House of Commons
Business before Questions
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
This is a matter for the Treasury, although we remain closely engaged. The UN framework convention is focused on improving effective and inclusive international tax co-operation, not on creating specific global taxes on oil and gas companies.
Iqbal Mohamed
The combined market value of the six big oil super-majors has soared by more than $130 billion since the first US-Israeli attack on Iran, while my constituents and those across the country face higher bills. Will the Energy Secretary and the Government work with international partners to establish global taxes on the fossil fuel industry through the UN tax convention and help bill payers with their energy costs?
Michael Shanks
As I said, this is a matter for the Treasury, but we look closely at where we can co-operate around the world. This country’s windfall tax has raised £12 billion, funding public services and supporting the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and many others with the cost of living. We will continue to invest in bringing down bills, but we will also invest in the infrastructure that gets us off fossil fuels.
Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
We are delivering the biggest upgrade to the grid since the 1960s, using strategic plans to identify where new capacity is needed and accelerating infrastructure build. In west London, network operators have used innovative measures to help new developments to connect, despite exceptionally high growth in electricity demand.
Danny Beales
I thank the Minister for that response. As well as grid capacity for much-needed new homes and infrastructure such as Hillingdon hospital, capacity is needed in west London for the large number of data centres being proposed at a regional level. What actions are being taken to strategically co-ordinate those demands and, crucially, to secure local benefits such as jobs and heat capture to lower household bills? Those things are present in the local planning system in Hillingdon, but are not being secured.
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend is right that strategic infrastructure planning is crucial, which is why we are engaging in the first ever national strategic spatial energy plan, which will lead to a centralised strategic plan for the future of the network. We are also looking at how we manage demand projects such as data centres across the country in order to get the greatest advantage. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the local benefits that can come from heat networks. We will be carrying out heat network zoning to identify where waste heat can be reused, which will bring huge benefit for communities. We are also delivering the jobs that go with the building of the network, ensuring the manufacturing and infrastructure jobs that the UK has missed for many years.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The problem for the West London Alliance, which comprises six boroughs, is the lack of grid capacity, which means that new home developments and new projects providing business opportunities are frozen for a number of years, into the 2030s. Unless there is urgent action to provide more power to the grid, all those excellent projects will be frozen for far too long.
Michael Shanks
The hon. Gentleman has framed that perfectly. The challenge is not just about being able to get clean power into homes and businesses; on the demand side, it is also about how we can connect these critical economic growth opportunities. That is partly why we have cleared out the connections queue, so that more projects can connect. We have also launched a consultation to look at how we reform the demand side of the queue. Fundamentally, though, we have to build more grid—we have not built the grid that is needed since the 1960s. We are now embarking on the biggest grid upgrade in a generation, which is how we unlock the potential in communities like the hon. Gentleman’s and right across the country.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
Families will be deeply concerned about the impacts they are facing as a result of the Iran conflict. This Government are determined to fight the people’s corner. As a result of actions in the Budget, the energy bill price cap will fall from next week and is guaranteed till the end of June. We have already provided £50 million of immediate support for vulnerable customers who use heating oil and will act to prevent unfair practices like price gouging. Above all, we will work to end this conflict, which is so essential and urgent for our national interest.
Sonia Kumar
Given that around one in five households in Dudley are in fuel poverty and that electricity levies fall disproportionately on low-income families, I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to remove some social and environmental levies from electricity bills. That has helped to shield some of my constituents from the impact of the war in the middle east. Does my right hon. Friend agree that rebalancing these levies can both support households and accelerate cleaner heating?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. It is an important reassurance for understandably worried families that, from 1 April, the energy price cap will fall by £117 thanks to this Government’s actions. That happened not automatically, but because the Chancellor made decisions in the Budget to raise taxes on the wealthiest, which was opposed by the Conservative party. That decision is making possible that relief for families, including those in her constituency.
Liz Jarvis
Before Trump’s illegal war, we had Putin’s illegal war. Both have meant soaring energy bills for families and businesses in my constituency. Citizens Advice Eastleigh tells me that more than 2,000 households are in fuel poverty. Does the Secretary of State agree that, so long as the price of wholesale electricity is directly linked to volatile gas, we will be at mercy of despots and dictators, and that decoupling is essential if people in my constituency and across the UK are to have energy security?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Member is right about this country’s exposure to fossil fuels, and that is the legacy of the previous Government. I am incredibly proud to say that, as a result of our two record-breaking renewables auctions, we will power the equivalent of 23 million homes. She is also right to say that the decoupling of gas and electricity prices is an important issue, on which we are working intensively.
James Wild
Twenty thousand households across North West Norfolk and 140,000 across the county are off the gas grid and paying much higher prices for heating oil. Ministers are creating an expectation that support will be there for those who need it. What action will the Government take if Norfolk county council is unable to meet the demand and provide support through the crisis and resilience fund to those who are struggling?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. The reason why we decided to put the money into the crisis and resilience fund three weeks after this crisis began was to get the money out the door quickly. During the previous crisis, that took 200 days. He asks an important question about local authorities’ provision of support and also what happens if they do not have the funds. That is something on which we are working intensively, and we are keeping closely in touch with local authorities. We want the help to go to those who need it and we want to work with local authorities to make sure that that happens.
Charlie Dewhirst
The latest wind auction has signed us up to sky-high prices for the next 20 years, but Ministers are claiming that their internal analysis proves that this will bring down bills. Will the Secretary of State publish those calculations in full so that we can see exactly how prices will be lowered?
Ed Miliband
We published the levelised cost analysis, which showed that new renewables were much cheaper to build and operate. As gas prices are soaring across the world and hitting us here at home, the idea that the Conservative party still opposes our renewables auction, which gives us clean home-grown power on which we can rely, is absolutely nonsensical.
Wendy Morton
The Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised families that energy bills would fall by £300, yet, since the general election, bills have already gone up by £73 and are forecast to go up more. It is hardly surprising that my constituents do not believe a word that they hear from the Government. Will the Minister explain to me when families in my constituency will actually see that £300 saving delivered?
Ed Miliband
Families in the right hon. Lady’s constituency will see savings on their bills from next week thanks to the actions of this Government. She is wrong on her facts, because, if we look across 2025, we will see that bills were lower in real terms than in 2024. We remain absolutely committed to our manifesto commitment to cut bills by up to £300 by 2030.
Peter Fortune
The Secretary of State promised that Great British Energy would lead to a “mind-blowing” reduction in bills. Can he confirm how much the average family has saved as a result specifically of Great British Energy?
Ed Miliband
Public services across the country, including schools and hospitals—I hope this will come to the hon. Member’s constituency—are seeing reductions in their bills, and money is being transferred to the frontline. We on the Government Benches support those proposals. We support lower bills. As I said to the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), he can look forward to his constituents having lower bills as a result of this Government’s actions.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
There are people who are saying that the way to bring down bills is to reach agreement with the oil and gas companies to charge less for gas in the North sea. Is not the problem with that argument that there is absolutely no way that those privately owned companies will agree—or that their shareholders will allow them to agree, to be more accurate—to a lower price than they can get elsewhere in the world?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes the really important, and relatively basic, point that gas is priced and sold on the international market. Whether it comes from the North sea or is imported, it is charged at the same price. And do not just take my word for it; when the shadow Energy Secretary was in post she said that more drilling would not necessarily lead to lower energy bills.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that this energy crisis offers the opportunity to shift further and faster on clean energy. Will he consider an energy social tariff linked to the warm homes plan to support those who are most exposed to the volatility of fossil fuel prices, not just those on benefits, but other vulnerable communities like the disabled?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend raises a really important point, and no doubt the Chancellor will cover this in her statement shortly. It is incredibly important that we protect the most vulnerable, particularly at this time. I am proud of the action we have taken to nearly double the number of people getting the warm home discount to 6 million people. This very important action will take another £150 off people’s bills, so in a sense, we have a form of a social tariff, but I assure my hon. Friend that we will keep looking at how we can expand that and help more families.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I am pleased to chair the newly formed all-party parliamentary group for warm homes. Newcastle is leading the way with its hugely impactful warm homes local grant scheme run by Warmworks in conjunction with Newcastle city council. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to see more of these locally led grant schemes, which are helping people to insulate their homes so that they can protect themselves from any incoming global insecurity that might affect their ability to heat their homes?
Ed Miliband
First, let me congratulate my hon. Friend’s council on its great work. The Government are putting hundreds of millions more this coming year into warm homes as part of our record-breaking investment. I hope we can agree across the House that investing in home upgrades is a way to not just have more energy efficiency but cut people’s bills. We are committed to going as far and as fast as we can.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State share my concern, or dismay, perhaps, that at a time when families are concerned about the cost of energy and the price at the pumps, the Conservatives have become obsessed with oil and gas licensing and not taking any action at all to reduce bills?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The Conservatives come here month after month making the same argument about something that will not reduce bills by a single penny. It was they who said that during the last crisis and when they were in government. This Labour Government are about reducing people’s energy bills, which is the priority of the British people.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
This Government are taxing people up the wazoo and piling cost after cost on to their energy bills. People on £30,000 or £40,000 a year, who are not well off, are being hammered to pay for welfare when they are already working all hours to support their own families. Now we hear that the Government are about to go back to the taxpayer again to subsidise those on welfare, but their first port of call should be to adopt our cheap power plan. It would cut electricity bills by 20% for everybody by cutting green taxes and levies, and it would not cost the taxpayer a penny. Why will they not do that?
Ed Miliband
The Conservatives’ plan is totally incredible, and the shadow Secretary of State knows it. Their plan on renewables is just to tear up the contracts. They had 14 years to do it, and they did not do it. Why? Because they know that they cannot. I have to say, it is quite extraordinary that her position is now to abolish the windfall tax, which has raised £12 billion since it was introduced in 2022. The difference between us and them is that we are willing to tax the oil and gas companies to help ordinary families.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
Despite solar and wind being freely available, only 15% of renewables are subject to contracts for difference, which effectively control prices. Given that the conflict in the middle east is set to add up to £300 to bills, is it not time that the Government addressed this Trump tax by transferring all renewables on to contracts for difference, as part of the Liberal Democrat’s plan to halve energy bills?
Ed Miliband
We are driving forward with contracts for difference, and we are looking at that proposal. On the hon. Gentleman’s more general point, though, he is absolutely right that rolling out renewables at speed—solar, wind, all types of renewables—is the best way to insulate ourselves from global economic shocks. That is a point that we have consistently made, which sadly is being borne out by the events we see around the world.
Gideon Amos
As a former member of the zero carbon homes task force, I well remember the Conservatives cancelling the zero carbon homes programme—presumably they want homes to be colder, more difficult to heat and more expensive. The Liberal Democrats welcome the enactment today of the requirement for solar panels on all new homes, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). My constituents Jan and Jeanette of the Campaign to Protect Rural England Somerset have pointed out that were that extended to car parks and commercial buildings, that would generate as much electricity as 15 Hinkley Point power stations. Will the Secretary of State extend the solar panels requirement to car parks and commercial buildings?
Ed Miliband
First, I accept the hon. Member’s congratulations on our announcement of the future homes standards today, which are a really important measure—they should never have been abolished by the last Conservative Government. On warehouses and car parks—particularly on the warehouse question—we are looking at how we can roll that out more swiftly. There is so much unused space that could be used to help cut bills right across the country.
Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Chris McDonald)
Fusion energy really is the energy of the future. Our fusion strategy, with a fusion prospectus to follow, has a strong focus on inward investment, very much ensuring that Britain is the world-leading place to invest in fusion energy.
Jo White
Last December, Donald Trump’s media and technology group purchased a Californian-based fusion energy company, putting his son Donald Jr. on the board in a $6 billion deal. The race is on for fusion energy production at scale. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the appointment of ILIOS consortium, led by Kier and Nuvia, to construct a fusion power plant in north Nottinghamshire? I am sure he agrees that will mean jobs and new skills and training for my constituency and beyond.
Chris McDonald
I do indeed welcome the £200 million design and build contract for ILIOS with, as my hon. Friend mentioned, Kier and firms like Turner & Townsend who can be relied on to deliver. We have allocated £1.3 billion over the spending review period for fusion. Britain has been firmly in the lead for research in this area; we need to be in the lead in its application, too.
I know that my hon. Friend’s constituents will benefit, but right now it would be difficult for constituents in Scotland to benefit, because the SNP cannot decide whether fusion energy is nuclear energy. I can tell SNP Members that it is, and they should be supporting nuclear energy across the whole country.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Treasury Bench would be particularly disappointed if I did not once again showcase what we have at Dounreay: a licensed site, a skilled workforce and a population who would greatly support playing a role in the development of fusion for the future. May I suggest that the Scottish Enterprise network might put its hand in its pocket to bring that forward, if that is helpful to His Majesty’s Government?
Chris McDonald
I share the hon. Member’s affection for Dounreay—I have family based in Reay and Thurso and have enjoyed many a holiday on the north coast of Scotland. As he said, it has a talented and experienced nuclear workforce, and I very much hope that they will play a part in Britain’s nuclear future.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
The Government know that energy bills in Scotland remain too high. That is why we are fighting the consumer’s corner. The action we took at the Budget will ensure that from April the price cap will fall by 7%, or £117, which is fixed until the end of June. That is in addition to support offered to vulnerable heating oil customers in Scotland and the expansion of the warm home discount, which means £92 million in annual funding for Scottish consumers.
Stephen Gethins
Scotland is one of the most energy-rich countries in Europe, and the Treasury and the UK Government have benefited to the tune of hundreds of billions as revenues have flowed in over the years, yet bill payers in Scotland pay among the highest prices in Europe. Labour promised that bills would be hundreds of pounds lower than they are now, yet two years in they follow the failure of successive Westminster Governments in terms of resilience and bills. Would Scotland not be better off looking after its own energy resource?
Martin McCluskey
Bills are going down by 7% from next week. We do not need to imagine a future with independence and what would happen with the SNP in power. Let us look at the record. The hon. Member’s party promised a publicly owned energy company six years ago; we delivered Great British Energy within 18 months. His party scrapped fuel poverty targets; we are lifting 1 million households out of fuel poverty by the end of this Parliament. While his party in government in Scotland abandoned the heat in buildings Bill, this Government are making the biggest ever upgrade to home efficiency through the warm homes plan, with £15 billion of spending.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree one reason we need to see lower energy bills in Scotland—and that has been blocked—is the SNP’s ideological objection to nuclear power? I recently received a written answer from the Minister for Energy regarding a study by GB Energy to assess Scotland’s full potential for nuclear power. Will the Minister work with his colleagues to ensure that that analysis is published as quickly as possible so that the people of Scotland can see exactly how much we are missing out on thanks to the SNP’s ideological objection to nuclear power, and how much people are suffering as a result?
Martin McCluskey
My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. I know that he is an advocate for nuclear in Scotland, as am I. We are missing out on the opportunities of nuclear, and it is a disgrace that 1,300 Scottish nuclear workers have to move south every week just to get employment in the nuclear industry. I hope that the Scottish National party reverses its ideological ban on nuclear power as soon as possible.
Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
Methane harvested from landfill sites enables the generation of around 2.5 TWh a year, which is around 1% of the UK’s electricity. Many of those assets receive a subsidy through the renewables obligation, which expires in 2027. That generation has a supportive, but limited, effect on energy security. Given the high impact of methane, my Department and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are considering long-term solutions to landfill gas methane capture and appropriate transitional arrangements.
Sarah Hall
At a time when families are already under pressure from high energy bills, what assessment has the Minister made of the risk that, without action before April 2027, declining landfill gas generation will undermine energy security and increase costs for consumers?
Michael Shanks
I reiterate that although methane harvested from such sites and used to generate electricity plays a role in electricity generation, it is less than 1% overall, so it is not an issue for our energy security. As the sites age, the amount of methane they omit reduces, and that reduction has been factored into our plans. We are looking at what transitional arrangements are needed to deal with both the methane issue and the electricity that is generated from it, and we will consult in due course.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister, as always, for his answers. It is important that we all get the advantages of the level of methane harvested from landfill sites. In Northern Ireland we also have landfill sites, with a lot of rubbish and therefore a lot of methane possibilities. I know that the Minister visits Northern Ireland regularly, so what discussions has he had with the relevant Minister there to ensure that we can get the advantages that he mentioned in his reply to the hon. Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall)?
Michael Shanks
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. My visits to Northern Ireland are important to me, and at the very first meeting of the reconstituted inter-ministerial working group we had a conversation on that exact question: how can we support the reduction of methane across the UK, and how can we support that through the electricity system? Clearly, that is a transferred matter in Northern Ireland, but I continue to have those conversations with colleagues in the Executive.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
The nationally significant infrastructure project regime provides a clear consenting route for nationally significant electricity lines, but processes have been too slow and we are determined to change that. Our reforms support the faster delivery of infrastructure, essential for strengthening our energy security in periods of global instability, while maintaining a robust and proportionate consenting process.
Helen Morgan
Green GEN Cymru, which is a sister company of Bute Energy, is in the latter stages of a very controversial process to secure planning consent for power lines for the Vyrnwy Frankton connection. The problem is that there is no substation at Lower Frankton in North Shropshire with which to connect those lines. We expect that proposal to come through later this year, but given Bute Energy’s widely reported links to the Labour party and National Grid’s obligation to connect new infrastructure to the grid, how can the Minister reassure my constituents that the whole process is not predetermined?
Michael Shanks
First, obviously I cannot comment from the Dispatch Box on a live application process. I have met a number of MPs to talk about this issue, and we are looking at all the available information. Ofgem has a role in regulating the individual energy companies that are part of this mix. I am not sure what the hon. Lady’s final point has to do with this particular planning application, but I am happy to write to her on that.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
The UK benefits from a strong and diverse energy supply, with only 1% of our crude oil and gas coming from the Gulf, but the essential lesson of this conflict is that while we are dependent on fossil fuel markets, we are exposed as a country, because prices for oil and gas, wherever it comes from, are set on the international market, affecting families and businesses. For our energy security, the answer must be to go further and faster towards home-grown clean power that we control.
Chris Murray
Our energy security is so exposed to events in the middle east because we have relied on oil and gas for too long. Not only do fossil fuels cause climate change, but we buy them on the open market, so no further drilling in the North sea would help to mitigate prices. The only true path to energy security is through renewables and nuclear, so can the Secretary of State set out how this country will do that, so that in future energy crises our country’s security is less exposed?
Ed Miliband
The North sea will continue to play an important role in our energy mix for decades to come, which is why we said in our manifesto that we will keep existing oil and gas fields open for their lifetime, including, as we announced last autumn, the use of so-called tiebacks. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in the wider point he makes. That is why we have the largest nuclear building programme in half a century, it is why we have had two record-breaking renewables auctions, and it is why we recently announced that we will bring forward our next renewables auction to July, because we need to get away from our dependence on fossil fuel markets as soon as possible.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Given the recent jump in the price of oil, would it not be good for the UK economy, jobs and the Government’s tax receipts to maximise drilling for North sea oil, as Norway does, rather than phasing it out and closing those sites down because of this Government’s, and in particular the Secretary of State’s, left-wing dogma?
Ed Miliband
I disagree with the right hon. Lady on that one. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray), we are going to use existing North sea oil and gas fields for their lifetime. I think the right hon. Lady is referring to the question of exploration licences. What everybody says is that exploration licences make no material difference to production levels. On the tax question, I hope she will carry on supporting the windfall tax and will tell her Front Benchers that this would be the wrong time to abolish it.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
I do not think I have ever been called an extreme left winger, but there is always a first time. In rural and coastal Britain there is deep worry among families about the effect of the conflict in the middle east on oil prices. We welcome the £53 million that has been announced to support them, but does the Secretary of State agree that those calling for an expansion of our reliance on oil and gas wholesale prices offer absolutely no long-term solution to energy security?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend is right. Those people offer no short-term or long-term solution to the problems of energy security, and they want to fly in the face of all the evidence. As I have said before, it was the last Government who said that more UK production of North sea oil and gas would make no difference to the global price of gas, and it is important that the House understands that.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
The Secretary of State has just misled the House—inadvertently, I am sure. Can he explain why the price of gas in the United States is about a third of the price of gas in the UK? It is because the Americans use it domestically, is it not?
Ed Miliband
No, it is not. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to alternative facts. What the last Government said, what this Government said and what every sensible economist says about more production is that his idea of more drilling—“drill every last drop,” or “drill, baby, drill”— would be precisely the wrong thing for our country because it will make no difference to the price. The answer is home-grown clean renewables that we control.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
“In the face of further geopolitical turmoil, now is the time to alter our approach to energy… Drilling in the North Sea and scrapping carbon taxes on British manufacturing would kickstart economic growth, tackle unemployment…as well as prevent further deindustrialisation.”
Does the Secretary of State agree with those comments from the Labour Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell)?
Ed Miliband
This party and this Government are taking a pragmatic approach to these issues. We are using existing oil and gas fields for their lifetime, including with tiebacks, which is welcomed by industry, but we are not going to fly in the face of the evidence. The answer to a fossil fuels crisis is not to double down on fossil fuels, but to double down on clean home-grown power that we control. The Conservatives used to believe that, before they jumped on another bandwagon.
Andrew Bowie
This is extraordinary—mad, even. No other country on Earth would deprive itself of the vast natural resource we are lucky enough to have at our disposal underneath the North sea. The Jackdaw field alone could provide 250 million barrels of oil equivalent in natural gas to the UK, and it could be up and running by Christmas, but because of the Secretary of State it is stuck in limbo. It is utter insanity. His inaction is an act of national economic self-harm. When will he make a decision and act in the national interest?
Ed Miliband
Before the hon. Gentleman self-combusts, let me tell him that, as a result of the court decision, those projects are proceeding at risk. I will tell him the way we will make a decision. I am not going to comment on a live planning issue, but I will say in general that we will make a decision that is legally watertight. The last Government made a series of decisions that were found—[Interruption.] Conservative Members say “No, no”, but they do not care about the rule of law. We saw that when they said that we should rush headlong into a war with no regard for the impacts on our constituents.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
We are taking a strategic approach to planning grid capacity and halving transmission build times through reforms to consenting, regulation and supply chains. We are working with the National Energy System Operator and Ofgem to deliver on radical connections reform, prioritising those projects that are ready to connect and strategically aligned, and to speed up access to the grid nationwide.
Sarah Gibson
The grid connections reform process was intended to improve investor confidence by removing zombie projects and prioritising shovel-ready projects, but repeated delays from NESO mean that many developers are still waiting for their gate 2 connection offers, even for projects that are due to connect in 2026 and 2027. This is extremely damaging for investor confidence. Given the importance of the connection reform to the Government’s clean power 2030 ambitions, will the Minister tell us how the Government are ensuring that NESO and the network companies are working at pace to issue those gate 2 connections as soon as possible?
Michael Shanks
The hon. Lady asks an incredibly important question, and I share her frustration. I have reflected that frustration to all those involved in this process. It is worth remembering that we had more than 600 GW in a queue, and that this process has cleared out 300 GW. That was incredibly complex, and it is the first time that any country in the world has sought to do it. It is the first time that we have done it. Clearly we have learned a lot of lessons, but the process needs to proceed much faster than it has to date. There is a clear timeline to that happening, and the first gate 2 offers are going out now. I will continue to be closely involved in ensuring that happens. It is now a partnership between NESO and the transmission owners to get those offers out the door, and I will be doing everything I can to ensure that happens.
Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Chris McDonald)
After a lot of hullabaloo about the oil and gas industry, we now get to turn to the areas where we are doubling down—namely, on our vast natural resource in clean energy industries and offshore wind, where we managed to attract £90 billion-worth of private sector investment in 2024, in collaboration with the sector councils. Whereas the Conservative Government were happy for those associated jobs to be in Denmark and the Netherlands, we are reindustrialising Blyth, the Tyne and the Tees.
Mary Glindon
Allocation round 7 was a resounding vote of confidence from developers, and our supply chains will welcome that. At a roundtable I hosted last year, the Secretary of State set out the innovative principles behind the clean industry bonus. However, competing against lower-cost regions, such as the middle east, remains a pressing concern for fabricators in the future. Will the Minister ensure that the CIB is as robust and creative as possible so that developers buy from British yards?
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend is right that the allocation round was incredibly successful. Of course, the Conservatives wanted to cancel it, given their opposition to clean industry jobs across the UK. In the north-east, where my hon. Friend is from, we are forecasting an increase of 20,000 jobs. I know that the Smulders yard in her constituency will seek to benefit from that because, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, it matters to this Government where things are made. We want those supply chain jobs here in the UK—jobs the Reform party would take away from constituents like hers and mine, with its anti-net zero ideology.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that major hydrogen projects in the Humber area, including those led by National Gas, are ready to go. They are vital to our region, which has £18 billion of value-add and 360,000 jobs, but without certainty from Government, investors cannot commit. When will the Government open the allocation rounds for the hydrogen transport and storage business models so that this investment can actually move forward?
Chris McDonald
I appreciate the right hon. Member’s concerns, having spoken to the hydrogen industry myself, and the representation he has made to me and to the Energy Minister on this issue. I can assure him that the hydrogen strategy will be out soon.
Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
We understand that many households, particularly in rural and off-gas grid areas, rely on heating oil as their primary source of heat. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced £53 million of support for those who heat their homes with heating oil, and £4.6 million will be delivered by the Scottish Government. Obviously, we continue to monitor the situation closely and will keep measures under review.
Mr MacDonald
In the remote highlands and islands, where mains gas is not available, where we have the highest level of fuel poverty in Britain, where local households and businesses rely on heating oil and electricity, and where much of Britain’s renewable energy is generated, but to minimal local benefit, does the Minister accept the unfairness of a highlander having to pay a multiple of what those in cities pay for energy?
Martin McCluskey
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I visited the Western Isles last week to speak directly to people who have been affected by the energy crisis, and I heard about the pressures people there are under. It is why we have welcomed the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation into heating oil. On his point about people benefiting from local infrastructure, this morning we announced a trial for free wind power for people living near that infrastructure—he will be able to find the details in the Vote Office.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I welcome the UK Government’s support for heating oil customers in my constituency and the follow-up support from the Scottish Government, but I am slightly baffled that the Scottish Government have chosen to centralise support through Advice Direct Scotland, instead of entrusting local authorities. Will the Minister urge the Scottish Government to use local expertise, such as Tighean Innse Gall, which he met last week, and Point and Sandwick Trust, which have that local knowledge to find hard-to-reach customers, because we know that in rural areas people are reluctant to come forward for support?
Martin McCluskey
I was pleased to join my hon. Friend in Stornoway last week to meet those organisations. It is absolutely crucial—whether it is through the local government schemes that we are running in England or through the centralised scheme that the Scottish Government are running—that we take advantage of local knowledge to ensure that the support reaches the people who need it.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
In Aviemore it will be snowing tomorrow—in fact, in quite a lot of north Scotland it will be snowing to a pretty low level. People in those areas are suffering hugely from massive energy prices for electricity, heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas for tanks. In Aviemore, a 2,500-litre tank, which was filled in November for £1,400, now costs £3,400 to fill. That is the differential that people are having to pay. Does the Minister agree that £35 per household is frankly a drop in the ocean?
Martin McCluskey
I think the hon. Member should be careful not to sow fear about these issues among his constituents, which is precisely what his remarks do. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor provided £4.6 million to the Scottish Government, who have increased the fund to £10 million. It is absolutely imperative that the Scottish Government tell hon. Members and constituents how to access the funding. They are delivering that £10 million scheme, which they have told us will be available from 1 April, so it is up to them to set out how it will get to people.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
About 30% of households in the Braes villages use alternative heating sources such as heating oil—that is far above the district, constituency or Scottish nationwide average. The Scottish Government’s decision to deliver the scheme nationally rather than locally is creating anxiety in those communities that they may be forgotten by Holyrood. What assurances have Ministers received from their Holyrood counterparts that Scottish heating oil support will be available and proportionate for communities such as the Braes villages?
Martin McCluskey
I welcome my hon. Friend’s advocacy for his constituents. It is essential that the Scottish Government scheme, which is running to support people with heating oil costs, finds its way to the people who need it. I am disappointed that the Scottish Government have chosen to centralise the funding rather than work alongside local government, but it is for them to set out how they will ensure that everyone is reached.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I declare an interest: my home is off the gas grid and my boiler is fuelled by domestic heating oil. I have listened carefully to the Minister’s answers, and there have been significant gaps—there has been no mention of liquefied petroleum gas, for example. Although it is always right to support the most vulnerable in our society, I am not sure that he has fully understood that there are many households on modest incomes across rural communities that do not receive benefits and simply do not have £500, £600 or £700 lying around to meet a bill that they have not budgeted for.
Perhaps the Minister could answer a specific question on certainty. While the CMA investigation goes on, customers continue to place orders without knowing how much they will be charged when the oil is delivered. He could implement an interim measure before a wider set of changes to stop that practice. Will he do so?
Martin McCluskey
I think I need to start by correcting some of what the hon. Gentleman said. In my statement last week, I confirmed that LPG was part of the support—perhaps he did not hear that. Our priority, all the way through this crisis, has been to ensure that funding reaches people at speed. That is why we have delivered support in two weeks, not 200 days. On his point about means-testing, the funding is discretionary, so local authorities can decide how to provide it to people. I think he also called for a CMA investigation. We will look and study the results of the investigation to see what needs to happen to regulate the industry, but, as I said from the Dispatch Box a number of times last week, it is clear that the market is not functioning properly.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
Since conflict broke out in the middle east, we have acted to prevent price-gouging, help those who rely on heating oil, and ensure that businesses get a fair deal on their bills. The energy price cap will fall by £117 next week, with savings locked in until the end of June. We have also sped up work to take control of Britain’s energy, accelerating our next renewables auction and our warm homes plan. We will do whatever it takes to fight people’s corner and learn the right lessons from the crisis.
Dr Savage
To go back to heating oil, 20% of households in my South Cotswolds constituency rely on heating oil—that figure is four times the national average—and many of them face high up-front costs. Will the Secretary of State consider supporting more flexible payment or credit schemes, and pooled purchasing models, which would enable villages to combine orders, secure bulk discounts and spread costs over time?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Lady raises an important issue, and I am sure that many Members will empathise as our constituents face difficult times. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), tells me that the Competition and Markets Authority is considering all those issues. If Members encounter practices relating to heating and other things, they should bring them to the attention of my hon. Friend, because we want to work as speedily as possible with the CMA to stamp them out.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Chris McDonald)
My hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of finishing companies. I know that some spinning and weaving businesses are included in the supercharger, but finishing is often not, even though it is done in the same factory. Clearly, whether they are waterproofing sou’westers or fireproofing mattresses, these businesses are important. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the upcoming supercharger review and what options there may be for those businesses.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State be honest and tell the country why he is ideologically obsessed with shutting down the North sea? Is it because he does not think we need the £25 billion of tax revenue it would generate? Is it because he prefers to import gas with higher emissions, or is it because he has never bothered to speak to the thousands of workers who are losing their jobs right now because of his policies?
Ed Miliband
I am not. As I said earlier, we are using existing oil and gas fields in the North sea for their lifetime, and we have introduced tiebacks for existing fields. While the right. hon Lady comes here month after month with proposals that will do nothing to cut energy bills for people, this Government are actually taking action: reducing the energy price cap next week; making plug-in solar available to all families; the warm homes plan to drive down bills; and crucially, a renewable power auction, which she said that we should cancel, to help 12 million homes.
Claire Coutinho
RenewableUK, the unions, Tony Blair and the Secretary of State’s own handpicked chair of Great British Energy—the biggest advocates for an energy transition—have said that he has got this wrong. Is his ideology so rigid that he is incapable of admitting when he has got things wrong and that he will put us on a pathway to higher emissions and fewer British jobs?
Let us try again. Can the Secretary of State be clear with the House? He knows that we will need gas for decades to come, so why does he prefer to import dirtier gas from abroad than to use the gas that we have in the North sea?
Ed Miliband
I do not. We continue to use the North sea, and ours is a pragmatic position. But there is a wider lesson that the House has to focus on. Is the lesson of this crisis—a fossil fuels crisis—to double down on fossil fuels, or is it to drive forward with clean energy? We believe clean, home-grown power that we control is the answer.
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
I thank my hon. Friend for his important question. We are taking three additional measures. We are expanding and extending the warm home discount to 2031. We have supported heating oil customers with the £53 million-worth of support that was announced last week, and our £15 billion warm homes plan is the biggest home upgrade plan in British history. All of that is wrapped up in our clean energy mission—clean power 2030—which will ultimately give us control of our energy.
Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)
Martin McCluskey
We moved swiftly to introduce funding to support people. The £53 million-worth of support, which is being disbursed through the crisis and resilience fund in England and Wales, will provide support for people through this immediate period. We will keep other measures under review, but if hon. Members have examples of unfair pricing practices, it is important that they report them to the CMA so that it can consider them as part of its review.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
I congratulate all those in my hon. Friend’s constituency on what sounds like a fantastic project, and it is an example of what we want to see all across the country. The local power plan unlocks £1 billion of investment, with the ambition that communities right across the UK should be able to own and operate their own energy infrastructure, and the profits from that should flow into local communities.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
Michael Shanks
We do work very well together, actually, contrary to what it might appear from the hon. Member’s contribution. He suggests, quite wrongly—twice now—that Scotland is generating all this electricity by itself. Of course, those projects are funded by bill payers across the UK investing in that infrastructure. His plan seems to be to take a third off energy bills with independence, with absolutely no credibility whatsoever.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
Martin McCluskey
We heard in the responses to our 2024 consultation the concerns about the continued risk to consumers arising from some of these TPIs. The Government plan to bring in new regulation of TPIs and will appoint Ofgem as the regulator, which will be empowered to put in place rules to protect small and medium-sized enterprises and other TPI customers.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Martin McCluskey
The support on offer is not means-tested; it is at the discretion of local authorities to decide the criteria for those applications. That is the first point. The second point is that the CMA is investigating this in detail. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, if there are any examples, please bring them to my attention and to the CMA’s attention, so that they can be considered as part of that review.
Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Terminally ill people often have additional energy needs and energy costs. What steps is the Department taking to support those people who are terminally ill with increased energy costs?
Martin McCluskey
I welcome my hon. Friend’s advocacy for those people. No one with a terminal illness should have to face concerns about their energy bills. I will soon be meeting the Minister for Health Innovation and Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), to discuss how Government can better share data in order to target support at vulnerable people and those with health conditions.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
Ed Miliband
The Chancellor will have heard the hon. Member’s question, because she is in the room. My right hon. Friend is providing support for people but on a platform of fiscal stability, which the Conservative party would do well to understand.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
The Minister knows that Stafford residents are passionate about solar power, and they would like to see the Government go further, with a commitment to solar panels on all new car parks and industrial buildings, like they see in Europe and in France particularly. Does the Minister agree that this policy would help to reduce energy bills for homeowners, as well as protect our rural land, and will he meet me to discuss my campaign?
Michael Shanks
I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend, so I will do that. She is right: we want to cover as many rooftops in the country as we can with solar panels. Just today we have announced that plug-in solar will be available in the UK in the summer, allowing renters and others across the world to go into a supermarket, buy some solar panels, plug them in and save money. That is part of what we want to do to bring down bills across the country.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
The green firms that innovate the most, and young firms, have been shown to be particularly credit constrained. Will the Minister meet me to discuss what measures the Government are taking to increase credit supply, raise research and development, and increase economic growth?
