Energy Security

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

The security and price of energy affect every household, individual and business in every constituency, up and down the country. It is a matter that concerns everyone. That is why, when the Secretary of State was in opposition, he promised during the last election to cut household energy bills by £300. Instead, in government, he has presided over a £200 increase in those bills. That is his record as he sets his sights on his next job, the job he so desperately craves: replacing the Prime Minister. He is also the Secretary of State who has set up GB Energy, which will not produce any energy, will cost taxpayers £8 billion and, as its own chief executive says, will take something like 20 years to employ just 1,000 people. There is nothing in the King’s Speech that will secure the country’s energy supply, bring down energy costs or create the jobs and investment that the Government have promised.

As we have heard from Members across this House, there is a consensus—there is unity. We all want to decarbonise energy use, but Conservative Members will not support doing so at the expense of families, households and individuals, particularly those who are hard up and least able to pay. This is not a binary choice, where we are either pro-decarbonisation or against it; we can be for it, yet understand that the security of energy supply and household energy bills must come first. What country in the world would run headlong into an ideological experiment for the sake of it, leaving hard-up citizens behind? No country in the world. This country should not, and this Government should not either.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Many of these problems have been put in the “too difficult” box for too long; they are long term and difficult to fix. Does the hon. Member at least acknowledge that the Government’s investment through the national wealth fund of £600 million into small modular reactors is a real step forward and will bring people’s bills down in the long term?

[Joe Robertson]

I accept that there are some difficult questions in and around this whole area of debate. The truth remains that no Government have done more to decarbonise the economy and to bring forward green technology than the last Conservative Government, but we would not do that at the expense of hard-working families. The bonkers green tax agenda that this Government are peddling is harming the debate on decarbonising the economy. I will give an example of that.

[Ms Billington]

I am comfortable with accepting that there has been a growing consensus about decarbonising our energy system over a period of time, starting with the Climate Change Act 2008, which only a handful of Conservative MPs voted against. However, I am puzzled that hon. Member thinks that the last Tory Government did that without any burden on the taxpayer or on bills, when the so-called energy savings package that Liz Truss put in place cost £44 billion and has left this country in profound debt.

[Joe Robertson]

I acknowledge that the last Government made mistakes—I do not have a problem with that—but that is not an excuse for the hon. Lady’s Government to do even worse for hard-up working families.

Bonkers green taxes harm the debate, and I will give this House an example. UK emissions trading scheme levies on the maritime sector are levied on ferry companies. My constituents on the Isle of Wight rely on those ferry companies to access things that everyone else takes for granted: health, education, jobs and seeing friends and family. Next month, someone can travel across the Solent to the Isle of Wight, taking their car on one return trip, for £511. That is for a five-mile return crossing.

The Government, instead of helping us—they say they will help, and I am still holding out hope that they will—will in July levy a carbon emission tax on the Fishbourne to Portsmouth route that the ferry company cannot avoid. It cannot decarbonise its ferries and go electric, because there is no grid charging capacity in Portsmouth harbour. There is no grid charging capacity in Southampton either. These are not strange little harbours—they are the naval base of the United Kingdom and one of the biggest export container ports respectively—yet there is not the grid capacity to charge an Isle of Wight ferry. The ferries will pay, however, and guess what: they have passed on that charge to consumers and my constituents.

[Ms Billington]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Joe Robertson]

I will give way to the hon. Lady to try again.

[Ms Billington]

Specifically on the Southampton point, it was under the Tory Government that the Labour-run Southampton council wanted to clean up and install that grid connection to be able to decarbonise shipping in that port and specifically to tackle air quality in that city. The Tories had 14 years, and they did nothing.

[Joe Robertson]

I gently say to the hon. Lady that the reason her Government are in such a mess and polling at under 20% is that she and her colleagues think that the universal excuse for her Government’s inaction is to blame a previous Government. She won that argument at the last election, and since then her Government have done nothing. Southampton will have that grid-charging capacity for boats in the mid-2030s, yet the Government are bringing in a charge in July this year. Do you know what the irony is, Madam Deputy Speaker? One of those ferries has batteries on board. It is a hybrid boat that can use batteries to cross the Solent and not burn fossil fuels, but it is being charged because it cannot use its batteries, because it has nowhere to plug into. The EU is bringing in that charge and ringfencing the money it receives from its emissions trading system to invest in grid capacity in ports—but not the UK Government; they are taking the money, shoving it into the Treasury and making no promises about investing in grid capacity. That is not the last Government; it is this Government.

I say to those on the Government Front Bench that these bonkers green levies make no sense, harm ordinary people and undermine the entire case for their green agenda.