Energy

Debate between Perran Moon and Claire Coutinho

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the reliability of electricity, which is what we need. We need electricity that will work in the winter when the sun is not shining, or when the wind is not blowing.

The question I would ask is this: why is the Labour party signing up to those high prices and locking all our constituents in for 20 years? It is because the Secretary of State is in the pocket of the wind developers. These are the highest prices for wind power that we have seen in a decade. [Interruption.] Ministers might shake their heads, but that is just a fact. It is much higher than the price of electricity right now, so why would they be buying more than ever before at the highest prices in a generation and fixing those prices for 20 years? I say this to Labour Members: if their constituents are saying to them—which I am sure they are—that their bills are too high now, what will they say to them in January, when it will be the Labour party that locks them all into even higher prices for longer?

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

Can the right hon. Member remind the House which party was in power when we reached cripplingly high energy prices that led to the cost of living crisis that we have today?

[Claire Coutinho]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that when I was Energy Secretary, bills came down by £500. Under this Secretary of State, they have gone up by £200. What he needs to explain to his constituents is why signing up to higher prices on inflation-linked contracts for 20 years will fulfil the promise he made to those constituents to cut their bills by £300. I wish he could explain that.

It is worth Labour Members listening to this. From the Tony Blair Institute to the most respected energy economist, Sir Dieter Helm, everybody has pointed out this risk to them. It has not come to them without warning, the fact that they are signing up to prices much more expensive than gas for decades. They are on the wrong side of this debate and they are on the wrong side of consumers. Come January, when the results are published, everybody will be able to see that. And they will ask them: were you warned? Did you do your job in Parliament and speak up for me and my bills? Here is the problem. Their whole position is not driven by what is best for consumers; it is driven by ideology. Nowhere is that clearer than in their war on the North sea. When Scottish Renewables says that Labour’s policy on oil and gas is damaging the transition, surely even Labour Members must realise that they are on the wrong path.