Energy

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Stuart Anderson

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Anderson]

The hon. Member raises a very interesting point. China looked at this issue 30 years ago; when I went over to Australia about five years ago, the Australians were looking at it, and the US was looking at it, too. Every country outside of China has left this way too late. Putting in place a critical minerals strategy now is way too late, but we still need one in place. We need to look at this issue. All the magnets that we use in this country, including for MRI scans, require rare earth metals. That strategy should be in place today. We got that wrong—I am happy to admit that we did not get our rare earth metals strategy right—and it is costing us. Everybody is waking up to the need for that strategy, but we cannot say, “Let’s just pull those metals in from China; we are very happy for them to offset our carbon emissions over there.”

I also want to look at energy from a defence perspective. We need energy to ensure that we have strong defence. Recently, the Government committed to the NATO standard, which is to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence and 1.5% of GDP on defence-related areas. We should focus on article 3 of NATO—internal defence—and that 1.5% of defence-related spending should be focused on a couple of things, namely energy security and food security. I am a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and discussions are ongoing about how that money should be used. If our tanks do not have any fuel to get where they need to go, they cannot fight; that is before we even look at ammunition and things like that. Rather than saying, “We have to go faster on renewables,” we should be having the bigger discussion about national resilience and energy security. The world is the most unstable it has been since the second world war. We need something in place now, and we need to move to what is sustainable. Defence is key to that.

I have mentioned food security. Outside of Much Wenlock in my constituency, which has just been voted the happiest place to live in Shropshire—it is a lovely place to live—there are 600 acres of prime agricultural land that can grow food, and a beautiful view that is one of the best in the country. There is an application to replace it with 600 acres of solar panels. I have not found one person in the constituency who wants to turn that land into a site for solar energy; it is only the landowner who wants to. If we put solar panels all over it, as part of the roll-out of solar at speed—the Minister has mentioned that the Government are going quicker—we will be doing so with no regard for local people and what they want for their communities. This is really detrimental; the discussion about net zero is getting killed because local communities are being overridden.

I have talked about the speed of solar, and about defence and food security, but we also need to look at homes that are off the grid. In South Shropshire, only 42% of homes are on gas mains; many are off the grid. I think the average across the country is about 73%. Some of the Government’s plans that the Minister has set out are not working for a lot of off-grid communities. There are a lot of old homes in South Shropshire, many of them built pre-1945, that are too expensive to retrofit.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order.

[Stuart Anderson]

I will conclude with that. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

VAT: Independent Schools

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Stuart Anderson

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak on what I clearly see as an aspiration tax. I want to make it clear that all of my five wonderful children are in, or have gone through, state schools. One is in a school that requires improvement because of the catchment area we are in. My education was exceptionally poor. I went to the worst school in the area. I did not get any GCSEs, and when I was handed my results, the teacher said, “There you go, Anderson. I told you you’d never make anything of your life.” My experience of education was not good, but I am a Conservative because I believe in opportunity. I did not have those opportunities as a child, but I believe that everybody should have them.

There are about 1,000 children in my constituency who go to Moor Park school, Bedstone college or Concord college; I have visited all three. Bringing in VAT for independent schools will create huge pressure. I believe that the measure is rushed. It has not been thought through, and it will have a massive impact on all those schools. Some parents will be able to afford it and will not feel the pinch, but many parents I have spoken to in my constituency work two jobs, have one car and do not go on holiday. They do everything they can to give their children the best opportunity in life. That should be championed. We should not remove these opportunities. We should have great state schools across our country, but if somebody wants to work hard and strive, and aspires to give their children the best opportunities they can, we should not remove that. We do that at our own cost.

Growing up, my dad was a soldier, and my mum also served in the military. Many of my friends at school moved around every two years or so. I, too, was a soldier and had children while I served in the military. I know the Minister is a supporter of the armed forces, and even the Secretary of State for Defence has said how serious this measure is for military families. In this debate, there will be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, but I urge the Government to take seriously the impact that this policy will have on military families. To bring it in as a blanket measure will be detrimental. We will see people leave the armed forces; that will be the cost. That would not be a good way to do this. I am asking for time. Can we push this back? We have talked about what to do to fill the gap. Recruiting more people and raising the standard of state schools will not have happened by January, so we need to look for a time to bring in this measure; mid-term does not work.

The measure will have an impact on special educational needs and disabilities, and people who aspire to send their children to private school, but what is important to me and many of my constituents are military families. I urge the Government to think about that, and come to a decision very quickly about military families, because people are deciding whether to stay in the forces or sign off. Our great men and women in the armed forces need certainty that their children’s education will not be disrupted.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Antonia Bance to make her maiden speech.