Offshore Wind

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

The right hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that gas is falling, but she is just making a gamble. At the time of the greatest geopolitical instability in a generation, she is gambling on stability. I am not going to make that gamble. We will have home-grown clean power, and we are going to take back control.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I welcome the results of the AR7 allocation. This is about protecting working families from volatile fossil fuel prices set by foreign powers that have repeatedly used oil and gas as geopolitical weapons. Relying on Trump’s America or Putin’s Russia to keep the lights on puts us all at risk. Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy, and it is only through renewable energy that we can deliver permanently low and secure energy prices and help with the cost of living crisis, and not just today but in the long term. While procuring 8.4 GW of offshore wind puts the country on track for the Government’s 2030 clean power target, research from RenewableUK shows that is the minimum needed, leaving very little room for delays—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

We have about 20 minutes left. Questions need to be shorter, and answers need to be just as short.

[Ed Miliband]

That is why the clean industry bonus is so important. We will be announcing more about this tomorrow, because it is going to lever in massive amounts of private investment, including in supply chains.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend speaks very knowledgeably on these issues and he is absolutely right. We changed the auction design not just to be able to see the so-called bid stack, which they could not under the previous regime, but to allow more projects in to increase competitive tension to get a better deal for the bill payer and the taxpayer. He is absolutely right: we should keep innovating for both fixed technology and other technologies to maximise value for money and deployment.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Dr Jeevun Sandher—I hope it has been worth the wait.

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Affordability is the biggest issue facing our country and climate change is the biggest issue facing our planet. That is why today’s announcement is such, such good news: wind power 40% cheaper than natural gas. Bizarrely, Reform called that lunacy. The shadow Secretary of State used to agree with us and she used to support the Climate Change Act 2008, but now she agrees with Reform. Does the Secretary of State believe that the shadow Secretary of State may be planning to join the best and the brightest of her former colleagues and become defector No. 21?

[Ed Miliband]

It was worth waiting for. I will let the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) speculate on her own future and whether she is going to join another political party. In all seriousness, I do think it is sad. The truth is that we used to pride ourselves as a country on competing, between political parties, to succeed when it came to building our clean energy future. It is deeply regrettable. There are many sensible voices on the Conservative side who shake their heads when I talk to them about the direction their party has taken. Fundamentally, my hon. Friend is right: this is central to tackling the affordability crisis, central to tackling the climate crisis in our country, and central to giving us energy security.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We got through that in 48 minutes, which is much faster than we hoped. Well done to everybody.