs and contributes to a green recovery.
The British energy security strategy affirms that the Government will aggressively explore renewable technologies, including rooftop solar, to contribute to a net zero-compliant future. As the hon. Lady said, the report out this week, which gives us the latest update on the science, shows even more starkly how important it is that we and others move in a net zero direction. We expect a fivefold increase in solar deployment to 70 GW by 2035. That builds on the 14.5 GW capacity already deployed across large-scale ground-mounted solar and rooftop installations in this country.
The Government already support rooftop solar through the smart export guarantee introduced in 2020, which the hon. Lady referred to. It enables households to receive payment for excess electricity generated, which is then sold back to the grid. In December 2021, the Government introduced an uplift in energy efficiency standards, which came into force in June 2022, and we expect that, to comply with the uplift, most developers will choose to install solar panels on new homes or use other low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps.
On the SEG, I was pleased to see just yesterday that an energy supplier, Good Energy—it is worth naming it for doing a good job—has launched a new market-leading smart export tariff for households with solar panels. It is “Power for Good”, and it will pay 10p per kWh—significantly more than rivals. That is worth highlighting, because it is exactly the kind of competition we want to see for green consumers, and I believe it will also transfer into higher deployment.
In 2022, the Government removed VAT on solar panels and on solar panel and storage packages installed in residential accommodation in Great Britain. We are also providing fiscal incentives to encourage businesses to install rooftop solar—for example, through tax relief and business rate exemptions for installing and generating solar power. We also have the Government’s energy efficiency schemes, such as the social housing decarbonisation fund, the home upgrade grant and the energy company obligation, all of which include solar panels as an eligible measure, subject to certain requirements. That all makes rooftop solar even more accessible.
As I said, whatever our record to date, we want and need to go faster. That is why, just last month, the Government published a consultation on changes to permitted development rights, seeking to simplify planning processes for larger commercial rooftop installations, and introduced a new permitted development right for solar canopies, enabling more solar installations to benefit from the flexibilities and planning freedoms that permitted development rights offer.
We have not stopped there. As part of the consultation on the future homes and buildings standards, which will be published later this year, the Government will explore how we can continue to drive on-site renewable electricity generation, such as rooftop solar, where appropriate, in new homes and other buildings.
Notwithstanding the hon. Lady’s understandable impatience—she says that we should just get on with it—in that consultation and that process this year, we have the opportunity to take forward the arguments that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle have deployed.
Caroline Lucas
Unsurprisingly, the Minister sings the praises of what the Government have done so far, but he does acknowledge that it will not be enough. I wish to come back to the industry estimate that we need a further doubling of the current pace of installation for consumer-scale systems to meet the Government’s own target. Why are the Government setting their face against all the arguments that have been amassed about making solar mandatory? He has not said why he is against doing that. As well as having this debate just now, I wonder whether he would be prepared to meet me in the coming weeks so that we can get to the bottom of why the Government do not want to go down that road.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady anticipates what I was going to say, because I was about to suggest that I would be happy to meet her and discuss these matters. As she said, the Secretary of State gave a number of reasons at the Environmental Audit Committee as to why mandating might not be the right thing. The hon. Lady has addressed some of those by saying that no one is suggesting that solar should be imposed on buildings where it is not suitable. It is about defining that, making sure that it is right and talking to all the various stakeholders. That is why, if we were to choose to go down that route, we would need to go and talk to people and get their inputs as well. I am all ears, because, as the hon. Lady says, we want to drive this forward and to do so in the most appropriate way.
As I said, our record to date is pretty good comparably, but we must consider what we need to do. It is not enough to be in the lead. Looking at various assessments of policy, we may be just about the only economy that is aligned with net zero by 2050 at the moment, but to stay on track we have to move ever more ambitiously forward.
John Stevenson
I commend what the Government have done. They have done a huge amount over the past 10 or 12 years, which is entirely to their credit. Interestingly, genuine cross-party consensus is emerging and Members do support what is being suggested. I tabled an amendment to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which did not go to a vote, but if were to come back from the House of Lords as an amendment to the Bill, would the Minister, given that there is quite a lot of support across the House from all parties, look seriously at reconsidering the Government’s position?
