Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

It is not a gimmick to protect 200,000 jobs. It is not a gimmick to protect the investment that will go into the cleaner energies of the future. On the hon. Lady’s first point, 50% for the gas supply that we use here comes from domestic production.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is being generous in allowing interventions. On the GMB leader’s quote about oil and gas jobs becoming the coal jobs of the future, is it not the case that the people with oil and gas skills, who we really need to deliver the energy transition, will not be left on the unemployment line, but will go and do their jobs overseas and deliver other countries’ energy security and energy transition?

[Claire Coutinho]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are lucky to have the skills, expertise and equipment in this country, which are the same skills that we need for a future in renewable energy. It is vital that we protect them and keep those skills here. To unnecessarily cut off those workers’ livelihoods in this country would wreck our clean energy ambitions. We remain resolutely committed to our ambitious net zero targets. More renewable energy; a nuclear revival; exciting new technologies such as hydrogen, carbon capture and fusion; and, where we need oil and gas, jobs for British workers—that is our vision for the future.

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[Edward Miliband]

Never mind then. Keep quiet.

The Government could have legislated to change planning rules to speed up renewables and cut energy bills, but they did not. They do not seem to realise how tin-eared, how out of touch, how absurd they look.

So how did we end up with this Bill? The hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), who was not allowed to intervene, thinks it is about energy security, and that is what the Secretary of State said. The truth is, however, that she is trying to peddle an illusion, and I suspect that she knows it. Fossil fuels, with their markets controlled by petro-states and dictators and their price set internationally, cannot give us energy security. That is the obvious basic lesson of the past two years. Whether gas is produced in the North sea or imported from abroad, we pay the same price. How much did we import from Russia at the beginning of the crisis? It was 5% —but we were the worst hit country in western Europe, not because of our imports from Russia but because of the way in which the price is set on the international market.

I cannot put it any better than the National Infrastructure Commission, which said just three weeks ago:

“Reliance on fossil fuels means exposure to geopolitical shocks that impact the price of these internationally traded commodities.”

We have had North sea licensing for the last 40 years in this country. If more of it were the answer, the British people would not have faced the pain that they have. According to Energy UK, new oil and gas licences

“will not lower customer bills or significantly improve the UK’s energy security.”

[David Duguid]

The right hon. Gentleman made a very good point earlier about the difference between the percentage of renewables for electricity and the percentage of renewables for energy overall, including heat and transport. Does he acknowledge that the United Kingdom is currently 75% dependent on oil and gas, and does he agree with the members of the Climate Change Committee, who have stated that themselves, and who have predicted that by 2050, when we get to net zero, the proportion will still be about 20%?

[Edward Miliband]

I think the Climate Change Committee is actually saying that its most ambitious scenario, which we should be aiming for, is for us to cut the use of gas by 90%. Are we going to carry on using North sea oil and gas? The question for the hon. Gentleman, and for the whole House, is this: do we choose, for the future, to carry on drilling every last drop? That is the Government’s policy, in contravention of all the scientific advice, which is that we will end up in a 3° world—needing billions of pounds of taxpayer subsidy to bring about that investment through persuasion, and diverting investment from the private sector. Personally, I do not think that that is the right choice.

The lesson of this crisis is one that the Government should have learnt, and one that other countries around the world have learnt: the only way to get energy security is to sprint for clean power. That is why the Government’s onshore wind ban is such a disaster. That is why their offshore wind auction is such a disaster. That is why their energy efficiency failures are such a disaster. This Bill neither protects us on price nor gives us energy security.

Here is the thing, the Bill is not motivated by millions of people lying awake at night, worrying about the cost of living crisis; it is motivated by a Prime Minister lying awake at night, worrying about the Conservative party crisis. The interesting thing is that this Bill was planned well before the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) became Energy Secretary. It is the last desperate throw of the dice by what we might call the No. 10 galaxy brains, to use climate change as what they call a “wedge issue.” They say this to the newspapers all the time. Series 1 of this new strategy was aired in September, when the party of Churchill and Thatcher became the peddlers of wacky conspiracy theories they found on the internet: abolishing the mythical seven bins; ending the imaginary threat of compulsory car sharing; saying no to invented conspiracy theories on 15-minute cities; and fighting the fictional meat tax. And now we have a sequel. No longer a few throw-away conspiracy theories, this is now the central strategy of their legislative programme.

