Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

6. What plans he has to support the development of carbon capture, utilisation and storage projects at Acorn.

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

7. What recent steps his Department has taken to support carbon capture and storage.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Sarah Jones)]

On 4 October, the Government announced £21.7 billion over the next 25 years to launch the UK’s carbon capture, utilisation and storage industry. We will provide further details on the next steps for CCUS, including track 2 projects such as Acorn, in the coming months.

[Sarah Jones]

We are committed to track 2, and I recognise the huge advantages of Acorn that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted. Our record £21.7 billion investment demonstrates our long-term commitment and gives industry the certainty it needs. The ups and downs of CCUS under the previous Government did not provide the certainty that people required, and certainty is what we are looking to deliver. We understand that people want clarity, and we will be making further announcements in the coming months.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The path to carbon capture and storage is littered with failure: three previous projects never got off the ground, despite lots of taxpayer money going into them. What precisely are the Government going to do to ensure that this project delivers?

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Lady would look towards me a little bit, I will be able to hear the question.

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Friday 26th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has already become a very strong advocate for his constituents. He cornered me in the Library to talk about these issues, and long may he continue to do so. He raises a really important point. The whole point of our partnership with the Crown Estate is that we will be able to look not just at investment in the clean power that we need, but at the supply chain creating good jobs in industrial communities. Our commitment to the British jobs bonus means that we will invest in those jobs in this country, creating the skills for the future.

Finally on GB Energy, as a Scottish MP it would be wrong of me not to say that I am incredibly proud that Great British Energy will be headquartered in Scotland. It is a signal of our commitment to delivering the good jobs that communities need, and to bringing the expertise and skills of Scotland’s growing renewables sector to the table as we drive forward towards even more ambitious plans across the whole country. In the driving seat of these ambitions is our new mission control centre, led by the former chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, Chris Stark. Mission control is about bringing together the best minds across Whitehall, but also, crucially, outside of Whitehall, so that we can set the direction, monitor progress and remove all the barriers in the way, whether they relate to the planning grid, supply chains or skills, so that the Government can work with one voice to deliver this plan.

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

On barriers, one of the key challenges is the capacity of our construction industry. Is my hon. Friend having conversations across Government about how we resolve that issue, so that we can deliver on this crucial agenda of moving towards net zero?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. This transition has to be hand in hand with the industrial strategy that the Government are driving forward. That is why the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones) is also a Business and Trade Minister; that will bring together work right across Government on the industrial strategy. We also have to look at the skills for the future, and developing the next generation of apprentices and skilled workers, who will be in jobs that will be with us long into the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I say how wonderful it is to see you in the Chair?

I warmly welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) to his place on the Government Front Bench. I know that he used to be a schoolteacher, a wonderful profession, and I am sure that his ability to wrangle with unruly children will help him with his work in this place.

I also welcome the continuation of the fine tradition started by my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) of having a Minister from Scotland in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Scotland has played, and will continue to play, a vital role in our energy security, and I know that the hon. Member will bring his local expertise to the role.

I was surprised to see the title of this debate. Under the Conservative Government, we built more offshore wind than any other country bar China, much of it driven by our contracts for difference scheme, which weaves together the Conservative principles of competition and enterprise. It was under the Conservative Government that we went from having 7% of our electricity coming from renewable energy to almost half today, and it was under the Conservative Government that we kick-started the largest nuclear revival in 70 years, committing to three large-scale nuclear reactors and a whole new fleet of small and advanced modular reactors. That is the record that has led to more than £300 billion being invested in green technology since 2010, creating jobs up and down the country.

The Labour party likes to say that the difference between us is that they are the climate believers and we are the climate deniers, but that is obviously nonsense. It was under the Conservative Government that we became the first country in the G20 to have halved carbon emissions, and we did that while growing the economy. The real difference between us is this: we know that the transition needs to happen, but we recognise that it is now at a stage where we are asking the British public to incur great costs—to change their cars, their homes and many other things. We are way ahead of other countries, and what happens next is not cost free. If it is not managed carefully, if it is driven by ideology rather than the national interest, then it will cost us jobs, hit struggling families and leave us reliant on fuel imports from foreign regimes. This country will succeed in the decades ahead only if we have enough cheap energy to power our nation. It is no use being world-leading at cutting emissions if the cost of our energy goes through the roof and all our businesses leave to set up in countries that still burn coal for 60% of their energy. That would be worse for global emissions and a disaster for the British public.

We will do our bit from the Opposition Benches to hold the Government to account on their plans, but my message to those MPs now sitting on the Government Benches is that it is in their interest to ask these crucial questions too. Throughout the general election campaign, the people now sitting on the Benches behind the Minister told their new constituents that their plans would save them £300 on their energy bills—they said it in hustings, they said it in local media, they said it on their leaflets— but they will have noticed by now that their Ministers are no longer saying that at all.