Graham Stuart
As I said, we are under a legal obligation to meet our net zero obligations, and we have set a target of that fivefold increase by 2035. We are open to argument, but we want to get the policy right. It is not our position that mandating solar on all appropriate roofs is the right policy now, but we are very open, and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and others to discuss this further. I look forward to developing arguments to get this right, and I am sure that that is what we all want. It is not about an obsession with mandating; we want to do that which will most increase the take-up of solar in an appropriate way.
There is more to be done to meet the opportunities that rooftop solar provides. As an example, we and Ofgem recognise that connection costs and timescales can be a barrier to the deployment of rooftop solar. Currently, rooftop solar projects are required to contribute to any distribution network reinforcement needed to accommodate the connections but Ofgem has decided that, in future, for connection applications received from 1 April, rooftop solar projects will no longer be liable for such costs where the solar capacity is less than the demand on a site. Where the solar generation exceeds site demand, projects would still contribute less than they have previously. As well as reducing connection costs, this should accelerate connection times for rooftop solar.
I understand that up-front costs of solar might prevent households from installing, which is why the Government are working to facilitate low-cost finance from retail lenders for homes and small business premises, aligning with the recommendations in the Skidmore review on net zero. I meet regularly with financial institutions that have signed up to net zero and that are looking to work with us to come up with the right methods to provide the answer to the finance question, which was one of the hon. Lady’s points.
I have very little time left, but let me look down at the questions that the hon. Lady gave me to see whether there is anything to which I can usefully respond. On skills, I entirely agree with her. I am the co-chairman of the Green Jobs Delivery Group. We have refined that, and we have met a number of times. We have reduced the membership to make sure that we are focused on action—action this day, as Churchill would put it—and that we get the data from industry so that we can carry that to the Department for Education and other colleagues to make sure we have the bootcamps, the apprenticeships, the T-levels and the rest of it to prepare people for what will be a significant pipeline of future jobs—good jobs, I hope. I liked the seatbelt analogy that the hon. Lady used, with one thing not necessarily being a barrier to another, but, of course, there is always a limited amount of capital available.
In conclusion, the Government have already taken decisive action to encourage the deployment of rooftop solar. We will strive to push even further over the coming year to make sure that rooftop solar plays an even more active part in meeting our decarbonisation targets. It helps to alleviate energy costs at this time, when energy security is at the top of the public mind, and it reduces reliance on imported energy.
I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate, for the way that she has conducted it and for the arguments she has put forward. Working in conjunction with my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle, I am sure we can meet and take this matter further.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham Stuart Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I have not held discussions with EU counterparts on the scope of co-ordinated withdrawal from the energy charter treaty and note that the EU itself does not have an agreed position as yet. We are closely monitoring the situation on the ECT.
Olivia Blake
The energy charter treaty allows fossil fuel companies to sue Governments for loss of profits caused by decarbonising. Does the Minister agree that any treaty that punishes attempts to tackle the climate crisis is fundamentally wrong? Does he also agree with France, Spain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Slovenia, the European Parliament and the European Commission that modernising the ECT is impossible and that it is time to participate in a co-ordinated withdrawal from this deeply damaging treaty?
Graham Stuart
We were firm proponents of modernising the treaty precisely so that it would not do what the hon. Lady described, but, as I have said already, we will continue to watch the situation closely.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
Alternative fuel users have received significant support this winter: first, by direct subsidy of their electricity bills per unit; secondly, through £400 of additional payments across the winter; and thirdly, by £200 paid automatically, for the vast majority, by their electricity supplier, which began on 6 February and finished, I am pleased to say, today. A small minority will need to apply and that portal will open soon.
Mrs Drummond
Many people in Meon Valley use heating oil for their heating, and many have contacted me concerned that they have not received Government support yet. Some are having to wait because they are having to apply by phone. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that support is being rolled out and, crucially, that it will be received by those who are eligible in time for it to be of use this winter?