Members should not take my word for it. It is what the Prime Minister’s advisers brief to the papers day after day. One paper I read on Monday reported that the Prime Minister wants to “weaponise climate change” as a wedge issue. Where the British people see an energy crisis forcing up their bills, the Government see a wedge issue. Where the British people ask how they can have liveable towns and cities with good transport, the Government see a wedge issue. Where the British people worry about the effect of the climate crisis on their kids and grandkids, the Government see a wedge issue. The point is that the Government cannot really deny it, because they know this is what they are saying every day. “We think there is a big opportunity for the Conservative party to try to create division on climate change.” That is why the Prime Minister uses words like “eco-zealots.” It is all very transparent. They are locked in the boot of a strategy. Whether they agree with it or not, that is what is happening.

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[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

This Gracious Speech serves as a stark reminder that the Westminster Government cannot be trusted to deliver for the people of Scotland—certainly not in terms of energy. It is ludicrous that people living in energy-rich Scotland are having to grapple with unaffordable energy bills. As a solution, we have a King’s Speech that does nothing to address that. The only energy-related Bill that was referred to in the King’s Speech on Tuesday was the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which the Secretary of State herself admitted just a few days ago would not bring energy bills down. It is therefore incorrigible that, at a time when a record number of households are facing fuel poverty, the only concrete proposal mentioned in the King’s Speech is one that, by the Secretary of State’s own admission, will not help cash-strapped households across these islands. It could though, she says, release funds to support households with energy bills—the operative word there being “could”. But even in this vaguest of commitments, the mask slips. Let me reinterpret that comment. It basically means that, in the absence of additionality to the Exchequer, this Government will stand idly by while people freeze.

The speech also included reference to help

“attract record levels of investment into renewable sources”

and

“reform grid connections”,

but no Bills were specifically named that set out how that might be achieved. There were no plans, and no detail or funding, to deliver the transition network that is needed to lower bills and ruthlessly dial out gas from our generation systems, thereby protecting consumers. It is utterly hopeless. It is a blank cheque for new extraction based on maximising extraction in abstract, with very little strategic ambition or joined-up thinking, except that of maximising London’s receipts from Scotland’s hydrocarbon endowments. Old habits, it would appear, do indeed die hard.

This ambition also comes with the worst possible greenwashing nonsense as supposedly qualifying criteria, which are entirely permissive, including the carbon intensity test, which seeks to discern whether gas extracted from the North sea will have a lower carbon footprint than gas processed and shipped from around the world— I am pretty sure that you and I, Madam Deputy Speaker, can guarantee that it will. Then there is test that discerns whether the UK remains a net importer of both oil and gas. It seems that that, too, will be a fairly consistent position. It is not even clever or sly; it is almost an indignity to put criteria like that, which is so simple to meet or exceed, in the legislation.

With the same forked tongue that the Government used when they claimed that revenues could go to supporting household energy bills, they also claimed that tax revenues could go towards supporting renewable energy investment. If they meant that, they would be setting out exactly how that would happen; but they have not, because it will not happen under this Treasury or this Tory Government.

In Scotland, we know what the revenues from our oil and gas will be spent on. It is the same thing that they have been spent on by UK Governments over the past 40 years: infrastructure investment in the south-east of England and stemming the economic collapse of broken Brexit Britain. Scotland will not reap any endowment from this latest round of extraction. The Government claim that this is for energy security and to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and gas, when only last month they explicitly decided to prolong that very reliance on gas: through the rollback of the boiler replacement ambition; through the failure of auction round 5, resulting in even more gas generation, which will have to replace the offshore wind that did not happen as a result of that auction round; and through the rollback of the deadline to phase out internal combustion engine cars.

There is no progress on energy efficiency, home insulation, curtailing demand, protecting bills and keeping people safe in their homes—none of it—in this ambition. And the Government are now congratulating themselves on the gas front, because the gas that we will extract from the North sea is marginally less environmentally damaging than that which would have been shipped in from Asia or the middle east. It is the stuff of nonsense.

[David Duguid]

The hon. Gentleman says that the gas imported from overseas is only marginally more environmentally damaging. Does he not agree with the likes of the North Sea Transition Authority, Offshore Energies UK and other experts in the field that estimate that it could be anything between twice as much or up to five times as much the carbon footprint to take liquefied natural gas into this country, deliquefy it and then get it into our system?

[Dave Doogan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I think that we actually agree: the gas that we extract from the North sea is less environmentally damaging than that which would be shipped in from around the world. The point that I am making, and the point that many other observers are making in this space, is that we should be running as far away as we can from yesterday’s hydrocarbon technologies and throwing everything that we have, including the kitchen sink, at getting into a renewable space, protecting bills and saving the environment from further damage. That is where we should be, so mithering over percentages here or there is not the way for us to proceed.

