Draft Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 General Committees

[Martin McCluskey]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. On the points raised by the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson, in Q2 of this year energy bills will be lower than they were in 2024. He does not need to take that from me; he can see that in the research of the Resolution Foundation. He talks about expensive costs of energy. I agree that, in this country, we have some of the most expensive energy. That did not happen in the 18 months of a Labour Government, that has been building for a number of years, including during the period that he was in this role in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The only thing that seems to have changed with the hon. Gentleman over the last 18 months is that he has abandoned his commitment to clean power and net zero, which was well documented, not just in Hansard, but on his own website. We discussed that in the Chamber just a few months ago. His policy, which would see us turn away from clean power, is, bluntly, a road to ruin. We would expose people to further volatility in fuel prices and to the fact that we are already over-exposed to the price of gas. We would also continue to make ourselves reliant on energy supplies that are coming from petrostates. Over the last few weeks, we have seen the impact of being overly reliant on oil and gas supplies coming from overseas.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

If the Minister issued new oil and gas licences for the North sea we could produce more of our oil and gas here at home. That would mitigate some of the problems that he has just raised about being over-reliant on oil states.

[Andrew Bowie]

Absolutely right.