Chris McDonald
We now have record public sector investment in the development of this technology, with £86 billion to 2030. As a techno-optimist, I agree with the International Energy Agency that we can now solve 75% of these problems using technology, and I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the matter further.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
For as long as the UK depends on oil and gas, global conflicts will continue to drive price hikes for my constituents in Bedford and Kempston, who face soaring bills when the price cap ends in June. Does the Secretary of State agree that lower bills should come before company profits, and will he levy a windfall tax on the fossil fuel companies, which are making billions from this crisis?
Ed Miliband
As a result of decisions made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, we are raising significant sums from the windfall tax. We do not agree with the Opposition parties that now is the time to abolish the windfall tax; we think that is really important revenue that can help many of our constituents.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
We keep hearing the argument that it will take five to 10 years for new oil and gas to flow, and that therefore there is not point to starting new drilling, but the operators of Jackdaw and Rosebank say that both could be producing by the end of the year—it only needs the Secretary of State to approve that. Why is he denying the UK that supply of domestic fuel?
Michael Shanks
Those projects are continuing at the moment at the developers’ own risk. They are subject to a process, which the Conservative party will understand because this matter ended up in the courts under the previous Government. We are dealing with that process. Ultimately, none of those projects would take a penny off bills—that is the argument we are making. The Conservatives have no plan for bringing down bills; we have.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Medway Maritime hospital in my constituency is benefiting from a £25.9 million investment to introduce heat pumps and other measures. Does the Minister agree that we could invest in public sector provision to reduce bills in schools, hospitals and other buildings across the country?
Ed Miliband
I congratulate my hon. Friend’s local hospital. He rightly shows the way that cheap, clean, renewable power can cut bills not just for families, but for our public services, as GB Energy is doing, so that we can transfer money to frontline patient care.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will be aware of the very high dependence in Northern Ireland on home heating oil. Although the Government have offered some help in the past 10 days, has consideration been given to what happens beyond the summer period if the crisis in the middle east continues over the next few months?
Martin McCluskey
We have supplied £17 million to the Northern Ireland Executive, and I had a constructive conversation last week with Minister Archibald about how that is deployed. We will keep other measures under review as the situation develops.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his focus on securing UK private investment in critical minerals—it is fantastic to see. I know the Secretary of State agrees that Cornwall is vital for future UK energy security. One test and demo model in the Celtic sea has come forward in auction round 7, but I want to ask the Secretary of State about the timing of AR8, and whether he will look again at test and demo models in the Celtic sea, so that we can really use that energy base.
Ed Miliband
We all love Cornwall and its incredible clean energy potential. I can confirm that we will be opening the new renewables auction in July. We see an incredibly bright future for floating wind, and we see Cornwall absolutely at the centre of that.
Middle East: Economic Update
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Before I call the Chancellor to make her statement, let me just say that we would not normally have statements on an Opposition day, but this statement is so important. I will not run it for long, though, so please help each other when we get to the Back Benchers.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting me permission to make this statement to the House about the Government’s continued response to the war in the middle east.
Let me start by paying tribute to our armed forces; my thoughts and the thoughts of the whole House remain with them and with those whose lives have been disrupted by this conflict.
Since I last addressed the House, the costs of oil and gas have remained high, and last week the Bank of England estimated that inflation could be between 3% and 3.5% in the next few quarters. The full economic impact of the war remains uncertain, but it makes our economic plan even more important: to build prosperity that is secure and resilient and to bear down on the cost of living and protect the public finances, with delivery through our iron-clad fiscal rules. Today, I will set out further action that I am taking.
First, on global collaboration, last week the Prime Minister authorised the US to use UK military bases to defend the strait of Hormuz. It remains the case that the best way to protect families and businesses is rapid de-escalation of this conflict. To strengthen our collective security, I have announced that we will explore a new defence financing and procurement mechanism with the Netherlands, Finland and other EU and NATO partners. I welcome the International Energy Agency’s decision to authorise a co-ordinated release of our collective oil reserves to alleviate the immediate pressure on supply, and the UK has now begun the release of our share of 13.5 million barrels of oil.
Secondly, on our energy security, the last Government’s failure to invest in energy was a failure to protect our country, but through determined action, this Government are taking control of our own energy supply: we are investing in renewables, lifting the ban on onshore wind and streamlining grid connections; we ran the biggest offshore wind auction in European history last year, and we are bringing the next renewables auction forward to this July; and we are driving forward negotiations on the UK’s participation in the EU internal electricity market. We must guarantee that our domestic oil and gas industry can also play a role in our energy system for decades to come, so I can confirm that we are encouraging investment in tiebacks to make the most of our existing production facilities.
We are rewriting the story on nuclear, too. We have construction on Sizewell C, have agreed an extension to Sizewell B, and are due to sign the contracts on the UK’s first small modular reactors in Anglesey, in partnership with Rolls-Royce. I will not tolerate red tape and vested interests holding back our energy security, so our new planning rules will unblock the pipeline of critical infrastructure projects. I can announce today that we will legislate to implement the Fingleton review in the next Session, and I recently wrote to industry and regulators to get them to set out their plans to fast-track that implementation in full.
To the Opposition parties, which like to talk big about energy security but then vote against the very infrastructure to build it, let me say this: it is time to put our country first. I can confirm today that we are developing options to back critical energy projects with indemnities if their planning consent is challenged, so that we do not waste a single moment in protecting our energy security, because energy security is national security.
Thirdly, on households and businesses, I know that when prices rise and incomes are squeezed, people look to the Government and ask, “What are you doing to help?” That is why, since the election, we have delivered and funded 30 hours of free childcare to working parents, with wages rising faster than prices for every month that I have been the Chancellor and free breakfast clubs being rolled out at primary schools. From next week, this is what will see: the two-child limit—gone; day one sick pay—in; another rise in the national living wage; prescription charges—frozen; train fares—frozen; fuel duty—frozen; and the state pension increasing by £575. For businesses, there is £4.3 billion in business rates support; the regulation action plan, which will cut admin costs; and the supercharger discount, which will be followed next year by the British industrial competitiveness scheme to take money off business energy bills. But I know that there is more to do.
On trade, I can confirm to the House that we are aiming to conclude negotiations with the EU this year on the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, which will directly impact food prices in our shops. I have also asked officials to look at where targeted reductions to agrifood tariffs can help bring down food prices, balancing this against the implications for domestic producers and food security. Later this week, I will be holding meetings with supermarkets and banks to discuss how they can further support their customers.
We have a world-class competition and consumer protection regime. Since my last statement, the Competition and Markets Authority has stepped up its statutory monitoring of fuel prices, and I will update on fuel pricing within the next month. The CMA is working with Government to monitor the cost of household essentials for both price rises and disruption, and has launched a market study into heating oil. Today, I can announce that we are going further to make sure that the Competition and Markets Authority has the powers it needs—powers that were denied to it by the previous Government—to detect and crack down on price gouging, bringing in a new anti-profiteering framework and considering time-limited, targeted powers for the CMA and other regulators. This week, the Business Secretary and I will convene the regulators’ council to discuss its work to protect consumers, because—let me say it again—this Government will not tolerate any company exploiting this crisis at consumers’ expense.
Finally, I want to update the House on how I am preparing for this conflict as it goes on. I know that families and businesses are worried about the impact of rising prices. I have said that we will be responsive to a changing world and responsible in the national interest, and today I want to set out in more detail what that means.
First, we will be responsive. We do not yet know what the full impact of this conflict will be, so we must be agile in responding appropriately at each moment. We extended the 5p fuel duty cut and have pushed out the cheaper fuel finder, empowering people to avoid rip-off prices, and chasing down the last few filling stations to reach 100% compliance. When wholesale kerosene prices more than doubled overnight, we stepped in within a matter of days with £53 million of support for those who needed it most. From next week, households will benefit from £150 off their energy bills thanks to the action that I took in my Budget, with the price cap giving households certainty on their bills until July, ahead of the winter months, when people use 78% of their gas.
Secondly, we will be responsible. The spring forecast showed that the Government have the right economic plan, restoring stability to our country’s finances and family finances. I will not put that stability at risk. As we respond to this crisis, we must learn from the mistakes of the past. The previous Government pushed up borrowing, interest rates, inflation and mortgage costs with an unfunded, untargeted package of support under Liz Truss. That gave the most support to the wealthiest households: between 2022 and 2024 under the last Government, households in the top income decile received an average of £1,350 of direct energy bill support. That left us with high levels of national debt—a cheque written then for a bill that is still being paid today. I can confirm to the House that contingency planning is taking place for every eventuality, so that we can keep costs down for everyone and provide support for those who need it most, acting within our iron-clad fiscal rules to keep inflation and interest rates as low as possible.
This is not a war that we started, nor is it a war that we joined—notwithstanding the advice of the Opposition parties—but it is a war that will have an impact on our country. The challenges may be significant, but I promise to do what is right and fair, being responsive in a changing world and responsible in the national interest. I commend this statement to the House.
Sir Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement.
The right hon. Lady comes to the House with an economy in tatters. She would have us believe that she has delivered the stability and resilience that can weather the storm ahead, but she has done nothing of the kind. When she came to office, she ramped up borrowing and spending and hiked taxes to record levels. She was warned at the time, by the Office for Budget Responsibility and others, that her policies would mean higher inflation, higher borrowing costs and higher interest rates, and that she would destroy jobs. All of that has come to pass. Her mismanagement and foolish choices have given us the highest inflation in the G7, the highest borrowing costs in any major advanced economy—with gilt yields higher than those of Greece and Morocco—fragile fiscal headroom, the highest unemployment since the pandemic and rising, and GDP per capita falling. Under this Government we are getting poorer, and our economy is increasingly fragile and far from secure and resilient.
Despite what the right hon. Lady has said about tiebacks, nothing exemplifies this Government’s economic folly more than their approach to oil and gas. The utterly misguided net zero obsessions of the Energy Secretary have led to the absurdity of reduced extraction, while we see jobs destroyed, tax revenues forgone, and energy security smashed. The greatest tragedy of all is that in Jackdaw and Rosebank we have fields ready to go. In just months, they could be pumping vital relief to millions. Jackdaw alone has enough gas to supply more than 1.5 million homes, yet the right hon. Lady has nothing to say on that matter. Less oil and gas extraction means greater dependency and less security: this road leads to ruin. On energy, on the cost of living, on jobs, on growth, on public finances, on every measure that matters, the Chancellor has left us weak, weak, weak, and in the face of this energy shock, millions are about to suffer as a result.
With respect to her statement, may I ask the right hon. Lady the following questions? How many fuel retailers have yet to engage with the new fuel finder service, and can she comment on the widespread reports of technical glitches and out-of-date price information? She mentioned the small modular reactor planned for Wylfa, but given the need, can she explain why she has chosen not to go ahead with the large-scale nuclear site that was signed off by the last Conservative Government? On the specific subject of energy cost support, may I ask what fiscal capacity she believes she has to support those in need, and what plan she has to ensure that any targeted approach truly reaches all of them?
In her statement, the Chancellor criticised the last Conservative Government’s support package for not being targeted, but what she failed to mention was the fact that the present Prime Minister was then urging for support to be universal. Indeed, he said at that time that Labour’s approach would ensure
“that no household would pay a penny more on their bills.”—[Official Report, 8 September 2022; Vol. 719, c. 404.]
We have had no consistency from the right hon. Lady. How is she going to ensure that support for people depending on heating oil reaches those who need it most? Of course, that support, under this Government, will be funded through the taxes of hard-working people. Indeed, the reduction to energy bills this April is simply being taken from bills and dumped on to the shoulders of hard-pressed taxpayers.
It does not need to be this way. Is not the critical question this: where is the control of public spending? Where is the renewed resolve to grasp the welfare bill to get people off benefits and into work? I will tell you, Mr Speaker: it is nowhere, because the right hon. Lady is a captive of her own Back Benchers and has brought our economy one step from its knees. She knows it, the country knows it, and now we must all brace ourselves for what is to come—not from a position of strength, as the right hon. Lady is so desperate to have us believe, but from a position of weakness of her own making.
Rachel Reeves
That statement revealed only that the shadow Chancellor is utterly out of his depth. In the past 20 months, we have had six cuts in interest rates. We have more than doubled the fiscal headroom compared with the headroom that I inherited from the Conservative party. For the first time in six years, our deficit is less than 5% of GDP, and wages have increased by more than inflation in every single month that I have been Chancellor of the Exchequer. Compare that with the record of the previous Conservative Government, who oversaw the only Parliament on record in which people were poorer at the end of it than they were at the beginning. I prefer my record to their record any day of the week.
The shadow Chancellor says that we should act. Well, we have acted, but what he fails to mention is that his party supported our being involved in this conflict. Whereas we have called for de-escalation, the Leader of the Opposition said that we should be a participant in this conflict. The damage that that would have done to our economy would have been immense, yet the Conservatives make no apology for that.
The Leader of the Opposition said yesterday about the Prime Minister:
“If he’s creating a support package, that’s going to be done with taxpayers’ money.”
She thinks that we should be doing things that are not going to cost taxpayers money. The shadow Chancellor says that we should do more and put in more money, but the Leader of the Opposition says that we should not do anything. Where does the Conservative party now sit on the £53 million of support that we gave on heating oil? That was using taxpayers’ money to support those who needed it most. It was the right thing to do, but now the Leader of the Opposition seems to suggest that it was the wrong thing to do.
The shadow Chancellor asked a few specific questions. On the cheaper fuel finder that we have introduced, more than 90% of retailers have signed up to it, and of that 90%, all of them are updating their prices regularly. Along with the Competition and Markets Authority, we are chasing down the final few that have not submitted their prices.
On small modular reactors, the Conservatives say they supported it. They had 14 years, and they put not a single penny into it. The same is true of Sizewell C. They cannot say that we should spend less money and at the same time say that we should support Sizewell C and small modular reactors, because everything has to be paid for.
On fiscal capacity, we have more than doubled the headroom compared with what I inherited from the Conservatives. It was less than £10 billion when I became Chancellor of the Exchequer; it is now nearly £24 billion because of the actions that I have taken. The shadow Chancellor says that we have not built contingency, but the exact opposite is the case.
The shadow Chancellor asks about Rosebank and Jackdaw. It was because of the failure to do the work properly that they were challenged in the courts. One month after the previous Government left office—because they were kicked out—the courts came back and said that we had to reconsider scope 3 emissions. The energy companies Shell and Equinor resubmitted their plans at the end of last year. [Interruption.] The regulators—
Mr Speaker
Order. Members can go and have a discussion outside if they cannot be quiet here.
Rachel Reeves
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The energy companies came back at the end of last year with their revised plans, and the regulators are now considering those. Ahead of the autumn, my right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary will to decide whether it is legal to go ahead with them, but we made a commitment in our manifesto to honour existing licences. It is only because of the failure of the previous Government to consult that we are in this position in the first place.
The shadow Chancellor says that if we cut the welfare bill we will be able to help people. Well, I am afraid the Conservatives had 14 years in office and he was the Welfare Secretary when the bill ballooned. Frankly, we will take no lessons from the Conservative party. It is only the Labour Government who can be responsive to the immediate challenges, because we have been responsible with the public finances. We are committed to our long-term energy security, and committed to making the right decisions in the national interest.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we have no idea how long this conflict will be and he is not assuming that it will be over quickly. We live in troubled times, and it is quite right that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is making serious contingency plans as we move through spring and summer and into autumn and winter. As she well knows, one of the challenges of targeting support is the availability of data. What is she doing to make sure that the data is available—not just across Whitehall, but in local government and in the energy companies themselves—to target support at those who need it most?
Rachel Reeves
That is a really important point. The previous Government had not done the contingency planning, so when the energy price shock came along, they said, “We are not going to provide any support.” In the end, they had a choice between doing nothing or providing blanket support. It was that blanket support that cost £78 billion. We have been working with the Department for Work and Pensions, local Government and others to ensure that we will be able to target support at those who need it most, but that is in addition to taking £150 off everyone’s energy bills already. We are doing the work. The prices come down in April for the following three months, and we are a long way off the winter, when 78% of gas is used by households.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement. Our thoughts are with our brave armed forces at this time.
I agree that the last Government’s failure to invest in energy was a failure to protect our country. Today we face the stark reality that we cannot guarantee our national security, our energy security or our food security. When the Liberal Democrats were in government, we launched the auction for onshore wind and established the Green Investment Bank, helping to drive down costs and quadruple renewable energy. The Conservatives’ decision to scrap the Green Investment Bank has left our energy system more exposed, and should be worn as a badge of shame.
To shore up our energy security and to tackle the energy crisis, we Liberal Democrats have consistently argued for a three-pronged approach: first, to reduce energy demand by incentivising households and businesses to invest in energy efficiency, without the tax penalties built into the business rates system or prohibitive up-front costs; secondly, to fix the broken energy market that is unfairly inflating prices, especially for small businesses on our high streets; and thirdly, to provide targeted support for the most vulnerable and for those with the highest energy needs. I urge the Chancellor to consider our proposals to create an energy security bank that can offer low-interest loans for energy-saving improvements for households and small businesses, to reverse the cuts to home insulation programmes, and to exempt business investment in energy efficiency from business rates calculations.
Although the action from the Competition and Markets Authority is welcome, it is not enough. Small businesses have been blocked from the best energy deals for years—well before Donald Trump started bombing Iran—yet there has still been no CMA investigation into suppliers blocking access to those fair deals. I ask the Chancellor again: will she please instruct the CMA to do that investigation without delay?
On targeted support, families are fearful. Will the Chancellor consider zero-rating VAT on heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas and introducing a price cap mechanism for off-grid fuels? Will she commit to halving energy bills over the next decade by reforming pricing structures? If bills rise to more than £400 a year, as some are warning, will the Chancellor commit to coming back to this House and outlining a broader support package so that many struggling households do not face a crippling hit of that scale?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. Nick Clegg once said that it would take 10 years to get nuclear power up and running so there was no point in doing it, as it would come on stream only in the 2020s. Imagine if that Deputy Prime Minister had not blocked investment in nuclear energy then—we would have the benefits of it today. The Liberal Democrats had a chance when they were in government, and they did absolutely nothing. The Conservatives opposed onshore wind, which is also helping to bring down bills.
In terms of supporting investment in renewables and energy security, we have created the National Wealth Fund, which is prioritising investment in defence and energy security, including in critical minerals in Cornwall, carbon capture and storage and the roll-out of chargers for electric vehicles. We have also put £14 billion into the warm homes plan to subsidise and support people to make energy improvements in their homes in order to reduce their energy consumption and therefore their bills, alongside doubling the number of people eligible for the warm home discount. We are looking at improvement relief through the business rates consultation to ensure that if people do make improvements, including on energy efficiency, they will not then be whacked with higher business rates.
The hon. Lady said that we should cut VAT on heating oil. When the Liberal Democrats were in government, they increased VAT on everything, so it is a bit rich to say that they want to cut it now. We have asked the Competition and Markets Authority to do a review into heating oil, which I set out today, in addition to the £53 million of support we have put in.
There seems to be a slight contradiction in what the hon. Lady is saying—does she want targeted support or blanket support? I argue that the progressive, universal approach that we are taking is the right one. It means £150 off everyone’s energy bills, but also targeted support for those who need it most. We cannot repeat what happened when Liz Truss was Prime Minister—we are still paying the price for the cheque that was written then with higher interest rates, inflation and taxes than we would otherwise have had.
Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)
I welcome the Chancellor coming to the House as soon as possible to make a statement. On profiteering in the fuel sector, the last time there was a problem with oil prices was after the war began in the east, when the then Government, following their laissez-faire market policies, allowed prices to rip to an extraordinary extent. The consequence, as we saw, was outrageous profiteering in the energy sector. Will the Chancellor indicate that we will not follow the Conservatives’ failed laissez-faire ideology, and that we will instead intervene directly in the market to prevent outrageous profiteering from occurring on this occasion?
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. That is why we have the energy profits levy and the electricity generator levy—so that we can claw back any excess profits. It is also why we believe in an active and strategic state, including through empowering our regulators, like the Competition and Markets Authority, to ensure that the price gouging we have seen in the past cannot happen after the conflict in the middle east.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
In an attempt to get some consensus here, I commend one part of the Chancellor’s statement, where she said:
“We must guarantee that our domestic oil and gas industry can…play a role in our energy system for decades to come”.
Is there not a sensible, middle-of-the-way approach here? We should by all means proceed with green energy—such as offshore wind, in which we lead the world, in the North sea off the Lincolnshire coast—but we should also keep an open mind about new extraction from the North sea. I was listening carefully to what she said to the shadow Chancellor. Will the Chancellor confirm today that the Energy Secretary will keep an open mind when he considers these licences, so that we can guarantee our resilience in the future?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his approach and for his question. The oil and gas industry plays an important role in our energy system and will do so for decades to come. We very much welcome the jobs that it creates, the tax revenue that it provides and, most importantly, the energy security that it offers. In my Budget, I set out the new North sea oil and gas strategy, which includes allowing the use of tiebacks or infills on existing sites. For the reasons I have explained, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero now has to take a quasi-judicial decision on Rosebank and Jackdaw. He will, of course, approach that decision with an open mind because this Government recognise the importance of our oil and gas sector.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the essential truth is that the Government have introduced a package of measures to make the poorest families in Glasgow and across the United Kingdom better off, whereas the Conservatives propose plunging those families back into extreme poverty? They left us with ridiculous levels of debt and the weakest defence since the 1930s—their record is absolutely shameful.
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is right, but I would say it is worse than that in Scotland, where there is the legacy of two awful Governments: the Conservatives made people poorer, while the SNP Government fail to back our nuclear sector, which could deliver cheaper bills for people in Scotland.
Sir Jeremy Hunt (Godalming and Ash) (Con)
Could I gently ask the Chancellor to be less partisan at a time of crisis? If she brings before the House difficult measures that are right for the country, she will have the support of the whole House, but if she is partisan, she will not. I actually rise to support her basic instinct, which is for targeted rather than universal support. Four years ago, energy bills were heading to £4,000. We are at nothing like that now, and we do not know what the oil price will be next week, let alone this winter. Although we gave support to households and families last time by increasing borrowing, with her support, we cannot react to every single economic shock by further increasing our national debt. Will she confirm that when she comes to the House to announce targeted support, it will be fully funded in her Budget and not funded by increasing our national debt yet again?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. When he became Chancellor, it was on the back of lots of promises that there would be no support for energy bills. He and others recognised that that position was not sustainable, but work had not been done on how to introduce a targeted system, so the choice was a binary one between blanket support or no support. The right hon. Gentleman took the right approach then by ensuring that people’s energy bills did not go through the roof; however, a targeted approach would be more appropriate, because under the previous approach, the top third of families got more than a third of the benefit. That is not right or sensible—all it does is drive up inflation, interest rates and taxes in the future. It is not the fault of the former Chancellor that that approach was taken, but we are using this period, when energy prices are actually falling because of the approach I took in the Budget, to ensure that we are in a position to take a targeted approach in the autumn.
Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Chancellor for her statement, and in particular for setting out the long list of interventions this Government have made on the cost of living, which stands in stark contrast to the record of the Conservatives, who left behind the worst legacy on living standards in a generation. Can the Chancellor confirm that in the weeks and months to come, as she takes decisions on encouraging regulators to take action and in contingency planning, she will keep in mind the need to protect our constituents’ living standards while ensuring economic stability?
Rachel Reeves
That is why what we did in the Budget last year was so important. In other countries, domestic energy bills are now going up, but because of the measures that I took in my Budget last November, energy bills will fall from 1 April, despite everything that is happening in the middle east. However, what would have the biggest impact on bills is an escalation in this conflict, which is what the Conservative party initially wanted to happen.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Shetland is home to one of the largest onshore wind farms in the country, the operators of which are paid millions not to generate electricity because of grid constraints. As a result, the announcement this morning of a trial of discounted energy rates for communities such as ours will be met—possibly—with some excitement. When will we hear the details of how that will work and what it will mean in terms of reductions to the bills of my constituents?
Rachel Reeves
On the point about national grid infrastructure and why we end up paying for energy that cannot be used, we have to speed up those connections. That is why I spoke about consulting on indemnities for building out infrastructure, even in the case of judicial review. We must act in the national interest and get this infrastructure built. At the same time, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero will set out in more detail the specific ways in which we can bring down prices for communities, including those of the right hon. Member.
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)
My constituents are appalled by supermarkets and other petrol retailers that are price gouging and profiteering from global instability and a middle east war that was backed by both the Tories and Reform. Let us make no mistake: if they were in government, our country would be right in the middle of it. Will the Chancellor set out the action that she is taking to clamp down on price gouging? I thank her for the £9 million announced yesterday to help my constituents in Cowdenbeath and elsewhere affected by the changes at Mossmorran.
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for those questions and for her campaigning work on Mossmorran to ensure that we can properly support her community, which we are also doing with our growth mission fund. We have introduced the cheaper fuel finder to ensure that price gouging does not happen, as it provides greater transparency on the prices offered by different fuel retailers. This is something that the previous Government could have done in their 14 years in power. France already has a cheaper fuel finder available on a number of apps, which can be used when people are travelling. We are introducing that system here because we want to ensure that our constituents pay the lowest price possible when they fill up their tanks.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Given the current crisis, does the Chancellor regret in her first Budget increasing unfunded borrowing by £150 billion over this Parliament, which the Office for Budget Responsibility said at the time was
“one of the largest fiscal loosenings of any fiscal event in recent decades”?
Rachel Reeves
The Conservative party once believed in fiscal discipline, but that has gradually eroded over time. It is because of the fiscal rules that I introduced that we have been able to invest in Sizewell C and in small modular reactors. That was not possible under the fiscal rules of the previous Government. I would also say that borrowing fell in the last year. That did not happen in the last few years of the previous Conservative Government.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Chancellor for her statement. I am sure she will agree that our biggest concern is the intersection between poverty and food and energy price hikes for our constituents. As she looks ahead, will she consider a warm homes prescription to protect people’s health by keeping their homes warm, which would also save money, and will she ensure sufficiency in the crisis and resilience fund, so that local authorities can invest in those in the greatest need?
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. From next month, families with children will benefit from the abolition of the two-child cap in the universal credit system. We have also doubled the number of recipients of the warm home discount and put £14 billion into upgrading people’s homes through the warm homes plan. Of course, as we look at targeted support, we will consider vulnerabilities within that.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Chancellor has mentioned several times that households will benefit from £150 off their energy bills, but I had a constituent on the phone this morning who has been told that his energy bills are still rising and will not see the savings that the Chancellor is talking about. What conversations is she having with energy companies to make sure that people do actually benefit from the fall in bills that she is so keen to talk about?
Rachel Reeves
I would be very happy to see the particular details of that constituent, because energy companies—through both fixed and variable tariffs—are passing on that £150 reduction that I introduced in the Budget by getting rid of the energy company obligation levy entirely and by moving other levies from bills on to general taxation. I am happy to look at the particular circumstances of that individual, but people should be getting, on average, a £117 cut in their energy bills from 1 April.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
I thank the Chancellor for her statement. As she says, we have made good progress on stabilising our fiscal and economic situation since the 2024 election. Most notably, we have increased the headroom available on our public finances, but as a result of the previous Government failing to invest in sustainable energy and nuclear, we are much more exposed to price shocks than we could be. Does she agree that it is vital that we do all we can to protect the most vulnerable in our community, including those among my constituents in Dartford, from the energy price hikes will result from this middle east war?
Rachel Reeves
For my hon. Friend’s constituents in Dartford and for people around the country, there have been six interest rate cuts since the general election. The more than doubling of the headroom means that we have a bit more room for manoeuvre in the face of shocks. However, gas has set the price for energy at a third less than it was just four years ago, because of this Government’s investment in renewables.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I welcome the targeted nature of these measures, but three weeks ago it looked like inflation was going to return to the level that the right hon. Lady inherited when she took office in July 2024. That is no longer going to happen, but we are now seeing it the cost of borrowing. Given that we are spending well over £100 billion a year on debt interest, what assessment has the Chancellor made of the implications for the public finances of higher inflation and higher borrowing costs?
Rachel Reeves
It is because of those concerns and not wanting to put any upward pressure on borrowing costs or inflation that we are looking at what targeted support can be offered, rather than the blanket support we saw the previous time energy bills went up. The Bank of England offered its assessment on the potential impacts on inflation, but as the Governor of the Bank of England has also said, the upward pressure on inflation because of the conflict in the middle east is tempered somewhat by the action that I took in my Budget last year, which reduces inflation by between 0.4 and 0.5 percentage points, taking off some of that upward pressure on inflation.
Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)
I thank the Chancellor for her statement. May I ask her to do something for a specific group of people? Constituents who have to rent their home in the private rented market, especially those in more deprived communities like mine, will see their energy bills go up, but their biggest outgoing each month will still be their rent, which all too often is exploitative in areas like mine. We had rent controls in this country from the first world war up until the dying days of Margaret Thatcher’s Government. What can she do, thinking outside the box, to tackle this issue?
Rachel Reeves
I recognise that in my hon. Friend’s constituency, like in mine and many others, more people are in private rented accommodation than own their own home. One reason for introducing the Renters Rights Act 2025, which was opposed by the Conservative party, is to give people greater certainty, to enable them to challenge increases in their rents, and to give them greater rights over eviction, which was done to help his and all of our constituents.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
Just three weeks ago at the spring statement, I cautioned the Chancellor that significant fiscal intervention would be required to protect businesses and households in the face of the war in the middle east. She said at that time that, thanks to her actions, the finances of the UK were in robust condition. Now she prevaricates in order to protect those self-same public finances. Those two things cannot be true at the same time. Some 13% of my constituents are reliant on oil; in Scotland the figure is 5%, in England 2%, and in Leeds West and Pudsey it is 0%. Perhaps that is why she provided just £53 million to support oil users, which will not even touch the sides.
Rachel Reeves
It took 200 days for the previous Government to act on heating oil, and it took us under two weeks. We have put in £53 million, and that money is allocated based on heating oil usage in different parts of the country. None of the £53 million will go to help my constituents in Leeds West and Pudsey because we do not use heating oil, but there will be support for Scottish and Northern Irish constituencies and many others, because it is the right thing to do.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
It is expected that food inflation will hit 4%. That means that a typical family’s annual grocery bill will increase by approximately £240. In Scotland, approximately 1 million people experienced food insecurity in the last year, and food insecurity is closely linked to access to and consumption of fruit and vegetables. The Chancellor said that she will meet with supermarkets, but what will the asks and demands be so that people can access nutritious and affordable food?
Rachel Reeves
The two-child limit for universal credit will be lifted from next week, and food banks have said that that will reduce reliance on them from families with children. That is a very good thing, but there is more that the Government could do to try to bring down food inflation, including getting a sanitary and phytosanitary deal with the EU, which would bring down prices in the shops. We are committed to achieving that this year. It is opposed by the Conservatives and Reform because of their ideological dislike of the European Union, but it is the right thing to do to reduce food inflation for all our constituents.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The sad truth is that the Chancellor weakened the UK economy with her tax-busting Budgets and jobs tax, and that has been exposed by this middle east crisis. The Energy Secretary’s actions are making things worse: he has just refused to maximise drilling in the North sea and issue new licences, which would provide much-needed energy security and affordability. Will she now see sense and overrule the Energy Secretary’s decisions?
Rachel Reeves
Since I became Chancellor, we have had six cuts in interest rates, and for every month that I have been Chancellor, wages have risen faster than prices. Compare that with the previous Parliament, where people were worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. If the right hon. Lady believed in energy security so much, why was she part of the Government who refused to fund small modular reactors or Sizewell C and opposed onshore wind, which is the cheapest form of energy? If she believes in energy security, she should back it.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
My constituents are being exploited by unscrupulous petrol retailers who are not letting a crisis go to waste. At BP in Winsford unleaded is 10p more per litre than the cheapest price in the area, and at Shell in Middlewich it is 15p more per litre. Does the Competition and Markets Authority have the powers that it needs to clamp down on this unscrupulous behaviour?
Rachel Reeves
We have introduced the cheaper fuel finder to ensure that my hon. Friend and, most crucially, his constituents have that information. People in France can already see the different prices of petrol at different filling stations on a map via an app or their sat-nav. That is where we will be in just a few weeks’ time once we have the technology working with those companies. The previous Government had 14 years to introduce something like that, and other countries have already done so while we went without. Having the fuel finder tool means that all our constituents can fill up at the cheapest cost.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I thank the Chancellor for recognising the disproportionate reliance on home heating oil in Northern Ireland, but the £17 million made available for half a million homes reliant on oil equates to £34 per household, and there is no data to target that support. There is £81 million available from the renewables obligation for electricity. We were told by the Prime Minister and the Northern Ireland Secretary that that could be targeted, yet Treasury officials are blocking that, so I ask her to look at that again.
The Chancellor has made a commitment not to restore the 5p duty on fuel, but could she also look at the rebate for red diesel to help support construction, transport, haulage and energy regeneration in our country to stimulate the parts of our economy that have a disproportionate reliance on it and have lost the support that they gravely need?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about heating oil. Obviously, a disproportionate amount of support has gone to Northern Ireland, given its greater reliance on heating oil, and we encourage local authorities to target the money at those who need it most. At the same time, to ensure that everybody is supported, the Competition and Markets Authority is doing an urgent review to make sure that price gouging is not going on. We acted in a matter of days on heating oil, because that was the right thing to do.
When we froze fuel duty, we also took action on red diesel, but I am happy to ensure that the relevant Minister meets with the right hon. Gentleman to talk further about what needs to be done.
Several hon. Members rose—
Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)
The Chancellor will be aware that we have a strong manufacturing sector in Huddersfield and in Yorkshire, including the defence businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises that are feeling the pressure of rising costs. The middle east war has seen import prices go up and disrupted supply chains, so how is she supporting manufacturers in particular?
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is right about the importance of manufacturing in Huddersfield and more widely across Yorkshire. We are introducing the supercharger from the beginning of April, which will take £420 million off the energy bills of the most energy-intensive industries. The British industrial competitiveness scheme will also help over 5,000 businesses when it comes in next year.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The fuel price shock caused by Trump’s reckless war highlights just how risky it is for the UK to be locked into the global fossil fuel markets. The Climate Change Committee recently pointed out that the cost of achieving net zero by 2050 is less than the cost of a single fossil fuel price spike, reinforcing the point that we need to invest in clean, green technologies and get ourselves off being hooked on fossil fuels.
The key problem in the UK is that gas is coupled to electricity prices, so decoupling is crucial. Will the Chancellor look at the report last week from Common Wealth, which points out that decoupling could be achieved right now and would save households at least £200 each year?
Rachel Reeves
I agree that de-escalation is the best way to reduce bills for families and businesses. I gently say to the hon. Lady that we want investment in renewables, and we introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 to make it easier to build them, but her party voted against that—a vote which would have kept people’s bills higher than they need to be. We have had a one-third reduction in gas imports, and gas is setting the price of our energy at something like a third less than it was just four years ago. The electricity generator levy and the energy profits levy are ensuring that excess profits are taxed, and we can use that money to support the public finances and public services.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)
The consumer-focused, pragmatic approach being taken by this Government is in such contrast with the rhetoric of some on the Opposition Benches, who would only see military action escalate—and be in no doubt that our constituents would be paying the price for that.
I welcome the CMA’s report this morning about action to tackle rip-off vet fees, but that report took several years. The Chancellor spoke of new powers for the CMA to tackle price gouging, but can she confirm that it will be able to act swiftly, nimbly and in real time to tackle companies seeking to exploit this particular crisis?