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[Dave Doogan]

That would depend on what we want to grow. If we want to invest substantially in renewable energy and the technologies of the future, then yes, I do. If we want to invest in Chinese expertise, French reactors and nuclear power plants, then no, I do not. It is very much horses for courses with this Government, and I wish that my constituents, and everyone else in Scotland, did not have to rely on these misguided ambitions any longer than we absolutely must.

[David Duguid]

I want to ask a genuine question of the hon. Gentleman, if he does not mind. He mentioned that he was hoping for between 50% and 60% inflation on the strike price for AR6, as and when it comes around. Could he expand on how that is calculated?

[Dave Doogan]

I do not want to go into the calculation elements of it, but it looks at the disconnect between the strike price that was delivered in auction round 4 and the ambition for auction round 5, wraps it up in the inflation environment that we are in—bear in mind that these are 2012 prices, so it is not actually that number—and comes out with a figure within that range. It is an auction, as the hon. Gentleman will know very well, so there is an element of second-guessing to it. However, after this Government’s failure in auction round 5, we cannot allow something similar to happen in auction round 6, which will create a disinvestment in offshore wind that we cannot allow to happen.

Scotland is a well-established net exporter of electricity. In 2020, we created 31.8 TW of renewable electricity in Scotland, equivalent to powering all the houses in Scotland for three and a half years. That was in 2020, and we are now generating even more. Calls in Scotland are growing louder and louder, asking how it is possible that in our country of 5.5 million people, where we produce six times more gas than we consume, a staggering 50% of Scottish people aged 55 to 64 are living in fuel poverty. It is as well that they ask, because the answer lies in being handcuffed to Westminster.

Scotland is currently leading the world on floating wind, but only by a very slim margin. We need strategic ambition and significant investment to leverage our intellectual, engineering and geographic advantage into a systemic lead on this technology on a global scale, certainly for technology and design, and for manufacturing in the European sector. Until three months ago, Scotland had the world’s largest floating offshore wind installation, but that title now belongs to Hywind Tampen in Norway.

We are at a critical juncture for offshore floating wind in Scotland, with the potential to exploit our enormous growth opportunity, and to export our manufacturing expertise across the world, but only if we get the strike price right. It is therefore frustrating in the extreme to see the Tories talk about the need for economic growth while at the same time utterly failing to do anything ambitious to support this burgeoning industry of almost limitless potential for Scottish jobs, UK jobs and global sales. Contrast that investment posture with the rush to welcome Chinese expertise and French technology into England’s nuclear industry.

Floating wind must get an appropriate strike price in AR6 that reflects the enormous growth potential of the industry. The Department needs to stand up to the Treasury and secure an administrative strike price that reflects the rudimentary understanding that, as a new technology, floating wind will have a higher cost per megawatt-hour, but it will reduce over time. The price must reflect the advantage of having a more advantageous strike price that allows the supply chain to fall on these islands, not forcing developers to get their supply chain from abroad.

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[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It was my honour to attend the state opening of Parliament this week, representing the people of Banff and Buchan, particularly on this occasion of the first King’s Speech in over 70 years. I join others across the House in thanking His Majesty King Charles III for delivering the Gracious Speech.

In general terms, the King’s Speech shows that this Government are making the necessary long-term decisions to get this country on the right path for the future. One of the criticisms I am sure we all receive across the House is that politicians often focus too much on short-term outcomes, so this long-term approach is to be welcomed. This bright future will be delivered by growing the economy, strengthening society, keeping people safe and promoting our national interests.

The topic of today’s debate is making Britain a clean energy superpower, and it is on growing the economy and particularly the subject of energy security that I would like to focus. That will come as no surprise to most people in this House, as I have spoken at length in this place on the combined subjects of energy security and net zero even before that became the name of the Department headed by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). The main thrust of my contributions has been, I believe, to reinforce the critical role played by oil and gas companies; their workers with their skills and expertise; the technology, supply chains and service companies; and, yes, the capital that those companies bring in making this country’s energy transition a success. I recognise that this appears counterintuitive to some across the House, but delivering on our energy security objectives and on our energy transition objectives are not mutually exclusive goals.

I therefore welcome the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill that was introduced this week. While this country continues to scale up our domestic, renewable and low-carbon sources of energy, data from the Climate Change Committee tells us that we are currently 75% dependent on oil and gas for our energy needs. As the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)—who is no longer in his place—mentioned earlier, that figure is not just for electricity generation, but includes transportation and heat. It was the Climate Change Committee that pushed for the very ambitious target of the UK getting to net zero emissions by 2050. That target was put into law by this Conservative Government—in fact, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore)—making the UK the first major economy anywhere in the world to do so.