Graham Stuart
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s efforts to highlight the issue throughout the winter to make sure that the funding gets to the people who need it, when they need it. It has been challenging to make sure that every group across the country—domestic and non-domestic—gets it. I am pleased that the vast majority of people who are on alternative fuels have received that payment or credit this month, and that the portal will open imminently. We will follow the process for those who do not have an electricity supply for the £400 from the EBS scheme, which we are getting out as quickly as we can.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Under the scheme to which the Minister refers, the Government have rightly provided £600 to customers in Northern Ireland, where there is a high incidence of off-grid energy users. That statistic is even higher in my constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, which, by dint of being islands, are more geographically distinct. Can we have a consistency of approach from the UK Government? Rather than just paying £400 and asking people to apply for another £200—knowing, as we all do, that some will fall through the gaps—we need a consistency of approach, given the statistics and geography in support of that, which pays my constituents £600 as well.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman has used every corridor and voting Lobby opportunity to lobby me throughout the winter on this issue. I am pleased to say that his constituents will have received, through their electricity supplier, the £200 in addition to the £400. The small minority who do not have an electricity supply will be able to apply on the portal very soon. The net effect will be the same as we have seen in Northern Ireland—I think his constituents are in the same position—where people have each received £600 of direct subsidy with the direct subsidy of per unit energy use to boot.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I am pleased to tell my right hon. Friend that growth in the renewables sector continues year on year, with the latest data showing that 3.4 GW of new renewable electricity capacity was installed last year alone. We will build on that further: we have now taken our highly successful contracts for difference scheme and put it on an annual basis, so allocation round 5 will open next month.
Philip Dunne
Oil and gas producers benefit from an investment allowance for investment in renewable projects in the UK, but existing renewable generators do not. Will my right hon. Friend make representations to the Chancellor, so that he can level up that anomaly and enable my right hon. Friend’s admirable renewable energy ambitions to be realised?
Graham Stuart
I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. As he knows, tax policy is a matter for the Chancellor, but I am working closely with him, along with the Secretary of State, to ensure that the electricity generator levy strikes the right balance when supporting households and businesses struggling with their energy bills. It is worth remembering that, as I have just mentioned, our main mechanism is the CfD, which provides support for renewable generators in a way that is certainly not true of those in the oil and gas sector.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier this month, the pan-European EVOLVE project found significantly greater potential for marine energy in British waters, which would obviously help us achieve our net zero targets and offer a quicker route to round-the-clock renewable and carbon-free energy. Why are Ministers being so timid about backing that cutting-edge energy technology?
Graham Stuart
I take it that the hon. Gentleman is talking about tidal stream. I am delighted to say that we are the world leader in tidal stream, and that in allocation round 4—the last round of our CfD—tidal stream was included for the first time. We have greater deployment than any other country in the world, but I am like the hon. Gentleman: I share his enthusiasm for that technology, and hope to see even more from it in future.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Following on from that point about tidal stream, MeyGen in the Pentland firth is the largest consented tidal stream site in the world. To date, that site has produced 70% of global tidal stream generation, but inflation pressures have now put that project at a crossroads. It has the chance to remain the world’s leading project through a genuine scale-up, but what is required now is a £40 million ringfenced pot in AR5. Will the Government do the right thing, step up and back tidal stream, allowing Scotland to continue being a world leader?
Graham Stuart
I am proud of the fact that we are a world leader, and of course it is only thanks to the CfD scheme, which relies on levies across the whole of GB, that we are able to realise the renewable potential in Scotland. If the separatists had their way, we would not see the development that I hope to see in offshore wind, tidal and other technologies thanks to the whole of the UK, and Great Britain in particular, working together.
