Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

We all want a healthier planet and a sustainable future for the next generations, but no one wants the heating to go off, the lights to go out, or our energy security to be at the mercy of foreign players in an ever more unstable world. This Bill recognises that doing nothing and increasing our reliance on imported gas, including gas with four times the emissions, is not the solution. As such, I am glad that the Government acknowledge the need to move away from oil and gas production, and I welcome our long-term commitment to drive down the use of fossil fuels and the significant and growing investment in the renewables sector, which is the only way to guarantee our energy security for the future—but it is for the future. As a country, we are now home to five of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, diversifying our energy supply and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Renewables gained enough power in 2022 to avoid the need for five times as much gas as the UK imported from Russia in 2021.

However, as we discuss the Bill, we should reflect on how we make that transition while preserving our reputation as a global leader in the fight against climate change. I am keen to see further efforts to reassure the international community, and our constituents who care about the environment, that we are not rowing back on our climate and environmental commitments. Our current requirements are lower than recommended pathways to reach net zero, so I suggest that we continue to strengthen the operational emission requirements for UK oil and gas producers. A recent report from Robert Gordon University found that 90% of the UK’s oil and gas workforce had skills that were transferable to the offshore renewables sector. A well-managed transition helps ensure that more investment, and more of those jobs, stay in the UK.

Opposition Members have no plan. Labour and the SNP are ignoring the country’s energy needs in their opposition to the Bill, which seeks to enable a transition pathway for an industry that, last year, produced an average of 42% of gas on an average day in Britain. Without new development, we will be more reliant on imports, which is unwise at best given the instability in the European market as a result of Putin’s war. Labour talks about expanding renewables and reducing usage through measures such as insulation. The Government share that ambition, but it is impossible to deliver at speed and in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent—[Interruption.] If Opposition Members will listen, I will give them the reason why. There are many terraced houses in those areas, where the cost of insulating a property to the highest energy performance certificate standard can be greater than the value of that property.

For that reason, there needs to be a broader discussion about housing—I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I recently visited Norway with the Conservative Environment Network to see how that country is using the skills and expertise of the oil and gas industry to develop a carbon capture and storage facility at the Northern Lights project. For the world to achieve the goals to which we have committed ourselves in the Paris agreement, we need large-scale carbon capture and storage. Not all emissions can be cut by applying renewable energy. Oil and gas will be needed for the foreseeable future; however, reducing fossil fuel demand is key to reaching net zero. In several industrial processes, such as the production of cement, carbon capture and storage is the only technology that can cut emissions, reduce the need for imported energy, and benefit households through less volatile—and, ultimately, lower—energy costs.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The hon. Lady talks about the enormous cost of insulation, but is she clear that carbon capture and storage is also enormously expensive?

[Jo Gideon]

I am clear that lots of things have a cost, but we must also look at the cost of not doing them. We are not talking purely about financial cost.

To return to what I learned from my trip to Norway, about a fifth of emissions from North sea oil and gas production activity come from flaring. We could follow Norway’s ban on those activities—I am sure the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) would agree with that—using the Bill to bring forward our commitment to stop flaring.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Gideon]

I would like to get on, if the hon. Lady does not mind. [Interruption.] She is chuntering from a sedentary position. Removing gas is necessary for safety; however, it can be captured rather than burned. That is my argument.

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the production, storage and supply of energy, and we are faced with a range of innovative options to decarbonise while maintaining an adequate energy supply and reducing usage. None of this will happen overnight, and while we welcome the possibilities of innovations such as less energy wastage through battery storage, alternative fuels such as hydrogen, future solutions such as the expansion of nuclear and alternatives such as tidal and geothermal energy, we do need this transition position. I will be supporting the Bill on Second Reading, but on Report I will look at possibilities for reconfirming our commitment to minimise environmental damage and continue focusing on the end game of cleaner solutions to our energy needs.

