Energy

Debate between Luke Evans and Tim Farron

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

Fuel poverty is a reality and a stain on our country. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise it on behalf of his community.

Let us get to the heart of this debate. We must bring energy bills down, and the question is how. I am afraid that the plan put forward by the Conservatives is nothing more than a mirage. They say that we should cut bills by removing the renewable obligation levy—that is great. As always, we are ahead of them and have set out our plan to do just that, but the key difference is that our plan is properly funded through a windfall tax on the extra payments that the big banks are getting as a result of quantitative easing. The plan in this motion is funded by the Conservative hand wave—a classic these days—of saying, “We’ll just cut spending.” What happened to the Conservative party being the party of sound money?

[Dr Luke Evans]

rose—

[Tim Farron]

I will let the hon. Gentleman explain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Evans]

In the previous debate, we talked about tax, and the funding that the hon. Gentleman mentions was also being used to deal with the tax burden on the high street. Will he explain the Liberal Democrat policy? How would they levy these taxes on social media giants and big banks, and where would that money go? It seems as if they are spending it twice in one afternoon.

[Tim Farron]

That is not the case. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning two of the sources of the additional income that we would raise. It is all very well just to blandly say, “We will get the money from somewhere,” but not to say where. The Liberal Democrats have said where we will find the money. His party has done nothing of the sort. The people who support sound money and wise economics are leaving his party in droves, and many of them are coming to the Liberal Democrats.