Alan Brown
I am really disappointed by that answer. I was hoping that the Minister would give some commitment to tidal stream going forward. If he is talking about the whole UK and how Scotland benefits, he needs to start backing the Acorn carbon capture cluster, too. Scotland could generate up to 300,000 hydrogen jobs within the just transition, and part of that relies on the Acorn cluster getting the go-ahead. Also, Acorn is required for Scotland to meet its 2030 emissions targets. Instead of blunder and bluster, when are the Government going to step up and back Acorn?
Graham Stuart
We are the world leader, and the largest deployment of tidal stream in the world is in Scotland. We will shortly be making more announcements about allocation round 5. We will also be making announcements in the next few weeks about hydrogen, carbon capture and the future there, and I have already committed in the House to accelerating our approach to that.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
Solar is a cheap and versatile technology. It is a key part of the Government’s strategy for net zero and I share the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm for it. We are aiming for up to 70 GW of installed solar capacity by 2035, and that represents a fivefold increase in our current capacity.
Caroline Lucas
I welcome the Minister’s enthusiasm for solar and the progress that has been made so far. According to Solar Energy UK, the rate at which solar panels are being put on to domestic roofs is still only half of what is needed to meet the Government’s own targets. I know that he wants to do much better, so is it not time to pick up the pace and give us a real rooftop revolution by making solar panels mandatory on all suitable new homes? Will he do that?
Graham Stuart
More than a million homes now have solar panels installed. According to data from the microgeneration certification scheme, a total of 130,596 solar panels were installed on UK rooftops last year alone, and that is more than 2019, 2020 and 2021 put together, but like the hon. Lady I want to see us go further and faster.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Energy security and food security should have equal billing, yet the proliferation of solar farms across thousands of acres of agricultural land is taking away from our nation’s ability to produce food. Warehouses up and down the land want to put solar panels on their roofs, but find they cannot because of the grid connections. What steps are being taken to ensure that the solar revolution can come on rooftops, not agricultural land?
Graham Stuart
The planning system is designed to seek that balance with the need to secure a clean, green energy system. It is worth noting that ground-mounted solar has probably the lowest levelised cost of any form of energy in this country. The Government have clarified the definition of “best and most versatile” agricultural land as constituting lands in grades 1, 2 and 3a, and we do everything we can to incentivise that solar should go on brownfield land or land of lower agricultural value.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Since 2015, 10 onshore wind projects totalling 30 MW have been consented for development in England, of which three have become operational.
Afzal Khan
The Government’s onshore wind ban has raised bills for every family by £150 each. Keeping this ban in place would mean bills are £16 billion higher in 2030 compared with Labour’s plan to double onshore wind. Will the Secretary of State apologise for the dogma of his Government that has led to more imported gas and raised bills, with energy companies making record profits and families paying the price?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is a very fine Member of this House, but I really would warn him against reading out the screeds produced by his party centre. In 2010, just 7% of our electricity came from renewables; it is now heading its way to half. Onshore wind has an important part to play, and we are looking at ways in which we can enable communities that do support onshore wind to go ahead and deliver it.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Alongside onshore wind, does my right hon. Friend agree with me that in this country we have a tremendous opportunity in front of us to seize first mover industrial advantage in the new floating offshore wind industry, particularly with respect to the Celtic sea? Does he agree with me that crucial to doing that, and to building domestic supply chains and domestic capability, is alignment of the Crown estate leasing process, the contract for difference and interventions such as freeports?
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right on every single count.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I continue to discuss with colleagues the contribution that all parts of the country can make to help meet the UK’s net zero targets, including freeports. I was delighted to visit last year and see the transformation being delivered by Mayor Houchen. For instance, SeAH Wind’s £400 million factory investment for offshore wind monopiles will sit alongside the £107 million South Bank Quay on the Tees.
Alex Cunningham
Well, we will see what that transformation really brings. I am actually blocked out from any face-to-face briefings by the Tees Mayor, even from his social media, so I have to rely on news releases and third parties for information about the site, thus my question today. It is absolutely critical that the Government work across Whitehall to support this initiative and ensure that the benefits derived are delivered to the community with well-paid jobs in the net zero sector, not just profits for a few local businesspeople. Can the Minister confirm that, despite countless promises of 30,000 jobs, just one company has so far signed a contract to set up premises at the Tees freeport?