This is the problem, Madam Deputy Speaker: when you get into government and you speak in the House, you cannot use numbers for which you have no basis. [Interruption.] Labour Members will learn that. But their voters—[Interruption.] They laugh, but their voters will not forget that they made that promise. Their online clips and social media accounts will not go away. They all know that their leadership have sold them down the river on this one. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State know that those savings cannot be delivered; in fact, their approach to energy will add huge costs to people’s bills.

That is not us being evil Tories. It is also the view of the European lead for Mitsubishi Power, who said that the Labour party’s plans would require a “huge sacrifice” from Brits; it is the view of the GMB trade union, which has said that the Secretary of State’s plans will lead to power cuts and blackouts across the country and come at an enormous cost; and it is the view of the Tony Blair Institute, which says that Labour’s plans would raise bills and harm our energy security. People the Labour party normally listens to, from the right to the left of the party, agree with us on this issue.

I urge the hon. Members sitting behind the Minister to take this issue seriously and examine his plans in detail, because it is their promise, which they all made just a few weeks ago, that is being ditched. Come the next election, the first question their voters will ask is not, “Have you met the 2030 target?”, but, “What did you do to my energy bills?” If the trade unions, the business leaders and the Conservative party are right that their approach would place huge costs on British households, I can tell them that their constituents will check the parliamentary records and see whether they asked any questions, and they will have to explain why they let these measures pass without challenge.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I have to congratulate the right hon. Lady on her chutzpah after 14 years of Conservative government. I have examined closely those net zero policies—the stop-start on feed-in tariffs, the failed competitions for carbon capture and storage, and the stalling of new nuclear. She does not have a record that she should be proud to stand on, and I would have hoped that she would graciously accept and back the innovative plans of the Labour Government.

[Claire Coutinho]

I have enormous respect for the hon. Lady, but I disagree, particularly on nuclear, because every single operational nuclear power plant in this country was started by Conservatives.

I will offer some suggestions for questions that Labour Members might like to ask. They like to say that renewables are cheap, and they are cheap to operate. After all, wind and sunshine are free. However, if we want to know what a type of power will do to our bills, we have to look at the full system costs. If we race ahead with renewables at the same time as making our gas power stations uninvestable, what will be our back-up when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, and how much does that cost the system? New technologies such as small modular nuclear reactors, carbon capture, and batteries of long duration storage are all welcome, but they will not be ready by 2030. What will be used, and how much will it cost?

Will the largest nuclear expansion in 70 years, which I set out, be sacrificed to pay for GB Energy? I know that Ministers barely refer to it any more, but nuclear will be critical to our energy supply in the years ahead. Have they made an assessment of how much their plans will increase our reliance on the current dominant provider of pylons, cables, batteries and solar panels, which is China? If not, when will they do so? How much private investment into the energy transition will they lose through their plans to tax the North sea into oblivion and ban new oil and gas licences? It is not a coincidence that many integrated energy companies in this country pursue both oil and gas and renewable projects at the same time; it is because they use the same skills, supply chain and workers. Industry says that more than £400 billion is at risk from these plans. GB Energy, at £8 billion, will not touch the sides of replacing that. How much will be lost, and where will the extra money come from? Will it be from central Government through people’s taxes, or will it be through the bills and standing charges of all our constituents?

The Government keep claiming—I think the Minister did so today—that GB Energy will turn a profit. I believe he said that “every single project” will make a return, but the slice of the pie that they want to invest in is the slice that even businesses do not think they can make money from. That is what de-risking means. Members should ask on what basis the Secretary of State thinks that he can turn a profit for the British taxpayer when highly experienced energy companies believe that they cannot.

If I were to give one piece of advice to the Minister it would be to do what I did when I first started the job. He should not listen to just one side of the climate lobby who pretend that there are no costs involved in this transition, but go to speak to industry, and to oil and gas workers, and listen to how much those families value secure, well-paid jobs on their doorstep. He should not follow the Secretary of State’s path of quoting only from the Climate Change Committee, and never from business or industry. The Minister’s job, first and foremost, is to keep bills down and the lights on. He should not forget those last two priorities, or he will find that those on the Benches behind him will turn very quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Does my hon. Friend agree that these 14 years of Conservative government have been a missed opportunity? We have been shipping in components for wind turbines that could have been manufactured here, for example. We need the industrial revolution that a Labour Government will deliver.

[Mary Glindon]

Indeed, we certainly need to seize the moment now.

Our determination in this place to raise living standards for working people must be unwavering, and good jobs have their role to play in that. The past 14 years have seen unprecedented levels of wage stagnation. Resolution Foundation data shows that wages returned to pre-financial crisis levels only last year. That decade and a half of lost wage growth has cost the average worker more than £10,500 a year. I thought that there was a one nation tradition among those on the Opposition Benches—an element of the Conservative party that cared about raising living standards for the worst off—but after 14 years the Tories have left us with two nations: one rich, one poor.

