Martin Wrigley
Main Page: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)Department Debates - View all Martin Wrigley's debates with the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
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Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
The biggest issue in my inbox is the cost of living and the cost of energy in particular. In the south-west, we are a net contributor to renewable energy, and we could do even more with tidal power investment. Yet our energy bills are higher than the national average. In my Newton Abbot constituency, we have higher fuel poverty than the average, and 23% of households in the district are in off-gas-grid areas.
Yet we face electricity bills based on the price of gas. That is because the electricity generation market is set up using so-called marginal cost pricing, which effectively increases the wholesale price of renewables to that of electricity generated by gas because gas power plants are flexible and used to top up the supply. Even though a significant and increasing proportion of the UK’s electricity is generated by sources with low marginal costs such as wind, solar and nuclear power, these generators also receive the higher marginal price set by gas.
Under the marginal pricing system, the UK’s electricity market price is set by gas 98% of the time—the highest rate across Europe and well above the EU average of just 40%. All that is under the Government-controlled system of contract to energy generators, to provide a level of certainty in the productivity and supply. But we have to break the tie with gas and marginal cost pricing.
The introduction of contracts for difference, used most significantly for offshore wind and introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) in the Energy Act 2013, is a good step but it still relies on setting a strike price for energy, which is heavily influenced by the price of gas at the time of the deal. In the 12 months to September 2025, renewables accounted for 42% of the UK’s total energy mix, while figures for the second quarter of 2025 indicate that renewables made up a record 54% of electricity generation.
The answer for cheaper bills, according to experts, is to intervene in the design of the market to stop the cost of gas plants from setting the price for the whole market, not to increase the reliance on fossil fuels that are choking the planet to death with carbon emissions.