Graham Stuart
I have known the hon. Gentleman for a long time, so it is disappointing to hear his words. He is right to say that we need co-ordination across Government, including local government, and that is why it was particularly disappointing—and I hope the hon. Gentleman would condemn them—that Labour councillors voted against plans to bring £18 million of investment to Teesside. [Interruption.] They voted against the establishment of a new body that would bring £18 million of investment to Middlesbrough.
Graham Stuart
They put ideology and party difference over the interests of their constituents.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
I am sure my hon. Friend is as delighted as I am that the United States and the EU are now following our lead in developing renewables, including offshore wind. We work closely with the Chancellor to ensure that the UK remains, as it has been consistently under this Government, the best place in the world in which to invest in offshore wind.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Graham Stuart
Seventy-seven per cent. of our energy today comes from fossil fuels. We will be using about a quarter of the gas we do today in 2050 under net zero. The idea that importing that, with higher emissions attached to it, rather than producing our own, is ridiculous environmentally, ridiculous economically and ridiculous in terms of maintaining the skills in the North sea that we are going to need for the transition, with hydrogen, carbon capture and other industries coming forward. I ask the Labour party to change its mind.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In its progress report last June, the Climate Change Committee noted that only about 40% of the Government’s plans for getting to net zero were credible. In some areas, including farming and industrial electrification, they had no plans at all. What are the Government doing to develop credible plans in those areas?
Graham Stuart
We are under a legal duty to ensure that we move to net zero, and I am delighted that we are continuing to make progress. The hon. Lady will see announcements from the Government by the end of March on our net zero plans.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Domestic heating generates 14% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions, but blending natural gas with just 20% hydrogen would be the equivalent of taking 2.5 million cars off the road. We are already lagging behind Germany, France and Chile, which have decided to blend up to 20%, while Italy, Canada and Australia are close behind. Can the Minister assure me that the Government’s decision on blending hydrogen in our gas network will be a positive one so that we can stop tailing our European counterparts?
Graham Stuart
A plethora of announcements, on a number of issues, will be coming out of the Department in the coming weeks. Hydrogen is an important area in which we are a world leader; it is my intention, as I know it is my hon. Friend’s, to ensure that we remain in pole position.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Analysis by E3G has found that a third of the funding pledged for this Parliament to make buildings energy-efficient and to decarbonise heat has not been spent by the Government. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that that money is allocated and spent, and that leaky buildings are addressed swiftly?
Electricity Transmission (Compensation) Bill
Graham Stuart ExcerptsFriday 24th February 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Electricity Transmission (Compensation) Act 2023 View all Electricity Transmission (Compensation) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 January 2023 - (25 Jan 2023)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
Once again, may I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for introducing this important legislation? I am afraid that I am not the historian of legislation that I ought to be, so I have no idea whether any Member in history has ever managed to get two private Members’ Bills in a row put into law, but my right hon. Friend is a remarkable man, and he has shown that once again by successfully steering this Bill through. The machine, as ever, always responds by trying to kill it, but such is his dexterity, insight and flexibility that no attempt to kill it is successful, and he finds a way through to deliver something that will be good for everyone. I am pleased that all the amendments were accepted in Committee on 25 January, and I am delighted to offer my support for the Bill as the Minister of State in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Although the name of my Department may have changed, the position of the Government has not, and I can confirm that the Government are fully supportive of the Bill. One key priority of the new Department is ensuring that the UK is on track to meet its legally binding net zero commitment and support economic growth by significantly speeding up delivery of electricity network infrastructure and domestic electricity generation.
