Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to help increase the production of domestic clean power.

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

12. What steps he is taking to help increase the production of clean power.

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)]

The two renewables auctions under this Government have secured power for the equivalent of 23 million homes, and we are embarked on the biggest nuclear building programme for 50 years. The war in Iran shows that we need to go further and faster, so we will open our next renewables auction next month. We recently signed contracts for a fleet of Rolls-Royce small modular reactors. Clean power is already reducing wholesale electricity prices by up to a quarter, and those steps will do more to protect families and businesses across our country.

[Mr Dhesi]

For my Slough constituents, the crisis in Iran and the naval blockade have had a profound impact on household budgets, but we have also been left vulnerable by previous Conservative-led Governments who ran down our energy system for over a decade, leaving us on the fossil fuel rollercoaster and susceptible to global fluctuations. Unlike our Tory predecessors who failed to invest and did not provide for our constituents, what measures are the Government taking to invest in cheap, clean, home-grown energy so that my Slough constituents, and others across the country, can be protected from those spikes in the cost of living?

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The central fact that we cannot get away from is that we are price takers not price makers when it comes to oil and gas, and that is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of where the Opposition are. We are going to drive further and faster on clean power, including electrification across the economy. Indeed, customers are already better protected as a result of the renewables in our system, but we must go further and faster.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all his work championing both this area and the concerns of his constituents. As he rightly says, planning policy and guidance encourage large solar projects to locate on previously developed or lower value land and we will indeed undertake to be vigilant in ensuring that those principles are respected.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

T4. Given the UK’s decline under this Government to seventh place behind the US and Germany in attracting green investment as per Ernst and Young’s analysis, what urgent steps is the Secretary of State taking to boost our competitiveness in green industries?

Road Fuel Prices

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for championing the consumer, as he always does. As he will be well aware, tax is a matter for the Chancellor, but the whole House will have heard his passionate call to make sure that taxes are held down to the lowest amount they possibly can be. That is one more reason why we cannot have the Labour party taking control of the country.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

In March, the RAC revealed that retailers are making a three times bigger margin on diesel than they were at the beginning of last year, and motorists are seeing absolutely no benefit from the Chancellor’s fuel duty cut. Given the Government’s dither and delay on taking any sort of action, how does the Minister feel when the Government’s flagship policy to help motorists is having little to no impact?

[Graham Stuart]

We are furious that these price cuts have not been passed on to consumers. That is why we asked the CMA to investigate and to get further into the detail, and it is why we will implement its findings in full.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

12. What estimate his Department has made of the number of families in fuel poverty.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

13. What estimate his Department has made of the number of families in fuel poverty.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

16. What estimate his Department has made of the number of families in fuel poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

I reiterate that we have been giving unprecedented support to domestic and non-domestic customers throughout this incredibly difficult situation, and we are making sure that we review the situation on an ongoing basis.

[Mr Dhesi]

At a time when many of my Slough constituents are struggling to pay their energy bills, oil and gas giants are raking in the windfalls of war, but the Prime Minister and his Government are too weak to stand up for the British people, and especially for the increasing number of households now living in fuel poverty. Energy efficiency measures are one of the best routes to tackling fuel poverty, but unfortunately not a penny of new money was announced in the Government’s relaunch just last month. Why is there such complacency when installation rates in 2020 were 20 times lower than in 2010?

[Amanda Solloway]

It has been estimated that without the additional support, a further 350,000 households in England would have been in fuel poverty in 2022. Energy efficiency improvements remain the best way to tackle fuel poverty in the long term and contribute to long-term reductions in both energy bills and carbon emissions, in line with net zero.