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[Barry Gardiner]

I recognise the work that Harbour Energy is doing and I also recognise the work that the Government have done in trying to attract more investment into green energy and renewables, and I welcome that work. I want us to have a cross-party consensus around getting to net zero. The trouble is that—and the Minister knows this to be true—he and many people on his side, including the Prime Minister, have tried to make this a wedge issue, a political issue to divide people. I think he really does need to step up to the plate. If he wants cross-party consensus, he has to try to build it, not score cheap political points.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The Liberal Democrats were actually introducing an amendment to stop flaring and venting of methane. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) has just said it would be a very good thing to do yet the Government opposed it. That is an example of where we could have reached cross-party consensus.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct, and I listened to her attempt to intervene on the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon). We need to build a cross-party consensus and this shows how it can be achieved: there are concerned Members on the Government Benches who want to do the right thing, and we all know that sometimes the Whips make sure that they do not, but if we really build this consensus, we can get to the right place.

Another lie at the heart of this Bill is to say it will protect British jobs. It will not. Over the years there have been hundreds of thousands of jobs in the oil and gas sector and its supply chain. They have kept our lights on and our industry moving for decades just as the coalminers did before them. But pretending that employment in oil and gas can last forever fails to properly prepare those workers and their families for the inevitable transition that the world is making.

Despite sustained support for the North sea basin over the past 14 years and despite 400 new drilling licences being issued across five separate licensing runs, the fact is that more than 200,000 jobs in the oil and gas industry and its wider supply network have been lost. Today 30,000 hard-working people are directly employed in the industry. Those workers and the local economies they uphold need a coherent plan to move past fossil fuel production towards clean energy. The trouble is the Government have not developed one.

A further 100,000 individuals are supported through the supply chain and are waiting for a signal from Government so that they can seize the opportunities of the clean energy revolution. This Bill offers them nothing. It seems to override the already weak non-binding climate compatibility checkpoint. The production emissions reduction target set out in the North sea transition deal is already weak, setting a cut of only 50% by 2030. This Bill seems to weaken it even further. It includes no reference to how annual licensing will be judged against the NSTD targets for production emissions let alone emissions from combustion.

Critically, the Bill ignores the wider environmental consequences of the development of new fields and puts marine habitats at risk. Over one third of the 900 locations in the latest licensing round overlapped with marine protected areas, yet this directly contradicts the commitment the UK made at the convention on biological diversity conference COP15 in Montreal where we promised to protect 30% of UK waters for nature by 2030.

The Rosebank field that was recently licensed sees a pipeline run through the Faroe-Shetland marine protected area, which threatens ocean life. If a major oil spill from Rosebank were to happen, 20 MPAs could be seriously impacted. This Bill is an attack on nature both by its indirect impact through increasing emissions and its direct impact on the marine environment. The Government appear to believe that they know better than the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Secretary-General, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of the world’s leading scientists, all of whom are clear that new oil and gas licences jeopardise further the goal of 1.5°C. This Parliament’s own independent adviser, the Climate Change Committee, confirmed to Parliament only last year that the expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with net zero and that the oil and gas field that is required in the UK as we make that journey to net zero does not require the development of any new fields.

But what I find most depressing about this Bill is not its arrogance or its ignorance, it is the way it seeks to break with the cross-party consensus for the sake of creating a party political dividing line in advance of a general election. That dividing line pretends that the rational, informed scientific view is held only by what the Prime Minister calls climate zealots and it tries to establish the recalcitrant fossil fuel lobby that is endangering all we hold dear across the globe as the reasonable middle ground. It is not. As the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said:

“the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.”

The fossil fuel lobby is behaving like the tobacco lobby did when all of the medical evidence was against it. First, deny the science outright. When that is no longer credible, pretend that the concern is exaggerated. And when that is no longer credible, reframe the issue as one of personal choice.