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the Conservative party’s gung-ho approach would have made the crisis worse, not better. Our approach diplomatically has been to de-escalate the crisis at every stage, in part because we do not want that cost of living impact on families. As he knows, we met the Competition and Markets Authority a couple of weeks ago to talk through what more can be done, including on rolling out fuel finder for cheaper fuel and investigating the impact on heating oil. The CMA will be coming back to us in the next few weeks following that investigation, and looking more widely at how to keep prices down for all our constituents.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The £474,000 awarded to Dorset council last week as part of the Chancellor’s announcement is welcome, but I must tell her that it really will not touch the sides; more will need to be done to support rural communities. Unwillingly and unwittingly, the Government will be profiteering through a massive hike in VAT and duty take. May I urge the Chancellor to ringfence, either in whole or in great part, the excess receipts that she will be receiving—this would not add to Government borrowing—to support rural communities across the country as they face this cost of living crisis?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about heating oil. As well as the direct support for his local authority and many others, the CMA’s work is crucial to stop businesses exploiting the crisis to increase their profits. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), the CMA will report on that shortly. On ringfencing certain tax revenues, it is clear that a prolonged conflict will reduce other tax revenues and push up borrowing costs, so it is not possible to ringfence a particular tax for a particular use, because other tax revenues will be coming down. But the whole reason for the energy profits levy and the electricity generator levy is to have some stabilisation in the system to bring in money to support the Government and our constituents when that is most needed. Of course, we will be using it to do that.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the serious approach she has taken to the conflict, unlike the hokey-cokey approach we have seen from the Conservative party. Peterborough is willing to play its part in developing our energy infrastructure, and we have already had £1 billion-worth of private investment to upgrade the gas networks based out of Peterborough, but my constituents know that the price hike is not just about what is happening now in the middle east; it is about that decade when we did not build the energy infrastructure the country needs. Will she reassure me that her plan will speed up new nuclear, speed up investment in renewables and get the country building the energy infrastructure we need if we are to tackle this challenge for the long term?
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is great to see that investment in the gas networks coming into Peterborough, supported by him. That is in stark contrast to the Conservatives, who got rid of our gas storage facilities, stalled on nuclear and stalled on renewables. As a result, they left us more vulnerable to an energy price shock.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
What contingency planning is taking place to support non-domestic energy bills, especially in rural areas such as mine where a great number of small businesses and community organisations rely on heating oil and LPG?
Rachel Reeves
I am sure that the hon. Member will agree that the best thing we can do to support households and businesses is to de-escalate the crisis and bring it to an end as quickly as possible. But, as I set out in my statement, I will not tolerate businesses price gouging and earning excessive profits because of the conflict in the middle east. The CMA therefore has new powers to ensure that does not happen, and we are targeting support at those who most need it.
Points of Order
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. After the financial crash in 2009, a banker called Tom Hayes was wrongly sent to prison. Last July the Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and in January it instructed the Government to pay him just shy of £300,000. He has still not been paid—not because the Government dispute the sum, but because they cannot agree among themselves which Department should make the payment. He cannot get an answer about what will happen, and I cannot get an answer—I do not even know which Minister to approach because of the wrangling inside the Government. I wrote to the Lord Chancellor, and his Department told me that I will not get an answer until at least the middle of next month. How can I establish which Department is responsible so that this House can get a proper answer on how this injustice will be resolved?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the right hon. Member for his point of order. In the first instance, he may wish to consult the Clerks in the Table Office for advice on how he can best elicit a response. He might also like to raise the issue at business questions with the Leader of the House, who will then ensure that the question is directed to the correct Government Department.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for acquired brain injury and to voice my concern about the news that 287 patients in a hospital in Northampton are to be relocated across the country. NHS England has told local health bosses that the hospital is not fit for purpose and so they must relocate those patients, many of whom are brain injured. The hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) is also very concerned, as many of the patients are his constituents. Given that you have probably not had notice of a statement from the Government, how may I draw it to the House’s attention beyond this point of order? How can Ministers be asked to come here to explain what they will do about this woeful situation?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the right hon. Member for his point of order. He is quite right: I have had no notice of a statement on this issue. He can raise it at Health questions and with the Leader of the House. He has certainly done an excellent job of highlighting this matter, as he has done in debates that I have listened to. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard him.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Tomorrow is the UN’s international day of remembrance of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. The Ghanaian Government’s resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade a crime against humanity, which is backed by the African Union, the Caribbean Community and a growing global coalition, will be debated. Given our nation’s central role in the trafficking and enslavement of African peoples, a vote against that resolution would be a betrayal of every life it consumed. The House has never debated this. How can we be certain that our UN vote reflects the will of this Parliament and, more importantly, the will of this country? How can we ensure that decisions of such magnitude taken in our name receive the democratic consideration they deserve before a vote is cast?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. As she will know, the Government conduct diplomatic relations at the United Nations under Crown prerogative. Nevertheless, she has placed her concerns on the record, and those on the Front Bench will have heard them. As the House has not debated the issue, she might do well to apply for a Backbench Business debate or a Westminster Hall debate, or raise it with the Leader of the House at business questions.
Personal Protective Equipment (Inclusive Standards)
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require that personal protective equipment procured and provided by public sector and associated bodies must comply with Standard BS 30417:2025, or an equivalent specified standard; and for connected purposes.
I bring the Bill to the House as a proud member of the GMB union. We all know the importance of personal protective equipment, which is the final defence against unavoidable risks in the workplace, but what is not always appreciated is that employees across the UK are routinely working without fit-to-form PPE, compromising safety and hindering their productivity. BS 30417, developed by the British Standards Institution, is guidance that puts fit-to-form PPE as a consideration at every stage of purchasing, supply and use. Our workforce is not homogenous: employees are not all male, 5 feet 9 and 85 kg—and even then, PPE is often designed for a taller man. Too many are given inadequate PPE whether they are preparing food, handling chemicals, building houses, healing patients or fighting fires—boots so big that they become trip hazards, gloves so large that they cannot grip properly, or high-vis jackets so cumbersome that they restrict movement.
Although some employers offer inclusive PPE, it is time for us to put our money where our mouth is. Enshrining the BSI’s new PPE standard or the industry equivalent in public procurement sends a clear message to employers and manufacturers that the future of work and PPE is inclusive. Over the past year and a half, I have met women across industries—health services, the fire service, police, armed services and engineering—and they are exasperated at poor-fit PPE and, often, the ridicule that comes with it.
Take something as simple as sizing. The smallest glove size available on the market is still too large for 86% of female hands. That is not just inconvenient and cumbersome; it is unsafe. Many women doing training drills on ladders, or handling hoses and ropes, find them impossible as the gloves are simply too big to allow for a secure grip. Running into a burning building is something that few of us would ever want to face, but our firefighters do that daily. In an attack, running towards danger is something few of us would do, but our police officers do that daily. Handling soiled linen and cleaning up bodily waste is something most of us avoid where possible, but our carers, nurses and medical professionals do that daily. One Scottish firefighter came to me with her experience of running into burning buildings, but the service did not have any female-fit fire boots. That is intolerable, and a dangerous trip hazard in a perilous situation. In basic frontline protection, we are failing women who are putting their lives on the line.
The horror stories go on. Stab vests, predominantly designed to fit men, are simply inadequate to fit the body shape of female police officers. Ordinarily, they are too big and too loose. When running, the stab vest slides up and down, hitting against their neck and chin, in an encumbrance that slows them down in moments of danger. In one case, a knife slipped under a police officer’s garment and she was hospitalised with severe stab wounds. Alternatively, officers are forced to tie them so tight that it impairs their breathing.
Others spoke of needing to alter their PPE just to make it fit, which completely compromises their safety and makes the worker legally liable for accidents on site because they are wearing their PPE incorrectly. And that is before we even begin to talk about the lack of well-fitting protective clothing for people with disabilities, religious and cultural requirements, and men who do not fit the average size. Women in war zones have reported their oversized body armour cutting their thighs when sat in vehicles traversing rocky terrain, or of helmets falling over their eyes. We should not expect our service personnel to enter combat zones if we cannot deliver the body armour and fitted head protection that can save lives.
Although such examples are not limited to public services, the purchasing power of the state represents a sizeable portion of the market, through the purchase of PPE for our council care workers, firefighters, armed services and police. This Bill will put people at the forefront of PPE procurement, ensuring true fit-to-form protection from sparks and burns, waste and disease, machinery and chemicals.
I give special thanks to the people who put so much work into the new BSI standard and helped me learn all things PPE. The subject was not my forte, but it soon became a passion project. I thank the BSI drafting panel, superbly led by Sara Gibbs and Natalie Wilson. I am also grateful for the inspiration of Rowshi Hussain for challenging PPE straight from graduation into various construction sites; Robbie McGregor for all his help; and the GMB team, Mel and Lynsey, for bringing their campaign for inclusive PPE to employers and to the workplace. I also place on record my thanks to my parliamentary assistant, Angus Walker-Stewart, who diligently followed me down this rabbit hole. I also take this opportunity to wish the British Standards Institution a very happy birthday—it is a big one—marking 125 years of standardising our rail gauges, plug sockets and now PPE.
I conclude my proposal of this Bill by bringing it back to where I live and where I come from politically. International Workers’ Memorial Day falls on 28 April every year. In Bathgate, where I live, we gather in Balbardie Park, which is most beautiful in the springtime, with the cherry blossoms welcoming visitors. Now designated a park of peace, this old colliery site saw at least 23 fatalities during its operation. International Workers’ Memorial Day’s motto is “Remember the dead, fight for the living”. This new inclusive PPE standard allows us to do just that and help ensure that those who go to work return home once again. With an ambitious plan to upgrade infrastructure and build 1.5 million new homes, this Labour Government can lead by example and enshrine BS 30417, or equivalent, at the heart of public sector procurement.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Kirsteen Sullivan, Patricia Ferguson, Mike Reader, Susan Murray, Chris Kane, Douglas McAllister, Johanna Baxter, Tracy Gilbert, Elaine Stewart and Lillian Jones present the Bill.
Kirsteen Sullivan accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 17 April, and to be printed (Bill 404).
Opposition Day
Oil and Gas
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 108 / Noes: 297 - Question accordingly negatived.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I inform the House that the Speaker has selected the amendment tabled in the name of the Prime Minister.
I call the shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to remove the Energy Profits Levy, end the ban on new oil and gas licences and approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields to increase secure domestic energy supply; recognises that the North Sea provides half of the UK’s gas supply, supports 200,000 skilled jobs across the UK and generates billions of pounds in tax revenue; further recognises that three quarters of the UK’s energy needs are met by oil and gas, that the UK will continue to use oil and gas for decades, and that the North Sea is the UK’s most secure and lowest-carbon source of oil and gas; notes that without action to make the sector more investable, the UK risks importing 82% of its gas by 2035 at higher cost and with higher emissions; and further notes that independent analysis by Stifel shows that the Energy Profits Levy will cost the Treasury more than it raises and that reforming it would generate an additional £25 billion in tax revenues within 10 years.
What do RenewableUK, Scottish Renewables, Greg Jackson from Octopus, the chair of Great British Energy, the unions and the Tony Blair Institute all have in common? They all think that the Labour party has got this wrong; they all think that we should make the most of our oil and gas in the North sea. They are some of the most powerful advocates for clean energy in this country, they are the great and the good of the Labour left, and they all get that shutting down the North sea is an act of economic self-harm—an unforgivable own goal when it comes to Britain’s energy security. The question is: why does the Labour party not get that? Let us go through the arguments, one by one.
First, the Secretary of State has argued that the North sea does not help our energy security because all the oil and gas gets sold abroad. That is rubbish. We use all the gas that we drill in the North sea. It makes up about half our supply. If we do not use our own North sea gas, by 2035, we will be three times more reliant on foreign imports of liquefied natural gas. That is much dirtier foreign gas. Why would we use that when we could use our own? The argument that it does not affect our energy security is pure misinformation from the Secretary of State, and MPs in the House today would be unwise to repeat it. Even the Climate Change Committee acknowledges that we will still need oil and gas for decades to come. If we are going to need them, we should get as much as possible from Britain. That is just common sense.
Secondly, Labour says that maximising our own resources in the North sea makes us more reliant on fossil fuels. That is total rubbish. Producing our own oil and gas has no connection with our consumption of oil and gas. The biggest barrier to electrification is not our oil and gas industry; it is the Labour party, making electricity more and more expensive by piling levies and taxes on to people’s bills. Using electricity to heat our homes or drive our cars can help make us resilient during a price spike, but the problem is that our electricity is too expensive. The Secretary of State, by piling cost after cost on to people’s electricity bills, is making the problem worse.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that the simple thing to do to bring down bills is to scrap net stupid zero, so that we can scrap all the carbon taxes and all the green levies, and all our consumers and households would be better off?
Claire Coutinho
We do need to take some of the green taxes and levies off electricity bills. The problem is that if the Government keep making electricity more expensive, no one will want to use it. That is why our policy is the opposite of theirs. We believe that we should make electricity cheap by taking off green taxes and levies, and that has nothing to do with the North sea. Drilling in the North sea does not stop anyone buying an electric car. It does not stop us building nuclear, of which I am a strong advocate, and nor does it stop us building wind or solar for that matter. The Government say that drilling in the North sea leaves us tied to fossil fuels, but why? They need only look to Norway to see that that is not true. It makes the most of its own oil and gas resources, but lots of people drive electric vehicles there. Let us hear none of that argument today.
Thirdly, the Government say that drilling will not help reduce costs for ordinary people. That is economically illiterate rubbish. We are paying tens of billions of pounds to import oil and gas from Norway from the exact same basin we could be drilling ourselves. Destroying our oil and gas industry means some £25 billion in lost tax revenue for the public finances over the next decade. The Government say they are taxing the wealthy. Are they in the real world? They are taxing anybody with a pulse: pensioners, middle earners, small businesses, farmers, drivers—if they breathe, the Government are taxing them, and people are suffering. The Government could instead be getting that tax revenue from a thriving industry.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
Is it not true that the number of jobs in the North sea oil industry halved in the last decade when the shadow Secretary of State’s party was in government?
Claire Coutinho
The hon. Lady might like to know that oil and gas jobs have been stable for the past six years, but we are losing 1,000 jobs a month because of the Government’s policies. I know that because I have been to Aberdeen; perhaps she would like to do the same.
We also saw yesterday that the markets are charging us 5% for our borrowing. That is because they think we borrow too much and earn too little. There is an easy way for the country to earn some more money: we can make the most of our own resources and back the North sea, which would drive down costs for everyone. It is unfashionable at the moment to talk about balance of payments, but if we keep sending billions of pounds abroad and rack up the credit card bill, that causes costs for everybody.
Fourthly, on climate, Labour will say that drilling our own oil and gas in the North sea is “climate vandalism”—I am quoting the Secretary of State—but that is patent rubbish. Every drop of gas that we do not drill ourselves, we import from abroad instead. The liquified natural gas that we import has four times the emissions of gas that we could get from the North sea. LNG, for those who do not know, has to be frozen to minus 150ºC, shipped in diesel-chugging tankers, then heated up here. That is why it has much higher emissions overall. The Labour party says that it cares about that and that climate change is the biggest threat to our national security—its words, not mine—but it has a choice today: we can be three times more reliant on that dirtier LNG shipped across the Atlantic or shipped in from the middle east, or we could use our own gas with four times fewer emissions. Do the Government prefer virtue signalling and higher emissions under the Secretary of State, or more jobs and lower emissions under our plans to back the North sea?
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend, like me, feel sorry not only for all the consumers up and down the country who see billions of taxes that could be paid if we just produced more oil and gas here—that could be used to lower their taxes when they fill up their cars and travel to work—but for the two Ministers on the Front Bench, the hon. Members for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey) and for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks)? Neither of them is an idiot, but they have been captured by an ideological Secretary of State who is literally making them swear that black is white.
Claire Coutinho
The two Ministers are Scottish MPs. They have been to industry, and they know what people in those areas are saying. They know the jobs that are being lost. It is so blindingly obvious that we should use things that we make in this country, rather than using dirtier imports from abroad. The question they need to ask themselves is, why is it that their Secretary of State cannot see the truth?
Fifthly, the Government say that new fields will take too long to get up and running. That is dangerous, short-termist rubbish. Jackdaw and Rosebank could be up and running by Christmas. They have been sat on the Secretary of State’s desk gathering dust. The Government are hiding behind the process. I was part of the process, and it is in the Secretary of State’s gift—it is up to him to make the assessment. We are in an energy crisis, and he could speed things up if he chose to do so. Jackdaw alone could produce enough gas to heat more than 1.5 million homes. Labour’s Chancellor commended Norway and Canada for drilling more—[Interruption.] That is what she said last week. She said that
“every country has got to play their part”
by generating more oil and gas. Government Members should ask themselves why their party position seems to be to support the oil and gas industry anywhere but Britain.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Lady agree with her shadow Energy Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), when he said:
“Look, nobody’s saying that net zero was a mistake. Net zero in the round was the eminently sensible thing to do. We need to decarbonise and we need to have an ambitious target to aim for”?
Claire Coutinho
I would thank the hon. Lady, but I do not think it takes much effort to read out a Whip’s question. The question she needs to answer is why she is supporting a policy that will increase British emissions. She is supporting a policy that means we are importing goods with higher emissions.
I have laid out five bad arguments that have been thoroughly disproved by people outside this Chamber whom the Government supposedly respect. Those five bad arguments spun by the Secretary of State should be consigned to history. What the North sea can give us is what it has been doing all along: stronger energy security, a stronger environment and a stronger economy. Are those not things that we want the next generation to have? The question that the Government need to answer is this: what reason do RenewableUK or their very own chair of Great British Energy have to back the North sea if it does not give us those very things? Maybe—just maybe—it is time for the Government to admit that their Secretary of State has approached his role with a dangerous, blinkered ideology, rather than being interested in the national interest. Perhaps even they realise that they are once more being marched up the hill on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of public opinion, when we all know that there will be an inevitable U-turn from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor in a few weeks’ time.
It is mad at the best of times not to want to make the most of our own resources. The idea that one should ban industry if it does not change prices in this country is, let us be clear, an argument to shut down all business in this country. There are benefits to making things in Britain: jobs, tax revenue and self-reliance. The Labour party used to understand that.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
On that point about security and growing energy at home, I am sure that my right hon. Friend shares my concern that in the push for renewables, we are entirely reliant on the processing being done in China on the other side of the world. The Government talk about not being reliant on petrochemical dictators, but they seem perfectly happy to be reliant on renewable dictators.
Claire Coutinho
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In the trade wars that we saw last year, China limited the export of several rare earth minerals that are critical components in the renewable supply chain. An energy system that is dominated by renewables is one that is completely reliant on China, and that is why we think it is the wrong approach. It is mad at the best of times not to want to make the most of our own resources, but in the middle of a supply crisis, it is completely unforgivable. Yet that is exactly what Labour MPs will vote for today. They are on the wrong side of history on this one. They should put their disastrous Secretary of State’s zealotry to one side, fast-track Rosebank and Jackdaw, reverse their disastrous bans and taxes, and put our energy resilience over their narrow political interests by backing the North sea.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the shadow Minister and the Conservative party for bringing this subject forward. My constituents tell me very clearly, “If we have oil, let’s dig it, let’s drill it and let’s make sure that we get the opportunity from it.” Is it not ludicrous for the Labour party to let Norway get all the assets from the drilling and let us get nothing, when it is coming from the same bed? For the Labour party to have that policy is ludicrous. It goes against the will of the people and against the will of us those of us on the Opposition Benches of this Parliament. I think the Minister should take a review of this decision.
Claire Coutinho
I think those are the strongest words I have heard from the hon. Member in my entire time in Parliament, and the Government would be wise to heed them. At the moment, we share the same basin with Norway. Last year, Norway drilled 46 new wells and made 21 new discoveries, while we drilled zero wells for the first time since 1964. This is exactly the same basin. There is not a geological difference; it is a political line drawn down the middle. It is quite clear that it is the approach of Labour and the Secretary of State that is driving the industry into the ground.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
One reason that Norway is so successful is the certainty that is applied to its tax regime in respect of oil and gas drilling. The Conservatives’ motion, as I read it, seeks to remove the energy profits levy. As a point of clarity, can the right hon. Lady be clear with the House as to whether she would want that to be replaced by the oil and gas price mechanism, as suggested by so many in the industry in Aberdeen?
Claire Coutinho
I know that the right hon. Gentleman’s party has a chequered past in backing the North sea, but I would be happy to work with anyone to look at how we can support the industry.
My position is clear. At the moment, we are taxing companies at a marginal rate of 100%, we are banning new licences—the only country in the world to do so—and we are making ourselves more reliant on dirtier gas from abroad, when we could be using our own resources and taking in £25 billion of tax receipts. That is why I urge the Labour party—the party that used to be the party of workers, the party of industry and the party that understood aspiration in this country—to put itself on the right side of history and vote for the motion today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“welcomes the Government’s approach to the future of the North Sea, which maintains existing oil and gas fields for their lifetime, as well as introducing Transitional Energy Certificates while accelerating the transition to clean energy; notes that new licences to explore new fields would take many years to come online and would make no difference to energy bills; recognises that oil and gas prices are set on international markets; and further welcomes the measures announced by the Government to go further and faster on national energy security by reducing reliance on volatile fossil fuel markets and expanding secure, home grown clean energy.”
As I have said many times in this House, the North sea oil and gas sector is one of our great industrial success stories. We are proud of the role that the North sea’s workers and communities have played in helping to power our country and the world for decades, and we recognise the role that oil and gas will play in our energy mix for decades to come, as well as the vast skills and experience of our offshore workforce. However, as a Government we also have a duty to be honest about the challenges we face, and the reality is that more domestic oil and gas production will not make us more energy secure and will not take a penny off bills. There is a lot of debate when it comes to this issue, so it is important to focus on the facts.
Martin McCluskey
And on that point—about facts—I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Richard Tice
Earlier today, the Secretary of State refused to answer my question about why the price of gas in the United States is between a third and a quarter of the price of gas here in the UK. Perhaps the Minister could help us all and help the British people with that question, which goes to the heart of the price of gas and the size and cost of our bills.
Martin McCluskey
As the hon. Member will know, the price of gas and oil is set on an international market and, as I have said, extracting more from the North sea would not make a penny’s difference to the price in this country.
The North sea is a super-mature basin that accounts for around 0.7% of global oil and gas production. Production has been naturally falling for more than 20 years, which means that our North sea no longer has the reserves available to support domestic energy demand. Crucially, any new licences now would not make any difference to people’s energy bills because, regardless of where it comes from, oil and gas is sold on international markets, where we are price takers, not price makers.
Graham Stuart
If we were to accept the argument that it would make no difference to the international price—notwithstanding the fact that there are global markets and that supply and demand leads to much lower prices in some places than in others—we are still talking about billions of pounds in forgone taxes, which could be used to reduce prices, to reduce VAT and to reduce all sorts of impositions on the British people, saving not pennies but many pounds on ordinary people’s bills. That is true, isn’t it, Minister?
Martin McCluskey
The Conservatives want us to remove a tax that is contributing £12 billion to the Exchequer, funding our public services and allowing us to invest in our schools, hospitals and other public services. If they oppose that funding, they need to come forward with their own proposals. The only route to energy security and lower bills is to get off our dependence on fossil fuel markets over which we have no control, and on to clean home-grown power over which we do.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
There seems to be a complete failure to understand how the gas market works. It works on piped gas, on local markets and on an integrated supply and consumption system, yet the Minister is addressing it as though it involves shipped oil. It is not the same market, yet he is dealing with it as though it is. Could he please begin to address the fact that this is a very different market?
Martin McCluskey
We have been importers of gas since 2004, and the Conservatives will know—because they presided over the period of decline—that it has been declining for some time.
Recent events in the middle east are yet another reminder of the need to speed up the transition and protect British people from price shocks. Thanks to our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower, we have already seen £90 billion of investment announced for clean British energy, but we are now determined to go even further and faster in pursuit of national energy security.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I accept the Minister’s point about having more home-grown energy, and renewables can be good for insulating ourselves from economic shocks, but he will know that great swathes of our industrial base are gas dependent, not least the ceramics industry. What message does he send to them? The current price per therm is twice what it was three weeks ago. Those business are renewing their contracts. This is going to kill industry in certain parts of our foundational sector that we need to meet our mission, so what is the Government’s message to those industries?
Martin McCluskey
My hon. Friend is a real advocate for the industries in his constituency. The Minister for Industry is looking in detail at this and coming forward with proposals for industry to take us through this moment, as we deal with the situation in the middle east.
We are bringing forward the next renewables auction months after our most successful auction ever secured enough power for the equivalent of 16 million homes. Just today, we set out plans to make plug-in solar available in supermarkets so that more people can put a panel on their balcony or outdoor space and begin saving energy. We are also ensuring that heat pumps and solar panels will be standard in new-build homes.
The energy profits levy has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members across the House. Since its introduction in 2022, the levy has raised around £12 billion. As I said earlier, this revenue supports vital public services. As the Chancellor noted at the recent spring forecast, the energy profits levy will be replaced by the new oil and gas price mechanism in 2030, or sooner if average oil and gas prices over six months fall below the thresholds of the energy security investment mechanism. The Chancellor recognises industry’s calls for the EPL to be replaced by the mechanism, and wants to work with industry to provide certainty on the future fiscal regime while taxing the windfall profits of energy companies.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
On the energy profits levy, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast last year downgraded the expected income from oil and gas by 40% between March and November, and by another 20% between November and March this year. By 2030, we are now expecting only £100 million from a sector that used to bring home billions. That is because of the EPL and the ban on licences. That is the impact that Labour is having on the oil and gas sector.
Martin McCluskey
The hon. Lady will know that this is a windfall tax on windfall profits. If there are no windfall profits, there will not be a windfall tax.
The motion calls for an end to the ban on oil and gas licensing. The Government have been clear that we will support the management of existing fields for their lifespan. That is why we have committed to introducing transitional energy certificates, which will enable some offshore oil and gas production in areas adjacent to already licensed fields linked via a tieback or in areas that are already part of an existing field. New licences to explore new fields would make no material difference to overall production and would run contrary to the science on tackling the climate crisis.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Why does the Minister think the strategy of this Government is so different from that of Norway? Nobody doubts the commitment that Norway has to the environment and net zero, and yet it is pumping more oil and gas than it has done for a very long time, notwithstanding its longer-term commitment to net zero.
Martin McCluskey
Norway has managed its fields in a very different way from the way this country has over the course of 40 or 50 years. Every country will take its own decisions on how best to secure its own energy supply, and many other countries are taking a similar approach to the United Kingdom.
Let me turn to Jackdaw and Rosebank, which are addressed in the Opposition motion. At the outset, I should say that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the merits of individual cases because doing so could prejudice the decision-making process. As with planning decisions, which are comparable in nature, offshore oil and gas projects are subject to a robust and legally-grounded regulatory framework under which information submitted by developers must be carefully assessed. In both the Jackdaw and Rosebank cases, the Secretary of State will make a decision on whether to agree to these being consented in due course. It is imperative that all relevant material is properly considered so that decisions are sound, defensible and robust. When reaching a view, the Secretary of State will assess the overall balance between any potential significant environmental effects and the wider benefits to the interests of the country. As Members would expect, that assessment will involve considering a range of factors, which may include energy security, alongside environmental considerations.
Some have asked why the decisions are taking time. The answer is straightforward: these are planning-type decisions that must be taken in full knowledge of the facts. The guidance on the assessment of scope 3 emissions, published last year in response to the Supreme Court’s judgment, is the first of its kind, and it is therefore crucial that we take the time to apply it properly. [Interruption.] It serves no one’s interest for decisions to be rushed—it certainly does not serve the industry or the constituents of the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who is chuntering from a sedentary position—only for it to be overturned later by the courts, which was the mess that the previous Government got into.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned energy security. Of course, that is fundamentally the most important issue facing us as a country at the moment, not only because of the conflict in the middle east, but wider conflicts, including that in Ukraine. Is it not the case that we must stop taking short-term decisions and instead look to the long-term future of our energy so that we can get nationally controlled energy security, which is good for our national security, too?
Martin McCluskey
My hon. Friend makes an important point that gets to the heart of this debate. We are not going to learn the wrong lessons from the current situation in the middle east. We will not make ourselves more reliant on fossil fuels, at a time when we can see playing out day after day in all our constituencies the effect—rising prices—of being overly reliant and exposed to gas and fossil fuels.
We are incredibly fortunate to have the North sea on our doorstep. For almost half a century, the oil and gas buried there has fuelled development and charged our economy. But for too long, Governments have ignored the transition happening before their eyes. We owe it to the North sea’s workers and communities, which have done so much for our country, to set out a proper plan for their future and to seize the immense potential in clean energy.
Stephen Flynn
The workers who the Minister is referring to have a very different take from his own on his Government’s approach to the North sea. Indeed, I think they would be incredulous at the arguments he is making today and that his Government have made over many months, because it is costing them their jobs. He knows that moving from the energy profits levy to the oil and gas price mechanism as quickly as possible will give those workers some hope and will help assist with energy security. Is he or his Department currently in discussions with the Treasury about making that happen?
Martin McCluskey
The Chancellor has had discussions with industry and will continue to do so, and that is the right and appropriate way to conduct these decisions. I was pleased to be in Aberdeen a couple of weeks ago talking to the same workers that the right hon. Member mentions. Of course, we need to do as much as possible to ensure that oil and gas workers are properly protected through this transition, but we must not lose sight of the great potential, for example, in floating offshore wind, which will also provide a significant future for his constituents and people across Scotland.
As I was saying, the transition that is under way is the only way to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels and build a more secure energy system. Following a consultation with businesses and communities last autumn, we set out the steps we are taking to unleash the North sea’s clean energy future. That plan recognises our world-class energy workers and supply chains and the importance of supporting them through that transition.
Graham Stuart
The Minister has been most generous in giving way. He will know that Harbour Energy was the single largest producer in the North sea—it is leaving. He will know that it has been devastating for so many workers in the industry. He will also know that, by all projections, in 2050 this country will still be dependent on oil and gas in all scenarios. Yet, by not doing new licences, we will by definition be more dependent on foreign supply, much of it having to come through the strait of Hormuz. How can that make any sense? I do not think the Minister thinks it does, but I suppose he is forced to stand on his feet and repeat the nonsense that comes out of the mouth of his Secretary of State.
Martin McCluskey
I am more than capable of forming my own conclusions, and what is in this speech are my own conclusions. I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to listen to what I have had to say throughout this speech. Harbour Energy is continuing to operate. He talks about dependence. The dependence that we see at the moment is dependence on fossil fuels and on oil and gas, which has left every single one of our constituents across this House exposed to volatile oil and gas prices and to higher prices. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), the only way out of that is to get off this rollercoaster of fossil fuels and on to home-grown energy where we can control the price. That is a responsible action from a Government who are focused on the long term and not the short term.
Dr Murrison
Offshore Energies UK does not agree. It said that at the current rate of the Government crashing the North sea industry, we will be three times more reliant on gas by 2035 than we are at the moment. Is the Minister right or is Offshore Energies UK right?
Martin McCluskey
I will say to the right hon. Gentleman what I said to his Front Benchers last week: the Conservatives need to stop talking down the North sea. With 1.1 million barrels a day being extracted, that is not an industry being shut down; that is an industry continuing to produce.
Just last week, the Minister for Energy met our North Sea future board in Aberdeen with representatives from industry, unions and local groups to discuss how we can drive a fair, orderly and prosperous transition. Net zero is the economic opportunity of the century—
Martin McCluskey
That is despite what the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) might say. This Government will ensure that our oil and gas workers can take advantage of that opportunity while driving for energy sovereignty and abundance with clean home-grown power.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I alert Members to the fact that there will be a four-minute time limit on speeches, which of course does not apply to the Front Benchers.
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
We need to be clear that this energy crisis is, in effect, an oil and gas crisis and shows us yet again just how dangerous our overdependence on fossil fuels is. Just as with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the middle east conflict shows how a single geopolitical escalation can send energy prices soaring, leaving households and businesses here in the UK exposed to shocks beyond their control. History is now in danger of repeating itself: families struggling with higher gas, petrol and food prices while energy companies’ profits surge. Forecasts from Cornwall Insight suggest that, if the conflict continues, energy bills could rise by £332 this July—a £332 Trump war tax on our energy bills.
Yet what do we see in the Conservative response? More drilling, more dependence, more of the rollercoaster of volatile fossil fuel prices. Alongside Reform UK, the Conservatives who are here today to mislead the public on the need to “Drill, baby, drill” are the same ones who were gung-ho in urging the Prime Minister to join Trump in the illegal war that caused this very crisis.
Claire Coutinho
Can the hon. Lady explain why the production of oil and gas makes us more reliant on the consumption of oil and gas? Will she consider the example of Norway, which, despite exporting oil and gas, and getting tax revenue from it, has high electric vehicle penetration? Why does she conflate these issues?
Pippa Heylings
I believe that the Minister answered that question. Norway has a very different system, and it made different decisions about consumption, based on the faster and greater adoption of techniques and heat pumps. The dither and delay under the previous Conservative Government meant that we did not move forward and reduce consumption.
The truth is that expanding oil and gas production in the North sea—a mature basin from which we have already extracted 93% of resource—would do nothing to cut people’s energy bills, because any oil and gas extracted is sold on international markets to the highest bidder. Nor would it influence global prices, given that the UK can contribute only a tiny fraction of the global supply, even if new licences were granted. It would neither cut bills nor increase the security of supply.
Research by Uplift shows that fields licensed by the previous Conservative Government over 14 years have produced just over a month’s worth of gas to date. Energy security is national security; as long as we rely on fossil fuels, we rely on foreign dictators and petrostates. Trump’s national security report was clear: he will use his gas to project power, turning it on and off at will. The Conservatives and Reform have shown that when Trump says “jump”, they ask, “How high?” That is not energy security; it is energy surrender.
Harriet Cross
Just to confirm, is the Liberal Democrats’ position that they do not want new licences in the North sea?
Pippa Heylings
I can confirm that the Liberal Democrat position is not to support new fields for exploration in the North sea. Rather, we should accelerate our own home-grown clean energy, the price of which we control. Otherwise, our constituents will forever be at the mercy of a deteriorating world order.
Pippa Heylings
Let me turn to jobs, which matter deeply. Those working in the North sea are skilled workers. They have kept our lights on, and must be at the heart of any transition. A just transition recognises that, although we will need oil and gas for decades to come, the North sea is a mature basin, and oil and gas workers, as well as supply chains, need support to transition. Even though the Conservatives supported new North sea drilling, the number of jobs in the oil and gas industry fell by 70,000 when they were in government, but without this level of outcry or support.
I grew up in Hull—a city that knew the devastation of unmanaged transition. I saw, through my father’s work as a GP, the human cost of industries collapsing without a plan. Dockers, trawlermen and entire communities were left behind and lost pride. We must not repeat those mistakes. Yet in Hull today, we also see what success can look like. With investment in offshore wind, companies such as Siemens are creating skilled, well-paid jobs for the future building wind turbine blades—that means jobs and pride.
Pippa Heylings
Let me turn to climate change. Although fossil fuels are driving skyrocketing costs, they also drive the costs of the unabated climate change that is already hitting our farmers and our communities, through crippling flooding and droughts. Approving Rosebank alone would add nearly 250 million tonnes of emissions, pushing us beyond our climate targets and further out of line with the Paris agreement, which aims to protect us all. Opening new fields would worsen the climate crisis without cutting bills or improving energy security. It would exacerbate climate breakdown, which is a national security threat that drives instability, displacement and economic shocks.
