Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We have already taken action to reduce the cost of bills—the £150 that was announced earlier this year. I come back to the point: we will do whatever we can to give households breathing space as we drive the big change, but part of the big change is diversifying our energy mix. That does mean more renewables and more nuclear, so that we are not as exposed as we are to global fossil fuel markets. The hon. Member’s constituents can see what is driving up bills. We have a plan to tackle that; the Conservative party does not.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

T6. The Government entered office with a target to decarbonise the grid by 2030. The Public Accounts Committee looked at the previous Government’s plans to do so by 2035, which were over-optimistic. I welcome the new Secretary of State to her position. Will she reassure us that she will get into the detail of that project, and when will she announce to the House what the real date will be?

[Michael Shanks]

When we came into government, we set this incredibly ambitious target to decarbonise the power system, which meant 95% of our electricity coming from clean sources. We have done everything possible to move towards that, and we are closer than we have ever been. It is worth saying that every single solar farm and wind farm that we switch on helps us to get off gas. In just the past few months since what has been happening in the middle east has taken course, we have been saving £5 million a day in displacing gas from the system because of the clean power mission. We are making huge progress and will continue pushing towards it.