Government is about establishing a framework of regulation for the public good; it is not about facilitating the freedom of those who would undermine the public good. That is why this Bill is bad for democracy. That is why this Bill is bad for our global standing as a country that has previously been regarded as a leader on this issue. That leadership is now passing to others who are responding positively to the pledge in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels by joining the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

The floods that we are seeing devastate communities and lives around the country are but a foretaste of the terrifying impacts of climate change beyond 1.5°. This Bill does nothing to mitigate them. It does nothing to support the billions of people across the world who live on the frontlines of climate breakdown. It ignores the plight of millions of bill payers who find themselves priced out of our broken energy system. And it ignores the workers who power our country.

This Bill endangers our natural world and future generations. I cannot support it; I will consign it to the same vote of no-confidence that I predict awaits this Government later on this year.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is right. Opposition Members have no answer to that. In Germany in particular, misguided green policies have led to the extraordinary decision to decommission the low-carbon nuclear industry and replace it with coal-fired power stations. I could hardly make it up. Germany is massively increasing its reliance on imported liquid natural gas, which is much more polluting than the cleaner, more local and geopolitically more stable alternative of North sea gas and oil.

The third reason why I would prefer that we used UK oil and gas is that it pays UK tax. I am not ashamed to say that I welcome that. If we are to extract hydrocarbons that will be taxed, I prefer for that tax to be paid in the United Kingdom, rather than in some other country. Just between 2023 and 2028 it is estimated that those tax receipts will amount to £30 billion. We know how much trouble Opposition Members have trying to explain where they will get their £28 billion of borrowing each year, and how that will raise interest rates, debt and inflation. That would be more than doubled if they got their way and their policies destroyed the North sea oil and gas sector.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The hon. Gentleman mentions what the Government are spending, not spending and taxing, but could he mention how much they actually spend on subsidies for the oil and gas industry—just a number?

[Jerome Mayhew]

A number was mentioned earlier in the debate, but I did not catch it. I am sure that the hon. Lady might have that number in mind. It is right that we support industries in this country, because they create employment, generate economic activity and, in turn, pay taxes. I am not ashamed of that, because it is a good thing.

The final reason why I want oil and gas extraction in this country, if we are to use it, is the balance of payments. That used to be a fashionable economic argument back in the day. When I was a teenager, we used to have announcements on the news about the balance of payments month by month. What has happened to that? The balance of payments is every bit as important economically today as it was back in the 1980s. We run a current account deficit in this country of about £150 billion. That is a huge number, and it will be exacerbated if we choose—and it would be a political choice—not to generate and export a product from this economy to a third economy, but instead choose to import one, exacerbating the balance of payments deficit twice over.

For those four reasons, I am wholly in favour of the ambitions behind this short Bill. Climate change will be solved by reducing demand for hydrocarbons, not by reducing supply. We will solve the demand problem by providing cheap alternatives, which the Government are doing. Members who have contributed were quite right to highlight that. We need renewables.

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[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The proposed legislation before us is an outrage, and I am pleased that we have had the opportunity today to discuss in detail what it means. It has been a relatively good-natured debate, but it has shown very clearly where the political choices are, and I find the political choices of the Conservatives unacceptable.

New licences for new oil and gas fields in the North sea are in direct conflict with our national and international net zero commitments. We must get away from our dependence on fossil fuels, not extend it. At COP28 the Government signed an international agreement to phase out fossil fuels, but we are doing the opposite in this country. It is just not acceptable for us to do one thing abroad and another at home. As has already been said so many times this afternoon, this is losing us our reputation for good leadership, and losing any credibility that the Government could have at home or abroad.

The Government’s claim that the Bill ensures our energy security is complete fiction. Recent analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit found that oil from new licences sent to UK refineries would account for less than 1% of fuels used in the UK in 2030. The Bill would make little or no difference to UK energy security, and the Secretary of State herself admits that it would do little to cut bills. Furthermore, on the basis of past records, new licences issued since 2010 have produced only 16 days of extra gas supplies. Between now and 2050, new licences are expected to provide an average of only four days of gas per annum. Is it really worth it to lose our reputation, our commitments and our path to net zero for that? The vast majority of this new oil and gas production would not stay in the UK; it would be sold on global markets for consumption abroad. No government should want a repeat of the energy crisis of last year, which was brought on by the crisis in global fossil fuel supplies and soaring prices on the global oil and gas market. Only by moving away from fossil fuels can it be guaranteed that such a crisis will not be repeated.