Richard Tice
The hon. Lady criticises us for trying to extract oil and gas, so does she also criticise Norway’s successful and excellent programme of drilling 49 new wells last year? We drilled none.
Pippa Heylings
We have been taking out less gas for decades now, and those decisions were taken by successive Governments. We have seen the assessment on the security of gas supply: Norway’s geological situation shows that it has more left, while our basin has less and the supply is dwindling. Expanding North sea drilling is not pragmatic; it is reckless and incompatible with the UK’s climate commitments.
There is another path, however. The Liberal Democrats have been clear that we must break our overdependence on fossil fuels and decouple gas and electricity prices so that households benefit from cheap, clean power. The more we expand renewable clean energy through contracts for difference—provision introduced by the Liberal Democrats—the less gas sets the price, so families and businesses could have fixed renewable energy prices. We would go further in taking policy costs off energy bills, so that households feel in their pockets that the wind and the sun are cheaper than gas. We must also make homes cheaper to heat in the winter, and cool in the summer, with a more ambitious warm homes plan and a 10-year emergency home upgrade programme.
We should build on the Liberal Democrat success by getting the Government to commit today to putting rooftop solar on all new builds. Rejoining the EU’s internal energy market would reduce wholesale costs, make the trade of energy more efficient, and avoid higher costs. More drilling means more volatility, more insecurity and higher bills. The Liberal Democrats offer a different path: decoupled gas and electricity prices, and the lower bills that families and businesses deserve.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
I have found this debate quite fascinating. What nonsense from the Conservatives! We are watching a party rip itself up as it worries about more defections to Reform, and Conservative Back Benchers parrot the lines of their Front Benchers. We know from media coverage that the Conservatives are promoting people to the Front Bench based on their social media clout, so I look forward to many more one-liners and AI-generated speeches as they all try to get to the front. We have heard arguments that sound less like a plan for Britain and much more like they are straight from the Reform playbook, talking down our country and creating more uncertainty and worry for families across the UK.
To be clear, I fiercely oppose further oil and gas exploration in the North sea. Expanding new drilling would not address the pressures that families face right now, and it would not give our country long-term energy security and sovereignty. In fact, it would exacerbate the problem. There is a claim that we can simply turn the drilling on, that billions of pounds are available right now without any Government subsidy, and that, all of a sudden, we will get more oil. That is a fairytale—it is nonsense. Drilling and expansion is expensive. The best supplies are already tapped out. Profiteering drillers and exploiters are honest about this. There are other places around the world where they would much prefer to drill, to make much bigger profits for their stakeholders. Drilling is not a magical solution that will benefit British families.
Even if North sea fields were opened today, as the motion proposes, the UK would still depend on imported gas by 2050, but it would make up 94% rather than 97% of the total. It would make almost zero impact on our long-term energy security. Let us consider the two projects mentioned in the motion. Jackdaw would reduce import dependence by roughly 2%, with the UK continuing to be heavily reliant on international supplies. Rosebank would reduce oil dependence by around 1%, and all that oil would be destined for exports, not for the pumps.
Richard Tice
Is the hon. Member aware that there is about a decade’s worth of wonderful shale gas in the great county of Lincolnshire that can power this great nation?
Mike Reader
The discussion on fracking is perhaps one for another day.
We have heard claims that there are billions of pounds to be invested, but in reality, when it comes to development, it is the public who pay the price. In some cases, taxpayers foot around 80% of the development bill. Modelling on Rosebank and ending the energy profits levy shows that there could be a net loss of about £250 million to the Treasury, while operators would receive about £1.5 billion in profits. That should give us pause for thought. Who are we here to represent—our neighbours who are facing high prices at the pumps and high fuel bills, or multimillionaire shareholders?
There is also the fundamental question of whether the Government will keep their promise to future generations on the climate crisis. International bodies, including the International Energy Agency, have set out that new exploration licences are not compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Last year was the first time in history that global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
We have a legal obligation, but, more importantly, we have a duty to act in the best interests of our country and our people in the long term. If we expand fossil fuel extraction in full knowledge of the consequences, we are choosing to delay that responsibility and we will feel the effects. We are already feeling the effects in food prices. The No. 1 issue that our farmers are facing is climate change. We will feel the impact of extreme heat and air quality on health, and we will see the effects in global instability, which feeds straight back into costs here at home.
The task ahead of us is to make sure that we stick with the plan, focus on doubling down on renewables, say no to oil and gas, and, ultimately, make sure that we deliver a clean future for our country.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
I am almost a little shocked to have to follow that, but I will do my best. It explains exactly why I do not understand Labour’s oil and gas policy. The unions do not understand its policy. The Tony Blair Institute does not understand its policy. The industry does not understand its policy. The renewables industry does not understand its policy. That is not because we cannot understand something; it is because the policy is absolutely crazy.
We have just heard that we will be using oil and gas for decades. We have just heard that that oil and gas has to come from overseas, but much less of it will need to come from overseas if we open up drilling in the North sea, if we get rid of the EPL and if we make the North sea a basin that companies can and want to invest in and drill from.
Jackdaw and Rosebank are prime examples that could be producing by the end of the year. Jackdaw could be powering 1.6 million homes, but the Government do not want it to. They would prefer to import from abroad, because then they can say that we are a country progressing towards net zero. They can say that their renewables ambition is kicking ahead. It does not matter about the jobs they are kicking or the tax being lost in the meantime. It does not matter about the £50 billion of investment or the £165 billion of economic activity that will be lost. The Government and the Secretary of State will have their headline. He will go down as the Secretary of State who managed to shut down the North sea and who got us off oil and gas. But it is a fantasy. It is never going to happen—it cannot happen.
Seventy per cent of the UK’s energy—not electricity, but energy—comes from oil and gas, and it will for many, many years. No matter how much the Government wish that we were not reliant on oil and gas, we are, and no matter how much the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) wishes that we did not need our own oil and gas, we do. We need our own oil and gas and we need oil and gas from abroad, and we will for a long time yet.
I care about the workers in the oil and gas sector, because those workers are my constituents. They are my friends and neighbours. They are the people who hold our communities together. However, this is not just about north-east Scotland. Every single Member of this House has constituents who work in the oil and gas sector and who will be listening to the debate today, worrying about their jobs and wondering why the Government are so determined to sacrifice their livelihoods in order to import more from abroad. When we meet workers in north-east Scotland, they do not talk about their jobs in the future; they talk about their jobs now. They worry about how their jobs are going to be protected and why the Government do not want to protect them. The apparent “Labour” Government—the Government who are meant to protect jobs—do not value oil and gas jobs.
Richard Tice
This is a critical question. Who is more dangerous to the British economy—the Secretary of State for Energy or the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Harriet Cross
I do not want to pick between the two, but as a double act they are dreadful for the UK economy.
From now and into the years ahead, the transition, which the Government are so dedicated to, will see the industry move away from Aberdeen, because the supply chain, which they know is so important to the transition, is sustained by the oil and gas sector. Production from the North sea decreased by 40% last year. That is not because of geology; it is because of the energy profits levy and the ban on licences.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
Does the hon. Lady agree that UK production in the North sea can never put us in a position like Norway, because Margaret Thatcher gave away our oil industry to private companies and we have no sovereign fund?
Harriet Cross
We need to import more than we produce, so why would we not produce to the full extent that we can from the North sea? I am sure that the hon. Lady, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, appreciates just how important the industry is to our constituents. As for the Scottish Labour Members of Parliament, I wonder whether they are sitting there wondering just what the Government are doing to their constituents.
Dr Arthur
As ever, the hon. Lady speaks with great passion on this issue. She started by talking about Jackdaw. She must recognise that her party made a complete mess of that, which is why it is completely shrouded in uncertainty just now. She blames the Government and suggests that Labour is to blame, but it was her party, was it not? Is it not a quasi-judicial decision rather than a decision for the Minister?
Harriet Cross
The Government removed their support for Jackdaw and Rosebank, and that is why they are now held up. If the Government wanted Jackdaw and Rosebank, or Cambo and Tornado down the line—there are many others in the pipeline as well—they could approve them. It is in their gift. Apparently, they wanted to be in power for a long time because they wanted to be able to make these decisions. The only decision they are making for north-east Scotland, no matter what they say to the contrary, is the decision to close down the North sea, and to see redundancies going up, investment going abroad and tax intake reducing.
The skilled workforce of north-east Scotland should be something that the whole of the UK treasures. It is a vital asset, as is the North sea. Any other country in the world would give anything to have the workers, skills and geology that we have off our east coast, but the Government are not interested. They would much prefer to hit their renewables targets and clean power targets than to support one of our most crucial industries. That is why I am delighted that the Opposition have secured this debate today. I am delighted that we will be voting to support our oil and gas sector, its workers and our industry. I really hope that Members across the House will support us.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
I will start by thanking the North sea oil workers now and in the past. I recently read the book “Black Eden” by Richard T. Kelly—perhaps others have read it, too. On just about every single page, I was reminded of people I know, or people I knew in my childhood in Aberdeenshire—the incredible innovators, the divers who risked their lives every single time they entered the water, and the workers on the rigs spending weeks away from their families. They deserve our thanks and recognition. What they do not deserve is histrionics, slogans rather than a plan and to not be taken seriously. They have not been taken seriously by the Opposition motion today.
The Opposition motion misrepresents the industry that North sea oil workers are in. It fails to set out a path towards sustainable employment for them and for their kids and grandkids—and, by the way, they do care about their children’s employment in Aberdeen. It also ignores the need to get energy bills down, let alone to tackle the climate emergency. The claims made in the motion that these measures would somehow boost employment and reduce bills are farcical.
Claire Coutinho
Since I went to Aberdeen recently to talk to workers and to grandparents and their children, I would like to ask the right hon. Lady, when was the last time she spoke to workers in Aberdeen?
Anneliese Dodds
Well, I can answer that very quickly, because many of them are in my family and among my friends. The shadow Secretary of State said before that she had visited Aberdeen. I found it extraordinary that when the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings), mentioned the fact that jobs in oil and gas extraction fell by a third between 2014 and 2023, she would not even acknowledge it—she looked stunned. Well, I can tell her that for workers in that area, those job losses were painful. Every bust has been painful, and she should acknowledge that, rather than pretending it did not even happen. People who are working in that industry deserve a proper strategy for their future, not magical thinking and empty sloganeering.
Anneliese Dodds
I will make some progress, then I would be happy to take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
The long-term trend very clearly is for the growth of low-carbon offshore industries. That has not been the case for North sea oil and gas. Research at Robert Gordon University—just to let the shadow Secretary of State know, that is based in Aberdeen, the city that she visited—has shown that nine in 10 of the UK workforce in oil and gas have medium to high skills transferability and are well positioned to work in the adjacent energy sector. Hydrogen, carbon capture, wind and other renewables are critical to sustaining high-skilled jobs in both engineering and manufacturing. We urgently need to boost those technologies with an active labour market strategy. That is what will secure the future of those high-technology, safety-critical jobs.
Graham Stuart
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is being very generous in giving way. She is nearly making the right point, which is that the people who work in oil and gas need the transition. This Government are pulling the rug from under them. Hydrogen, carbon capture, floating offshore wind and other developing technologies—even tidal—are not growing quickly enough and fast enough to give those people jobs. That is the point. The Government are destroying the very engineering capability we need for the transition and putting up emissions while doing so, by having imports instead of domestic production. It is mad.
Anneliese Dodds
I could not disagree more with the right hon. Gentleman. I have a lot of respect for him, but surely he will have seen the figures on the relative growth of the renewables industry in the UK compared with other industries. Those people see that there is now a long-term plan for that industry from this Government. That was not the case before—there was not that certainty there before. I want to see renewed, deepened engagement, particularly with the workforce and the trade unions representing them, and a move towards the active labour market strategy that we need, but to suggest that we are not on the right trajectory now after so many years of neglect is, frankly, laughable.
I want to end on this point. Even setting aside the lengthy lead-in time for new drilling, expanding it would not shield our country from oil and gas price shocks, because the price is set internationally. The shadow Secretary of State did not even acknowledge that. She spoke about imports, but she did not talk about prices, because she knows the reality. We need to stop distant conflicts impacting household bills in the UK. We need to get bills down, not keep them artificially high. We need cheap green tech and scaled-up clean power. We do not need the kind of cheap political posturing represented by the Opposition motion.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Net zero is a socialist dream, because it epitomises centralised control, Government interference in daily life and redistribution. When an idea becomes immune to scrutiny, it is precisely then that scrutiny is most needed. That definitely applies in the case of Britain’s rush to net zero, because in our haste, we risk undermining our economy, our energy security and, ultimately, the resilience we will need to face the future. Caring for the environment is necessary, reducing pollution is noble, and innovation in energy is essential, but pursuing an inflexible target at any cost without regard for the consequences is madness.
First, take the economic reality. The UK is attempting one of the most rapid energy transitions ever undertaken by an advanced economy. Entire industries are being reshaped or phased out, and energy systems built over decades are being dismantled in a matter of years. And who bears the cost? It is not abstract. It is households facing rising energy bills, businesses struggling with higher operating costs, and manufacturers deciding whether to stay in Britain or to relocate to countries with cheaper, more reliable energy.
Harriet Cross
The GMB Scotland secretary recently described Labour’s policies as “industrial calamity”. Does my hon. Friend agree with that?
Bradley Thomas
We only have to speak to businesses across our constituencies, and they will tell us about the reality of the economic calamity caused by decisions taken by this Government and the costs bearing down on them.
The reality is that choices made by this Government continue to hollow out our industrial base, not because we lack skill or ambition but because energy, which is the lifeblood of industry, has become prohibitively costly. Energy security is not a theoretical concept; it is the difference between stability and vulnerability. It is the ability to heat our homes, power hospitals and keep the economy running, no matter what is happening anywhere else in the world. Yet at this moment, when we should be strengthening our domestic energy supply, we are choosing to restrict it.
That brings us perfectly to the North sea, which is one of the UK’s greatest strategic assets. Beneath those waters lie opportunity—reserves of natural gas that could provide reliable domestic energy for years to come—yet the Government are choosing to turn away from it. The argument often made is that extracting more gas contradicts our climate commitments and locks us into the past, but that overlooks a crucial fact: the UK will continue to be dependent on fossil fuels for decades to come.
That is where the comparison with Norway becomes so instructive. Norway is often held up as a leader in environmental responsibility, and it has chosen not to turn its back on North sea resources. It has done the opposite: it has increased gas extraction, recognising both the economic value and the strategic importance of domestic supply. Norway understands something that we would do well to remember: energy independence is not at odds with environmental ambition; it underpins it. The UK risks increasing its dependence on imports, even as domestic resources remain available.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I agree with the hon. Member about the need for energy security, and certainly we do not want a supply chain that depends on the People’s Republic of China, which could lead to economic coercion. Does he share my view that the deduction is that we need home-grown manufacturing for renewable energy infrastructure?
Bradley Thomas
We are increasingly dependent on China because of decisions taken by this Government. The pursuit of renewables-based future energy infrastructure is increasingly dependent on countries that are adversarial to us and pose a risk to our long-term energy security. The hon. Member is right on that point.
This is not just about energy; it is also about jobs and public finances—something the Government know only too well, following their economic choices. The North sea has long been a vital source of revenue for the Treasury, creating billions of pounds that support public services and infrastructure. Analysis by Offshore Energies UK shows that there is £165 billion of estimated economic value in the North sea, should the Government muster the political will to seize it.
Bradley Thomas
I will not give way any further.
To accelerate the decline of that sector without a fully viable replacement is not just economically risky but fiscally short-sighted. At the same time, we must consider the livelihoods tied to the industry, as colleagues across the House have stressed. Tens of thousands of skilled workers depend directly or indirectly on oil and gas. These are not abstract numbers; they are engineers, technicians, supply chain workers, families and, more importantly, whole communities. If we move too quickly without a realistic transition plan, we do not simply phase out an industry; we create unemployment, lose expertise and weaken entire regions.
That is happening right now. This is not just a theoretical concern; it is raised by those who are closest to the issue. Trade union leaders have been clear. The general secretary of the GMB has described the Government’s stance on oil and gas as “madness”. Unite the union has warned plainly that such policies will put jobs at risk. Even Juergen Maier said that extracting more gas and oil from the North sea would boost jobs and tax revenues. Those are not voices that the Government usually say are opposed to progress; they are voices that represent working people, so why on earth are the Government choosing to ignore them?
We have to consider the global context. The UK accounts for a relatively small share of global emissions. Even if we were to reach net zero tomorrow, the impact on global temperatures would be limited. Meanwhile, major economies that compete with us continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels as they balance growth, development and transition. That is why we have to get the balance right. True leadership from the Government lies not in symbolic gestures but in practical solutions that can be adopted globally. The pursuit of net zero, as currently framed, risks becoming an exercise in self-imposed constraint—one that weakens our economy, compromises our energy security, threatens jobs, reduces vital tax revenues and lowers living standards for all, while delivering limited benefit.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I welcome this debate. As we have heard, oil and gas are likely to remain part of our energy mix for years to come, but recent global instability underscores a fundamental point: true energy security comes from reliable domestic and renewable sources, not from continued exposure to volatile international fossil fuel markets. Even if production were to increase, it would not shield the UK from global price fluctuations. Oil and gas extracted from the North sea is sold on international markets at global prices. While that may increase profits for fossil fuel companies—no doubt welcomed by the Opposition—it does little to reduce bills for our constituents. Moreover, new licences do not translate into immediate supply, and it can take many years, often well over a decade, from licensing to production. In reality, UK oil and gas production represents only a small share of the global market, and even a significant increase in output would not meaningfully influence global prices or reduce domestic energy bills.
Private companies operating in the North sea are under no obligation to prioritise UK consumers—the Norwegian example is interesting—so I return to the central question of how additional North sea production will reduce bills today. The only way that could plausibly happen would be through significant market interventions, such as restricting exports or imposing below-market price caps on domestically produced energy. Some Labour Members may agree with that, but I am not sure Opposition Members would. Such measures would represent a profound shift in policy, so if that is what the Opposition are proposing, they should be clear about it. If not, they should be honest with the public: expanding North sea oil extraction is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on energy bills in the short, medium, or even long term.
There is, however, an alternative that is not tied to global fossil fuel markets: renewable energy. I will take solar power as an example, but geothermal energy also has great potential. I recognise the criticism raised about the use of critical minerals, including in the remarks by the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), as well as concerns about reliance on the supply chain in China and labour standards in global supply chains. Those are legitimate issues, but there is also a significant opportunity for domestic innovation and manufacturing.
In my constituency, Power Roll is pioneering the next generation of solar technology. Its lightweight, flexible solar films use microgroove structures, and it does not rely on rare earth minerals. It has the potential for low-cost, scalable production here in the United Kingdom. The Government have already engaged with this technology, but it is now time to go further and support commercialisation, scale up production and invest in the infrastructure needed to bring British-made solar to market at scale.
By diversifying our energy mix and reducing reliance on volatile international fossil fuel markets, we can strengthen energy security and reduce exposure to external shocks. I say to the Government that this is the time to back British business, back innovation, and back domestic manufacturing, because that is how we will deliver energy security, economic growth, jobs—
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
I will start with some facts: energy security is national security, global instability is rife, and our closest ally is now, at best, hugely unpredictable, and it is questionable whether it is reliable. When the UK Government should be protecting energy supply, they are instead sacrificing North sea jobs and communities on the altar of ideology. Job losses continue month on month, and the loss of skills is rife. “Just transition” are mere words for the communities affected. For me, this is a repeat of what Thatcher did to Scotland’s mining communities and the steel industry in Motherwell in the ’80s, destroying an industry without proper future planning and transition arrangements. Scottish Labour MPs—indeed, all Labour MPs—should be ashamed of their Government’s actions in that regard. It is utterly shameful.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, which is generous of him. I have been very critical of my Government in relation to the closure of Grangemouth refinery, but I will give you the opportunity of being critical of your Government’s inaction on the issue.
Graham Leadbitter
I think I am here to scrutinise what your Government are doing—that is the job of MPs in the House of Commons. I would also say that Conservative Members are no better on this. Government Members have an ideology of driving towards net zero and clean power, but it appears with no regard for the North sea; Conservative Members have an ideology of protecting oil and gas in the North sea, while getting rid of climate change targets. The industry does not like either of those positions—not the oil and gas sector, and not the renewables sector—and everybody in the Chamber knows that. Those sectors need each other to survive, and they need the skills to transition from one to the other. If we lose skills in the oil and gas sector, we will not develop the renewables sector as quickly as we need to, and those are the facts of the situation. If those skills and jobs are lost, or disappear into other places around the world, such as the Caspian sea or the Gulf of Mexico, they will not easily be brought back.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman talks about the North sea industry and ideology. What were his views when his Government were in coalition with the Green party, which wilfully wanted to destroy those jobs immediately overnight because of ideology? Did he support that Government coalition?
Graham Leadbitter
I supported the coalition at the time because we were gaining plenty of other benefits from it, but I concede that I was not 100% supportive of its position on oil and gas. I suggest that under the current SNP leadership, there is a balanced view of the North sea, and a pragmatic approach to protecting jobs in its oil and gas sectors, while still driving towards renewable jobs and the reindustrialisation of Scotland through the diversification into renewables that we need, recognising that oil and gas will be needed for decades to come.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
There is some confusion about current SNP policy on oil and gas. Is it, or is it not, still SNP policy to be against new oil and gas in the North sea?
Graham Leadbitter
Current SNP policy on oil and gas is that there should be a proper assessment of each individual application. That is the normal licensing process. I would think most Members of the House would recognise that if a process is put in place, it should be applied rigorously and consistently.
Graham Leadbitter
No, I will not give way again because I do not have much time.
There are many reasons why we need to support oil and gas, not least protecting the workforce and not losing the skills. There are also numerous other areas where the Government are not making decisions quickly enough. On the transmission network’s use of system charges, Government policy has taken 18 to 20 months to come through, and it will be several more months before it is in place. That will be after the start of allocation round 8, which is being accelerated, and many companies in the North sea are saying that they will hold on and wait for AR9 before making an investment decision, because they want certainty. That lack of certainty, pace and pragmatism is preventing those jobs from being created and preventing a just transition.
I can apply the same point to Ardersier, which is in my constituency, and the proposal by a Chinese company, Ming Yang, which wants to invest there. I understand that the Government have reasons and things that they need to consider in this matter, but it has been on their desk for 18 months. A decision is needed to either move on to other investors or decide that there is a risk, so that we can mitigate the risk, let them get on with it, create supply chain jobs and have serious, high-skilled, high-paid jobs that will provide a just transition and a serious opportunity for North sea workers. That decision needs to be made sooner rather than later. We experienced an excessive delay in the run-up to decisions on carbon capture, usage and storage; it took forever to get there, and jobs have been lost because of that lost time.
Let me turn very quickly to consumer pricing. The Government have been waxing lyrical about price gouging by energy companies at the moment. The Government and previous Governments have been responsible for state-sponsored price gouging in the energy market, with the highest prices for electricity in Scotland. With that, I urge Members to—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order.
There was a particularly unedifying exchange between Members in which the use of “you” and “your” was very liberal indeed; I assume that it was addressed directly to me. Can we all try to do a little better? While I am on my feet, I will say that after the next speaker, the time limit will have to be reduced to three minutes in order to get all Members in.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
We know that we will be using North sea oil and gas for some time to come. I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement about short-term and medium-term measures to address the crisis in the middle east and the inevitable impact on our energy costs, as well as her quick action on heating oil.
The motion is, however, about not just the immediate crisis but a long-term strategic approach to energy security. The position of the Conservatives and Reform on increasing our reliance on oil and gas is based on false assumptions, not on the facts of the situation that we find ourselves in. This could be an ideological discussion—clearly, they are trying to turn it into another nonsense culture war—but does not need to be, because it is easy to overturn the Opposition argument with evidence and a number of facts.
First, gas and oil prices are inherently volatile and often under the control of malign international actors. Oil and gas prices are set internationally, and gas and oil from the North sea are traded internationally, so unless the Opposition are suggesting that we nationalise the North sea and seize its products, their suggestion that it would somehow help with pricing is absolute nonsense. The more that we rely on gas and oil, the longer that gas will set the price of electricity. Of course, oil sets the price of all sorts of things, from transport to food and energy.
Gas setting the price of electricity is bad, because it makes electricity cost more. Conversely, the higher the level of wind, solar, nuclear and storage, the less gas will set the price of electricity, and the cheaper that electricity can become. The more that we move away from technology that is reliant on gas and oil, whether it is at home, in transport or in industry, the less we are subject to geopolitical storms, such as the invasion of Ukraine or the current crisis in the middle east.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Does the hon. Member agree that the central claim of this motion simply does not withstand scrutiny? Even if new fields are approved, the oil and gas will still be sold at international prices and will do nothing to shield British consumers from future shocks. The economic case is already clear that renewables are cheaper to generate.
Lizzi Collinge
The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. The central premise of the motion simply does not stand up to any scrutiny.
Secondly, the Opposition want to talk about levies to pay for the cost of new clean energy infrastructure, but they conveniently forget that all energy infrastructure needs to be renewed and replaced. Wind, solar and nuclear are cheaper than new gas and oil infrastructure. We also need to improve our grid, and that has to be paid for somehow. Whichever way we cut it, we need to build that infrastructure and pay for it, but the Conservatives and Reform simply do not have an answer on how they would do that.
To be really clear, and to build on the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), the skills of North sea gas and oil workers are absolutely vital in building and operating that new infrastructure. They have fantastic skills, and they need to be part of the clean energy transition.
Last week, I met a Ukrainian delegation as part of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. It described in very brutal and frank terms how Putin has used energy as a weapon of war and the severe impact that has had on the people of Ukraine. Ukraine’s previous reliance on gas had left it exposed to Putin using energy in this way, and its message was clear: the only way to get energy security and keep the lights on domestically is with home-grown clean energy, with distributed generation and storage, providing protection against Putin’s attacks and the wider geopolitical instability that we have seen.
The economic case for clean energy has been very clearly made. The arguments made by the Opposition in favour of continuing our reliance on oil and gas are nonsense. Let us not forget—
Lizzi Collinge
I would like to finish.
Finally, climate change in and of itself is a huge threat to our economic security, our physical health, the entirety of our wellbeing and the ability to feed ourselves. The Opposition say, “If we transition to clean energy, it will not make much of an impact”, but actually it will, because we are being global leaders. Every half a degree that we prevent in heating will save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
We must do something; we cannot sit on our hands and do nothing, as the Opposition would like us to do. This Government are meeting the challenge of climate change, not with hair shirts or by trying to do without, but by building a better world. We are improving our quality of life, with cleaner air—we are not killing tens of thousands of people with dirty air every year—warmer homes and good clean energy jobs.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who follows in a tradition of Government Back Benchers standing up and trying to make the case for the utterly insane, the truly crazy and the utterly groundless. I feel more sorry for the hon. Lady than I do for the Ministers on the Front Bench, because we know that this impossible position cannot be maintained.
I do not know whether the Government are on U-turn No. 13, 14, 15 or 16—who can count them?—but I guarantee that it is impossible to maintain the current position; it rests on a number of fallacies. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale said it as passionately as any of the Government Members, did she not? They say, “Oh, it is outrageous! The Conservatives are suggesting that our producing more oil and gas in the North sea will change the global price.” Well, I went back to the motion, and nowhere does it say that. That is the case of the “crazies” on the Government Benches—I do not know if that is parliamentary or not—and I include the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings), in that. This is lunacy made flesh.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
On the subject of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings), it was a shame that she did not take my intervention, because she may have been able to answer this question. She was very keen to talk about what happened under the Conservative Government and how we need to have renewables, but does my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) find it incredulous that at no moment did the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire mention that it was Nick Clegg who cancelled all the nuclear power stations? He said that he was not going to invest in something that would not come along until 2022.
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend is right. I was incredulous when listening to the incredible things that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said.
Let me go back to this big, passionate attack. That production will not change the global oil price, but it will help to employ 200,000 people in this country, with all the engineering expertise and the deep supply chain in this country, in oil and gas. It will help to provide gas, nearly all of which—practically 100% of the gas produced in the North sea—comes into the UK grid. Nearly all of it is consumed here. Some of it goes through interconnectors in either direction the other way, but the idea that it does not directly contribute to our energy security is for the birds.
I return to the point about price, because Labour colleagues put so much effort into saying, “How dare they suggest that it will change the price?” There are localised prices, so it is also not true to say that oil and gas have a global price and we have to take that price regardless. As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) interjected earlier, in the United States, the price of gas is between a third and a quarter of the price that it is here. Getting supply and demand in the right balance does make a difference. Relying on LNG means that we have to liquefy it, gasify it, ship it with specialist ships and put it into specialist infrastructure to bring it into the UK gas grid, which all costs money. It is even more ironic, given the attitudes of Labour Members, that according to the North Sea Transition Authority, that gas comes with four times the embedded emissions. It is environmentally insane as well as economically insane.
Bradley Thomas
Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge the comments made by Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy, who said that importing LNG has a greater carbon footprint than extraction from the North sea? Does he also agree that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now acknowledging that the renewables market is itself not competitive?
Graham Stuart
For the purposes of today, I will leave aside the renewables market, but I notice that RenewableUK agrees with the chief executive of Octopus Energy that it is crazy, along with the heads of the unions responsible. They all agree that this is crazy.
There is going to be a U-turn, and we are going to have the comic sight of the poor Minister on the Front Bench—a very likeable and very competent Minister—coming to this House to explain why the exact opposite of what he is arguing today is now the truth. That is going to happen, and it has to happen, because if the Government do not U-turn, we will lose jobs, tax revenue and energy security. I notice that those are the three qualities that are in the motion, because they are the vital things that we are missing by not drilling for oil and gas in the North sea while we continue to import it. We are importing more, with higher emissions than if we produced it here, and the net result is that we do not consume or burn a single drop less of oil or gas. The Labour party’s position is untenable.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I will start with the things that we all agree on. I think that across the House, we all acknowledge that the international energy prices we face in this country are too high. As the Minister is on record as saying, there is a rollercoaster effect when it comes to the price of gas. Today, it is 149p per therm; it was 120p per therm in February 2025, and it was 38p per therm in February 2021. We have to acknowledge the fact that oil and gas prices are going up around the world, particularly gas prices, and the impact can be felt not just in the jobs that the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) rightly spoke about, but in jobs in those industries that are gas-dependent.
The thing that I find difficult to stomach is when we talk about energy in the round, as if there is only one type of energy and everything will eventually run off it. Energy is a diverse group of ways of powering things. It can be electrical or nuclear, but in most of our foundational industries, it is gas. We acknowledge that gas will be here for a very long time—we will have to use it to power the kilns that make the bricks to build the houses we want to build. We will need gas to power the furnaces in the foundries that make the metal and steel for our defence development and manufacturing. If we want to make paper, glass, cement or lime in this country, we need gas. So many parts of the economic powerhouse that is the United Kingdom are dependent on gas, and while I agree with my Labour colleagues that we should move at pace to transition to electricity where that is possible, there are sectors in this country where that transition simply is not possible.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an outstanding case. Does he also agree that gas is an important feed stock in a number of critical industries, such as the production of ammonia, which is essential in the agricultural sector?
Gareth Snell
Absolutely. If we want to make fertiliser or other industrial gases in this country, we need natural gas to power those processes. There is no other way—the chemistry simply does not exist to create the gases we need without using natural gas. As such, although I absolutely support transitioning towards net zero and towards electricity, we have to recognise that great swathes of our industries simply cannot do so, and if they can, they do not have the capital to make the research and development investments that are necessary. We cannot yet fire a kiln with hydrogen in this country. We cannot get a stable supply of electricity to kilns in this country, not least because in the places where those factories are, such as Stoke-on-Trent, the grid capacity to do the hook-up simply does not exist and will not exist for generations to come.
When we talk about the transition towards net zero and more electrical generation, what are we going to say to the places that cannot do it? When we say, “It’s all going to be done through renewable energy”, what message do we send to workers in Stoke-on-Trent and in Denby in Derbyshire whose sector simply cannot transition away from gas? I want there to be more renewable energy. I want that technology to exist, but it is not there yet, and every time we forget that, we are talking about writing off jobs and livelihoods in the places that need them most.
Graham Stuart
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we also need to see the hydrogen storage and transport model issued by the Government as quickly as possible?
Gareth Snell
Hydrogen has to be part of the future mix. Some very interesting tests are being done in Germany, where hydrogen is being mixed with gas to power some kilns and energy-intensive processes. That technology is very expensive, though, and most companies in the UK cannot afford it—only a handful can—so, yes, we need that investment strategy.
Lizzi Collinge
My hon. Friend is making some really good points. There are certain industries that do need gas, so does he agree that we need to shepherd that limited resource carefully, and that the transition in other areas of energy will support us to keep that gas and oil where we cannot replace it?
Gareth Snell
We can shepherd, yes, but the Government have to get to grips with how much we pay for importing that gas. That is where we are dependent on international markets. For electricity generation, the Government enter into contracts for difference, which are very lucrative for suppliers. Why are we not looking at such contracts for gas production? At a point when we expect there to be a transition away from gas—and therefore demand for production and the price of gas will fall away—why are we not saying that there will be some kind of Government-backed contract for difference for suppliers, so that those energy-intensive industries that require gas can get a stable price point for generations to come and we can protect jobs?
I am sure that when the Minister responds, he will turn to the tab in his file about the British industrial competitiveness scheme and the supercharger. I just want to reiterate—because it seems like no one in Government is listening—that those schemes do not apply to gas-intensive industries. As the Chancellor said today, and as Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box in the past, they are for electricity-intensive industries. If we are going to support energy-intensive industries in this country, it cannot be through those schemes alone.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
There is simply no case for opening new oil and gas wells in the North sea, for approving Rosebank and Jackdaw, or for removing the windfall tax from oil and gas companies. It is inaccurate, irresponsible and immoral for the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), to suggest otherwise in her motion. Expanding North sea drilling will do nothing to support UK energy security or jobs, as the Lib Dem spokesperson—the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings)—and the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) laid out very clearly in their speeches.
Carla Denyer
Those Members answered the challenges from the shadow Secretary of State, so I will move on, given the limit on time.
Given that the measures proposed in the motion will not secure our energy supply, protect jobs or bring down bills, what will drilling more oil and gas from the North sea do? It will undo so much progress we have made in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. We are proud to have ended polluting coal power in the UK—indeed, I thought the shadow Secretary of State was proud of that—but allowing Rosebank would be the equivalent of running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year, undoing all that good work. Drilling more oil and gas from the North sea will also make some people a lot of money, including those on the Reform and Conservative Benches who take dirty money from fossil fuel donors.
Carla Denyer
No, I will not, thank you—I will carry on. [Interruption.] Fine, I will give way.
Claire Coutinho
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. Could she explain why the biggest advocates for climate transition in this country—RenewableUK, Greg Jackson from Octopus and the chair of Great British Energy—say that she is wrong?
Carla Denyer
I beg the right hon. Lady’s pardon, but they say I am wrong about what?
Claire Coutinho
They say that the hon. Lady’s position on the North sea is wrong, and that we should keep drilling there.
Carla Denyer
My reliance is on the evidence, which shows that 93% of recoverable oil and gas in the British parts of the North sea has already been extracted. Whatever does remain will be sold on the international market to the highest bidder, as many Members have already pointed out. If the proposals in the shadow Secretary of State’s motion were implemented, they would do nothing for energy security and nothing for jobs.