That data from the Climate Change Committee also tells us that by 2050, when we reach net zero, this country is predicted to still be at least 20% dependent on oil and gas. As has already been established, we have decarbonised faster than any other G7 country compared with 1990 levels: we have reduced emissions by almost 50%, with a target to reach a 68% reduction by 2030. We have almost completely transitioned away from coal, which provided 70% of our power generation in 1990 but provides less than 2% today, and the deadline for zero unabated coal power has been brought forward to 2024—just next year.

However, we have some way to go if we are to get to net zero. I make no apologies for saying this: we absolutely must continue to develop and install more and more renewable, low-carbon and sustainable sources of energy to generate the electricity and provide the heat and transport that our economy needs. We will continue to deliver more wind, solar, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and other technologies to actively reduce the demand for oil and gas. We have come a long way, but we are not there yet. We need to get from where we are today to where we need to be in the future through the energy transition that we have already embarked upon—an transition that the oil and gas industry has been embarked upon for decades.

To give an example, we need look no further than Peterhead power station in my constituency. That power station came onstream in 1980, and is today the only dispatchable thermal power station north of Leeds. Originally designed to run on fuel oil, which already made it cleaner than coal-powered stations elsewhere in the country, it was operating fully on natural gas by the 1990s. In the 2000s, combined cycle gas turbine technology was installed, which made the station even more efficient. It is now towards the end of its life, and a new power station is planned to be built at the same site. With roughly two thirds of the capacity of the current power station, but linked to the Acorn carbon capture project at the nearby St Fergus terminal just up the coast, that new facility will generate power that is at least 95% emission-free. As many in the House will know, Acorn forms part of the Scottish CCS cluster, which will help decarbonise industrial processes at the Mossmorran liquefied natural gas plant in Fife and the petrochemical complex at Grangemouth in the central belt, among others.

As I have said, the energy transition is already happening, not just within the hydrocarbon production industry but by utilising the skills, technology and supply chains of that industry. I welcome this Government’s recognition of the vital role that oil and gas companies, and their more than 200,000 workers across the UK, will have to play in that energy transition.

The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill will require the North Sea Transition Authority to run an annual process inviting applications for new production licences in the UK continental shelf. A licensing round would take place only if the UK was projected to import more oil and gas from abroad than it produces domestically—that is, to continue being a net importer. The carbon emissions linked to UK gas production would also need to be lower than the equivalent emissions from imported liquefied natural gas. Those two tests are already included in the Government’s climate tests for new licences, known as the climate compatibility checkpoint. The Bill would make the tests legally binding.

I have heard some Members say, including today—in fact, I think it is the official Opposition’s policy, or at least it has been their policy—that not only should we not award any new production licences, but we should simply keep producing from the wells we have. That shows a staggering lack of understanding of how oil and gas reservoirs work. According to Offshore Energies UK, the trade body for the offshore energies industry,

“There are currently 284 active oil and gas fields in the North Sea and by 2030 around 180 of those will have ceased production due to natural decline.”

OEUK has warned that without fresh investment, by 2030 the UK will be reliant on oil and gas imports not for 50% of its needs, as it is today, but for 80%. As I have said, more than 200,000 jobs depend on the continuity of North sea energy companies. That workforce has developed world-leading specialist skills since oil and gas production from the UKCS began in the 1970s. About 90% of those workers have skills that can be readily transferred to renewable energy production, and in the growing carbon capture, utilisation and storage sector that figure is probably closer to 100%.

To recap, why does the UK need more oil and gas licences? Data from the NSTA shows that the UK replaced only 3% of production with new reserves in 2022, meaning that only one new barrel was invested in for every 33 barrels produced today. The UK is expected to close production from 20 fields this year, while only two new fields will start producing, and for every oil and gas well drilled, around three are closed. Even with an increase in new wells, we will not be producing more oil and gas; even in the most optimistic projections, with new oil and gas, production is predicted to continue to decline by 7% a year. Let me repeat that: new oil and gas does not mean more oil and gas, but we do need to maximise the amount of oil and gas we get from the UKCS for as long as we need it. And need it we will —need it we do!

As I said earlier, as we grow our capacity for renewable, low-carbon and sustainable forms of energy, our demand for oil and gas is set to decline, from 75% today to 20% in 2050. As such, if we need oil and gas, it makes sense at the most basic level of understanding that we should produce it as locally as we can. The carbon footprint of importing liquified natural gas, for example, can be anything between two and five times that of domestically produced gas.

[Caroline Lucas]

What about Norway?