However, this legislation is not just stupid and unnecessary, but dangerous. It breaks down a decade-long cross-party consensus that every Government must be seriously committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and must provide strong, unflinching leadership to help people, organisations and businesses along the road to a successful energy transition. As we have heard today, there is a fair amount of consensus, so why should it be broken? That is really not understandable. Undermining this consensus is hugely irresponsible and sends entirely the wrong signals to the international community. The latest COP28 negotiations have shown how rocky the path to net zero is and how important the leadership of the developed nations remains. I was at COP28, and it is really sad to see how that leadership has been lost and how many nations look at us and shake their heads. They cannot understand what has happened to the UK in the last year or two.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is not just at COP28, the climate COP, that there is an issue. I was at Montreal at the nature COP, and we were in the vanguard of agreeing that 30% of waters should be protected for nature. These additional drilling rigs cause havoc in our inland waters, but 15 % of new licences were declared in marine protected areas, so we are seeing a nature crisis being caused by this as well as a climate crisis.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Yes, indeed. Many organisations that campaign to protect nature and the oceans have written to me—and probably to many other Members of Parliament—about how extremely dangerous and damaging this is to marine wildlife.

The UK is in a strong position geographically to cover its future energy needs from renewables and from cutting energy consumption. The Minister well knows my position on this: diverse, home-grown renewable energy and a significant home insulation programme are key to the solution. The energy efficiency of our homes is among the worst in Europe, and yes, if we are talking about jobs, we are lacking so many of the jobs that we need in the retrofitting and upgrading sector. We need a new workforce in the new technology for the net zero future of our UK economy. That is not looking back at past fuels. They have powered the world, yes, but we need to transition and we cannot keep on with business as usual. That is the problem and the opportunity. It is deplorable that the Government have finished embracing this new future and broken the consensus that we had across the House.

Where is the legislation to address all that? Failed project after failed project alongside acute underfunding means that people continue to live in cold homes with sky-high energy bills, so where is the legislation to revolutionise our home retrofitting agenda? The problem needs long-term policy and funding commitments rather than the stop and start of this Government. While offshore wind is no doubt a success story, we must move faster. Onshore wind development has been slow, and solar has been particularly off-track. In fact, we are going backwards. The proportion of renewable projects that are being delayed is on the rise.

Last year the Government’s predictable failure to contract new offshore wind lost 5 GW of renewable energy and the opportunity to save consumers £2 billion a year. Renewables developers still face a planning system that is stacked against onshore wind, and community energy providers still face enormous start-up costs. Rather than a petroleum Bill, why are we not debating a marine energy Bill today to incentivise investment in the various new technologies in marine energy and facilitate the fast roll-out of installations? The Government are wasting time and money on the fuels of the past. Instead, they should champion UK technology and innovation.

So, why this Bill? My suspicion is that it is an election year Bill to drive division and fuel the culture wars. For too long, working people have been made to worry that the green energy transition is a punishment for them and that it will cost them prosperity, livelihoods and the way of life that they are used to. But there are countries who have successfully turned the negative narrative into a prospect of hope and major opportunities. The US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s green industrial plan will together see over $600 billion of green investment creating new and exciting jobs and careers. Even Canada, an economy smaller than ours, has announced a package that offers nearly £50 billion-worth of tax credits for green technologies. Green investment will be worth a potential £1 trillion by 2030. Uncertainty over this Government’s commitment to reach net zero means that investors are looking the other way.

Oil and gas are energy sources of the past. Putting our political future towards them only amplifies how seriously out of touch and out of ideas this current Government are. The Bill is misleading and counterproductive. It flies in the face of our net zero commitments and will do nothing to ensure our energy security. Indeed, it will do the opposite. We Liberal Democrats will support the Labour reasoned amendment and oppose this Government Bill, and I call on all colleagues across the House with an ounce of honesty and integrity to do the same.

