Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

You want more? You won’t get more at this rate, will you? Mr Penrose has been waiting patiently. Why do you not want to hear him? I do.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

2. The biggest factor driving up our fuel bills and cost of living is the sky-rocketing international price of gas, which is currently dancing to a tune set in Moscow. Does the Prime Minister agree that Labour’s short-term proposals to shift the burden from bill payers to taxpayers will not address the fundamental underlying problem at all, and that the crisis demands structural reforms to the energy price cap, rather than just resetting it to later this year, as well as energy self-sufficiency to uncouple us from Russian gas?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend, who is completely right. That is why this Government are taking the tough decision to invest in the long-term future of our energy supply, investing in massively increasing our supply of renewables but nuclear as well. That is the right way forward for this country. It was Labour, of course, who completely failed to take those decisions, with the result that nuclear, in particular, fell away dramatically. It is absolutely farcical that Labour’s answer today to the energy price rises that my hon. Friend correctly diagnoses is to nationalise our energy—[Interruption.] Yes it is. Is it? Well, maybe they have changed their minds now, but it was. Maybe they have had second thoughts. But their answer was to nationalise our energy sector and to send bills even higher, and that is not the way forward.