[David Duguid]

Norway is the two. Actually, it is broadly equivalent, but apart from Norway, any gas coming in from overseas has between two and five times the carbon footprint. New oil and gas capacity will reduce exposure to global instability—the kind of instability that we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine. This Bill means that we can reach net zero without unduly burdening families and businesses. Data from the North Sea Transition Authority and the Climate Change Committee tells us that if we produce as much oil and gas from the new wells as we can, that will still merely slow the decline in production. Even with an optimistic 7% year-on-year decline—I mean optimistic from a producer’s point of view—that decline is faster than the average global decline needed to align with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 1.5°C pathway.

Finally, if we follow the SNP’s presumption against new oil and gas or Labour’s Just Stop Oil approach and shut down this vital industry too soon, we will not see a massive transfer of workers to the renewables sector, as is predicted. We will not even see a bunch of unemployed oil and gas workers; we will see a massive exodus of those oil and gas workers, going where the oil and gas industry is being promoted.

[Richard Thomson]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. In his haste to castigate the SNP for presumptions against oil and gas, will he not at least have the intellectual honesty to recognise that in the climate change compatibility checkpoints, his own Government are introducing a presumption against further development, no matter how weak and feeble that presumption might seem to anyone with a care for the subject?

[David Duguid]

I have heard the hon. Gentleman make that remark before, and I am sorry to say that I completely disagree. A presumption against new oil and gas development is a presumption against new oil and gas development; a climate change compatibility checkpoint is part of an assumption of new oil and gas, so it is not a presumption against new oil and gas. [Interruption.] I have just explained it.

Those workers with their skills and expertise, those supply chains and those service companies with their technology will simply go elsewhere—as I have said—and deliver someone else’s energy security and energy transition. I commend the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill for showing this Government’s commitment to not let that happen, and to make the right decisions for this country’s long-term future.

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). Her faith in technology—she read her speech from it—is far greater than mine. I have seen many a speech kiboshed in mid-flow. I agree with much of what she said. There is certainly work that can be done on mental health and PIP. I have always been amazed by PIP assessors’ inability to understand the causes or symptoms of the issues from which people are suffering, and by their inability sometimes to understand whether or not a claimant’s circumstances might change. The constant need to reanalyse claimants throughout their lifetime causes a great deal of hardship for family members who have to do the applications. My office spends a great deal of time on the issue.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate in support of the King’s Speech. I am surprised that we have not heard a little more positivity in today’s debate because, across the House, it is recognised that we have been a leader on energy markets, on growing our economy and on cutting emissions. The Vallance report, for example, identifies this country’s extraordinary growth. Between 1990 and 2019, we grew our economy by 78% and, at the same time, cut emissions by 44%, which shows the significant changes we have made in this country and our significant progress in creating a green economy.

We have to remind people, both in this Chamber and across the country, that we have cut emissions faster than any other country in the G7, which is something to be proud of and to build upon—and we forget it at our peril. It breeds hope among our people and our businesses that we can set up the infrastructure and the network to encourage more businesses to do the same.

I have heard from many Members on both sides of the House about how they hope to see oil companies become a dying breed. I say this with a little caution, but I do not think there is a single person in this room who, if we could flick a switch and transition immediately to a green economy—taking all the oil industry jobs and all the investment with us—would not gladly flick that switch. In the absence of a switch, we have to encourage and push the oil companies to go green, as so many of them are. The oil companies are part of the answer to a greener economy. Encouraging them to invest in solar, wind and marine power has to be part and parcel of that mix and structure.

I am also surprised that, in this debate, we have not spoken more about the Treasury’s position on incentivising businesses to do more to invest in green technologies in this country, whether through tax credits, encouraging research and development, innovation funds, the UK Infrastructure Bank—I can see the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury nodding; he knows a great deal about this—or the £22 billion of capital that has been made available for businesses to invest in this sector in the United Kingdom. We forget that at our peril, because it will create the certainty to help us transition to a cleaner, greener economy that addresses climate change.

That said, we can all recognise the opportunities. I will cite a few examples from my constituency of Totnes and South Devon. The first is marine energy. We have some of the strongest tides in the world, and we should use them. Until recently, I would have argued that our interest and investment in marine energy has been lacklustre, yet recent trials across the country, supported by the UK Government, have shown the huge potential to go green in our coastal areas. Indeed, a vicar in Dartmouth is trying to make his church the first marine energy-powered church in the country. Such things need to be promoted and supported.

We need to review things like tidal lagoons. It has been far too long since we have had a proper debate in this place on the Swansea tidal lagoon and the power it would have generated. There are mechanisms out there to support these things, and we have to explore them to make sure we have a diverse mix—not just solar and wind but marine and, as others have said, nuclear, and using the last vestiges of oil and gas where necessary.