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

This February is on course to break an unprecedented number of heat records, and the dangers of failing to reach net zero are staring us in the face. This Bill flies in the face of our climate change commitments, and it will do nothing to secure energy security and nothing to lower energy bills, and we Liberal Democrats continue to oppose it.

I will mention two amendments that we strongly support, as they are on areas where we Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments in the past. The Bill is silent about methane and needs amending. We therefore strongly support new clause 12 to prevent methane flaring. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 80 times the warming effect of CO₂. It accounts for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It has often been seen as a quick win. Methane stays for much less time in the atmosphere, but it is still there. Reducing methane emissions is such an obvious thing to do.

The UK has signed a global pledge to cut methane levels by 30%, and a ban on oil and gas flaring and venting in the North sea would dramatically reduce methane emissions. The International Energy Agency has said that UK oil and gas operators could reduce methane emissions by more than 70% by tackling venting, flaring and leaking. That is supported by the Environmental Audit Committee and the Government-commissioned independent review of net zero. However, the Government’s track record is not good enough. In his last few days in office, the former Energy Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), unconditionally approved the new Affleck oil and gas field, whose operators will be able to burn methane until 2037.

We must also mandate monthly leak detection and repair activity. As we have said in the past, it is incomprehensible why the Government are on the one hand saying one thing, but on the other not acting. We must do something about methane. It is a complete dereliction of duty if we do not support that new clause.

The other amendment I want to speak to new clause 23, which would insert a new energy charter test. Many of my constituents have voiced strong concerns about our continuing to be part of the energy charter treaty. That energy charter test would be met if we withdrew from the treaty. As it stands, remaining part of the treaty leaves the UK vulnerable to compensation claims from investors for the early closure of coal, oil and gas plants. Attempts to modernise the ECT to protect countries from libel and to drive investment in renewables have failed. Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands have all announced their intention to withdraw. Italy withdrew back in 2016. Why should we not join them? The new clause provides a vehicle to do that. It is incomprehensible that we have to discuss this Bill. It is a bad Bill, but the amendments I have just mentioned would make it a little better.

[Barry Gardiner]

I wish to speak primarily to amendments 13 and 14, but I also support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). May I begin by paying tribute to the newly elected Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Damien Egan)? His electoral victory shows that parties with ambitious climate policies win elections, and those that choose to pursue culture wars are punished at the ballot box. I hope the Government can learn that lesson in relation to this Bill, which is a textbook example of performative politics.

This Bill will not secure British energy independence or help to meet UK or global climate targets. We know, because the Energy Secretary told us so herself, that this Bill will not lower energy bills, yet here we are debating this Bill instead of focusing our minds and time on real solutions that will accelerate the energy transition that is already happening all around us. That energy transition is not only underpinned by a strong scientific consensus to address climate change, but founded in a mission to make energy affordable and to unleash new economic opportunities across Britain, particularly in the regions left behind by previous energy transitions.

I pay tribute to all the workers in oil and gas, who help to keep Britain’s lights on. Their hard work over many years powers our country, and their skills will be essential in making Britain a clean energy superpower. That is why we must respect those workers, and why we should be truthful with them. They deserve no less than that, and we in the labour movement remember only too well what happens when communities are faced with the sudden loss of jobs. We remember the closure of the pits and the communities that were left with nothing, because Government failed to put in place genuine alternatives and a just transition.

I know that British exceptionalism is almost an article of faith or mantra with this Government, but being the first country that sells the last drop of oil is not a feasible strategy. That is not just because the world signed up to transition away from fossil fuels at COP 28, but because the North sea is a declining basin that is nearly empty. New licences between now and 2050 will only provide 103 days of gas. That is just four days of gas every year. Saying that we will expand oil and gas licences in a declining basin and pretending that that will make any real difference to jobs in the North sea is nothing short of dishonest. It may provide campaigning material to pretend otherwise, but people’s livelihoods are more important than political game playing, and we ought to stick to the facts.