The nation will have been grateful for the speech made by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), but it seemed clear from its tone that the Labour party prefers appropriation to the reasonable treatment of people in delivering this. Of course, failing to engage properly with communities will slow down the transformation we need. People thinking they can ride roughshod over communities because they scream, “Climate emergency and urgency” is not the way to do it; we have to go with the grain of communities. We have to explain the narrative. What is our narrative? As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set out, we have a vision of delivering the most competitive, lowest-cost clean energy in Europe by 2035. That will have a transformative effect, not only in terms of our leading the world in reducing emissions, as we have done to date under this Government, but in enabling the re-industrialisation of the north, Scotland and Wales, with all the economic benefits that come with that. It is this Government, not the Labour party, who have delivered. When Labour left power in 2010 only 7% of our electricity came from renewables, but now it is nearly half. We are going further and faster, but making sure we do it in a way that works with the grain of communities, because if we ride roughshod over them, they will come back and will slow us down. To answer the hon. Lady’s point, this Bill will not slow down what we are doing; it will enable us to move at the speed required and make sure that we do so in a way that retains community support.
The Bill is about the building of network infrastructure, and the planning and consenting process. I thought it would be helpful to set out the Government’s commitments in this area and the work that is already under way. It currently takes about 12 to 14 years to build or reinforce new onshore electricity transmission network infrastructure, from the initial planning to the final completion and commissioning. The development of new transmission infrastructure is often on the critical path for the connection of new generation. The wonderful and extraordinary new generation that we have helped bring about, and are going to bring about in the future, is of no use if we do not have the infrastructure to get the electrons to where they need to go. The current position offers an unacceptable timeline when the electricity network is a critical enabler of our domestic energy production targets and our decarbonisation targets. We committed in the British energy security strategy to significantly reduce the timelines by about three years for delivering onshore transmission network infrastructure. We aspire to halve this end-to-end process by the mid-2020s. So we are working with developers and supply chains to increase pipeline visibility and certainty, to help accelerate the procurement.
Work is already under way to improve the strategic planning of network infrastructure, including the holistic network design. We are also improving the planning and consenting process. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published its nationally significant infrastructure project reform action plan just yesterday, and our consultation on the revised energy national policy statements is imminent. Additionally, work is ongoing to improve work with communities and to expedite Ofgem’s regulatory approval process, but we recognise that more needs to be done. That is why in July last year my Department appointed Nick Winser CBE to the role of electricity networks commissioner. He is advising Government on how the development process for transmission infrastructure can be accelerated. He has extensive experience in electricity networks and is currently chair of the Energy Systems Catapult, which provides technical, commercial and policy expertise to drive innovation across the whole energy system. The commissioner is tasked with looking at where further improvements can be made beyond what is already in train across Government and will be looking at providing recommendations on crucial issues such as strategic network planning, planning consent and regulatory approvals. His work commenced in September and he continues to work intensively with stakeholders across the development process, within Government and across industry so that his work can deliver a valuable contribution to my Department’s aims. He hopes to submit his final recommendations to the Government for review in June. The commissioner is working in collaboration with the offshore wind champion, Tim Pick, and the offshore wind acceleration taskforce, given the importance of electricity networks to the offshore wind deployment we need. We are also working with Ofgem to speed up its regulatory approvals process. So in December, Ofgem published its decision on accelerating strategic transmission investment, which includes exempting certain strategic projects from being subject to competition. That provided greater clarity and certainty to industry on which projects should be progressed, and by whom.
Communities that host network infrastructure are playing a vital role in ensuring a cheaper, cleaner and self-sufficient energy supply in Britain. It is therefore only right that they benefit from developments in their area. Although benefits to communities are already offered by industry, now is the right time, given the scale and rate of change to which hon. Members have referred, to review how community benefits are delivered. We intend to explore whether there should be a more standardised approach, or whether providing a framework or benchmark offers more flexibility that would be of benefit to the distinct needs of individual communities and projects. We will consult in the coming weeks on options for community benefits regarding onshore network infrastructure.
The Government announced a review of the energy national policy statements to ensure that they reflect the policies set out in the energy White Paper net zero strategy and the British energy security strategy, and that we continue to have a planning policy framework that can deliver the investment required to build the infrastructure needed to ensure an independent, secure energy supply as we transition to net zero. The draft energy national policy statements were subject to parliamentary scrutiny, including by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which published its report and recommendations on 25 February. When analysing the responses to that consultation, we will take account of those and of any other resolutions as we go forward.