I do not know whether he is still sponsoring this Bill but, two years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) presented the Local Electricity Bill. Many of us on both sides of the House supported the Bill, which would have allowed electricity generators to become local electricity suppliers. I very much welcome what the Secretary of State said in her opening remarks, because she talked about upgrading the grid. If we can upgrade the grid, the possibilities of the Local Electricity Bill would be immense and we could find all sorts of innovative ways to power local communities.

An example in my constituency is Sustainable South Brent, which has erected a wind turbine that is powering parts of the village and helping to reduce the costs for those buildings. We should be trying to replicate these things across the country, but we can only do so if we upgrade the grid and encourage and embolden local communities to take such action.

It was a privilege to hear the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), and I agreed with much of it, although I am sorry that he will not be voting for the King’s Speech. He is right that we are a paragon and a model to the rest of the world, and that we have been a leader in this area. Where I disagree with him is that I think we are still a leader.

Of course, we have to take people with us. We are in this place only because people have sent us here to represent their views, and there is a great deal of scepticism out there. The Prime Minister is right to be honest with people about the cost of the green transition. He is right to make sure that we are realistic about our plans and proposals, and he is right to try to minimise the significant costs that might end up on people’s doorstep. Those things are to be applauded, and I do not think they are watering down our green agenda.

I wish to make a few remarks about other parts of the King’s Speech. I serve on the Select Committee on Business and Trade, having served on the former Select Committee on International Trade. We have to inject a bit more energy—literally—into our trade deals. A number of countries want to sign up to free trade agreements with the UK, including Morocco. It wants to introduce a solar and wind interconnector to the UK, and an FTA can help to facilitate that. The fact that it is rumoured that the connecting point will be in Devon has nothing to do with my raising this matter, because I do not believe it would be in my constituency. This does show the power and potential in our trade agreements to find new ways in which we can co-operate on an international scale to help harness the power of our natural resources.

Our trade agreements are the perfect way in which we can help harness and create technology here and trade it with like-minded countries around the world. We have already heard the important points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) about battery power and battery technology in this country, and the relationship the UK has with Canada. We need more of that, because that is what our FTAs can facilitate.

[David Duguid]

My hon. Friend knows more about trade than many people in this place. In addition to all the different renewable and sustainable energy technologies we could be exporting that we develop here, does he agree that an opportunity is provided by the mere act of having a successful transition from 75% oil and gas dependency today to 20% oil and gas in the future? Being seen to be able to do that and our showing how to do that can, in itself, be an exportable commodity?

[Anthony Mangnall]

My hon. Friend is spot on. If we can help and support those emerging democracies and economies around the world to leapfrog the intensive carbon industries that they think they might need, and to go in a green direction, it will be to the benefit of not just our countries and economies, but the whole world. We should absolutely be talking about this stuff.

The hon. Member for Warrington North mentioned the CPTPP and trade scrutiny. I have caused the Government constant angst by talking about scrutiny. The debate on CPTPP is welcome and I look forward to seeing as many Members as there are in the Chamber now when that Bill comes before the House. I firmly believe that if this House is denied proper scrutiny, we are all poorer off in our constituencies, with our respective businesses, farmers and fishermen. It should be part of our due process that we make sure that a proper, significant level of scrutiny is provided in this place.

With that in mind, I have a proposal: it is time to update Labour’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 to make sure, now that we are outside the European Union, that we have a proper debate on it, with a votable motion if that is required. Let me add an aside: it would be advisable to give Privy Counsellor status to all members of the Business and Trade Committee —I declare my interest on that front. There is an important point to this, which is that we can do better, as we have seen with the trade agreements that have come before. We need greater attendance, scrutiny and ability to talk up the benefits of the trade deals.

I am sorry to focus on the hon. Member for Warrington North, but she said that 0.8% was not a lot. I urge caution on forecasts, because on trade deals they are often wrong. They are judged at a static point, rather than on the basis of how businesses take advantage of them. In nearly every instance of a trade agreement that is signed—such as the North American free trade agreement, which was predicted not to be worth a significant amount to the United States economy but turned out to be worth a great deal more—we should not necessarily go with the forecasts. There are enough quotes out there to say why economists are wrong. However, I welcome the Bill and the opportunity for more discussion about joining one of the fastest growing regions in the world.