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[Douglas Ross]

It is only this UK Conservative Government and the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood who are standing up for an industry that supports more than 200,000 people across the United Kingdom and 95,000 people in Scotland. We have heard that 42,000 jobs are at risk under the Labour proposals, which are almost identical to those of the SNP.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Douglas Ross]

I will briefly give way, and then I will bring my remarks to a close.

[Wera Hobhouse]

How does the hon. Gentleman propose to get to net zero by 2050 and a temperature rise of no more than 1.5C? Our current projections exceed all that. All I hear is that we have to increase oil and gas production in the North sea, but that is the wrong path to net zero. How will we limit temperature rises to 1.5C and ensure that we do not carry on the current trajectory of well over 2C? The Government do not have an answer for that.

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Lady has misinterpreted everything that I have heard during the debate. No one is saying that there will be increased production; we are looking to protect what is happening at the moment, and jobs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) said in Committee, those jobs will go elsewhere. Let us make no bones about that. They will not stay in Scotland or the United Kingdom. Under the proposals of other parties, they will go to other countries in Europe and around the world. They will drill for oil and gas in those countries, they will pay their tax in other places and they will ensure that we buy that in as a nation at a higher cost and with a greater carbon footprint.

That is why I want us to maximise what we can do in the North sea, supporting tens of thousands of jobs in the north-east and right across Scotland and the United Kingdom, and work towards that just transition, which Offshore Energies UK and everyone else is fully behind. That is why I support this Bill and the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister, who has worked constructively across the House. I have had very useful meetings with him, the Secretary of State and others.

The Bill also sends a clear message that there is one party on the side of workers in the north-east and those in the oil and gas sector across the United Kingdom. That is the Conservative party—here in government at UK level, and the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood and across Scotland. More and more people are starting to see that the Labour party and the SNP are turning their backs on these workers, and only the Scottish Conservatives and this UK Government are supporting them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who has made a powerful case in explaining why the Bill should never have reached the House. This month is on course to break an unprecedented number of heat records, and the dangers of failing to reach net zero are staring us in the face. I say this again and again, and the hon. Lady has made a very powerful point. This Government, in the name of “protecting jobs”, are turning their back on their net zero commitments, and I find that, and the way in which this debate is being run, incredibly dishonest. If the debate were honest, it would reflect the fact that the Government have shown their true face, and are delaying the climate action that is so necessary.

I have heard repeatedly, throughout the debate, “We are responding to demand.” Of course there will be demand for as long as we provide unlimited supply, and of course the oil and gas industry itself will want to drill for every last drop of oil for as long as it can, but it is for a responsible Government to make a responsible decision, and to look the dangers that confront us in the face. The tobacco industry says that there is demand for smoking materials, and the Government have understood their responsibility to stop that demand because smoking is dangerous, but they fail to see or understand the dangers of climate change. We need a Government who will guide the economy into the net zero future, because we need to secure a prosperous future, in the long term, for all people, rather than concentrating on a short-term election issue that may divide Members after such a long period of consensus on the need to reach net zero.

While the Government claim that new licences will improve energy security, the reality is very different. Between now and 2050, new licences are expected to provide an average of only four days of gas per annum. All that the Bill does is send a symbolic signal. It does not even meet the requirement that the Government have set themselves—securing energy for the future of this country. That is why I think the Bill is so dangerous. As I said on Second Reading, it was introduced for political reasons, not because the Government are genuinely intent on any outcome except electoral gain. That is why we should oppose the Bill and make it very clear to our citizens that it does nothing for energy security, nothing to get us to net zero, and nothing to curb energy bills. All Members of the House in their right mind should oppose this Bill.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Sammy Wilson. Please be cognisant of the fact that the debate will finish at 5.14 pm, and Mr Foord would like to get in, too.