Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

It is incredibly encouraging to hear about what is happening at A&P Falmouth. As my hon. Friend knows, the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme is providing up to £160 million to support investment in UK ports. However, while FLOWMIS is still live, I am afraid I cannot comment on individual applications.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T5.   More than 15% of families in my constituency live in fuel poverty, with a median energy efficiency score of just 65. How much of the 2019 general election manifesto pledge to spend £9.2 billion on improving energy efficiency has gone on retrofitting existing properties and not on new builds?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)]

I will have to write to the hon. Member with the figure, but the Government remain firmly committed to new builds as well as to retrofitting.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I very much share my right hon. Friend’s concerns. I was recently at the G7 in Japan, where we signed an agreement with other nuclear powers from the G7 on exactly this issue of energy security. Of course, we have Urenco—a third owned by the British Government—which is in many ways very advanced on the production, fabrication and other elements of uranium. It is part of the mix and we must ensure we are able to do that, so I thank him for his question.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. This goes back—I was standing up a few minutes ago—to the question from the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) and it is on energy efficiency. I have 14,000 households in Oldham that are fuel poor. They have seen their gas bills double, their electricity is up nearly two thirds, and some of them have said to me, “Why are we going through this, and when can we have our houses made more efficient so we’re not having to spend so much on this?” Why could that not be funded by a windfall tax on energy producers, given that, for example, BP said last week that it is making £60 million a day in profits? [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a little reminder that, if colleagues intervene on the Secretary of State, it is customary for them to stay until the end of his speech.