Carla Denyer
No, I will not. I will continue for now.
What the shadow Secretary of State’s motion would achieve is the raising of a lot of money. When war inflates oil and gas prices, fossil fuel bosses cash in. Just five companies made nearly half a trillion dollars in the years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of course, those obscene profits should be taxed through the energy profits levy, because nobody should be cashing in on conflict. Again, I draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the attention of those who may be watching from home, to the proportion of donations from fossil fuel donors that go to certain politicians in this Chamber. The Chancellor said earlier today that she would crack down on price-gouging and profiteering, so I hope that this work will maintain the principles of the windfall tax in whatever shape it comes.
The Government have done good work in driving forward clean energy and banning new oil and gas licences, and I desperately urge them not to backtrack by approving Rosebank, although I understand that they will not be able to comment on that today. I am also deeply concerned about the fact that, despite officially banning new oil and gas licences, the Government are creating a whopping loophole by introducing the transitional energy certificates, aka tiebacks. This is allowing new drilling at a new site on a technicality, because it involves drilling a new well but, rather than installing a new rig on top of it, attaching it to an existing rig with a very long hose, so it is technically not “new”. Opening up new oil and gas wells now is indefensible when we know that every drop of oil and gas burned puts our future further at risk, so I cannot support a Government amendment that “welcomes” these tiebacks. I ask Ministers to assure me that, at the very least, scope 3 emissions will be considered when the Government are deciding whether to grant the transitional energy certificates.
Committing to renewable energy means change, and change can be unsettling, but if it is done right, the Government can ensure that it pays off for everyone. I have been campaigning for an energy jobs guarantee to support workers who are currently employed in the oil and gas sector to move into jobs in the green sectors. That could be done by ending the £2.7 billion a year in subsidies that the Chancellor hands the fossil fuel industry in tax breaks, and using that valuable public money to back workers rather than propping up an industry that is in terminal decline. Our dependence on oil and gas is making us poorer—that much is clear—and it is making oil companies richer. There is no future in fossil fuels, so I hope that the Ministers will give no ground to the reckless statements put forward today.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
Some of the broad themes of the topics that we are discussing today are very important. How do we drive down bills at a time when all our constituents will be worried about the cost of living? How do we provide energy security for our country at a time when the volatility of oil and gas around the world is driving real concerns—not just for our communities, but for some of the big businesses and industrial bases on which we have relied for generations? And, crucially, how do we ensure that when we go back to our constituencies and look not just the current generations but future generations in the eye, we know we have done everything we can to finally take the existential threat of climate change seriously, having done far too little over the last decade to ensure that we are on the right track when it comes to living up to our environmental commitments? It is against that backdrop that I am disappointed by our focus on such a distracting topic today.
There are big, big questions to be asked about how we can drive forward the energy transition in the best and most just way possible, but I am afraid that focusing on immaterial discussions about very small—fractional—differences in the amount of oil and gas that we end up extracting from the North sea is a wrongheaded and at best distracting way in which to lead this debate. However, I understand why such a distraction is attractive to the Opposition.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
Does the hon. Member think that this is a minuscule, distracting issue for the tens of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs because of the policies of this Government on this very subject?
Alistair Strathern
Not at all. I think that that is why the last Government’s shameful failure to invest in the transition—their failure, in fact, to do much to create a better offer for the 50% of North sea oil and gas workers who lost their jobs over the last decade—is so shocking. It is why we have to do better; it is why investing in the reshoring of manufacturing around green energy supply chains is so important; it is about thinking creatively about how we can be more activist as a state in shaping the job opportunities of the future; and, yes, it is about ensuring that support packages are in place at the right times. But if we are talking about a just transition for North sea oil and gas, I do not think the record of the hon. Gentleman’s Government is anything that we should be looking to learn from.
Alistair Strathern
I am going to make some progress.
I can see, though, why distractions are so attractive to the Conservatives, because facing up to reality would mean facing up to the failure to deliver more on renewables, which we know would have reduced prices by about a third last year.
Graham Stuart
Does the hon. Gentleman realise—he may not, because I know that some of the stuff he is fed by those on the Government Front Bench may not help him—that whereas only 6.5% of electricity came from renewables in 2010, the proportion was over 50% when we left power? He can criticise the Conservative Government all he likes, but suggesting that one of the greatest transformations and moves to renewables by any country in the history of the world was some kind of non-event is to mislead the House, and I know that the hon. Gentleman, who is an honourable man, would never seek to do that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. The right hon. Member is very experienced. He should say “inadvertently mislead the House”. We do not accuse colleagues of misleading the House. Would the right hon. Member like to correct the record?
Graham Stuart
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I said anything to that effect, I withdraw it.
Alistair Strathern
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his confirmation that his party used to believe in the future once, but when it comes to clean energy, I think the fact that we have been able to make so much further progress so quickly shows that there clearly were things that the last Government could have done but did not. Whether we are talking about a failure to crack on with new nuclear at speed and remove those regulatory barriers, about a failure to consider the levy reforms that we have already introduced to deliver tangible reductions in people’s bills this April, or about a failure to think about creative ways in which we can drive down energy demand for households across the UK through a proper warm homes plan rather than exploitative rip-offs delivered by con merchants under their eco-schemes, I think we have far better answers of which we can be proud.
It is disappointing that we have not had a more sincere debate on this issue today, because I think there are important questions, which are worthy of challenge, about how we can deliver this transition in a way that truly delivers on our climate and energy communities and for all those who paying bills at the moment. The Fingleton review points to some important principles showing how we can do far better when it comes to big energy projects. I would welcome further scrutiny from the Opposition on that, and on how we can deliver it at pace to make really impactful changes in a nuclear landscape that was left stalled and in stasis under their policies.
As we look to drive forward the green transition, it is right that, over time, we remove the role of gas in setting the price of power, and there are regulatory reforms that we could be making now to try and improve the position. There is some interesting analysis from Stonehaven showing how bringing gas power plants into the regulated asset base could do a far better job of stabilising prices, and would produce a better result for consumers and, crucially, businesses and industrial users. There is also more work to be done to continue the Secretary of State’s leadership on auction innovation. In the last auction, innovations that we introduced after years of lack of reform meant that we were able to lean in at an opportune moment to expand the amount of power that we were able to purchase when prices were lower than market expectations.
I know the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey, thinks that that insurance policy was not valid, which I think is a particularly challenging position to take at a time when we are seeing the cost of inaction shooting up under oil and gas. [Interruption.] I would welcome further challenges from the right hon. Lady about how we could innovate further. I know that the last Government’s record did not do a very good job of bringing out the best value when it came to auction design, but this is exactly the type of area in which cross-party challenge should be welcomed to ensure we can continue to do better. Instead, we are focusing on distractions that will do nothing for our constituents and that, sadly, do not prompt the very important questions, such as those posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), on how we can better ensure that where we need to continue to rely on gas power, we direct it towards sectors that this country has long depended on.
It is a sad truth that this debate has not lived up to the importance of the topic that we are discussing today. The Conservatives used to believe in the future. It is sad that they do not any more.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
Time and again, we hear this Labour Government’s rhetoric about being pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-economy. Despite these claims, they have continued to do the very opposite, as has been reiterated by Conservative Members. That is why I absolutely support the motion before us, in the name of the official Opposition.
It would be remiss of me to come to this debate on oil and gas and not speak about the impact that the war in the middle east is having on our business community, our manufacturers and our engineers. They are all experiencing a rise in energy costs, which are soaring, including our farmers and those in our rural communities. The price of red diesel is going up exponentially, and there is a huge amount of nervousness about supply and further increases in costs. To put this in context, the cost of red diesel was 67p a litre in February but has risen to about 135p a litre this month, impacting many in our farming community. I spoke to many of those farmers yesterday, and they made the point that we simply cannot talk about food security without talking about energy security. The two rely on each other and go hand in hand, and they need to be treated together, not as separate entities.
Mr Snowden
On Sunday, my son and I watched as the first fertiliser of the season started to be spread on the fields. It reminded me of the importance of the orders that are being placed now in the farming industry, the uncertainty that is being created—from fertiliser to diesel and so on—and the impact that it could have on the profitability of such businesses going forward.
Robbie Moore
That is absolutely right, and my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There is an additional cash-flow pressure on many food producers, which is why it is absolutely crucial that we have an energy strategy, alongside a food security strategy, under this Government.
I will pick up on the point about the green transition that has been made by Labour Members, and refer specifically to a live example that is happening in my constituency: the Calderdale wind farm, which is going to be the largest wind farm development in England. It was initially proposed that 65 wind turbines would be built on Walshaw Moor, which neighbours my constituency.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having the largest wind farm in Europe in his constituency.
Robbie Moore
Well, it has not been built yet. The proposal will come before the Energy Secretary, because he removed the onshore wind farm moratorium that the Conservative Government put in place. This is a development that I am staunchly opposed to. Why? It is because it is due to be built on precious peatland, which in a good year has a millimetre of growth. Despite that, the application coming before us is for a wind farm development, with deep foundations, on protected peatland. Road infrastructure is going to be built, wiring infrastructure is going to be built, and there will be consequences for flooding in neighbouring constituencies. I am staunchly against the project, which is why I cannot for the life of me understand why this Labour Government, alongside the Green party, are determined to roll out renewable energy schemes that have a hugely detrimental impact on our environment.
The Calderdale wind farm will have a hugely negative impact not only on our environment, our biodiversity and our precious peatland, but on the historic landscape in which it will be built. I do not know whether you have watched “Wuthering Heights” yet, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the proposed wind farm will be built on Brontë country. The Labour Government churn out this narrative of the green transition, but communities and environments such as those neighbouring my constituency are going to be negatively impacted.
Alistair Strathern
I understand that the wind farm that the hon. Gentleman is talking about would generate about a quarter of a million houses’ worth of energy every year. Given that his party is currently saying that the failure to approve an oil site, which would deliver power for 1.5 million homes throughout the entirety of its lifespan, is an existential risk for this country’s energy security, can he not see the slight inconsistency in the argument he is advancing?
Robbie Moore
The narrative that continues to come from those on the Government Benches is that we must have a roll-out of more renewable energy, without necessarily looking at the negative consequences on the environment. A development of the size that is being proposed on the outskirts of my constituency will not be carbon neutral, given the amount of energy that is needed to build the wind turbines and the negative impact on the carbon sequestration of the peatland. That is why I am firmly opposed to the Calderdale wind farm, and I 100% back the motion before this House.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
I would like to draw the House’s attention to my membership of Unite the union.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds): the framing of this debate is somewhat misleading. The Conservatives and Reform have no real desire to lower people’s bills; nor are they interested in saving jobs or the prosperity of working-class communities. We can see that from looking at history. Let us look at the coalmines: right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative and Reform Benches would have been on the side of Thatcher, MacGregor, Ridley, Walker and Heseltine. This debate is really about Tory and Reform Members revelling in the free market. The only extraction they really care about is that of corporate profit and shareholder dividends.
I am ideologically opposed to the Conservatives and Reform UK, but what really pains me is being at odds with my own party. I have been clear that there should be no ban without a plan, and there really must be a plan, because the danger is that oil and gas workers will become the modern-day coalminers. Thousands of workers are nervous about what the future holds, and they are right to be—they have seen billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos and the Chinese state company PetroChina close the Grangemouth oil refinery, ending 100 years of Scottish industrial history. The Conservative Government did not want to know about the issue, and the SNP Government refused to engage with Ratcliffe, the Chinese and the trade unions that represent the workers even, though they knew about the planned closure for three years. The SNP abandoned the workers in the Grangemouth community.
Some £434.5 million has been committed for Grangemouth’s industrial future from this Labour Government—I have had to fight tooth and nail for it. The excellent news is that 500 jobs in the chemical industry have been saved, and that Project Willow is starting to deliver new jobs through the MiAlgae and Celtic Renewables announcements. However, I say to the Minister that the Government must match their ambitions with much more action. That means providing thousands of good, well-paid jobs and getting the new industries we need into Grangemouth and other industrial towns like it. There is still more than £190 million available in the National Wealth Fund for my constituency—we should start using it.
I also say to the Government that it is common sense to take at least some form of ownership in these new clean, green industries. They should break the cycle of reliance on private capital, foreign ownership and volatile fossil fuel markets and do more of what a Labour Government should.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
For the final Back-Bench contribution, I call Gregory Stafford.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman); it is like a greatest hits of the 1970s.
At a time when the war in Ukraine continues and instability spreads across the middle east, energy is not simply an economic question but a matter of national security. Yet under this Labour Government, Britain is making itself more dependent, not less. The irony is that even Labour Back Benchers know this—they are in the papers every day telling us that offshoring emissions while importing energy from abroad does nothing for climate change and weakens our resilience.
The reality is stark: Britain is not reducing demand for oil and gas; we are simply choosing to import it. In 2024 alone, we imported more than $11 billion-worth of crude from Norway. At the same time, liquefied natural gas shipped from abroad can carry up to four times the emissions of gas produced here at home. This is not environmental leadership, but carbon outsourcing with a higher bill attached—a bill that is being paid by British businesses and families, who are facing some of the highest energy costs in Europe.
Labour’s central argument this afternoon simply does not stand up. Labour Members claim that producing more gas in the North sea will not reduce prices because there is a so-called world price, but that misses the fundamental point that our own home-grown gas and oil produces hundreds of thousands of jobs. If we do not use it, we will miss out on billions in tax revenues that could be used to reduce energy prices for the consumer.
Alistair Strathern
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that his party is also proposing a big tax cut for oil and gas companies in the removal of the EPL. He will have seen research from Oxford University suggesting that even if every new licence were taxed and that revenue was invested straight into energy subsidies, it could reduce bills by as little as £16 a year for households. Is that really the Tories’ ambition at the moment?
Gregory Stafford
I understand that the figure is £25 billion, which is a significant injection into the Treasury however we look at it. The simple truth is this: if we increase domestic supply, we can ease pressure on prices, reduce reliance on expensive imported LNG and cut costs. That is not ideology—it is basic economics.
The idea that new licences would take too long does not survive scrutiny either. Much of the North sea’s infrastructure already exists. Pipelines and platforms have spare capacity. New fields can be tied into existing systems, accelerating production and reducing cost. What Labour presents as inevitability is in fact a political choice. In the non-statement the Chancellor made earlier today, she talked about cutting red tape. Perhaps she should think about cutting Red Ed first of all, because this choice has consequences.
The ban on new licences risks leaving 2.9 billion barrels of oil and gas in the ground and puts at risk 200,000 jobs. Those are not abstract numbers. They are skilled, well-paid jobs that have powered communities for generations. This is not transition; it is industrial retreat.
Sarah Coombes
Is it not the case that Britain’s renewable economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy? If we were to retract our commitments to renewable energy and net zero, the investor confidence would reduce, which would be really bad for our European economy and the brilliant jobs that have been created in this industry, yet that is exactly what the Conservatives are proposing today.
Gregory Stafford
If I were being generous, I would say merely that the hon. Member has not listened to my speech or read the motion in front of us. I have not mentioned anywhere that we will be cutting back on renewable energy.
If Labour’s position is misguided, the Liberal Democrats’ position is outright reckless. They would pile further taxes on the North sea through an expanded energy profits levy, despite clear evidence that such measures deter investment and ultimately reduce tax revenues. Some analyses suggest that scrapping the EPL could deliver an additional £25 billion to the Treasury over the next decade. At the same time, the Liberal Democrats would smother the sector in layers of environmental, social and governance reporting and regulation, slowing down investment, increasing costs and driving production overseas. And for what? They would do so to meet accelerated net zero targets that are divorced from the reality of how Britain actually uses its energy.
Here is the fundamental point: electricity accounts for only around a fifth of our total energy use. The rest still comes from oil and gas for heating, transport and industry. We are not about to replace that overnight; nor are there credible plans to do so from this Government. The choice is not between oil and gas or renewables. We need both. The real choice is whether we produce that energy here under our own environmental standards, supporting British jobs and British revenues, or whether we import it from abroad at a higher cost and with higher carbon. The British public understand this. Around three quarters say that we should produce our own oil and gas rather than rely on imports, and they are right. Our plan recognises that. It backs domestic production, cuts unnecessary net zero taxes and delivers cheaper energy while maintaining our environmental commitments. I say to Ministers: stop outsourcing our energy; stop exporting our jobs; and stop pretending that dependence is a virtue.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Let me start by agreeing with fellow Aberdonian the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) in paying tribute to all the energy workers, who, over decades, have worked in incredibly dangerous conditions. Some gave their lives to ensuring that the lights stayed on and industry continued to function in this country. Many of them came from my constituency.
I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for his outstanding contribution. He brought to the House’s attention the dependence of so many industries in this country to gas, and the de-industrialisation that we are seeing across so many aspects of our industry right now.
With war raging in the middle east and in Europe, Labour is a party being held captive by extremists who refuse to act in our national interest, who are content to see jobs lost in their thousands and who will not take advantage of our greatest asset lying untapped and unexplored under our own waters.
Laurence Turner
The hon. Member talks of the national interest, but does he agree that it was disgraceful that Gazprom was allowed to acquire an interest in the North sea in the years after 2011, without a word of protest from his party when it was in government?
Andrew Bowie
We welcomed investment from around the world, but, obviously, we divested ourselves of any Russian investment in the North sea as soon as we could after Putin’s actions in Ukraine, as I am sure the hon. Member would have expected us to do as a responsible Government. On days like this we have to wonder whose side this Government are on, because unlike the Conservative Government, who acted in the national interest, they are not on the side of Britain or of the British people.
We have witnessed for four years now how Putin’s armies have weaponised energy not only to starve the people of Ukraine, but to weaken our continent. The Energy Secretary, if he were here, would tell us that that proves why we should double down on his plans to ditch oil and gas, except even under his ridiculously ambitious and unrealistic plans, Great Britain would still need gas to meet around 50% of its energy demand. The National Energy System Operator has highlighted that gas will be the UK’s energy of last resort for the next 10 to 20 years, and that we will require a diverse and resilient supply.
But Labour MPs—the enablers of this absurdity—would rather see us reliant on others for gas, such as Qatar or Norway, than on our own British industry. They would rather we get gas from other countries at a higher cost and with 15 times the emissions of our own supply, leaving us more exposed to price spikes.
To be absolutely clear, 100% of all British North sea gas goes directly into the British gas grid. I do wonder if Labour Members understand this, so let me explain: by choosing to use less from British waters, we have to import more and we become more insecure as a country. The real human tragedy at the centre of this blatant disregard for our national interest is playing out on rigs, in offices and in homes across the north-east of Scotland right now, and it is happening thanks to the Labour party, enabled by the Liberal Democrats.
While we are talking about the Liberal Democrats, we heard today from their spokeswoman, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings), that they do not support any new oil and gas licences. I think she might want to explain that to their candidate for the upcoming parliamentary election in Shetland, who warned of the impact if the Clair oilfield was not expanded, or their candidate for North East Scotland who said:
“We are going to need oil and gas for the foreseeable future and it is better to support production here than rely on imports of LNG from abroad which are more polluting.”
Which is it? What is the Liberal Democrats’ plan, and why do they always say one thing in this place and another thing everywhere else? Once again, we cannot trust a word that the Liberal Democrats say, but they are enabling the Labour party and choosing to see 1,000 jobs lost in the North sea every single month.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I am a fan of his work, but I do have to ask this question. The Conservatives and Reform would have joined the American-led war of choice without any questioning of the reasons for it, and the Conservatives and Reform want to leave the UK reliant on fossil fuels and overly exposed to energy price shocks. Can he please tell me what the difference is between the Conservatives and Reform?
Andrew Bowie
I am equally a fan of the hon. Member’s work, but I would like to make this very clear: it is not that we would have joined the war ongoing in the middle east; it is that we would not have left British bases and British assets undefended in the way that this Government shamefully did by removing assets from the region when we knew very well what was coming round the corner.
One thousand high-skilled, high-paid jobs are being lost every single month, and this is personal. I have the immense privilege of living in and representing the north-east of Scotland. To me, these jobs are not figures on a spreadsheet, as they are to Labour MPs. They are my constituents, neighbours, friends and family. The callousness and disregard with which the Labour party is treating that region and these people at the minute will not be forgotten.
The Labour party refuses to acknowledge it, but it is real and it is happening—and at frightening speed. People are, right now, having to make a terrible choice: either they hang around in the north-east of Scotland awaiting the long-promised yet never-delivered renewable jobs boom, which always seems to be just around the corner and which pays far less, or they leave their homes, communities and families and move overseas. Many, indeed most, are choosing the latter. They are leaving the country altogether, taking their families and, crucially, their skills out of the United Kingdom to countries that have Governments who are awake to the reality and who support their domestic oil and gas industries—to places like Houston, Riyadh, Calgary or Stavanger.
In Stavanger they are drilling right now in the very same sea that we could be drilling in, only to sell it back to us. It is utterly perverse. Workers in Aberdeen are going to any country with an oil and gas industry in which the eco-extremism that the Secretary of State is so enthralled by is not found in government. That, by the way, is every other country in the world where there is a domestic oil and gas industry.
It used to be said that in every country in the world where there is oil and gas, you can find an Aberdonian accent. It turns out that soon, the only place where you will not be able to find an Aberdonian oil worker is, in fact, Aberdeen. There has been a steady beat of job losses every single month since Labour entered government—from BP, Hunting, Harbour Energy, Chevron, Well-Safe, Petrofac, and Ithaca Energy.
Labour MPs talk about what we did in government, but during the 2014-15 energy price shock, when jobs were sadly lost in the north-east of Scotland, we commissioned Ian Wood to produce a review into the future of the North sea. We implemented a policy of maximum economic recovery from the North sea. We reduced taxes on our domestic oil and gas industry, and we stabilised the workforce in our last six years. During our time in government, we made the North sea the most investable basin in the world. What are the Labour Government doing? The exact opposite. They are seeing job losses and investment turn away. They are surrendering this country to the whims of dictators overseas.
I could go on about the job losses. All the companies I mentioned have had operations in this country for many years, and when they are not cutting jobs they are consolidating their operations. I therefore welcome the recent intervention from the hon. Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell) in calling for an end to the Government’s war on the North sea. We can add his name to the ever growing list of people and organisations calling on the Government to change course: the GMB, Unite, Tony Blair, Octopus’s Greg Jackson, Great British Energy’s own Juergen Maier, who was appointed by the Secretary of State, and RenewableUK. Why are all those people wrong and only the Secretary of State right?
Andrew Bowie
I will not because of time.
Notably, that list does not include one Scottish Labour MP. Indeed, some Scottish Labour MPs are actively campaigning to stop any production at all, with two of their number signing a letter asking the Secretary of State to block the Rosebank oilfield. For a moment, let us entertain the idea that clean power 2030 is not ridiculous and utterly undeliverable. Who does the Minister think will deliver it? The people with the skills needed for floating offshore wind are leaving in their thousands, and the assets to deploy those new technologies are moving overseas. Who does the Minister think will invest in the transition?
The Port of Aberdeen has recently invested in a new harbour to accommodate the long-promised boom in floating offshore wind, but there are no new turbines going out to sea today, the quayside has no blades waiting and the port is laying off staff because 60% of its revenue still comes from oil and gas; only 1% comes from renewables.
We could change course. I hope that Labour Members who represent Scottish constituents have paid close attention, and I hope they have thought about whose side they are on. Labour MPs have an opportunity to join us in the voting Lobby and demonstrate clearly whose side they are on. Are they on the side of British workers, our industry, our security and our economic success, or are they on the side of an increasingly isolated Secretary of State?
The Government could decide to vote to end the ban on new licences and unlock the 2.9 billion barrels of opportunity that lie below the sea. They could vote to scrap the energy profits levy and vote to approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields immediately, but it is clear that they will not. As ever, there is only one party with a plan to get Britain drilling again, to make Britain secure, to cut bills and to deliver a stronger economy and a stronger country. That is, and always will be, the Conservative and Unionist party.
The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
This has been an interesting debate at times—at other times, perhaps it has not been—but it is a timely and important debate, as many people sitting at home will be watching the situation in the middle east concerned about the cost of living, our energy security and the impact that our energy policies have on their lives. Let me start, as the shadow Minister rightly did, with what I thought was an outstanding contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). She rightly centred the debate, as others should have done, on the workers who have powered the country for decades. I have had the great pleasure of meeting many of them in the 20 months I have had this job—not on one visit to Aberdeen, but on many. They have done the job that we have asked of them in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. They have risked their lives—indeed, many have lost their lives—in the pursuit of the energy that we have used for six decades.
I will never diminish the role that the North sea has played for six decades in powering the country. It has been a source of energy, a source of revenue and a source of good jobs not just in the north-east of Scotland but beyond that in the east and north-east of England and right across the country. Its workers are sought after around the world for their skills and experiences.
My right hon. Friend rightly challenged what we have heard from the Opposition in the debate. Slogans do not protect those jobs. Standing up with nothing but rhetoric and pretending that the 70,000 jobs lost on their watch were somehow irrelevant will not help, and it diminishes the scale of the challenge we face.
Slogans will not build the jobs of the future. The shadow Minister talked about a lack of turbines in Aberdeen harbour, yet his party would rip up the auction that delivers the contracts that will create those jobs—and he has the brass neck to say that that is a problem with our Government’s policy. It is his policy that caused the problem.
The shadow Minister talked about numbers on a spreadsheet, as if we do not care about the workers caught up in this. That is why we are building the transition and investing in the future, while they ignored it. When we started becoming a net importer—not in July 2024, as some Opposition Members would like to pretend, but in 2003—we should have been looking at the transition. I am willing to accept that the previous Labour Government should have done more on this. The Conservatives should accept that over 14 years, as they saw thousands of jobs disappear from the industry, they should have been doing everything in their power to build up what came next. They failed to do that.
We have heard a number of straw man arguments put forward today about the North sea being closed. The North sea, right now, continues to send gas into our gas network and it will continue to do so for decades to come. However, the transition is hugely important. It has been under way for decades and we have to acknowledge how important it is to invest in what comes next.
The events of recent weeks should concentrate minds. We should have learned the right lessons coming out of the invasion of Ukraine but we did not, and we must now learn the right lessons coming out of this present crisis. Doubling down on fossil fuels does not give us energy security; it makes us depend even more on the very volatility that has driven us into economic problems time after time. More than half the economic shocks that have faced this country have been caused by fossil fuels, and the Conservative party’s answer is to double down and have even more of it. That is not a plan for the future of this country.
Graham Stuart
The only doubling down being done is by the Minister, who insists that we import more from abroad. Where energy is produced makes no difference to how much we consume. It can either be produced abroad or it can be produced here, with jobs, tax and lower emissions. Why on earth would he choose for it to be done abroad?
Michael Shanks
I was going to come to the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution later. He is also very likeable—he kindly said that of me and I appreciated it. He talked about “lunacy made flesh”; in the past, he has remarked that his own party’s policy of cancelling auctions for renewables has been lunacy. The truth is that we need both: we need oil and gas for many years to come, but we also need to build what comes next. I am afraid that point is entirely lost on those on his party’s Front Bench.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the US earlier and said that the UK was a price taker, not a price maker. The difference is that the US is responsible for a quarter of the world’s gas; we are not. By all standards, we have a minuscule amount of gas in the international markets. I am not saying that we should not be hugely grateful to have that gas in the seas around our country, but it is a minuscule amount compared with the global gas take. Therefore, we will always be a price taker, not a price maker.
There were a number of contributions that I will not have time to come to, but I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas). I think he quoted me to myself in saying that energy policy is not a theoretical exercise. I agree with him, and today’s motion states that we need to look at the reality of where we are as a country and how we deliver our energy security in an uncertain world. That means having a mix of energy and it means moving faster to deliver the clean, home-grown power that is the very thing that can protect households right now and allow us to take responsibility for our environmental impact.
Conservative Members used to be great champions of the need to tackle the existential challenge to this planet that is the climate crisis, and there was great consensus in this place and across our politics on that. They have rowed back from that in a desperate attempt to chase Reform down the cul-de-sac of being anti-net zero, but in doing so they are turning their backs on the tens of thousands of jobs that will be created in the future.
I spoke earlier about the importance of learning the right lessons from this crisis. As long as we are dependent on the volatile global fossil fuel market, we will always be vulnerable to the kind of price shocks that we are seeing today. When faced with events like that, the public rightly expect us to work out the pathway that reduces that exposure and protects their household bills long into the future. Today, we have heard no plan whatsoever for doing that from the Conservatives; indeed, we have just heard a plan to double down on the very exposure that households are paying the price for.
The alternative path is to invest in the clean energy transition and recognise that oil and gas will play an important part in that, but also to invest as quickly as we can in renewables, carbon capture and hydrogen, and in decommissioning our offshore assets, which will produce many, many jobs for a long time to come. That is why we have attracted £90 billion of investment since we began this challenge. It is why we are tackling the gridlock in the national grid that has held back projects for so long. It is why we are creating thousands of jobs across the country. Every wind turbine that we switch on, every solar panel that we install and every bit of grid that we build that was neglected by the Conservatives for far too long helps us to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and helps us to protect bills.
There is an important debate at the heart of this issue, and I regret that the motion tabled by the Opposition does not help us to have it. It ultimately comes down to a choice: do we want to continue on the rollercoaster of fossil fuels, or do we want to take control of our energy future with secure, home-grown energy, creating jobs, cutting bills and strengthening our national resilience? At a moment like this, this Government are clear what path we are on. It is the right choice for the British public. I commend to the House the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
Defence
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:01 - The House divided: - Ayes: 98 / Noes: 306 - Question accordingly negatived.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets that the Defence Investment Plan has still not been published despite the Government promising Parliament that the plan would be published in Autumn 2025; notes that the Government’s delay has frozen procurement and has stopped the UK from learning lessons from its long-standing support for Ukraine and left the UK vulnerable as the world becomes more dangerous; believes that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2025 should not be proceeded with because they are a threat to morale, and that the Diego Garcia Treaty should not be ratified to ensure that the UK continues to have sovereignty over its military base; calls on the Government to publish the Defence Investment Plan as soon as possible; and further calls on the Government to increase spending on the UK’s armed forces, specifically delivering 20,000 more troops over the next Parliament, paid for by restoring the two-child benefit cap, and redirecting net zero funding to defence, to ensure that the UK spends three per cent of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament.
It is a pleasure to open this Opposition day debate. I join the Liaison Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Defence Committee in asking the Government one simple question: when on earth will they publish the defence investment plan? Yesterday, the Prime Minister was unable to answer that simple question. It means that, at a time of war and conflict on multiple fronts, and amid the most dangerous time for our country since the cold war, instead of delivering rapid rearmament, Labour is presiding over a procurement freeze. Perhaps that should come as no surprise, given the Prime Minister’s constant habit of dither and delay.
Since 28 February, when the US and Israel started their campaign against Iran, the Conservative position has been that, had we been in government and the US had asked to use our bases, we would have granted permission. In contrast, the Prime Minister has not only dithered and delayed over sending the Royal Navy to the middle east, but constantly U-turned on whether to allow the US to use our bases. That is weak leadership when we need to stand strong in this dangerous world. Now, we are seeing the consequences of the Prime Minister’s weakness on the home front. As war wages around us, he is unable even to confirm whether the defence investment plan will be delivered this week. I urge the Minister to tell us at the outset of his remarks, but before he does, let us remind ourselves of what Labour Ministers have said before.
On coming into office, the Defence Secretary made a choice. He chose not to implement the munitions plan I had produced, which detailed comprehensively how we could rapidly replenish the vast amount of shells and missiles that we had given to Ukraine. Instead, he decided to launch a strategic defence review that would boil the ocean. In multiple written questions, we asked what Labour would do on specific capability, and the answer was always the same: “Wait for the SDR.” So we waited and waited—it was promised for the spring of 2025, and was delivered in the summer—but the SDR did not have any of the specific procurement choices that our entire defence industry is waiting for. After all the hype about the SDR, those decisions were punted into yet another review: the defence investment plan.
In June last year, the Secretary of State promised from the Dispatch Box that
“the work on a new defence investment plan will be completed and published in the autumn.”—[Official Report, 2 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 72.]
But summer turned to autumn, autumn turned to winter, and still there is no DIP.
Dame Meg Hillier
I have to say, the hon. Gentleman has some chutzpah, given that one of his Government’s many defence reviews had more pictures than pages. I agree with him that we should be serious-minded on this matter—we need to be prepared for defence—but under his Government, projects were delayed and aircraft carriers were without aircraft, and the ongoing Ajax saga is still be resolved. He needs to take responsibility, too. Across the House, we all want to ensure that we are ready to defend our nation.
James Cartlidge
There was no question in that intervention, but I am glad that the hon. Lady agrees that the Government need to get on and deliver the defence investment plan. To be fair, MPs from across the House have said so, including the Chair of the Defence Committee. We all know that it is in the national interest for the DIP to be published.
After all, the defence investment plan being delayed has consequences, the most serious of which are for our military personnel, who we want to have the best equipment for their job. In taking the decision to pause urgent procurement and instead boil the ocean, the Defence Secretary walked into a Treasury trap. Procurement has been on hold ever since, and the Ministry of Defence has been forced to focus on in-year savings, including £2.6 billion for this year alone. Such penny-pinching explains why, until HMS Dragon finally arrived on the scene, we had no warships in the middle east for the first time in decades.
One of the most critical consequences of the delay to DIP is the Sea Viper Evolution procurement. The fact that a US destroyer intercepted at least one of the missiles that Iran fired at our sovereign territory on Diego Garcia underlines how important it is that our Type 45s are able defend against the most advanced threats. For the UK, that requires the Sea Viper Evolution upgrade for our Type 45 destroyers.
In my own SDR submission as shadow Defence Secretary, through numerous speeches in the House and in many written questions, I have repeatedly urged the Government to accelerate Sea Viper Evolution as a priority for our munitions plan. I am sure that members of the public who are watching this debate, worried about Iran’s attack on Diego Garcia, would expect such a capability to have been ordered as rapidly as possible. However, in a written answer this January, when I was once again chasing this critical upgrade, I received the inevitable response that continued progress on Sea Viper Evolution remains
“subject to the defence investment plan.”
That is the problem in a nutshell—the impact of Labour’s procurement freeze in real time. The reality is that Sea Viper Evolution is not due to reach full operating capability until late 2032.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
At Defence questions last week, the Secretary of State said that the delay to the defence investment plan was not holding up important investment plans, which came as a surprise to me, given that right now there are UK personnel on NATO’s border with Russia without specific equipment that would otherwise have been procured in my own constituency. Does the hon. Member share my concern that the delay is in fact having significant impacts on defence procurement?
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman, who I believe is a gallant gentleman who served in the Royal Air Force, knows exactly what he is talking about. I agree with him wholeheartedly. It is having a real impact, and it is not just me saying that.
The serious consequence of this paralysis is our brilliant defence industry hanging on by its fingertips. This morning, I addressed a roundtable attended by many defence primes and small and medium-sized enterprises in Westminster. They are the experts at the coalface, and they spoke of British defence companies going abroad or even having to close because of delays to the defence investment plan, and a defence industry under strain when it should be firing on all cylinders.
