UK Energy Costs

Debate between Keir Starmer and Baroness May of Maidenhead

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I take it from that intervention that the hon. and learned Gentleman does not quarrel with me that the ban on onshore wind since 2015 has been a policy disaster, along with the opposition to solar power.

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will of course take the former Prime Minister’s intervention.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is talking about lack of preparation for the United Kingdom’s energy security. If Labour is so worried about that, why did it not build any new nuclear capacity?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention and I will deal with it in full, because it is a very important point. Nuclear is vital to our future, and a new generation of power plants should have been built by now. Yesterday, the Prime Minister desperately tried to blame Labour, and that intervention goes to that point. I remember the exchange across the Dispatch Box in 2006 when Prime Minister Blair said that he was pro-nuclear, and the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, did not know where to look. If Members have not seen the clip, they should have a look. The uncomfortable truth for Members opposite is that the last Labour Government gave the go-ahead for new nuclear sites in 2009. In the 13 long years since then, not one has been completed.