Oral Answers to Questions

Perran Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have great respect, was present when the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), made a statement on precisely that issue. On the impact on bills, he will be delighted to know that under the new arrangements that this Government agreed, there has been an absolute transformation in the scale of subsidy to Drax; it will be halved. There is also a windfall tax when its profits go above a certain level, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is in favour of, and there are much higher standards of sustainability. He is right that we should take these issues seriously.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

The Conservative party abandoned the economy, the NHS, the justice system and immigration, and now it is joining its Reform collaborators and other climate change deniers in the dunce’s corner. Does the Secretary of State agree that, unlike this Government, who recognise the triple benefit of the 2030 goal—energy security, a transition to renewables, and job creation—the Conservative party has no solutions for 21st century Britain?

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend should not be so shy and retiring. He makes a really important point. I listened to the interim shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), on the radio this morning. He made net zero 2050 sound like a target dreamed up by me, but it is not. It was Theresa May, the former Conservative Prime Minister, who legislated for net zero by 2050. The hon. Member was her Parliamentary Private Secretary at the time—he was supposed to be the man implementing it. She set the target because it was the right thing to do, so that we can have cleaner home-grown energy, get the jobs, and protect future generations.