As we try to unpick the mess that the Labour Government have inherited, the growth of green industry will be an exciting part of the way forward. I am thrilled that companies seeing the opportunities that Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend has to offer are bringing jobs to the region in the process. The expansion of green hydrogen is just one example of that. During a recent visit, I was amazed at the ambition of GeoPura’s hydrogen project at Siemens Energy in Byker, where it produces hydrogen power units to replace traditional diesel generators. That is an example of the private sector at its best: the sharpest minds coming together to solve some of the biggest problems that we face.

I am proud of the breadth of the energy and offshore sectors in my constituency. That includes the area’s oil and gas industry, which has understandable concerns about its future. We need to think exceptionally carefully about how we shape the sector in the coming years for working people who earn their living from oil and gas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

6. What recent discussions she has had with businesses on the Government’s net zero targets.

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

16. What recent discussions she has had with businesses on the Government’s net zero targets.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

I meet regularly with business leaders and chair several groups bringing together Government and industry so that we can drive progress towards net zero. That includes the Net Zero Council, which is meeting next week and includes members from right across the economy. Like me, they are delighted that the UK is leading the world in tackling climate change. We are the first major economy to halve its emissions, ahead of every other major economy, and we have one of the most ambitious decarbonisation targets in the world.

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which has a sort of comic element given Labour’s monumental failure to deliver renewables when it was in power, coupled with the fact that it wants to bring forward GB Energy. That, as his left-wing colleague, the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) just said, would be public investment. It would drive out private investment and destroy the transformation of the UK energy system that has happened under the Conservatives—it had flatlined under Labour. We have led the world and have now decarbonised more than any other major economy on the planet. Under the policies of this Conservative Government, which major world economy is predicted to decarbonise fastest by 2030? This one.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

If I may puncture the Minister’s rant, I would like to ask him what certainty his Government will give businesses. We need a £23 billion combined investment from the public and private sectors, but because targets have been missed, that figure will need to double or treble every year between now and 2050, according to a Public Accounts Committee report. The Government’s chopping and changing in delivering what they need to do is a big problem in businesses having the confidence to invest. That has happened on his watch, so what is he doing to improve the situation?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her work on the Committee in holding the Government to account. Of course, we have realised £198 billion of investment into clean energy since 2010, and we have a plan, which we set out in “Powering Up Britain”. The Labour party has only an intention to borrow £28 billion a year, putting up families’ taxes, putting up bills and destroying the most investable market in Europe that we have had to date. We will have another £100 billion of private investment by 2030, and the Conservatives will carry on our work leading the world in transforming our energy system so that we have lower-cost, home-produced energy while also delivering on net zero—things that signally did not happen under Labour.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

Just for assurance, we have held conversations with Ofgem and suppliers to make sure no forced instalments have taken place yet. We are scrutinising the system to ensure that all vulnerable people are able to access the energy they need.

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

7. If she will take steps to increase the number of onshore wind farms.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

This has been a record year for onshore wind, which is already the largest renewables technology. The latest contract for difference added an unprecedented 1.7 GW.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Minister seems to be comparing figures I have not seen. If it is a record year, why have we seen such a dramatic drop in planning applications for onshore wind farms and in the number of onshore wind farms delivered? From a peak of 64 applications in 2011, it went right down to zero in 2019 and now to 10 in 2022, the latest figures the House of Commons Library could provide. That does not seem like a record year to me. Is it not time the Government stopped shilly-shallying on onshore wind and backed the builders, not the blockers?

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is renowned in the House for her arithmetic skills, but in this case they seem to have failed her. The 1.7 GW is a tremendous success. I share her enthusiasm for onshore wind where communities support it. In September, the Government announced changes to planning policy for onshore wind in England to help make it easier and quicker for local planning authorities to consider and, where appropriate, approve onshore wind projects where there is local support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

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

12. If she will take steps to ensure that consumers do not pay for heat network remediation.

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

15. What steps she is taking to support heat network customers with energy bills.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)]

The Government are providing millions in support for remedial work through the heat networks efficiency scheme. We are supporting customers with their bills via the energy bills discount scheme. Through the Energy Bill we will appoint Ofgem as a heat network regulator, so that customers benefit from fairer prices.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I must declare that I live in a block with a heat network. Many heat networks will be quite expensive to change under the technical rules proposed by the Government for 2024. Given many blocks have also had cladding and other pressures on leaseholders, are the Government looking carefully to ensure that customers are not being overlayered with many more charges to remediate networks?

[Amanda Solloway]

Through the heat network efficiency scheme, the Government are providing £32 million to upgrade existing heat networks and reduce energy costs. The scheme will upgrade old equipment and help consumers in more than 10,000 houses to reduce their energy use. We will shortly announce the first awards from the fund.