When it comes to consequences, on a personal basis, what I find most disheartening of all is the impact of this paralysis on our ability to learn lessons from the war in Ukraine. I am incredibly proud of how, in government, the Conservatives stood by Ukraine even before Putin invaded.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I came into this place only in 2017. I was deeply disappointed by what happened in 2014 and our failure to stand by Ukraine on the invasion of Crimea. I think Michael Fallon was one of the few who said, “We should actually take action.” What was the hon. Gentleman’s view and what would he have done?
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have been training Ukrainian soldiers since 2014—over 60,000, I think, under Operation Interflex. I think there is a very strong consensus in the House on support for Ukraine. Obviously, there were limitations on what we could do. We have done everything possible. We were the first country in Europe to stand by Ukraine. We sent weapons before the invasion started. We did not wait for Putin to invade so that we could comply perfectly with international law. Boris Johnson and Ben Wallace had the guts to ignore the Foreign Office and send those weapons, despite that—premeditated. If Kyiv had fallen and the column of tanks heading to Kyiv had not been intercepted, we would have been in an extremely serious situation.
I am making a point about procurement. This is important. By April 2024, we were providing Ukraine with drone and counter-drone capabilities that were proving decisive on a real battlefield, against the peer military threat in Europe. They were not being produced through the old system, full of delays and overspend, but by British SMEs, producing them cheaply, swiftly and with constant feedback from the frontline. We were therefore incredibly well placed to deliver the vision of the MOD defence drone strategy—which I published in February 2024 and is meant to be current Government policy—whereby we would be a leading nation in uncrewed warfare. Most importantly, we would have achieved that by providing in parallel for our armed forces the drone technology that we were giving to Ukraine.
By now, our Army should have been training across the board in drone warfare, the Navy should have been fielding the beginnings of an autonomous drone fleet, learning the lessons from Ukraine’s extraordinary victory in the Black sea, and the RAF should have been maximising investment in loyal wingmen—drones that would fly alongside and enhance the lethality of our current Typhoons. But there was one big problem.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem with his Government’s drone strategy was that they did not invest in satellites, making us reliant on foreign satellites for full capability, and they did not invest in the radars, as we have, that cover all of Europe and north Africa, thereby making us fully reliant on the US?
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady talks about reliance on the US. I remind her that it was the United States that intercepted the ballistic missile heading for our base—our sovereign territory—on Diego Garcia. The point I am making—and it is incredibly important for the House to reflect on this, because it has not been talked about enough, partly for sensitivity reasons—is that we did tremendous things in Ukraine. We supplied drones made by British companies that had an extraordinary impact. I am not going to say any more than that, but that is a statement of fact.
My strategy—it is fairly simple—was that we should, in parallel, do the same for the British armed forces, but in the summer of 2024 we ran into a big problem, and it is the reason why we have no defence investment plan: money. As was the case when we were in government, the Treasury under this Prime Minister has agreed a funding line for Ukraine; that is correct, and we strongly agree with it. But there has been no agreement to fund parallel procurement for our own armed forces.
This golden opportunity to transform our military was lost because the Secretary of State failed to stand up to the Treasury and demand the cash from the Chancellor. So often have I met British SMEs producing amazing battle-tested kit for Ukraine, with nothing ordered by our own armed forces. It is extraordinary, and I think the Minister, who shares my passion for the uncrewed revolution, knows that. As ever, it boils down to hard cash.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that another example is Coventry-based NP Aerospace, which I met again this morning? It is producing body armour for Ukrainians, but because of the delay in the DIP, it has no confidence that it will be able to do the same for the British Army. It is a bit reminiscent of 2003, when several in this House went to Iraq with the most shoddy, appalling personal kit that took months to rectify.
James Cartlidge
I am very grateful to my right hon. and gallant Friend, who speaks with his experience as not just a former Defence Minister but someone who served in the Royal Navy and still does as a reservist. I ran an SME—it was not a defence SME, but I know the stress of running a company in tough times, and my heart goes out to companies like the one he talks about, which will be struggling right now. They are selling abroad but getting nothing from the British military at a time when we face intense threats. That is not good enough.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
James Cartlidge
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin).
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I draw my hon. Friend’s attention and the attention of the House to the other fundamental structural flaw in the method the Government have adopted for planning defence: the aspiration after 2029 is only an aspiration. The Treasury has agreed to no spending line in its own forecasts and figures beyond 2029, and yet the defence investment plan is a 10-year plan. How can the Treasury agree to a 10-year plan when it has not agreed to any funding for defence after 2029? It is just an aspiration.
James Cartlidge
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, who ran rings around the Prime Minister yesterday so expertly. He is absolutely right. The Red Book details to the penny how much this Government will spend on their U-turn to abolish the two-child benefit cap by 2031. There is no line on what will be spent on defence in those years, so how on earth is the MOD meant to change? The key is that the Government are not going to go to 3% in this Parliament. I am going to conclude by setting out five steps, but before I do that, I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).
Sir Julian Lewis
It is very kind of my hon. Friend to give way on the point of making his peroration. He mentioned the tension between the MOD and its Ministers, and the Treasury. We could sympathise with the MOD Ministers if they did not keep adopting a line that is self-defeating. They keep coming out with this propaganda line that they have increased defence spending by a greater amount than at any time since the end of the cold war, and each time, I boringly point out to them—and I am going to do it again today—that they should not be comparing what we are spending now, in a much deteriorated situation, with the peace dividend years that followed the cold war; they should compare it with what we used to spend on defence during the cold war, which was regularly between 4.5% and 5%. If that seems a lot, just remember that when a country is involved in a full-scale war, we are talking not about 4% but about 40%.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend is never boring in his interventions; on the contrary, he is one of the most knowledgeable people on defence in this House.
I will conclude with five steps that could be taken right now to galvanise our war readiness—positive suggestions from the Conservative Benches. First, we should rearm immediately. As I wrote in my letter to the Defence Secretary last week, instead of waiting on the defence investment plan, he should use the reserve funding agreed for the middle east operations to place orders for urgent operational requirements, in particular advanced short-range air-to-air missiles for our fighter planes, and Aster air defence missiles for our Type 45s. Secondly, we should deliver drone tech at scale and pace across the armed forces, as we set out in our sovereign defence fund last December. Thirdly, to fund that we would set a path to 3% this Parliament, not the next, including turning the National Wealth Fund into a defence and resilience bank, ringfencing £11 billion for defence, repurposing £6 billion of research and development funding for drone tech, and restoring the two-child benefit cap to fund a bigger Army.
Fourthly, to save more money for defence, and following Iran’s missile strike on Diego Garcia, we would stand up for that critical sovereign territory by scrapping Labour’s crazy Chagos plan. Finally, to boost immediately the morale of our veterans and all who serve our country, we would defend those who defended us by scrapping Labour’s plans to put our former soldiers back in the dock, simply for the crime of serving their country. It is not enough for Ministers simply to say, month after month, that they are working “flat out” to deliver the defence investment plan. In the national interest this country needs to rearm rapidly. That means the Prime Minister ditching the dither and delay, summoning the courage to reverse the spiralling welfare bill, and finally committing to 3% on defence this Parliament.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Al Carns)
I read the motion with a sense not of anger but of disappointment, because at a moment like this, when British armed forces are actively protecting our people and our interests in the middle east, intercepting drones, defending our bases, and preparing for further and potential escalation, I had hoped for a more well thought through and balanced motion to contribute to the debate.
Let me start by paying tribute to those who are serving today, at home and overseas, in the air, on land, at sea, and 24/7 beneath the waves, often in conditions of real danger, doing exactly what the country asks of them. This debate should have been about them. Instead, we have a motion that reads less like a serious contribution to defence policy, and more like an attempt to rewrite the record, and to whitewash what happened over the past 14 years. The House knows the record, and the public know it too. Importantly, the implications of 14 years have an impact on our armed forces, and they are bearing the brunt of it. Opposition Members cannot rewrite it, and they cannot run from it.
Let us be clear about the world we are now operating in. A major land war continues in Europe, where 55,000 drones and missiles have been fired by Russia into Ukraine, and there have been over 100,000 casualties on the Russian side alone—that is more casualties than America took in the entire second world war. Conflict is spreading across the middle east, and 10 countries have been struck by hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of drones. Authoritarian states are becoming more aggressive, and the way wars are fought is changing at pace. This is the most volatile security environment for a generation. This is not a moment for gestures or political point scoring; it is a moment for a serious decision.
James Cartlidge
When is the Minister going to publish the defence investment plan?
Al Carns
We will publish the defence investment plan as soon as is feasible. The hon. Gentleman will not find anyone who wants more than me more defence spending at a faster rate, but this is a moment for serious decisions to be taken in the national interest. We need to get ourselves back on track. There has been a whole plethora of funding decisions over the last 14 years, which I lived through, and I am sure some hon. and gallant Members present lived through, that in the current environment are no longer fit for purpose.
Dame Meg Hillier
I am sure my hon. Friend will remember that at one point when he was serving our country the last Government put an extra £4.5 billion into defence spending. However, time after time, every witness that came in front of the Public Accounts Committee told us how it was not solving their funding problem and was overspent many times. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need rigour in spending that actually delivers the kit to our men and women on the ground, in the air and at sea who are serving our country?
Al Carns
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. We have a large defence budget, and in the past it has not been spent effectively.
I think we can collectively agree, on both sides of the House, that huge procurement mistakes have been made in the past that have resulted in either the wrong equipment or the money going the wrong way. We therefore need to take our time to get this right. As Conservative Members will know, the other reason we need to take our time to get this right is that conflict is changing; in some cases, it overtakes some of the capability that was ordered years ago.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
I thoroughly enjoyed the Minister’s interview on Times Radio, in which he talked about his role in defence and his history and was asked about his leadership. I will not ask him about his leadership ambitions, but I would like to know where the DIP is stuck. Which Minister is it stuck with? Is it stuck with the Chancellor, or does the Ministry of Defence itself have a problem? I would be grateful if the Minister could elucidate a little.
Al Carns
Defence is very clear about what it requires. We are working collectively across Government to come to a joint decision on where that spending portfolio will fall.
There are points in this motion that are obvious. The world is more dangerous, and we are investing more in defence, but recognising that is the easy part; the real question is whether we are prepared to make the decisions required to deal with it. Defence is not a shopping list, and it must not be treated as such. It is not about picking a number of troops, as mentioned in the motion, and it is not about shifting money around on paper. It is about building a force that works—one that is properly equipped with the correct equipment, properly supported and able to operate alongside our allies. In my time in uniform and since coming into this role, I have spent time in multiple different operational theatres, and I know that this is not about the size of the armed forces; it is about the plan. This is about the purpose, the equipment and how people will be integrated. Simply stating that we should add 20,000 extra troops to the Army, with no clear or concise understanding of how they will be used, is not the way to go about business.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
The Minister is making a powerful case. A man with his record and history coming to this place is to be congratulated, and I am enthused to see him in his place today, as I think we all are.
We have talked about the non-appearance of the defence investment plan, but there is another review that has not appeared that has even more impact: the review on China and the threat that it poses to us. That was promised again by the Government. I raise this issue because under Conservative and Labour Governments, I have gone on constantly about the growing threat, and we have not faced up to it. China is critical to this matter; if we watch the tankers going into the strait of Hormuz and out again without any problems, we begin to realise the incredible links that China has with Iran, Russia and North Korea. Is the Ministry of Defence demanding that that review is handed to it and published, or has it forgotten about it?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I do not require any correspondence from the Minister, although it is always welcome.
Al Carns
Let me go back to the point about the 20,000 troops. The motion calls for more troops, but it says nothing about how they would be recruited, trained, housed or equipped. It does not even begin to answer the most basic questions about what those troops would actually be used for. It proposes funding defence through unrelated policy changes, as if national security can be managed like a spreadsheet, and it pulls together issues that do not form a coherent strategy. That is not a defence plan—it is a list.
What is most revealing is the position of the Conservative party. One week, the Leader of the Opposition says that we should send jets “to the source” in Iran, and that we are in this war
“whether we like it or not”.
The following week, she says,
“I never said we should join”,
and when the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), is asked for a clear position, he says that there are no easy answers. Those are their words, and they tell us everything. They are armchair generals rushing to judgment one week and retreating from it the next—rushing towards escalation, then stepping back from it the next. That is not leadership, it is not judgment, and it is certainly not how to make decisions about putting British service personnel in harm’s way. Those decisions demand seriousness, not commentary or hyperbole from the sidelines.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I share the respect of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for the Minister and his experience, but the two statements from the Leader of the Opposition that he read out are not incompatible. The fact is that we would not have joined in the military action that the Americans and the Israelis initiated, but it is undeniable that the war has now come to us. What does he think is happening in London? Did he not hear the deputy chief of the Metropolitan police on the radio this morning talking about the rising Iranian threat that is now domestic in our own capital? This war has come to us. As Leon Trotsky said, Madam Deputy Speaker,
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Al Carns
I hope war is not interested in you personally, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The Iranian threat—Hezbollah, Hamas, lethal aid in Iraq and Afghanistan, and supporting terrorist organisations around the world—is not lost on me at all. However, I will be really clear: I have served in every staff college in the career structure of the British military, and I have always been taught that there are three key things. First, you have to have a legal mandate; secondly, you have to have a plan; and thirdly, you have to think to the end. If the Opposition think that we should be involved in the conflict, then by all means they should say so, but if they do not, they should be balanced.
Several hon. Members rose—
James Cartlidge
I believe that the Minister was giving way to me, and I am grateful to him for doing so.
To be clear, the Prime Minister and the Conservative party now have the same position. The Prime Minister would grant the US use of our bases—its bombers have been taking off from our bases. That was our position. The difference is that we have maintained that position from the beginning, 100% consistently, whereas the Prime Minister has U-turned repeatedly. We are the ones who have been consistent; Labour has been blowing all over the place.
Al Carns
The Opposition would have dragged us into this conflict quicker than we could possibly have imagined. We have made the difficult but correct decision to remain in a defensive posture. That is the right decision.
Let me deal directly with the record that we inherited. The shadow Defence Secretary himself admitted that defence spending reduced every year because, in his words, people thought we had peace. That assumption has left this country exposed. Ground-based air defence investment, which is now protecting our forces in the middle east with our allies and partners, was cut by around 70% in the Conservatives’ final year. Frigates and destroyers were reduced by a quarter, and minehunters were cut by more than a half. I was the chief of staff of our carrier strike force, which validates our minehunting capability that goes to the middle east. Interestingly, in the 2021 integrated review, the out of service date for minehunters was brought forward to 2026—good decision! Troop numbers were left at their lowest level in modern history. That is the reality, that is the legacy, and that is what we are trying to fix, and we are fixing it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Al Carns
I will continue and then give way in a minute.
We have taken more action in the past 20 months than the Conservatives managed in the 14 years before that, with more than 1,200 major defence contracts, 86% of which have been awarded to British-based businesses. The Conservatives argued that we should spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030; we are delivering it by 2027.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Let me just say to the Minister: no more “yous”.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I sense that this little fracas is something of a tautological tap dance. We are at war, and I do not think Iran cares whether we made the strike on it or not, because it still sees us as a target. We accept that, and that is the danger that our troops are in.
However, I want to ask the Minister about something else. I want to ask again the question that I asked the Defence Secretary yesterday. Is it not the reality that we are at war, and that Iran is an enemy of ours and has been for a considerable time? It has been carrying out operations here. It has been stirring up Islamic extremism, and we are seeing targeted antisemitism and hate marches. That is all part of Iran’s plan. Is it not time that the Government finally said “Enough is enough”, proscribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and arrested the hell out of these people who are causing mayhem on our streets?
Al Carns
I thank the right hon. Member for his comments. I will raise them with the Security Minister, and push exceptionally hard.
The motion suggests that we are failing to learn lessons from Ukraine. Let me make it absolutely clear that these are two separate issues. This Government are leading. We committed £4.5 billion in military support last year, building on £3 billion annually. We have co-led the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which has helped to secure over $45 billion of investment, and in February alone a further $35 billion was raised. However, we have not just provided funds; we have adapted.
At this point, I want to recall my own history. I left the military in 2024. I left because the Government and the military collectively were not learning the lessons from Ukraine. That is the very reason I left to come to this place. Labour was not in government at the time, and we were already years into the conflict. Opposition Members will recognise this as being one of my hobby horses since I have been in the Ministry of Defence.
There has been a tenfold increase in drone delivery, with a target of 100,000 this year. A new cyber and electromagnetic force has been built on lessons from the battlefield in Ukraine, and £4 billion has been committed to autonomous systems over time. We have seen Project Asgard, a hybrid Navy, a defence uncrewed centre of excellence in the SDR, a cultural change within the Army, Navy and Air Force in respect of uncrewed systems, an increase in uncrewed systems training, and cultural development in phase 1 and phase 2 training. I am therefore confused as to how no lessons are being learned. We must go faster, and we are pushing as hard as we can, but I want to be very clear about this, and I will bring you back to the first point. I left the military because your Government—[Interruption.] I left the military because the Conservative Government were not learning the lessons effectively from Ukraine.
Let me turn to the topic of Northern Ireland and morale. I do not recognise the argument advanced in the motion.
Dr Evans
The Minister gave us an extensive list of some of the spending commitments, but will he set out the exact spending commitments, and explain about the 1.5% required by NATO, which is not included in the defence spending? It was a great big list, but I have not heard the other side of it, and I should be grateful if he could provide those categories.
Matt Western
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The 1.5% is, of course, about security-related initiatives, and it is important that we get to those soon. As for the wider defence investment plan, I would just say a word of caution: we must get it absolutely right. I have been trying to work with colleagues on both sides of the House since the start of the Ajax project in 2016 to find a resolution to some of these problems. We must take great care and be very clear-eyed about the procurement strategy that we follow.
Al Carns
I completely agree. We have to get the defence investment plan right, and we have to ensure that it balances all the different problems that we face, whether they relate to air defence in the middle east and the lessons identified there or, indeed, the lessons identified in Ukraine.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
One thing that we need to get right, and which we got wrong in the past, is this. When I was first elected in 2017, there were not Russian spy ships off the coast of my constituency, but now there are, and we detected a submarine before Christmas. I raised this issue with the Leader of the House last week and have been granted a ministerial meeting. Does the Minister agree that there is a Russian threat on our doorstep to vital strategic resources, including pipelines, interconnectors, our offshore wind, and our oil and gas? Look at what happened in the Baltic.
Al Carns
We often talk about not having a frontline with Russia, but the reality is that we do. It is in the north Atlantic and in maritime, where we are facing off against Russian capability on a daily basis. We have seen a 30% increase in surface and subsurface capability, which speaks to the complexity of the defence investment plan and to the requirement to balance our assets, given the crisis in the middle east and, of course, the continual and persistent threat from the Russians in the north.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
I would like to take the gallant Minister back to his comments about when and why Britain should go to war. It is clear that the Conservatives have forgotten that the Leader of the Opposition made her comments during the offensive action, not the defensive action. Is the Minister concerned that we have a Leader of the Opposition and a leader of the Reform party who, when Donald Trump says, “Jump!”, say, “How high?”
Al Carns
I am going to make a bit of ground, and then I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman in due course.
Morale is built on leadership, clarity and trust, and the facts matter. Recruitment is up by 13%, and outflow is down by 8%. For the first time in over a decade, more people are joining the armed forces than leaving—that is the reality. Let us be clear about our responsibility to our veterans: there is no equivalence between those who served to protect life and those who sought to destroy it. This Government are putting in place proper protections for veterans following the legal uncertainty that was left behind, and we are backing that with action.
Actions talks. Op Valour is putting £50 million into our veterans programme—more than ever before. Op Ascend is helping veterans into meaningful employment, with funding to tackle veterans’ homelessness and to deliver real improvements in housing and pay. We have delivered the largest pay rise in two decades, including a 35% increase for new recruits. We have bought back 36,000 military homes and are investing £9 billion to improve them. We have funded 30 hours of free childcare for under-threes across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, saving forces families up to £6,000 a year. That is the difference that practical support makes, and it is why we are seeing a change in morale. If the Conservatives want a debate about who is delivering for our service personnel, I am more than happy to stand on our record and to compare theirs with ours.
Al Carns
I am going to a make a bit of ground, and then I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman.
We come to perhaps the most revealing part of the motion: the suggestion that defence should be funded through changes to the two-child benefit cap. Let me say this plainly: you do not strengthen national security by setting it against support for working families, you do not ask the country to choose between security abroad and stability at home, and you do not build credible defence policy on that basis. It is the job of the Government to make life easier for families, not harder.
I will say something else. I grew up in a family where decisions about money took place, and I see the same pressures on the communities that I now represent. Security is not just about what happens overseas; it is about whether families feel that they can cope, whether they feel stable and whether they feel that the system is working for them. The Conservatives’ motion is not a serious way to approach defence funding, because the strength of a country rests both on armed forces that can deter and defend, and on a society at home that is stable, resilient and confident. Pitting one against the other does not strengthen either; it weakens both.
This Government are taking a different approach. We are making decisions in the national interest, and we will not be pushed into those decisions by noise or pressure—we will take them carefully and responsibly. We are increasing defence spending, strengthening our forces—whether it be recruitment or outflow, or the morale component as a whole—and ensuring that our forces are ready to face threats both now and in the future. We will publish our defence investment plan, but we will not rush it for the sake of a headline. As has been demonstrated over the past 14 years, a plan that is not properly funded or deliverable does not strengthen our security, but weakens it.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I have listened carefully to this debate, which has been an interesting knockabout. On the question of what we are achieving, I refer the Minister back to the comments of the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who was the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee when the Conservatives were in office, on the numerous wastage scandals in defence procurement. I was Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee during the Blair years; I go back so far that I remember Lord Levene being appointed by Michael Heseltine to get this right. We are never going to get anywhere until we stop the scandal of defence procurement. We have the sixth biggest defence budget in the world, but we do not get bang for our buck. I do not have any instant solutions, but is this not something we can all unite around? Can we not just insist that we stop these huge projects, which are not fit for modern warfare, and go back to actually being able to fight a war?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Before the Minister responds, I note that many colleagues wish to contribute; no doubt he is coming close to his conclusion.
Al Carns
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. We are moving in that direction; the national armaments director is providing professional oversight now and is looking at reviewing the system. I think we can all collectively agree on whether we have got value for money over the past 14 to 20 years. We need to make sure that we do get value for money in the future; if we had in the past, we would have a properly equipped armed forces at the present moment.
In closing, this motion asks the House to express regret about a Government who are delivering the largest increase in defence spending, leading on Ukraine, investing in our veterans and reversing the decline in recruitment and morale that we inherited. At a time when our armed forces are deployed to protect British lives, the Opposition offer a motion built on a record they would rather forget and a set of arguments that do not meet the test of seriousness. This is not a moment for point scoring but a time for leadership, and this Government are providing it. I urge the House to reject the motion.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Earlier this year, the head of the armed forces, Sir Richard Knighton, issued a stark warning. In describing the current state of our military, Sir Richard said that the UK is
“not as ready as we need to be for the kind of full-scale conflict that we might face.”
We should remind ourselves of the context in which Sir Richard made those remarks.
For years, the Conservatives oversaw the hollowing out of our military, with troop numbers cut by 10,000 on their watch. [Interruption.] Now, this motion proposes 20,000 more troops. Let us be clear what that actually means. After cutting 10,000 troops in government, the Conservatives are really proposing a net increase of only 10,000 now. When Liberal Democrats called for a reversal of Tory troop cuts, they scoffed. How would they pay for even that increase? It would be by reinstating the two-child benefit cap and punishing struggling families.
Our surface fleet has been reduced to its smallest size since the English civil war. [Interruption.] Sorry, I just heard shouting; I did not realise hon. Members were trying to intervene.
Several hon. Members rose—
James MacCleary
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin). [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Sir Julian Lewis, I have never seen you behave so badly.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, is he not? The egg is now on the other face, and Conservative Members are very excited. Which of the Tory cuts does my hon. Friend think was the most damaging—was it the cuts to the frigates, the destroyers, the minesweepers or the troops?
James MacCleary
I thank my hon. Friend for his valuable contribution, and I support the point he makes. All the cuts he mentions were damaging. Probably the most damaging thing of all was how the Conservatives failed our serving troops, in particular with their accommodation and the deal they gave our veterans over some time.
Sir Julian Lewis
Can I share a little secret with the House? For slightly longer than the duration of the second world war, I was a shadow Defence Minister, but in 2010, I found myself back on the Back Benches because the Liberal Defence spokesman was appointed Minister for the Armed Forces. I was told that the reason for this was that the powers that be knew that I would never have gone along with the cuts that were made in October 2010 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I think the hon. Gentlemen’s amnesia is therefore somewhat selective.
James MacCleary
I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention; that was very informative.
We saw our surface fleet reduced to its smallest size since the English civil war while the Conservatives were at the helm, and a crisis of recruitment, retention and morale across the armed forces ushered in by their incompetence. We should not be surprised by the disastrous impact that years of Conservative mismanagement have had on our military. What is the Conservatives’ answer now? After hollowing out our armed forces in government, their motion shows that they have learned nothing. They want struggling families to foot the bill. It is the same old Tory formula: break the country first, then ask the most vulnerable to pay for the repairs. What is needed now is a serious plan to reverse their damage
James Cartlidge
I am very grateful to the hon. Member; he does always give way on this point.
There is one capability that keeps us safe 24/7 more than any other, which is our continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent. Was it, or was it not, a condition of the Liberal Democrats joining the coalition that the programme was delayed, putting massive pressure on the boats, with the result that they are now doing tours of more than 200 days? The Liberal Democrats should be ashamed of that.
James MacCleary
It is astonishing, Madam Deputy Speaker. You would not think that they had been in majority government for 10 years since the coalition. All the crimes that have been committed in history were committed by a minority partner in a coalition more than a decade ago. I make speeches at universities where some of the students were not even born when these things happened. It is extraordinary. We need a serious plan to reverse the damage.
Mike Martin
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I would just like to draw—[Interruption.] Do Conservative Members want to hear this?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order! We need less noise in the Chamber.
Mike Martin
On an Opposition day, one would expect His Majesty’s loyal Opposition to put together a cohesive critique of Government defence policy. Instead, what we have is a shopping list—a Christmas tree—that is effectively a list of the pet projects of various members of the Conservative party.
James MacCleary
We welcomed the Government’s efforts to try to reverse that damage last year, with their commitment to increase defence spending to 2.6% of GDP. But the Government’s persistent failure to publish the defence investment plan is inexcusable Promised last summer, the plan was meant to turn the strategic defence review from warm words into hard action. We have been waiting for almost a year. All the time, Ministers have been working flat out, we are told, which must be exhausting. That delay matters. At the very moment Europe is rearming, Britain is hesitating, and hesitation sends signals—signals to our armed forces, signals to industry, signals to our allies and signals to our adversaries.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one immediate action the Government could take to reverse some of the damage that the Conservatives have done to our armed forces is on the Conservative decision to shut down Winchester’s Army training regiment, which trains 20% of our troops. No replacement for that facility will open in the next few years. That decision needs to be reversed.
James MacCleary
I hope that Ministers have heard my hon. Friend’s comments and will perhaps review that decision in future.
Reducing certainty for British defence companies is not what we need to be doing right now, which is why we need a defence investment plan. We are eroding our sovereign capability, weakening the supply chains, putting skilled jobs at risk, and ultimately undermining our national security. There must be no more hesitation and no more delay. Will the Minister commit to publishing the defence investment plan before the end of this Session? The Minister should need no reminding of the need for urgency, given the collection of threats that we face. Trump has cast doubt on NATO’s article 5 and trampled on international law, with illegal attacks in Venezuela and Iran—attacks that the Conservatives and Reform have backed uncritically.
Cameron Thomas
President Trump recently derided the UK as cowards for not joining his directionless operation in Iran—a pretty hollow statement for a draft dodger who understands neither courage nor calculation. Regardless, does my hon. Friend agree that, based on comments from the Leader of the Opposition just a month ago, under a Conservative Government we would now be engaged in offensive operations in a war for which there seems to be no plan and without the preparedness that this motion calls for?
James MacCleary
I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention. I agree; it is extremely hard to derive exactly what the Conservatives would be doing were they in government right now—God forbid—but I think inconsistency would definitely be the name of the game.
Meanwhile, Putin prosecutes his barbaric war in Ukraine, harbours wider ambitions beyond it and expands his campaign of sabotage across Europe. But here is what makes Britain’s position even more precarious: at this very moment we are committed to acquiring F-35A jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but they are equipped to carry only American gravity bombs, use of which would require sign-off from the US President. At a time when we cannot trust the White House, we are deepening our dependence on it. Britain should be strengthening sovereign capability, not locking itself into systems that could be denied to us by presidential whim.
Trump and Putin want to turn world politics into a system where might is right.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat spokesman for giving way. I think he is warming up to his leader’s new Dr Strangelove plot to have his own independent nuclear weapon. Could he tell us how much it is going to cost the UK?
James MacCleary
I was actually going to talk about something completely different, but the question is a good one. I find it very disappointing that the Conservatives have so little faith in the ingenuity and industry of this country to produce its own independent deterrent. This is a multi-decade project. We understand that the Conservatives do not grasp fiscal responsibility—we saw that from the state they left our economy in—but a multi-decade project requires a serious commitment. In the short term, we should be looking to bring servicing and maintenance of the missiles into the UK to reduce our reliance on others. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are asking where. We will develop the capability. I understand that the Conservatives do not like investing in Britain’s skills, but we can develop the skills. I have complete confidence that we can do so.
The defining challenge for our nation is how to meet the unprecedented threat posed by an imperial Kremlin and an unreliable White House. It requires thinking about defence in a new way, because to stand up for values that we cherish, we must be strong enough to defend them. That means, at its core, rearming Britain. Meeting this challenge requires more than military hardware. It means a whole-of-society approach to national resilience. It means energy security, investing in renewables so that we are not dependent on fossil fuels from the very dictators we are standing up to. The Conservatives’ plan to raid investment in renewable energy investment undermines one element of UK security for another—it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It means food security too. Biodiversity underpins our ability to feed ourselves. Declining ecosystems mean declining food production, and that is a national security risk that we ignore at our peril.
It also means the defence readiness Bill, which is currently held up by the Government’s own delays on the defence investment plan. We cannot afford this drift; there can be no delay in beginning that work. That is why the Liberal Democrats have argued that the defence investment plan must be accompanied by an immediate cash injection to support vital capital investment in our forces. We have detailed what this programme could look like, raising £20 billion in defence bonds over two years. [Hon. Members: “Yay!”] I am pleased that Conservative Members are so excited about the bonds idea—perhaps they have come around to it at last. [Interruption.]
It would be a fixed-term issuance, legally hypothecated to capital defence spending. The programme would be a secure way for people to invest their savings while helping to strengthen Britain’s national defence.
Al Carns
I thank the hon. Member for allowing the intervention. I cannot describe the laughing and bickering that is going on right now, when we have troops in harm’s way. There has to be a level of seriousness, whether we are discussing the nuclear deterrent or investment opportunities and mistakes made. We have troops in harm’s way, so I ask Members to provide an element of seriousness to the debate.
James MacCleary
I thank the Minister for his intervention.
It would be a chance to back our armed forces, our security and Britain. We know that properly funding our nation’s security is critical to meeting the threats of this new and unprecedented era, and we also need to ensure that defence funding can generate wider growth in our economy. That is exactly what those bonds would deliver, supporting jobs and an expansion of our defence industrial base across Britain.
Do not just take my word for it; we need to listen to the voice of British industry, academics and financial institutions. In the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ September 2025 green budget, it was clear that borrowing for defence could lead to higher growth, particularly when that additional defence spending is investment heavy. We also need to recognise that the long-term regeneration of our armed forces will require even higher and sustained increases to defence spending—up to 3%. The Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to commit to cross-party talks to agree a shared approach to achieve that. I hope that the Minister will be open-minded about those talks.
We must look to secure and expand the UK’s involvement with financial instruments that offer cheap, new access to defence finance. That is why the Government must re-examine the negotiations to enter the Security Action for Europe fund. I hope that the Prime Minister will take a direct role in getting British access to that. Will the Minister update us on negotiations for access to that fund?
Cameron Thomas
Given the virulence of threats and chastisement from Washington towards European allies—including the UK—and, further, given the UK’s lack of access to the EU’s SAFE fund, which would otherwise support our rearmament, does my hon. Friend recognise that leaving the European Union was a historic mistake that has gravely undermined UK sovereignty?
James MacCleary
I agree with my hon. Friend. The SAFE fund is a good illustration of what it means to be outside the club.
The Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces for a decade; now they want struggling families to pay for the repairs. What we need is a serious plan. The Government must publish a defence investment plan, back it with defence bonds and commit to spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. Our armed forces have been let down for too long by Conservative cuts, by Government delays and by a failure of political will. They deserve better.
Several hon. Members rose—
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Forgive me; I was slightly distracted. We now have a speaking limit of eight minutes.
Brian Leishman
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This will be a tough enough listen for many in the Chamber to hear it just the once—I do not need to do it three times.
In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the doomsday clock forward. We are currently sitting at 85 seconds to midnight: the closest the world has ever been to ending. We live in a time of great political turmoil—of that, we are all certain—but the debate about ramping up defence spending, and making cuts to public services to do it, has been going on for decades. The suggestion of reinstating the two-child benefit cap so that we can have more bombs and weapons is against everything that I believe in. We have seen austerity that has created immiseration and poverty up and down the United Kingdom. Then we had a pandemic, with an explosion in wealth inequality. Now, a cost of living crisis has taken hold to the extent that most of the public think it will never end. All of that means deteriorating living standards. The social fabric of our country has been ripped apart—this is life in the world’s sixth-largest economy.
Pursuing economic growth and improving people’s living standards are the right thing to do, but thinking that militarism is the way to achieve that is at best misguided; at worst, it will further jeopardise global security. It also makes little economic sense. Military spending has one of the lowest employment multipliers of all economic categories: it is 70th out of 100 in terms of the employment it generates. Energy, agriculture and food, chemicals, iron and steel, and construction all have far greater employment multipliers than military spending—for example, health is 2.5 times more efficient than military spending for job creation. British military spending supports less than 1% of the UK workforce. So let us not kid each other: it will not be working-class communities who benefit; it will be weapons manufacturers.
Defence is neither a UK-wide industry, nor does it massively help small or medium-sized businesses, as they only secure approximately 5% of all orders. Ministry of Defence figures highlight that defence employment is densely concentrated in specific geographical pockets of the country. Instead of bombs and weapons and talking about a defence dividend, what about what Tony Benn called a “peace dividend”? That is all about making political choices.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman believe that there is any military threat to this country from abroad?
Brian Leishman
Yes, I do. But when I look at the threats that we face in this country, I have an inbox full of constituents who are saying that they have to make the incredible decision of whether to feed their family or put the heating on. That is actually killing people. I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman said about perceived threats, but those are the actual threats that I am dealing with in my inbox.
As I say, there is a choice. We can build hospitals to save lives and schools to educate our children, and upgrade infrastructure—we all know that local authorities most definitely need that, as they need investment in public services. These are the things that really will improve people’s living standards up and down the United Kingdom.
Jamie Stone
The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. Whatever side one takes in the argument that he presents to us, does he agree that in the hopefully unlikely event of Scottish independence being achieved, two things would happen? First, Scotland, on forming its own navy, would have the greatest difficulty defending the strategic assets to which I referred in an earlier intervention; and secondly, an independent Scottish Government would have the most hideous choices to make, exactly along the lines that the hon. Gentleman is presenting, between armaments, and badly needed hospitals and other social investments.