Let me make a couple more points. I have already spoken before in this place about the Renters (Reform) Bill. We do badly when we pass pieces of legislation quickly. I welcome the fact that we have committed to repealing section 21 evictions in that Bill, but we need to make sure that we have a Bill that works for both landlords and tenants. We have to have that balance, because at it stands we are about to present a Bill into Parliament that will deter people from putting properties into the long-term rental market. It will incentivise the short-term market over the long-term rental market, which will be a disadvantage to the millions of tenants in this country. We must be careful about that. It is easy for us to clip small parts of our speeches in this place and put them out because they say the right thing, but the devil is in the detail and we have to get it right.

It is fantastic to see the Prime Minister double down on apprenticeships, T-levels and what we can do with further education. South Devon College, in my constituency, is the absolute exemplar of what can be done in further education. It trains people in subjects from photonics to boat building, bricklaying to hospitality and tourism—the range is staggering—and it has Government funding and support. The more we can encourage businesses and students to take advantage of the opportunities in their areas that lie within our agenda for further education, the better off people will be in finding jobs and the more likely we will be to find ways in which we can create businesses, not just in centralised parts of the country but across all the regions of the UK.

Finally, over the last few days we have spoken a lot about what the King’s Speech says about keeping people safe. There is no doubt that it is right that we have a robust response to those who have committed the most heinous crimes. As ever, we can do far more to tackle antisocial behaviour and rural crime in areas across the south-west and other parts of the country. Local initiatives have been set up across the south-west that the Government would do well to support, not least the councillor advocate scheme, set up by Alison Hernandez, the police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, in which she liaises with councillors across the area to enhance police visibility and engagement, or my own initiative to create police hubs in village halls across South Devon, driving up visibility, disrupting rural crime and antisocial behaviour and inspiring more confidence that the police are there to help and serve, as we all know they are.

It is a pleasure to be able to support the King’s Speech and to speak up about the proud record this country has in addressing climate change, reducing emissions and creating new technologies and industries. We should be proud of that, talk it up and never let the fearmongers win.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in a debate about energy, because it feeds into the most pressing crisis that all our constituents face at this point in time: the cost of living crisis. We know that higher interest rates are not the answer to the inflation they face. Brexit has certainly made things a great deal worse by increasing the cost of imports, but the cost of living crisis has at its core the massive increase that we have seen in the cost of energy. That taps into our energy security and, as we have heard, it taps into the climate crisis, but it also taps into the opportunities for economic transformation as we industrialise—at least, we have the opportunity to industrialise —through the green revolution.

The Government seem to be failing to provide answers in this area. I agree with the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)—words that I do not say very often—that I cannot think of a Government, certainly in my lifetime, who have been so ill suited to facing up to the challenges of the era we all face. No matter how graciously it happened to be delivered, the King’s Speech revealed that we have a Government who are not guided by principle, by strategy or by science, whether woke or otherwise. Instead, they appear to have made a lifestyle choice—if I can put it that way—to be guided by the whims of a few hundred voters in Uxbridge, where they squeaked a very narrow by-election victory, in the vain hope that by pandering on the issues that they thought brought them success in that corner of suburban London, they might find a wedge issue that will allow them to progress in the culture war they are waging against everyone in the UK except their core supporters, to try to protect them from the electoral wrecking ball that appears to be coming their way with increasing force and momentum.

To genuinely be a clean energy superpower, three things are needed. First and foremost, we need an energy market that works. We also need a genuine energy transition, not one that just pays lip service to the idea, and we need Governments who are prepared to invest in making that happen. On the first point—having energy markets that work—one of the reasons we have heard for energy bills being so high is the artificial link mandated by Government between the price of electricity and the price of gas, which the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) mentioned in her substantive contribution. That completely distorts the market, artificially inflating the cost of electricity, which hits both industry and consumers hard.

Another reason why our electricity markets do not work is the inadequacy of not just the energy grid, but grid pricing, particularly when it comes to electricity. That means that anybody generating electricity in the north of Scotland pays a subsidy for the privilege of feeding it into the grid, whereas the further south we go in the UK, generally speaking, that turns into a subsidy for the generator. We are left with the utterly ludicrous situation of somebody who wishes to promote a wind farm in the north of Scotland having to pay handsomely to get that energy into the grid, whereas if they were able to reactivate Battersea power station and burn coal in it, they would end up with a subsidy because of the locational pricing structure we have. That is an absolute nonsense. I can see the brows being beetled feverishly on the Government Benches; I encourage Members to think on that, because it is the situation that the national grid pricing structure has given us for years, and it is holding Scotland back.

