Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Stephen Flynn.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

As we have just heard, the CBI, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and Citizens Advice Scotland have all expressed profound concern about the lack of certainty coming from the Government on their energy price strategy. But let us not stop there, because Age Scotland has produced a report in the past couple of days outlining that four in 10 older people in Scotland are now living in fuel poverty. Indeed, one of the respondents stated:

“The cost of living means I had to cut back on food shopping, and often go weeks with no food. It’s making me unwell.”

How does the right hon. Gentleman expect people to survive this winter?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Everyone in this House is concerned about their constituents, the least well-off constituents, which is why such a big package of support has been put together—not just the price cap, which for the average household would be £2,500, converted into units of electricity, but the additional support given for the least well-off. So there is a further £400 that everybody is getting and £800 that is available to people on certain benefits. He is right to raise the issue of their difficulties, and I always admire the work done by Citizens Advice, which receives a portion of its funding from BEIS and rightly so. As constituency MPs, we all know what a useful organisation it is. The whole purpose of this package is to support the least well-off and give them certainty over the winter. He does not help by creating fear and uncertainty.

[Stephen Flynn]

As ever, the Secretary of State is living on a different planet. The energy price guarantee, to which he refers, is of course a unit price cap, not a usage price cap. That means that average bills in Scotland are not going to be £2,500; they are going to be £3,300 and in rural areas they are going to top £4,000. That is despite the fact that Scotland produces six times more gas than we consume and that almost all of our electricity comes from low-carbon sources. On Westminster’s watch, Scotland is energy-rich but fuel-poor. Is it not the case that at this moment the solution to Scotland’s problems does not rest with his party and his incoming Government? Indeed, it does not rest with this Parliament at all, does it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

There is a certain eccentricity in the Scottish nationalists’ boasting of the amount of oil and gas they get when they have been opposing efforts to increase the licensing round. They really cannot have it both ways. They have this fantasy approach to politics where they spend money that they have not got, they rely on the UK taxpayer to support them and then they complain that it is all the fault of Westminster. I am afraid that without Westminster the hon. Gentleman and his merry band would be bankrupt.