Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

4. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published on 20 March 2023.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published on 20 March 2023.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

10. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published on 20 March 2023.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

I agree with the hon. Lady on the importance of improving our housing stock. It is not only good for the environment but, just as importantly, it helps to reduce fuel poverty and supports families. That is why, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State just pointed out, we have made such impressive strides since the rather woeful situation we inherited: just 14% of homes were properly insulated in 2010—it is about half now. I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to go further and faster, and that is why we are spending that £12.5 billion and why we have set up a dedicated energy efficiency taskforce.

[Richard Burgon]

New analysis shows that, if the Government allow the Rosebank oilfield off the Shetland Islands to go ahead, it will blow the UK’s climate targets. Rosebank’s developers will get billions in tax breaks due to the deliberate loopholes that the Government have put in their windfall tax, but it will do nothing to lower people’s bills. The United Nations Secretary-General, the International Energy Agency and leading scientists are all saying there should be no new oil and gas, so is it not time for the Minister to rule out Rosebank?

Powering Up Britain

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend will understand that I cannot make policy commitments to Wylfa on the hoof. What I can tell her is that it has already been assessed as one of the best nuclear sites in the UK and that if the energy focus, determination and sheer drive of the Member of Parliament has anything to do with it, Wylfa has a very positive and strong nuclear future ahead of it. I look forward to working with her. I am sure that if he has not visited already, the new Minister for Nuclear and Networks—the first time this country has ever had a Minister with “nuclear” in their title—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), will visit her in her constituency.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The way to deliver energy security, tackle the climate crisis and lower bills as quickly as possible is through renewables, yet the Government are hooked on ever more oil and gas production, and on handing massive subsidies to polluting companies. Over 700 scientists have written to the Prime Minister to ask him to grant no new oil and gas licences, a call backed by the United Nations Secretary-General. Is it not time that the Minister used his powers to prevent the development of the Rosebank oilfield?

[Graham Stuart]

We are accelerating renewables as quickly as we possibly can. As I say, we have transformed the dire situation we inherited and we are moving as fast as we can on that, but we are going to need, and be dependent on, oil and gas for decades to come. Under net zero, we will still be using a quarter of the gas we use today. The hon. Gentleman is saying to his constituents, “Let’s pay billions to foreign, sometimes hostile, states, rather than producing our own.” That is economic madness. The gas we bring in on tankers has two and a half times the emissions of our domestically produced gas. On what planet would any rational and reasonable constituency MP want to propose that, unless they had some strange affinity with somewhere like Russia?