Turning to the storage of energy, the UK foolishly did away with most of its storage capacity for gas, on the flawed assumption that it would always be able to buy gas whenever it was needed at the price that was right. We have seen the folly of that in recent times, but of course, it is not just gas storage that is important; we need the means of storing electricity, whether through electrolysis at peak times to generate hydrogen that can be stored and released back into the energy system at other times, the greater use of batteries on an industrial scale, or using pumped storage hydroelectric power. I should confess a particular interest in pumped storage hydropower, because my father was an engineer at Cruachan power station in Argyle, and that is where he met my mother. If it was not for that pumped storage power station in Scotland, I would not be here, so I put that interest on the record. [Laughter.]

There are proposals to double the capacity at Cruachan power station, and to develop a very large pumped storage facility at Coire Glas. It is the regulatory role of the UK Government in those projects, or the oversight they have, that will decide whether or not they go ahead. I encourage the Minister—it might be worth her listening to this—to make progress on those projects, because that is one of the ways in which we will deal with the fluctuations of renewable energy to meet the baseload requirement.

That takes me to my second point, which is on how to be a clean energy superpower. We need a genuine energy transition, and that starts with a bit of basic honesty about the role that oil and gas need to play. The unlimited extraction of oil and gas is simply not compatible with our climate obligations. However, we also need to recognise that, even if there was not a pressing climate change catastrophe looming, our domestic capacity is in long-term decline. Any new licences that are issued and actually come to fruition are only going to slow the rate of overall decline, and we need to be making an impact where we really can, which is in licensing new renewables.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) gently chided us about playing politics on this issue. I must say that I always enjoy it very much when the Conservatives decide not to play politics with energy, particularly when it comes to the debate in Scotland. While it is tempting to say that the Labour party now appears to have the policy on oil and gas that the Scottish Conservatives have long accused my party of having, we really need to raise the debate from that level.

In an exchange with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), I pointed out the Conservative policy that dare not speak its name: the Government’s own presumption against further oil and gas development. It prompts the question that if any new oil and gas developments do not meet their tests, what then happens? My presumption would be that they fail, and I understand that also to be the presumption of the Government.

[David Duguid]

It is really very simple: the difference is between a presumption in advance of deciding whether we even want new oil and gas and a caveat that we put in place after a decision that we want to produce more oil and gas. A presumption—a “pre-sumption”—is different from a caveat.

[Richard Thomson]

I am not sure I am any the wiser after that intervention. Either a development passes or it fails, and presumably if it fails, it does not go ahead. I will leave the hon. Gentleman to dance on the head of that particular pin.

On the Government deciding to license new fields, we need to recognise that not all of those licences will be taken up and not all of them will produce any significant amount, so when it comes to mitigating where we are, renewables are the only way forward. That is the way to lock in low prices for the future and the way to guarantee energy security.

The Secretary of State, who is now back in her place, was good enough to take an intervention from me, just as she was reaching a rhetorical zenith about floating offshore wind. The answer to my question, which she quite understandably chose not to give, is that the last round of floating offshore wind options would increase capacity by absolutely nothing because not a single bid came in. The reason for that is embarrassing. It yielded absolutely no bids because the price was wrong. The industry told the Government that, and the UK Government persisted in thinking that they knew best. The auction, rather predictably, fell flat on its face, and the result of that auction round was that the increase in offshore wind capacity was net zero.

The final point I wish to make is on the need to invest in making this happen. We need to learn the lesson that future oil and gas can only slow the rate of decline, and that we need to be doing much better in incentivising the technologies of the future. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid a visit to the Moray East offshore wind farm, he made a predictably vacuous and facetious remark, saying that Margaret Thatcher was a green pioneer through her virtual destruction of the coal industry. Just as we know there was no just transition for the miners, it looks unlikely that there is a just transition planned for steelworkers who may be affected by recent announcements. We need to make absolutely sure that there is a just transition for the oil and gas sector, but it does not look as though there is anything in prospect from anything the Government are planning, other than that it will be everybody for themselves.

That is in stark contrast to the approach of the Scottish Government, who have earmarked £500 million exclusively to aid the transition, onshore and off, in the north-east of Scotland. That sum is equivalent to the amount that both the Scottish and the UK Governments are putting into the Aberdeen city region deal. The failure —the repeated failure—of the UK Government to match that is not only, I believe, a betrayal of the communities of the north-east of Scotland, but a complete abrogation of the UK’s constitutional and moral responsibilities.

I shall wrap up. What was needed was a King’s Speech that delivered on the means by which we would achieve energy security, that tackled the climate crisis and that delivered the potential for economic transformation, as well as giving relief to hard-pressed energy users. The evidence is that this is not going to happen in Westminster, and it should be devolved. We should be independent, which would be a better place for Scotland to be, so that we can get on with taking the right decisions for the right reasons, off the back of our own decisions mandated by the electorate of Scotland.