Brian Leishman
The hon. Gentleman focuses on the constitutional question that is such a huge part of Scottish and UK politics. I honestly have no issue with people who voted yes and I have no issue with people who voted no. The politics that I try to bring to this place is not based on nationalism versus Unionism; it is about class, which I think is the overriding political force in this country and has been for centuries, regardless of whether that is north or south of the border.
I mentioned the choice that I would want. The other choice is to spend tens of billions of pounds on military hardware, with that money inevitably flowing to private capital and corporate shareholders. For me, that will only serve to create even more inequality. It is very much an either/or. Do we build or do we destroy? I feel that workers and communities, certainly in my constituency of Alloa and Grangemouth, need the former and not the latter. It is my opinion that militarism will not make the UK a more equal country or, indeed, the world a safer place. I fear that, given the way that we are going and when we look at geopolitical forces, in January next year the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will move the second hand closer to midnight once again.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I listened to the Minister’s remarks with great care. Many of the things that he says, he says with great sincerity, but some of the things he says, I do not believe that he quite so fervently believes. I ask him, being the hon. and gallant Gentleman that he is, to consider whether criticising those who criticise Government policy on the basis of the question “How dare you criticise the Government at such a serious time?” reflects the same kind of attack made by supporters of Neville Chamberlain against Winston Churchill and his supporters even as late as 1940. As they went through the Division Lobbies in May that year, they taunted those coming through voting against the Adjournment of the House: “Quislings”, they said.
To implicitly brand my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition as some kind of warmonger who is out of control—that is what the Government are basically saying—reflects exactly the gibe thrown at Winston Churchill: that he loved war so much, he was not objective. Yet he was the one who appreciated the dire emergency of the situation being faced, even as the British Expeditionary Force was losing in France and the Norway campaign was proving such a disaster.
I appreciate that it is perhaps obligatory for the Minister to say these things about the two-child benefit cap for the satisfaction of many of his Back Benchers, but we are now spending so much on welfare and so little on defence. Maybe the two problems have something to do with each other. If we could just spend the same on in-work or out-of-work benefits for people of working age as we were spending before covid, we could save £50 billion a year, but that does not seem to matter to the Government at all.
The Minister talked, I am sure with great sincerity, about how important it is to have a system that works “for them”—I think I am quoting his very words; he said that we need a social system in this country that works for the poorest people in our society. Well, the system over which the Government are presiding is failing. We now have a rising and terrifying number of young people who are not in education, employment, or training—the so-called NEETs. Even those operating on the frontline of food banks—I visited a food bank recently—understand that if we keep indexing benefits with inflation, but do not index tax allowances, that means that people pay more tax at lower rates of pay, and if we increase benefits, such as by removing the two-child benefit cap, and do not uprate the tapers to protect the better-off who are receiving universal credit, we create a disincentive to work.
When I first visited food banks, which I think was under Tony Blair’s Government—they were not originated under the Conservatives—there used to be a tiny number of people who were permanent beneficiaries of food banks; the vast majority were in a state of transition, and that persisted until quite recently. At the food bank I visited at the weekend, 80% of beneficiaries are now permanent clients, because they say there is no point in them trying to take work, as it does not pay. The system is not working for them, because we are spending too much on welfare and we have not cut taxes enough.
The next question is: are we at peace or at war? Much of the discussion in the Liaison Committee was about that. I cannot find a Minister who denies that we are at war, and I am afraid that makes the question of whether we choose to get involved rather redundant. We are involved, and we cannot help being involved. Our sovereign territory is involved, because it is being attacked. Indeed, we have been involved in a war in defence of the west, NATO and Ukraine probably since as far back as the original invasion of Georgia and Abkhazia, because the nature of Putin’s regime had become apparent by then. They are quite explicit: Lavrov has said that Russia is at war with NATO, so that war is already here.
What kind of war is it? Well, it reflects all kinds of conflicts, including hybrid conflict, which has often been discussed and is of such a varied nature, and what one might call cognitive conflict, which is the capacity and determination of Russia and China, and probably Iran, not just to interfere in our democratic processes, but to corrupt the truth. This is aimed at reshaping the societal, economic and informational environment, at undermining people’s faith in democracy and democratic values, and at destroying the faith of our voters in our democratic system.
The question now is: what are we doing to fight back? Well, what are we doing? I know that in bits of Government, many small parts of the Government are at war. There are some wonderful people in the Ministry of Defence who are sweating the night hours to do things that are of crucial importance.
Sir Julian Lewis
I am concerned about one problem that may arise. We have now got to a stage where the Government have given permission for the Americans to strike back against, for example, missile batteries launching at targets that might include our own bases. I am not clear what would happen—and I hope it never has to come to this—if our bases were successfully attacked and damaged. Are the Government still saying that only the Americans should retaliate against those batteries, or should the RAF have a role as well? I am not anxious to escalate, but I do not see where the logic lies in America being able to retaliate, when our own armed forces cannot, following an attack that has successfully damaged one of our own bases.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
The fact is that the whole of the deterrent stance of all the NATO nations is very substantially—I will not say hopelessly—dependent on the good will that the United States shows towards us. That was the basis on which the SDR was written. George Robertson—the noble Lord Robertson of Port Ellen—has said in public that one of the constraints of writing the defence review was to assume that the United States was our closest ally and could be relied upon. Whether that will be true in the future, we do not know. Some things that have happened have very much shaken our faith in that, but the idea that the Government should choose this moment—this very moment, when we are begging for American support in Ukraine to hold back the tide of possible Russian aggression across the whole European front—to further alienate President Trump from NATO seems to me like a bit of a tactical error.
Going back to the second world war, when Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, complained to Winston Churchill that the United Kingdom did not seem to have an independent foreign policy, Churchill said, “No, we don’t. We’ve got to do what the Americans want us to do in order to get them to come into the war.” I am afraid that we are not in a great position of strength to dictate to the Americans, and pontificating about their moral judgments or their interpretation of international law seems to me totally counterproductive for the security of the United Kingdom and our European allies. To answer my right hon. Friend’s question, we need a deterrent stance.
But what is the Government’s response? Well, we are waiting for a plan, but that plan is a long time coming. Drones have transformed the last few months, but the Government have not kept up with the change. We are still waiting for a plan, and it is not enough.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
I am going to start by doing something unusual in these debates: I am going to agree with the Opposition. I agree that we need to spend more on defence, I agree that we are in a once-in-a-century moment where the safety and security of our nation are fundamentally at risk, and I agree that the only way to prevent war is to prepare for one. Now, before my Whip has a heart attack, I will set out where I disagree with the Opposition. To take their point seriously, their plan to pay for what they set out in the motion would make this nation weaker and more divided. On top of that, it is very narrow, as if the only thing we have to do to prepare for war is to spend more money, without considering how we spend it or scale up.
To put the two-child limit back in place and have children go hungry would make our nation weaker. How could we possibly say to the people whose sons and daughters would go out to fight that today we will let them go hungry and that we would take money from them? I say to Opposition Members who spoke about this that we should remember that 60% of the children affected are from working families. Beyond that and more than that—no ifs, no buts, no exceptions—no child should be going hungry in this country. How can we expect them to have a stake in our nation if we do not have a stake in them? When we live in a nation where record numbers cannot afford a decent life, what does it lead to? It leads to fear, frustration and fury, but more than that, to division, and a divided nation cannot take and meet this moment.
On energy, the Conservatives want to make us more dependent on fossil fuels supplied by dictators such as Putin and more dependent on the middle east. That would make us weaker. In the 14 years they had, with all the licences they granted, how many days of gas were there? There were 36 days. The North sea is operating on a declining basis; it will not give us security.
Lincoln Jopp
With the points the hon. Member has just made, it seems he has forgotten that a year ago his own party suspended seven of its Back Benchers for voting with an SNP proposal to lift the two-child benefit cap. If he is going to be quite so forthright in his criticism of us, could he explain why his Government have done such a volte-face in the intervening 12 months?
Dr Sandher
I am proud of this Government for ending the two-child limit, and I am proud of the previous Labour Government who halved child poverty in this country. If Opposition Members truly believed that putting back the two-child limit or ending expenditure on net zero would fund the military, why did they not do it in 14 years? They had 14 years to prepare. In 2022, it was clear where we would get to, and there was nothing from the Opposition side.
Dr Murrison
I am following the hon. Member with a great deal of interest. Is he able to name a single major western economy that after 1989 did not take a peace dividend?
Dr Sandher
To be fair to the right hon. Member, it makes perfect sense to reduce expenditure after the cold war. I take that point, but let us be clear: the world also changed in 2022. The things we depended on for our safety—sacrosanct borders and our force in NATO—were not funded enough. If we truly were to prepare for war, that was the moment to start, and I agree that we have to do more.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Will the hon. Member just explain where we were in the standings for NATO defence spending in 2022 and where we stand today?
Dr Sandher
My point is not where we stand in the defence standings; my point is about what we need to do to prepare for war to prevent it.
Moving on to the things that we do agree on—and I think it is worth saying what we agree on, because we should not disagree across this House on this fundamental thing—the first and fundamental duty of this Government, of any Government, is to keep us safe at this moment in time. I want to talk a little about what that actually means, because we focus a lot on the percentage of GDP, but a defence economic strategy means far more than that. It is the fundamental question of how we produce more fighting forces, munitions, drones and soldiers. Clearly, that is changing, and at this moment, in a pre-war situation, we have to decide what that means. It means having production lines available, and crucially a supply chain of drones, as the innovation cycle is moving so quickly. It means being able to secure crucial input such as steel and training welders and engineers should we need them. Most crucially, it means the ability to scale up, because if we are to prevent war, we have to show that we are prepared for it. It is not just about spending 3%, 4% or 5% of GDP, although I take the point; it is about showing Putin and any other adversary that we could get up to 10% to 20% and use that effectively.
A defence economic strategy is a fundamentally different economic problem. It is not just about maximising production, as we do now, but about ensuring that we produce the most fighting forces possible. It is a type of economics that we are not used to. It means, first, capital control to ensure that investment goes to the right place; secondly, rationing so that we have the investment that we need; and thirdly, ensuring that we can prepare to fight the war that we face. A defence economic strategy goes far beyond the amount we spend on defence. I would expect the Treasury, the Government and No. 10, who take the defence of this country seriously, to be preparing for that right now. Of course they take it seriously; it is the first and most fundamental duty of any Government.
We stand here today a century on from people who failed on these Benches. In fact, we stand in a Chamber that is a testament to that failure. They did not prepare for war, we ended up in war in Europe, and this Chamber was bombed and had to be rebuilt. That failure should live with us and shock us. We should remind ourselves of it when we look in the mirror every single morning.
Let me share a story. I have a friend who serves in the Army, and I saw him for dinner not too long ago. He said, “Jeevun, here is the thing. I have a 30-year-old Land Rover that was in the Gulf war, in Bosnia and in the Baltics. All I want is a Range Rover that can drive.” This Government will absolutely ensure that we overcome all past investment failures so that our forces have what they need to defend our country. That is what falls to us now.
I say to Conservative Members that we must have the courage to face this moment and look forward. I could criticise them all day—I have done it before and I will probably do it again—but we must have the courage to face this moment, and to look in the mirror and know where we stand, at a moment when we must prepare for war in order to prevent it. History will judge us for this moment, and we should always bear that in mind.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I am imposing a six-minute time limit.
Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher). I do not think that I have heard anyone call for 20% of spending on defence, but I like it. I am not sure how we would maintain the reversal of the two-child cap if 20% of spending went to defence, but he made a very good speech.
I will set out a few key points on what we are looking at, where the world is today, where we have been, and what we must do to deal with the threat. As I have said many times—colleagues are probably getting sick of me saying it—there is a challenge to the world order as we know it. I do not believe that anybody alive has experienced such a significant change. We face the ultimate volatility, like the fall of the Berlin wall or 9/11. Given the current position of the US Government—on Venezuela, in what they said about Greenland, and in the attack on Iran—everything has been thrown in the air.
Many people expect life to fall back to where it was and to continue, but there is a challenge to the world order between China and the US, and there is a commodities race over oil and rare earth metals. How do we get global supply chains working and moving forward? Rare earth metals are not actually rare, but it can take 15 to 17 years to get them out of the ground once they have been found. Most of the electronics that we have on us, including wearables, require such metals. At the moment, about 90% of those resources are controlled and processed by China, and there is a huge push to change that. The US is moving to change it, and our policy seeks to shift around that.
When AI and quantum come together, defence technologies—including drone and autonomous warfare—will take a huge leap forward. If we do not get this stage right, we will be so far behind. The second world war was about who could produce the most tanks, planes and troops at scale, with the right strategy. Now, technology can shift the dial exceptionally quickly. I know that the Minister has spoken about the drone passion, autonomy and things like that. That is the right direction. It is not either/or; there is a whole plethora of things that we need to. The defence investment plan unlocks the next phase of where we can go.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I do not think many people in the House fully appreciate how utterly profound the drone revolution is. It means that in Ukraine, they do not have to mass troops to defend in the way they once did; they can mass drones. If we want to defend NATO, if we want to defend London and Akrotiri, we need to be able to mass very cheap drones in order to get that protection and deterrent capability, so that the option of pushing large numbers of troops over a NATO frontier at some stage is not available to Russia.
Stuart Anderson
I thank my hon. Friend for that important point. How warfare is fought is catching people by surprise—we are seeing that played out in the middle east at the moment—and we have to be prepared. We have stood with our head and shoulders high on the world stage, and I want to see us continue to do that.
I want to throw out some numbers. We say that the Great British Army has always been the best army of its size. In 1981, we had 333,000 troops. In 1997, the number went down to 210,000, and it went down to 174,000 in 2010. It is currently about 138,000. With the use of technology, it is not just about mass, although I would always be happy to have a larger military. We need to make sure that we are able to work in a changing environment and that we have the operations to do that. The world as we know it is changing, and we must pick that up very quickly.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one way to respond to a crisis and to deliver mass quickly would be to scale up the reserves during this Parliament? Does he find it surprising, as I do, that the relatively small cost—in a £60 billion budget—of scaling up the reserves would help to deliver some of that response?
Stuart Anderson
I definitely do. I have had the reserves deployed with me when I have been on operations, and they were a great asset. Scaling up the reserves is vital. We have the article 3 NATO commitment, and we need to ensure that we can fulfil that. It is not just about the reserves staying here and the regulars flying overseas. Integration is key, and I would be keen to see that.
Let us look at how the rearming of the world has changed. After the illegal invasion of Russia into Ukraine, the world sat up. At that stage, defence spending was at 2.1%. I will be clear: as soon as I was elected, with hon. Members from across the House, I called for 3%. I felt that even 3% was not enough during the previous Government, and I said that all the way through. The Defence Committee was united. We did procurement reports right the way through 20 or 30 years of procurement failings. I am not just saying this to make a point now. I still believe that if defence spending is not at least 3% of GDP today, we do not have the ability to put the plan in place on the scale we need.
From 2021 to now, we have gone from 2.1% to 2.4%, but the problem is that the NATO average is currently 2.76%. In that short space of time, we have gone from being roughly the third highest defence spender according to percentage of GDP to being the ninth or 12th, depending on which table we look at. It is good that, as the Government say, we have made the biggest increase since the cold war, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said, we need to look at what it was like post war. We are not moving as fast as all the other peer nations. We had a great start, but that has now started to deplete over decades of a peace dividend. We need to take this seriously as an urgent priority and invest on the necessary scale.
The delay on the DIP is having an impact. I know that if Ministers had a choice, they would have the DIP here today. We have to get this right. It has gone past the time when we expected the DIP to be produced. I have spoken to so many in the industry and so many serving personnel who are screaming out for it. I have struggled to find anybody who thinks we have the time for this. I hope the Minister will take away the importance of the DIP being produced—I am positive that he wants it today—to unlock the next phase.
There are many areas where there is consensus in this House on how we should move forward and prepare this country for war. We are losing standing on the world stage because of our current capability, which has seen getting on for 30 years of under-investment. We do not have the ability today to project power on the scale that we did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for what I perceive to be a very constructive speech in which he is generally trying to support the Minister. I promise I will not mention Cheltenham markets to him. He talks about our power. I recently visited Estonia with the Education Committee. Does he agree that part of our power is in how we work with our allies such as Estonia, and that soft power—I am looking at the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), given his passion for the World Service and BBC Monitoring—is an important part of this country’s overall defence strategy?
Stuart Anderson
The hon. Member is right on that. How we work with our partners is important, but we have to invest and have a clear plan to hold our head high on the world stage.
I will finish on this point. We are told that the Department is working at pace on the DIP. I probably know about pace better than anybody in this House. I was proud to be a member of the Royal Green Jackets, which had the fastest pace in the British Army at 140 paces per minute, and the double-off was 180—unmatched by any regiment in the British Army. We need this pace now. We need the defence investment plan to be delivered to unlock the next phase of doing what is best for the British people.
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
First, I should note that, for all their chatter outside this Chamber on defence, there is not a single Member of the Reform party here. They are utterly incapable of having a serious conversation when it comes to defence.
I would like to congratulate the shadow Defence team. I did not believe it was possible to reduce their credibility on defence any further, but they have managed to lower the bar once again and slither under it. To suggest that we should restore the two-child benefit limit to pay for defence spending shows such a lack of understanding of what is happening in society. Under their Government, for 14 years, the people living at the poorest edges were working—those people on benefits were working and still could not pay the bills to feed their families and put the heating on. That tells us that the Conservatives do not understand working people. They assume that anybody receiving a benefit is a scrounger or does not want to work. [Interruption.]
I will not give way, because I have heard so much from the Opposition on this. It is outrageous. The shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), was the Defence Procurement Minister who left 47 out of 49 programmes not on time and not on budget. The Tories’ legacy was a procurement programme that was overcommitted, underfunded and unsuited to the threats we now face. They cut frigates and destroyers by 25%. They cut minehunters by more than 50%. There was a lot of pearl-clutching when they were asking where HMS Dragon was, but we know why HMS Dragon was in dock: it was there because it was under maintenance. We could not send it because it is the only one we have, built under the Labour Government, and the Conservatives did not bother to build any more during their term of office.
Michelle Scrogham
No, I will not be taking interventions. Lots of Members would like to contribute to the debate who have not had a chance to speak because the time has been taken up. The Opposition can feel free to mutter from the other side, but they should perhaps use the ears that are painted on instead of flapping the lips.
I am astonished at the brass neck of shadow Ministers in criticising our readiness, when it was their Government who slashed £12 billion from defence in their first term, and continued that trend throughout their sorry record of 14 years, including by slashing spending on counter-drone systems by 70% in their last year in office.
Few MPs will feel the cost to their communities of the chaos and choices made by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition as keenly as I do in Barrow and Furness. The Opposition Benches are filled with those who were responsible for wreaking carnage on the communities I grew up in. The price of the coalition was to delay the nuclear deterrent; the cost to my community was economic devastation, with 10,000 families where the main breadwinner was out of work, 10,000 skilled workers losing their livelihood, and an industry that is struggling to recover to this day.
It takes nuclear welders 15 years to train and achieve the level of experience that we need to build those boats, but the coalition Government threw that away like a spoiled child with a toy, who expects it to be there when they want to come back to it. Critics at the time said that delaying the replacement for Trident would cost the taxpayer more in the long run as it risked losing skills, and increase the costs of repairing existing Vanguard submarines, which would have to last for longer. MPs at the time said that they did not think the delay would happen, because that would be the “maddest” decision to take—and yet they did it. Those critics forgot to mention the impact on our incredible submariners, who are spending over 200 days at sea on Vanguard, as we stretch that capability beyond its limit. Had it not been for the recklessness of the coalition Government, Dreadnought would be in service now.
After 14 years of hollowing out our defence capabilities, Conservative Members have the nerve to come here today and attempt to blame this Government—a Government who have increased defence spending to its highest sustainable level since the cold war, and who are investing in our armed forces to give them the largest pay rise in two decades and the homes they deserve in order to turn around the recruitment crisis that we inherited from the Tories. This Labour Government are once again cleaning up the mess left behind by those on the Opposition Benches. We do not get to decide when other countries attack, and we can never predict instability around the world. We can, however, predict that history always repeats itself. We can never take peace for granted, but this Labour Government are delivering on defence where the Conservatives failed.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
It is a bit of a pity, is it not, that we seem not to recognise what is going on today? It would probably help to recognise that defence spending was cut from the end of the cold war to 2022, when the whole NATO alliance suddenly woke up to what the threat had become. One of the best speeches I have heard today—I am sorry to some of my colleagues—was from the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), because he had the honesty to stand up and point out what the choices are. I disagree with him, but he made an honest speech in that if there has to be an increase in defence spending, it has to be funded. I believe that if we want peace, we have to be ready for war. I am afraid that we are now in war, and things have to change.
I was in the United States last week in my role at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. There are several concerns to bring back from that, not least that the American commitment to NATO is always predicated on saying to other members, “That is why we need you to spend 5%.” That gives it that little bit of wiggle room to say, “Well, if you’re not going to spend that, we can’t defend you any more.” Perhaps even more worryingly—this is where some of the dots need to be connected—one of the think-tanks that we were at made it clear that the Democrats, who will probably take the House in the mid-term elections, will use their leverage to control the amount of money that can go to the White House and the commander-in-chief. He can direct troops, but Congress has to fund that and it will say no. As a consequence, the President will say, “Well, I’ve already got assets and I’ve already got money, so I will use those,” which is to say in Europe. That should bring into sharp focus the threat that the defence of Europe faces.
What we are picking up in many of these debates, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) said, is talk about article 3. A lot of people overlooked article 3 for a very long time. Article 5 was never about the United States guaranteeing European security; it was about ensuring that we all acted as one. Article 3, which obviously comes before article 5, says, “You must be able to defend your borders for three weeks.” There are very few European nations that can do that.
I will touch on Security Action for Europe, which I am afraid to say is becoming a single market issue. It is becoming about protecting the borders of the single market, rather than the borders of Europe. We really do have to stand back and say, “Do we think the single market would exist if the borders of Europe did not exist?” We need to wake up and realise what is going on.
In the Czech Republic, we were given the example of a company that makes drones. Some 25% of the materials used to build those drones came from Canada. The AI to run them made up 20% of the spend and came from the USA. Under SAFE, both would be shut out, because those countries are not willing to pay into the budget just to have access, and that will set us back. We should be more concerned about the fact that the NATO industrial base does not have the ability to deliver on what it needs. The Americans themselves had $135 billion of exported arms last year and $160 billion of domestic arms manufacturing last year, and that did not even scratch the surface.
What the Americans are good at, which we have frankly never been able to deliver in this country, is the diversification into small and medium-sized enterprises. It was recognised that the big companies do not have the flexibility to develop at the speed that is needed in a rapidly changing world. We visited a company in Nevada that is making energy-focused weapons—or lasers, as we might call them—that are used to knock incoming ballistic missiles out of the sky.
I have very little time, and I could expand on so many more areas, but I make the point that we cannot fight the last war. We have pretty much used up all our munitions and weaponry in Ukraine, and the Russians know exactly how those weaponry and munitions work and how to defeat them. We cannot just restock what we have used before; we have to be able to develop, and that means that we need to be light on our feet. To be fair, in Bavaria in Germany there are drone factories that not only produce drones, but react quickly to the changes in drone technology.
To be fair to the Minister, he outlined some of the things that need to be developed in the Royal Navy—a service that is close to my heart. There is no doubt that this is about decisions that have been made over a very long period of time. I will gently prod the Minister and say that when we are talking about Royal Navy procurement, I think of the story of the aircraft carriers, which was probably not the greatest moment of the Labour Government—they spent tens of billions extra by changing their mind. We have to be able to adapt quickly.
There is plenty more that I could say, but the war exists today. Talking about what has happened ever since the end of the cold war and trying to place the blame on the last 14 years, on the last 10 years or on what has happened from 1997 onwards is irrelevant; we are at war, and we have to be able to develop. I am afraid that in the current political climate, Europe will have to look after itself.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With an immediate five-minute time limit, I call Sam Carling.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
I, too, will start by agreeing with a member of the Opposition, specifically the former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. He was quoted as saying that under his own party, our armed forces had been “hollowed out”.
Sam Carling
The shadow Secretary of State says, “Under successive Governments”—that includes his own, for 14 years. It is not often that I agree with Ministers from the last Government, but the former Defence Secretary was absolutely right. The smallest Army since the Napoleonic era, a record 13,000 complaints about defence housing in a single year, and investment grievously cut under austerity—that is the legacy we are looking at, no matter how much the Opposition want us to forget it.
As was recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham), the shadow Defence Secretary is criticising delays, but he was the Procurement Minister when 47 out of 49 major programmes were not on time or on budget, so we need to take what he says with a little bit of salt.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
The hon. Gentleman is quoting some figures. Does he have the figures for the percentage of GDP spent on defence in 1991 compared with what it was in 2010, and how many troops there were in 1991 compared with how many there were in 2010?
Sam Carling
What I am very happy to say about defence spending is that when we last hit 2.5%, it was under a Labour Government. The right hon. Gentleman’s party failed to do so throughout their time in office. Although it has been quite entertaining in some respects watching old marital woes play out on the Opposition Benches today, it sounds like everyone agrees that bad things happened, but the two former partners—the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats—are evidently more interested in taking chunks out of each other than owning up to leaving the mess.
The motion before us today also calls for some of the Government’s legislation to not proceed on the basis that it is “a threat to morale”. The reference to morale is quite interesting, given that satisfaction with life in the services fell from 60% in 2010 to 40% in 2024. When it comes to satisfaction, one key issue is housing, so I welcomed the Labour Government’s decision to insource a huge number of houses that were wrongly privatised by a previous Conservative Government back into our ownership. Some 431 of those houses are in my constituency, and I hope we will be able to radically improve their condition, particularly through the work we have done to make defence housing subject to the decent homes standard at long last, which I welcome.
Unfortunately, we have a Leader of the Opposition who appears able to shoot from the hip without thinking too much about the consequences, and who has now changed to a very unclear position that none of us seems able to grasp. In contrast, this Government have taken the right decisions at the right time.
Lincoln Jopp
Was the hon. Member in the Chamber to hear the Prime Minister make his statement on the war in the middle east, in which he said that British sovereign bases, British troops and British people had been attacked? He said that it was therefore right that we defend ourselves, but that we cannot shoot all the drones out of the air and they have to be attacked on the ground. Does the hon. Member remember the Prime Minister coming to this House and saying that, and would he like to repeat his point that the Prime Minister has been absolutely crystal clear on his position throughout this conflict?
Sam Carling
I am not 100% sure what point the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, but he has put it on the record. There is a huge amount of drone activity going on, and a lot of ways in which that needs to be dealt with.
I am heartened by what this Government have done so far, including, to name just a few achievements: the largest pay rise in two decades for armed forces personnel, many of whom are my constituents; the first veterans’ strategy in seven years; the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, including a pledge to reach 3% of spending on defence by the end of the Parliament; and a £9 billion plan to renew those 36,000 military homes. Again, that last one has been so critical for my constituents working at RAF Wittering. Life in the services has to be made rewarding—a rewarding career and a rewarding life—and I am afraid to say that for too long, that has not been the case. It is no wonder, therefore, that the number of troops plummeted on the previous Government’s watch.
Some comments were made about trying to boost the reserves, which I very much agreed with—we need to do some work in that area. We also need to sort out the ongoing issues with recruitment, which again became significantly worse under the previous Government. I have spoken to a number of people who have tried to join the military and found that the bureaucratic process is incredibly difficult, and we have heard about that on several occasions through the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I hope we will make some progress in tackling those issues soon, because we have a Government who are willing to invest in our forces and improve the quality of life for those serving.
My constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), is in the Chamber, and I notice that his name is on the motion as well. I found some of his criticisms of this Government’s record on defence surprising, given that so much work is going on in our own area of Huntingdonshire around defence. The local council and the Ministry of Defence—represented by the two Ministers who are in the Chamber right now, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Sandher-Jones)—visited RAF Wyton in December and signed a statement of intent, committing to work together to support the growth of Project Fairfax and establish Wyton as a nationally significant area for defence intelligence and innovation. With that will come the redevelopment of the North Hunts growth cluster, which will deliver new homes, jobs and investment. That will be brilliant for the local area.
Very briefly, I will respond to something that my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) said about investment in defence being spent on weapons and bombs. Those are not the only things that defence investment goes on—military intelligence is a huge part of the local economy in my area, and ideally it will make up more of our local economy. I think it is useful to recognise that there is a broad spectrum of things that we spend funding on, but of course I respect the points that he made.
I am very glad that the Conservative party has called this debate, as it is a great opportunity to highlight the good work we are doing and remind us all of the many ways in which the Conservatives let our armed forces down for a decade and a half. It is a good thing that they can only comment on policy rather than make it, a fact for which I am sighing in relief.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
Whatever has gone well in defence and whatever has gone wrong in defence in the United Kingdom over the last 50 years, it is the responsibility of the two main parties, one currently in opposition and one currently in government, and the ping-pong back and forth today has been a bit difficult to listen to. I heard the Minister’s plea earlier for us to inject some seriousness into the debate. He directed it over here although he could equally have directed it to those behind him, but I agree with him that this is a serious issue, not just because we have troops deployed but because, as others have pointed out, the first duty of Government is to defend the state and the people. I also agree with him that the motion in the name of His Majesty’s Opposition is a bit of a catch-all. It is a spleen-venting motion, and there is absolutely no way we can agree with it, much as we might agree with some of the priorities that the Opposition wish to be advanced purely on the defence side.
In response to the Opposition’s stated wish to fund their ambitions through the reinstatement of the two-child limit, the Minister referred to the importance of society. We do not invest in the importance and the priority of defence by marginalising people in society. It is essential that our communities have a sense of belonging in defence, and that defence has a sense of belonging in them. I speak from experience in Scotland, where defence has become an increasingly remote activity, as it has in large parts of England as well. I am not making a constitutional point. As defence has contracted into the south-east of England, it has become increasingly irrelevant on the rest of these islands. It is something that happens somewhere else, and there is a price to be paid for that, as people choose other careers and see other political and fiscal priorities as being more important than defence.
Sam Carling
The hon. Gentleman has just made a point about the concentration of defence investment in the south-east. Can he remind us where Trident is based?
Dave Doogan
I think the hon. Gentleman thinks that he is being smart. I do not need to be reminded where Trident is based, and neither do the people of Scotland. We do not need to be reminded where the bullseye of the target on these islands is based. I do not need to be reminded how many Scots were asked whether they would like the UK’s supposedly independent nuclear deterrent to be based in our waters. I do not need to be reminded of that for one second—and in case the hon. Gentleman is under any illusions, which he apparently is, let me point out that the United Kingdom spends more money on defence in the south-west of England than it spends in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. He might like to reflect on that.
Dave Doogan
I will make some progress.
A key problem for the current Government is that when they took over in 2024, they set great store by their strategic defence review. They said that they were going to fix defence from the ground up, and that it would all be in the strategic defence review, but when the strategic defence review was published it contained more questions than answers, principal among which was the defence investment plan. That was going to come in the summer. Then it was the autumn and then it was the winter and now it is the spring, and we do not even know whether we will get it in the following summer. It is critical for businesses to plan on this basis. I know that the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) takes a dim view of business and its role in defence, and takes a dim view of defence manufacturers. I respect his position, but I deeply disagree with him. We cannot honour our service personnel in uniform and then besmirch the manufacturers that equip them to do the job of defending us that we require them to do.
Similarly, the Government must come clean on the defence investment plan. It is simply not tenable. The Minister was clear with us in saying that Defence was very clear about what we required from the defence investment plan. That, alarmingly, tells us what the problem with the defence investment plan is, and it is the Treasury. Some of us have the privilege of speaking on defence and on the economy, and the fact that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer is the arbiter of how our nation, or rather this state, will be defended in the future is deeply concerning given her competence in generic fiscal matters, let alone issues to do with defence.
David Smith
There are many things in the hon. Gentleman’s speech that I agree with, but as someone who grew up on the Clyde, does he welcomes the naval shipbuilding on the Clyde and the sales to Norway. Those who live in Scotland—I grew up 15 miles as the crow flies from Faslane—are also protected by the nuclear deterrent.
Dave Doogan
We will disagree on that last point, but I am very happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman on the benefit of complex warship manufacturing in Scotland. It would be nice if it was occasionally framed as something other than a benevolent gesture from Westminster towards Scotland, as opposed to what it actually is: the United Kingdom benefiting from the skills and engineering expertise that have been present in Scotland for an awful long time. [Interruption.] I would not go that far.
That leads me to an intervention that was made on the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who declared that an independent Scotland would be completely defenceless and penniless. Classic Unionism! It totally ignores the fact that, at current rates, hard-working taxpayers in Scotland contribute £5 billion every single year to the defence of the United Kingdom. That has been airbrushed from reality.
Brian Leishman
I have been very clear—I have said it outside the Chamber, and I will say it inside—that I do not want Scotland or the United Kingdom to have any nuclear weapons. What is the hon. Gentleman’s personal opinion?
Dave Doogan
The United Kingdom invests so much in the independent nuclear deterrent—more than £100 billion over a 10-year period—but the Government cannot even tell us the 10-year rolling price. It is not independent, and I do not believe that it makes us any safer. We would be far safer if we invested that money in playing a leading role in Europe in conventional defence. I further disagree with the unilateral decision of the UK Government to suddenly go and buy F-35As for gravity-drop nuclear weapons without even so much as a debate in this House. I think that clarifies for the hon. Member my position on the non-independent nuclear deterrent. I implore the Government to get their finger out and get the DIP published.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
I will not repeat the excellent points that have been made by hon. and right hon. Members, but I will focus on one specific point: the country’s technological capacity, which is being delayed because of the delay to the defence investment plan. Some 8% of UK GDP—£454 billion—is reliant on satellite services, and the importance of space to our defence, intelligence and security is ever increasing. The previous Government understood that, and set out a clear strategy to make the UK a meaningful actor in space when we published the defence space strategy in 2022. However, the situation has now changed, and this Government are completely failing to grasp the urgency of leveraging our existing commercial capability so that we can operationalise the space domain at pace.
Earlier this month, I attended Space-Comm with the shadow Science Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), and it could not be clearer from the conversations I had that Britain is at serious risk of lagging behind our neighbours when it comes to the new space race. Countries such as Germany have recognised the opportunities, with a commitment to invest €35 billion. We must match that ambition.
Another point that came up time and again was that the missing defence investment plan impacts on our ability to encourage new people into the sector. The Government promised that it would be published in the autumn of last year, yet we are still waiting. However, given that their strategic defence review was late and kicked big procurement decisions down the road, it is no real surprise that the DIP is late too.
The Government simply have no evidenced plan to hit 3% of GDP on defence, and this is leaving our domestic defence and space industry in the lurch. Many companies tell me that they have plans that are ready to go, but they cannot action them without the publication of the defence investment plan. This kind of paralysis will only serve to see us fall even further behind our neighbours.
I know that the Minister for the Armed Forces, who is currently not in his place, cares about the investment in our armed services and takes it deeply personally—as does the Minister for Veterans and People—and I put on the record my personal respect for him. I would hope that he would agree with the Conservatives on the urgency with which we need to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of this Parliament. I hope that the Government will make the same commitment; otherwise, we will lose the opportunity to lead and develop the technologies that will take us to the new scientific and defence frontier.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
When I was new to this place, I clearly did something very wrong, because the accommodation Whip allocated me an office that is geographically nearer to Trafalgar Square than to this Chamber. There is one compensating benefit, which is that when I look out of the window, I can see the statue of General Bernard Law Montgomery, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, and if my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) moves his head a bit, I can see Field Marshal Alanbrooke, on whose statue is written: “Alanbrooke, Master of Strategy”. The Minister will be aware that the art of strategy is the matching of ends, ways and means. In the few short minutes that I have, I want to use that framework to reflect on the approach that the Government have taken recently.
