Russian Oil Import Ban

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend raises a particularly important point. We had a discussion at the IEA ministerial only last week where we all agreed as a collective to release our stock. That was an American initiative that we supported. Clearly, we need to work as an international community to ensure we can provide enough supply to dampen the increase in prices that we are seeing.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I welcome the spirit of these plans, but I urge the Government to act even faster. Russian gas and oil constitutes just a tiny fraction of the UK’s energy mix and we must break this last lifeline to the Putin regime as soon as we can. I am also deeply concerned to hear Government Members call for a resumption of fracking, which would be a betrayal of the commitments we made to the world in Glasgow just five months ago. Will the Secretary of State today commit to ruling out further investment in fossil fuels and instead pledge his Department’s support for an ambitious new green deal and wide-ranging investments in renewables, including the Mersey tidal project, so that we can finally set ourselves on the path of true energy independence?