Let me talk now about the Bill. I have set out what we are doing to accelerate the build of network infrastructure, but as I have said, new network infrastructure must be built in a way that protects the rights of local landowners and communities. That is why the Bill has the Government’s support. We believe that it can be a bulwark for the vital transformation that is needed for our electricity network.
Transmission owners need access to private land when installing network infrastructure, and in that situation, the landowner is entitled to compensation. We recognise that in cases in which the landowner and the transmission owner cannot agree on compensation, challenging through the upper tribunal can be expensive for landowners. The Bill presents an opportunity to address that by ensuring access to alternative dispute resolution processes, which can play such a crucial role in offering a quicker and cheaper route to resolving disputes.
We need the right expertise and the right balance of views to develop proposals, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset said. That is why we will establish an alternative dispute resolution taskforce to take the work forward. I have been asked repeatedly and quite rightly about timelines, and that taskforce will be taken forward this year. Its work will complement the ongoing work within my Department. We are already reviewing the land rights and consents processes for network infrastructure. We published a call for evidence in 2022 and we are reviewing the responses.
To answer my right hon. Friend’s question on whether the scope of the proposals will extend to the distribution network and to the refurbishment of existing infrastructure, the Bill sets out only which cases must be in scope of the proposals. The Secretary of State can decide whether to extend the scope to other electricity network-related cases, including the distribution network and, indeed, refurbishment where a DCO is not in place. We envisage that the taskforce will make a recommendation on scope to the Secretary of State.
Amendments have been made to the Bill since Second Reading. I will now—briefly, I hope—explain the amendments and their purpose. Amendment 1 removed clause 1, which was replaced with new clause 1. The new clause focuses the proposals on electricity-related cases rather than gas-related cases. The new clause also moves away from proposals to establish a new mechanism to proposals to encourage use of alternative dispute resolution processes. That means that we can consider existing practices and whether they can be strengthened to meet the aims of the Bill, as well as whether new mechanisms are required. The new clause retains the key factors that the proposals must consider: that decisions are enforceable and that the process is affordable and accessible, as my right hon. Friend so fluently laid out.
Amendment 2 simply replaced “applies” with “extends” for the subsection dealing with territorial extent in clause 2 —a minor technical amendment to reflect more appropriate terminology. Amendment 3 changed commencement to two months after Royal Assent, bringing the Bill in line with standard commencement procedure for primary legislation. In line with the focus on electricity transmission infrastructure, amendment 4 removed “gas” from the Bill’s short title in clause 2. Finally, amendment 5 edited the Bill’s long title to reflect its contents in clause 1.
I thank all hon. Members who have participated at the various stages of this Bill’s progress through this place. Supporting this Bill is in line with our ongoing objective of ensuring that landowners have access to a clear, fair, affordable and enforceable system for dispute resolution. I am so grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset for introducing the Bill and for working so constructively with the Government to ensure that were able to deliver on this important issue. I hope all Members will agree that the |Bill should now move to the other place, where I hope it will gain the support of peers as it has gained the cross-party support of Members here.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) talked about David and Goliath and about the need to ensure that we have a system of infrastructure that works fairly and equally for people, and reflected on his experience in his own constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith)—there is something of a Buckinghamshire massive here today— talked about solar farms and the need for infrastructure reinforcement, and pressed me on the timeline. I hope I gave a suitable answer.
I am grateful to my officials, those in the Box and those outside: Daniel Boorman, Charles Grant, Alex Chittenden, Louise Sun and Susanna Isola from my private office. I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset to support the passage of the Bill, which I am confident will not only introduce a fairer system but aid rather than break the fast change that we need to deliver in order to have the most competitive energy system in Europe in the 2030s, which I think will underpin the return of the UK—quite properly—to its position as the premier economic power in Europe. I believe that energy is often the foundation and the secret of economic success.