I wish to also use the model of the three components to fighting power: the moral, the physical and the conceptual. The Minister will be fully aware of this. We know that this is a good model because Napoleon made the observation that “The moral is to the physical as three is to one.”
Let us quickly run through the physical component and some developments that we have seen. On the base at Diego Garcia, despite Conservative Members asking a thousand times for the reason why the Government asserted that our position was untenable in the long term and that they had to do this leaseback agreement with Mauritius, we have never, ever been given a definitive view on which court or jurisdiction made it untenable. It has never been delivered in this place or anywhere else, and that has undermined the Government’s position a little.
The Defence Committee heard representations from the Ukrainians we were training that, although they loved the training and were grateful for it, we were starting to lag behind. This was in November 2024. The absence of drones in the British military armoury and the environmental constraints on Salisbury plain meant that although the training was good, it was really lagging behind reality.
It is a shame that the Minister for the Armed Forces is no longer here, but he has given us a decent amount of time. He said that we cannot rewrite history and we cannot run from it, which is absolutely right. I just wanted to remind him of the reason we had only one Type 45 at six weeks’ readiness to go to sea. After the widely lauded 1998 strategic defence review, which I appreciate was before the time of the Minister for Veterans and People, the Government came to the conclusion that we needed 12 Type 45s to fulfil the strategic defence review. Subsequently, the Labour Government cut that number down; I think the first cut was to eight, and then down to the six that we have now. They also chose a home-grown propulsion system that was subsequently proven not to work, which has meant that, having cut the original fleet in half, we are now having to cut what remains in half—quite literally, in order to take the propulsion system out of the side.
We then had the strategic defence review. I sat on the Defence Committee and heard the reviewers say that the answer was 2.5%, after which they came back and said that it was actually 2.7%, and then that they had been told it would be 3% some time in the future, and then 3.5%; then, on the eve of the NATO summit, it went up to 5%. I am not surprised, therefore, that the defence investment plan has been a long time in coming.
We do not have time to rehearse the arguments about the moral component of fighting power, and the huge undermining of the Government’s actions over the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill and the remedial order, and, indeed, the revelation that our own Prime Minister volunteered to work for free for Phil Shiner in attacking British service personnel such as myself; I do have to declare an interest as a veteran who spent three and a half years in Northern Ireland.
Lastly, when I was at the Ministry of Defence, where I spent five years, we had a saying: “plans without resources are hallucinations”. Without the defence investment plan, the SDR is meaningless. When the Minister winds up, I would like her to acknowledge the fact that on 10 March, the Defence Committee was privy to a secret briefing in the Ministry of Defence. To a man and woman, the all-party Defence Committee came out of that briefing and took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement that, in our view, the Government should adopt Conservative party policy and go to 3% of GDP within this Parliament. That is unprecedented, and it needs to be listened to.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
South West Devon is home not only to 42 Commando Royal Marines, but to Plymouth and South Devon freeport, with Langage and Sherford offering significant development opportunities, thanks to the previous Conservative Government, and plenty of space for defence. We have Turnchapel Wharf, home of the Plymouth National Centre for Marine Autonomy. Devonport naval base is in the neighbouring constituency, which is involved in the upgrading of our nuclear deterrent. GMD Eurotool, Bluestone Technology and DTM Global Procurement, which I am visiting after Easter, are just some of the many SMEs that rely on defence. Members can therefore imagine the anticipation in my constituency for the strategic defence review. Indeed, at the Oceanology International event, it was clear that there are businesses queuing up to come to South West Devon.
The strategic defence review brought forward welcome promises: regional clusters in areas like Plymouth; the hybrid Navy, with the introduction of new autonomous systems; a boost for UK export potential; and the use of uncrewed vessels and autonomous systems in our own military, with improved regulations to enable the autonomous experimentation required. Indeed, recommendation 39 says:
“More flexible regulation is needed to enable experimentation in areas such as autonomy. By April 2026, Defence should establish options to enhance the mandate of the Defence Maritime Regulator to allow the Royal Navy and industry to use a dedicated regulatory ‘sandbox’ to test and deploy new technologies.”
We are a couple of weeks away; I wonder where that is.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Like my hon. Friend, my constituency has a number of really important defence SMEs, and I make sure that I meet them. The delay behind the defence investment plan and the lack of action on the strategic defence review are filling them with utter dread. Those SMEs are going abroad to sell a lot of their technological advances, particularly in autonomous vehicles, because they cannot get into the Ministry of Defence. There is paralysis in procurement, where there is not the money to have that so-called sovereign capability. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are talking about sovereign capability a lot, but they are not actually delivering on it, which means that a lot of businesses in the United Kingdom are going without?
Rebecca Smith
My hon. Friend makes a really good point. That is exactly what I am beginning to hear in my constituency. I referred earlier to a queue of companies wanting to come to South West Devon. My concern is that the queue is going to get shorter if the investment under the DIP does not come forward.
Following the strategic defence review came the defence industrial strategy. Again, it was another lauded document, with further references to industrial clusters, which it called
“critical for the competitiveness of the IS-8 and national economic resilience”,
including to “maritime autonomy in Plymouth” and so on; it kept promising. There was a fantastic paragraph in the strategy about the existing ecosystem in Plymouth, to which I have already alluded. It was an exciting prospect and has been a positive development. The city has got going; we have Team Plymouth looking at how we can deliver. But the defence investment plan is required to fulfil this aimed-for growth and to enable contracts—like those just mentioned by my hon Friend—to be brought forward, with the jobs that have always been promised. For businesses, the SDR and the defence investment plan were exciting, but they are still missing the funding. This is a threat to our national sovereign capability and to the economic growth that the Government seem convinced that they are going to deliver.
Furthermore, there is a delay to the vital trial areas for autonomy that we were also promised, and that is hampering growth too. Businesses in my constituency want the green light in order to go forward on their testing, but those trial areas have not come forward—we just see more dither and delay. I raised this matter recently in Prime Minister’s questions, asking for the changes that we need to see. Canada is able to clear these vessels for practice testing off their shores within as little as six weeks, yet our businesses are expected to fill out hundreds and hundreds of pages of applications.
Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)
The hon. Member celebrates the Labour Government’s decision to create Team Plymouth. She celebrates the Labour Government’s decision to designate Plymouth the National Centre for Marine Autonomy, and she celebrates the countless defence technology companies crowding into our wonderful, vibrant city. Can she acknowledge, in the spirit of balance, that this Labour Government have delivered some good things for defence?
Rebecca Smith
I thank my constituency neighbour for his comments, although if he had been listening, he would have heard me say that I welcome all those things, but without the defence investment plan it will disappear in a puff of smoke. I am sure that, like me, he wants to see Plymouth and the surrounding area capitalise on the strategy. We can see the things that Team Plymouth will bring, but without the defence investment plan, we will see people walking out of the door.
We have the King’s Speech in May, I believe—that has been the worst kept secret—and I would suggest that is the perfect opportunity for the Government to deliver the changes required to the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. At the moment, they are saying that there needs to be a legislative opportunity and are looking at other Bills, but if they were serious about delivering for defence and growth, why not bring forward a unique Bill? It need not take very long, and it could be included in the King’s Speech. That would show that the Government have the ambition to make the necessary changes. We need to get deals across the line, and we need to give the businesses investing in our community the funding to enable those deals to happen. I would be interested to hear what the Minister can say to reassure my constituents in that regard.
To conclude, I had an incredibly constructive letter from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather), about marine autonomy test sites and the regulations. I think this is the hook:
“Marine autonomy is a cross-departmental priority of the Government, as detailed in the Maritime Decarbonisation Strategy…the Modern Industrial Strategy…and the Strategic Defence Review…The draft legislation for maritime autonomy exists and the Department for Transport will continue to seek parliamentary time for these important clauses.”
I make my point again: what are they waiting for?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Ben Obese-Jecty, on an immediate four-minute time limit.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
I will start with a quote:
“Your path leads to war. You know that. So war is coming. What will you do when you feel its breath upon your neck?”
The answer is: not enough. The defence investment plan was due last autumn, then by Christmas, and then it was to be delivered as soon as the MOD finishes working flat-out. If the MOD spent as much time on the DIP as it has done telling everyone that it is working at pace, maybe it would have been delivered by now.
Let us look at the impact of the delay. In the air, we are yet to see investment in the capability that has been committed to. The Chief of the Defence Staff, in his prior role as Chief of the Air Staff, last year confirmed that the RAF has
“no major equipment programmes planned for the next 15 years. We have what we have for the near and medium term”.
Given the evolution development cycle of current capability, is that really a tenable position? The F-35B is due to graduate as a Government major projects portfolio programme by the end of this month, but will it? Will we see the delivery of the remaining seven F-35Bs by the end of next month, as scheduled?
The Royal Air Force is yet to even place an order for the 12 F-35As that are due to qualify us to join NATO’s dual capable aircraft nuclear mission. That was announced nine months ago, with no orders placed and no progress made. It might as well just be a poster on the Defence Secretary’s bedroom wall. Likewise, the next tranche of F-35Bs has also not yet been ordered from Lockheed Martin. This goes back to my point regarding overstretch. Operation Firecrest will see the carrier strike group deploy with 24 F-35Bs. There are six deployed forward in Akrotiri, seven are awaiting delivery, and one fell in the sea. That leaves us with just 10 planes for training and to cover any other tasks. We are maxed out.
Later this year we may be in a position where we have no realistic spare capacity of our only fifth-generation platform, with no current plans to purchase any more—and if/when we do purchase more, they are years away from delivery. But are we actually going to buy any more? Given our limited resources, putting all our chips on the global combat air programme and inevitably short-cutting our way to never truly fleshing out the accompanying system-of-systems does not augur well. We are already struggling to find the funding for the next phase of that project, delaying the signing of the trilateral contract for the next phase from last September because of the delay to the DIP, creating tensions with Japan and Italy and threatening the 2035 timeline that is crucial for Japan. When I challenged the Prime Minister on the delay, he would not commit to when the contract would be signed.
On the high seas, Britannia most certainly does not rule the waves. HMS Dragon has finally arrived in the eastern Mediterranean, but it was one of only three Type 45s available. I use the term “available” loosely, as it had to be withdrawn from its NATO Maritime Group One commitment—a commitment that starts in a few weeks and for which we currently have no replacement ship available. The Government have no plan to facilitate that commitment and are presumably hoping that HMS Dragon can be recalled.
The Royal Navy has to deliver Type 26 and Type 31, with all ships coming into service, optimistically, within the next nine years. Type 83 will see its outline business case submitted by June, but my understanding is that that programme may not make the cut, which raises serious questions about the future air dominance system. I would be surprised if Type 91 made the cut either, given that it is currently being assessed for feasibility and affordability.
Decisions are pending on: the future cruise anti-ship weapons system; batch 1 offshore patrol vessels; the global decision support system, the maritime aviation transformation programme; Project Beehive; and Project Vantage. Charting a course to a much vaunted hybrid Navy looks perilous at best—I hope the Minister has his sextant to hand.
On land, despite all that, the Army arguably has the most work to do. The Army has a huge transformation programme that will make it almost unrecognisable by the next Parliament. If there is one capability that we should be throwing the kitchen sink at, it is Project Asgard, which the Chief of the General Staff spoke effusively about last year in his Royal United Services Institute land warfare conference speech. He said:
“It’s a project that, through AI-fuelled, software-defined and network enabled capabilities we are confident has made 4 Light Brigade capable of acting 10 times faster and 10 times further than it could last year.”
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
It is an old quote—I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend will recognise it, given his service—that while veterans talk logistics, amateurs talk tactics. He is outlining a dire situation, because we are not gripping the logistics problem.
Ben Obese-Jecty
I concur. There is a huge need to ensure we have the correct amount of logistics, and that includes supply of troops, in particular in munitions and energetics. The Government have pledged to build factories; we are still not entirely clear where they will be, but ammunition supplies will be key to anything we do going forwards.
Project Asgard is the programme in defence that could arguably be delivered quickest and to the most immediate effect, trading space for time and allowing us to develop our most exquisite capabilities with longer lead times in slow time. Alongside its RAF equivalent, Project Boyd, it presents the vanguard of future capability and outlines where the armed forces are going in these domains. There is a painful conversation to be had about the use of AI in the kill chain in the not-too-distant future.
The Government must commit to 3%, must commit to delivering the right capability and must commit to armed forces that are fit to fight the next war, not the current war or the last war.
“Your path leads to war. You know that. So war is coming. What will you do when you feel its breath upon your neck?”
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Governments of all colours reduced defence spending after the cold war to spend more on health, education and welfare, but the world of today is not the world of 1991. This Government must deal with President Putin rather than President Yeltsin. Since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, it has become increasingly clear that we need to spend more on our armed forces. The Government have admitted as much. Last year, they said they would raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP—a good start, albeit not enough—but thus far they have failed to set out a programme for how that money will be spent. Where is the defence investment plan? Twelve months have passed and no extra money has gone into advancing our military capabilities. Meanwhile, the Government have found billions of pounds to spend on welfare so as to placate their Back Benchers, to try to save the Prime Minister’s skin. It is a pity that the Prime Minister does not regard defending our country as important as defending his own job.
Three weeks ago, the Government finally announced a £1 billion contract for the new medium helicopter. That contract will keep Leonardo operational in Yeovil. That is vital for Somerset’s economy as well as for the UK’s defence infrastructure, and I welcome that announcement, but the deal was announced at the last minute only to stop the factory closing. That demonstrates how unserious the Government are about setting their plans for defence. If they were serious, they would have published their defence investment plan as promised in the autumn; instead, we have had delay and excuses ever since. The Government are happy to set out their plans for welfare spending years ahead, but they cannot tell us their plans for defending the country.
An additional problem is that the Government are run by human rights lawyers. They see all matters on the global stage through the prism of international law rather than what is in Britain’s national interest. I imagine that Lord Hermann lives in the hope that Russia and China will one day adopt such an approach, but I fear that he will be disappointed.
The Government apply that myopic approach to how they treat our military personnel and our veterans as well. There are about 4,400 veterans living in my constituency—I have met many of them at the Bridgwater and Burnham-on-Sea branches of the Royal British Legion—and I pay tribute to every one of them for their service and the sacrifices they have made for our country. They have told me how worried they are by the legal persecution of veterans who served in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner. Those men faced down terrorists who threatened our country. Now, decades later, they are not being honoured for their service; rather, this Government treat them as suspects. Terrorists who murdered British soldiers have effectively been granted an amnesty—we know that no future action will be taken against them—but veterans who served the British state are to be hounded like criminals for doing what they were ordered to do.
Fred Thomas
The hon. Member mentions quite rightly the brave men who served in Operation Banner. Does he agree that women also served in that operation?
Sir Ashley Fox
I do agree, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the additional time.
The legacy legislation introduced by the previous Conservative Government intended to halt that injustice is now being repealed by Labour. That is disgraceful. Not only is Labour’s campaign against our veterans deeply unfair; it endangers us in future conflicts. In a more dangerous world, with a looming threat of conflict, we need to increase the size of our armed forces. What signal are the Government sending to young recruits by prosecuting our veterans and showing that serving their country may lead to decades of lawfare, with the full support of the Prime Minister and his Attorney General?
The Minister knows that republicans in Northern Ireland will exploit Labour’s naiveté to undermine the morale of our armed forces. The time has come to stop relitigating these events. I call on the Government to stop this disgraceful prosecution of our veterans.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
When I spoke from this Dispatch Box barely a month ago, I had literally just returned, hot foot, from Ukraine. Those who were here that evening might recall that I conveyed to the House a personal warning from the Speaker of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament:
“No one knows the Russians better than us. If we fall, you and your friends are next.” —[Official Report, 25 February 2026; Vol. 781, c. 423.]
Not only is that war in Ukraine sadly ongoing—and has been for 12 years, not four years—we now face a very challenging situation because of the two concurrent conflicts in the middle east and Ukraine. Yet again, as we debate defence in this House, the plastic patriots of Reform are absolutely nowhere to be seen.
Tonight’s debate is all the more pressing given the Government’s fundamental failure to display the requisite sense of urgency that is now clearly required. As an example, the Government’s much-vaunted strategic defence review, published last July, states on page 43:
“This Review charts a new era for Defence, restoring the UK’s ability to deter, fight, and win—with allies—against states with advanced military forces by 2035.”
That is nine years from now. Our Chief of the General Staff is on record as saying that he believes we might have to fight Russia by 2027 and the First Sea Lord estimates only a couple of years after that, yet it is the official policy of His Majesty’s Government that we will be prepared to fight a peer enemy almost a decade from now. That has terrible echoes of the so-called 10-year rule of the 1920s, and we all know what happened after that.
The all-party, Labour-led House of Commons Defence Committee, with its excellent Chair the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), recently accused the Government of proceeding “at a glacial pace” in improving Britain’s war preparedness. As my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) reminded us, on 10 March, after a classified briefing, the Committee issued a joint statement and urged hitting 3% on defence spending in this Parliament. That is already Conservative party policy. The matter cropped up yet again at the Liaison Committee yesterday, when the Prime Minister was clearly floundering about the ability of his Government to respond to emerging threats and about why the defence investment plan—the DIP—has still not been published.
Nowhere is the complete lack of strategic thinking from this Government more abundantly clear than in their barmy proposal to spend £35 billion of British taxpayers’ money to lease back the vital strategic outpost of Diego Garcia, which belongs to us in the first place. There is no credible legal threat to the sovereignty of Diego Garcia, and certainly none that would justify the expenditure of that much of taxpayers’ money. Instead, that money should be spent directly on our own defence.
Why do I say that the threat is not credible? First, when we signed up to the International Court of Justice, we specifically included an opt-out for any cases involving current or former Commonwealth countries. Any judgment by the ICJ—even a mandatory one, and we should remember that this one is only advisory—would still not be legally binding on the UK, because of that crystal clear opt-out.
Secondly, the Government attempted to argue that via the International Telecommunications Union, which is a UN agency like the ICJ, we could somehow lose control of our military spectrum. Again, that is absolute nonsense, because article 48 of the ITU treaty, to which we are a co-signatory, states clearly:
“Member states retain their entire freedom with regard to military radio installations.”
Again, that legal threat simply does not exist. Even the Government’s then telecommunications Minister, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant) confirmed that in a written answer to me a year ago on 12 February 2025.
Thirdly, the Government’s last trench, as cited on Second Reading of their Diego Garcia Bill, was the desperate argument that we could somehow lose a case under the UN convention on the law of the sea at the international tribunal for the law of the sea. However, article 298(b) of the UNCLOS treaty, to which we are a co-signatory, states clearly that we have an opt-out in the event of any disputes concerning
“disputes concerning military activities, including military activities by government vessels and aircraft engaged in non-commercial service”.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
We can throw in the Pelindaba treaty on nuclear non-proliferation, which Mauritius has signed and will prevent basing of nuclear weapons on the islands anyway, and, crucially, the 1966 Anglo-American treaty, which means that the United States has a formal written veto over Labour’s deal with Mauritius. The Americans are now almost certain to exercise that veto after we denied them the initial use of the runway, which our Ministers allegedly sought to protect in the first place. Ministers must surely know that the whole benighted deal is as dead as a dodo, and still they cannot bring themselves to admit it. They are totally and utterly in denial over Chagos.
The same obsession with human rights from a Prime Minister who once described himself as a human rights lawyer first and a politician second—he was not kidding there, was he?—has also led to the utterly despicable position of the Government, in their Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, seeking to pursue our veterans through the courts via a process of lawfare and two-tier justice. That is while alleged terrorists, who those veterans were sent to the Province to fight, effectively walk free with letters of comfort in their pockets. Not only is that morally wrong on a whole range of levels, but it has a debilitating effect on recruitment and retention, especially within our own special forces community. That is an area where, even to this day—as I am sure the Minister for the Armed Forces would agree—our nation remains world-class.
Then we come to the delay to the defence investment plan, which is simply unconscionable with not one war under way, but two. When the Government published the strategic defence review last year, they delayed most of the decisions on equipment capabilities to a subsequent defence investment plan, which we were promised would be published in the autumn. We were then faithfully promised it would be published by Christmas, and here we are in late March, all promises broken, and there is still no DIP. Ministers have been claiming for months that they have been working flat-out on this plan. What would have happened if they had not been trying?
The reality is that we still do not have this document, because the Ministry of Defence is totally and utterly at war with His Majesty’s Treasury. That vital intergovernmental relationship has effectively broken down, and the Prime Minister is simply too weak to bang heads together and force the plan to be published.
Mr Francois
If I may, I will make just one more point and then give way. Moreover, Labour claims repeatedly that it is introducing the largest increase in defence spending since the cold war, but that is simply not true. In the current financial year, it has actually done precisely the opposite. It has introduced a £2.6 billion efficiency savings programme that viciously cuts operational spending across the British armed forces at the Treasury’s behest. That means fewer ships at sea and longer times to regenerate them, as with HMS Dragon; fewer training hours for our pilots; and fewer exercises on Salisbury plain.
So here we are, with two wars under way, and nine months later this completely dysfunctional Cabinet is still unable to publish a forward equipment programme for the British armed forces. Do Labour Members not realise that they can also see this in Moscow, in Beijing and, indeed, in Tehran? If Labour Members believe, as I always have, that the role of the armed forces is to save life by preventing war and by persuading any potential aggressor that they could not succeed were they to attack us or our allies, how in God’s name are we supposed to deter the likes of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping if we are unable to publish the forward equipment plan for our own armed forces that is now nearly a year overdue? On what planet do Labour MPs think that this is an act of credible and effective deterrence?
To be fair to the Government, they have published something today. Just a few hours ago, they published the defence diplomacy strategy. They have been working flat out on it for months. They have been absolutely knocking themselves out to get that one away. I apologise to the House that I have not had the opportunity to read it yet, but I hope that it contains one very firm recommendation: “If you are going to maintain effective diplomatic relations with your strongest ally, the United States, whatever you do, don’t send to Washington an ambassador who had to resign from the Cabinet not once but twice for effectively being a crook and who has now had to be fired third time around.”
Mr Francois
I cannot; I do apologise.
The international skies are rapidly darkening, and the response of the Labour Government is, first, to cut operational spending in our armed forces by £2.5 billion and, secondly, to be completely unable to say when they would reach spending of 3% of GDP on defence, which all three authors of the SDR have said repeatedly is fundamental to delivering it. Until they do that, they cannot deliver it. Thirdly, because of the utterly dysfunctional relations within Government, with a Prime Minister whose authority is shot to pieces, they are totally unable to produce the defence investment plan, even though the House rises and we go into purdah for the Scottish and Welsh elections 48 hours from today.
This has become a farce, but it is a very dangerous one. We are now, quite literally, a laughing stock in Washington, and there is no way we can possibly deter our adversaries if we carry on like this. It is just not a credible defence posture to maintain, so I conclude by saying to Ministers: you have had long enough to produce it; if you can’t do the job, get out of the way.
The Minister for Veterans and People (Louise Sandher-Jones)
Our debate today reflects—or should reflect—the seriousness of the global security situation we now face. In eastern Europe, in the Mediterranean and around the world, our service personnel are working so hard, sacrificing so much and facing risk on our behalf. We have lived through—and I served through—a Government that refused to acknowledge the changing world, refused to take it seriously and refused to take the steps necessary to raise funding and invest. The architects of that neglect are sat in front of me. Sleeping on stag is a serious offence in the British military. In the Conservative party it was defence policy.
I shall now turn to the contributions made by hon. Members. I would like to remind those who have voiced their concerns about British bases that the threat of the growing situation in eastern Europe was clear in 2014—it could be argued that the signs were there in 2008—yet the Conservative Government, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, chose to close down our bases in Germany and withdraw our armoured infantry brigade. We can now see what a mistake that decision was.
My hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) made a passionate defence of the importance of fighting inequality. Like him, I see in my inbox the challenges that people face in my constituency, in his constituency and in the constituencies of Members across the House. We have seen what happens when instability around the world does not stay in eastern Europe or the Med, but affects us right here. It affects the energy bills we pay and the cost of goods. I am well aware of the challenges and the duty we have to face those challenges, but I say to him that sometimes war comes to you, and our armed forces are the ones who stand between us and those threats. It is vital that we give them the kit and equipment they need to face those threats and defend us.
Turning to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), that is the first time that I have heard the Leader of the Opposition and Winston Churchill compared. We will see over the coming weeks, months and years who is correct, but I expect that that comparison will age like milk.
We had an obviously fantastic speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher)— I declare an interest, although I do not comment on operational matters—on the importance of looking at the defence economy in the round. He said that it is not armies that win wars but nations. I agree that it is young people who we send to fight wars, and we need to ensure that as a state we have invested in those young people—in the very children who will grow up to face the world that we are creating for them.
The hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) raised the important need to grow our reserves. We are taking measures to do that and, indeed, we are reinvigorating the strategic reserve, of which I am a member, to ensure that it is ready to meet the challenges ahead.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) spoke about the importance of getting the DIP right. That is a crucial fact that we must all bear in mind—we must get the DIP right because jobs and capabilities depend on it.
The right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) was absolutely right that we must support our SMEs. That is why we have launched the Defence Office for Small Business Growth to boost opportunities for SMEs and why we have committed to spend £2.5 billion with them by May 2028.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), who always speaks up for those in his constituency who serve in our armed forces, rightly raised the importance of ensuring that we are able to recruit young people into our armed forces as quickly as possible. We are treating this as a priority and doing various things, such as improving the medical process and bringing in novel ways to enter the armed forces, such as through cyber direct entry.
The hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) spoke movingly about the child benefit cap, and I will return to that point in a while. He rightly noted the important role that Scotland plays in the defence of the United Kingdom.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) spoke about the importance of space. It is important to mention the wonderful work being done by UK Space Command. As someone who used to work in a company that used a lot of satellite data, I understand the importance of it and welcome the extra £1.5 billion that we are spending on defence space technologies.
The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) spoke eloquently, and I know that he is passionate about this matter. He is absolutely right when he says, “The moral is to the physical as three is to one.” The hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) also spoke passionately, and I take his points on board. I have absolutely listened to every one of his points, but for me, what he said reiterates the importance of getting the DIP right. A lot is at stake, and we must get it right. I say to the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) that his law has given terrorists immunity. It is unlawful, and I am glad that we are changing it.
As the House knows very well, the Government are fixing the mess that we inherited, which included an equipment plan that was overcommitted, underfunded and unsuited to the threats and conflicts that we now face. The Conservatives slashed defence spending by £12 billion in their first five years. The shadow Defence Secretary was the very Minister for Defence Procurement who left 47 out of 49 major programmes not on time or on budget.
I am reading those stats, but I lived through them, and this is deeply personal to me. I was serving when the previous Government were in office, and I could see the damage that they were doing all around me. While the threats to this country grew and grew, the Conservative Government refused to acknowledge that the world had changed. Labour is now fixing their mess, delivering for defence and for Britain. We have awarded more than 1,200 major contracts since the election—86% of them to British businesses—including the £650 million upgrade to our Typhoon fleet, securing 1,500 jobs.
Louise Sandher-Jones
No, I need to make time.
Our £1 billion contract for new medium helicopters has helped to secure the future of the Leonardo plant in Yeovil, sustaining more than 3,000 jobs. We have spent millions more on drone procurement and development, including, earlier this month, an order for 20 uncrewed surface vessels, which will be built by Kraken in Hampshire and take us a step closer to our vision of a hybrid Navy.
That is not a frozen procurement pipeline; it is a Government delivering for British security and the British economy. It is possible only because we are investing £270 billion in defence over this Parliament. We are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, and we are growing our defence industrial base by backing UK-based businesses and UK workers. That vote of confidence is matched by record foreign direct investment totalling £3.2 billion since the election and the most successful year on record for British defence exports, bringing a defence dividend to every part of the country.
The Opposition have got one thing right today: we do live in an increasingly dangerous world, and we see every day the skill, professionalism and expertise of our personnel in defending our people, allies and interests in the middle east. It is all the more staggering, then, that the Conservatives cut frigates and destroyers by 25%, cut minehunters, and—in the words of their former Defence Secretary—left our armed forces “hollowed out and underfunded”. That is their record, and today we have heard no acknowledgment of it, so it falls to this Labour Government to take action to put that right.
Last June, as part of the SDR, we announced up to £1 billion extra, above Conservative plans, for air and missile defence. We have been leading NATO’s initiative on delivering integrated air and missile operational networked defences—DIAMOND—and this year alone we have boosted spending on counter-drone systems by five times, and spending on ground-based air defence has increased by 50%. In an era of growing threat, we are delivering for defence, and we will not repeat the Conservatives’ mistakes.
I was surprised to hear the Conservatives speak about morale, which plunged to record lows on their watch, when they slashed real-terms pay and saw record numbers of housing complaints. This Government have delivered the largest pay increase in two decades. We are investing record amounts in statutory services, including £9 billion in forces housing, and renewing and repairing nine in 10 forces homes. The Conservatives left serving personnel in damp and mould-infested homes. I am so pleased that we have funded 30 hours of free childcare for the under-threes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have taken more action in 20 months that the Conservatives managed in 14 years.
Let me address two points, if I may. As soldiers, we talk about how we fight, but it is also incredibly important to talk about why we fight. When I stood to become involved in politics, one of the things that I was most looking forward to—I knew that it would not be possible right away, but I hoped that it would be possible during this Parliament—was the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap.
That vote—being able to walk through the Lobby to scrap the cap—has been one of my proudest moments, because we cannot balance the books on the poorest children in this country. In closing, with the highest—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Division off.
Question agreed to.
Main Question put.
Business without Debate
Petitions
Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
I wish to present a petition about the imminent closure of the post office on Uxbridge High Street. With no plans for an alternative provision, this has left many of my constituents devastated, especially those vulnerable people in my constituency who rely on this vital service. Over various community petitions, led by Tony Burles, Masoud Dildar and Trust Phenyo, more than 1,000 residents have called for action to be taken by the council and the Post Office to secure a site, which shows just how much this means to the people of Uxbridge.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to put pressure on the Post Office to provide an alternative post office site in Uxbridge before closing its existing branch.
And the petitioners remain, etc.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that an alternative Post Office site must be provided on Uxbridge High Street before its planned closure in June.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to put pressure on the Post Office to provide an alternative Post Office site on Uxbridge High Street before closing its existing branch.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003177]
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
The people of Redbourn have spoken loud and clear. This petition, which has been signed by 1,427 residents, rejects the top-down, developer-led planning approach by this Government, which could see the village of Redbourn increased by 70%. Residents are not opposed to housing, but they are rightly alarmed by the burden placed on their community, including on infrastructure, and they are deeply frustrated by the lack of meaningful voice in shaping the proposals that will define their village for generations to come. From top-down targets to grey-belt policy, community voices have been diminished.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to schedule a debate in the House of Commons on the Government review of the National Planning Policy Framework and how villages like Redbourn can be protected from over-development, and local communities given real power over planning decisions and infrastructure provision that affect the lives of village residents.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of Redbourn and the surrounding area,
Declares that Redbourn village faces large-scale development proposals driven by national planning law pushing development onto green and grey-belt land; further declares that government policy is having a detrimental impact on Redbourn village’s character and environment.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to schedule a debate in the House of Commons on the Government review of the National Planning Policy Framework and how villages like Redbourn can be protected from over-development , and local communities given real power over planning decisions and infrastructure provision that affect the lives of village residents.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003178]
Coastal Communities: Start Bay
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this evening a matter of profound importance to thousands of people across the country, including many of my constituents living and working near one of the most beautiful and vulnerable coastlines in England. That issue is coastal erosion—more specifically, what happens when human-built infrastructure such as roads and homes collapse and fall into the sea or are damaged beyond repair by the intensity of storms, waves, wind and tide. This is not just an infrastructure problem; it is a human one. The psychological toll of what is happening in these isolated shoreline communities and the threat of what might happen to others in the future should not be underestimated.
To set the scene, Start bay is one of South Devon’s most stunning stretches of coastline—15 miles of cliffs and shingle beaches running from Warren Point near Dartmouth in the north to Start Point in the south, taking in the villages of Stoke Fleming, Strete, Torcross, Beesands and Hallsands. The Slapton Line—the narrow shingle bar that carries the A379 and separates the freshwater Slapton Ley from the open sea—is one of the most remarkable and fragile landforms in this country. The A379 is a vital link road between the towns of Dartmouth and Kingsbridge. Alongside it lies Slapton Ley, the largest natural freshwater lake in south-west England. It is a site of special scientific interest and a national nature reserve of enormous ecological importance, home to rare wildlife and a place of outstanding natural beauty that draws visitors from across the world.
The area carries another layer of history that many across the world hold dear. In the autumn of 1943, the area was requisitioned by the British Government, and residents evacuated so that American forces could use the land to train for the D-day landings. Exercise Tiger cost the lives of nearly 800 American servicemen—a tragedy long kept secret—but the bond still runs deep, and many Americans come regularly to visit.
Alongside that history is a long and ongoing battle with the sea. In 1917, the thriving fishing village of Hallsands nearby was almost entirely lost to the sea in a storm, not long after hundreds of thousands of tonnes of shingle were dredged from the bay to help build the dockyards in Plymouth. In recent years, the storms have come harder and more frequently. This winter brought a succession of severe weather events that battered the Start bay coastline with extraordinary force. Properties in Torcross suffered significant damage, and businesses that depend on the summer season found themselves counting the cost of repairs before the year had even begun.
Then, on the night of 2 February, came the collapse of the A379 and a battering to homes behind the sea wall—windows smashed, roofs lifted, and water and shingle pouring into homes. Huge slabs of tarmac fell into the sea, and one section of the road collapsed entirely. A once-picturesque stretch of coastline looked like a bomb site. It was not a surprise to people who know this coast—the road has long been acknowledged as vulnerable—but the speed and scale of what happened shocked even those who had been warning about it for years. The alternative inland route is completely inadequate and needs an urgent upgrade. I have been contacted by hundreds of residents and businesses over the past seven weeks, and 40,000 people signed a petition, such is the concern.
Locally, the impact on daily life has been severe. Travel times to work and school have increased substantially—journeys that once took just minutes now take far longer via inland diversion routes that were never designed to carry this volume of traffic. Bus routes have been cut or diverted; older residents and young people trying to get to school and college have found themselves effectively cut off; and everybody dreads the arrival of the caravans. Access for emergency services is a significant concern. Mr Starr of Torcross told me that his wife required urgent medical attention twice last year, and that
“On both occasions the ambulance came across the A379 and therefore responded to the call within 30 minutes, before taking her to hospital. We are now living in fear that an ambulance will not be able to respond quickly enough.”
For others, the partial closure of the A379 is a barrier to education, due to increased journey times and altered bus services. This is true for pupils as well as staff at local schools. For local businesses, the consequences have been equally serious: reduced footfall, cancelled bookings, and the sheer visual impact of a collapsed coastline on what should be a thriving tourism destination have cost businesses dearly at a time when many were already operating on very thin margins. The Torcross Boathouse café has suffered substantial damage and remains closed. Its owners, Katy and Rob, told me that
“We won’t reopen for several months while the insurance is sorted out—it’s been a huge blow and our business has been devastated.”
In the weeks after the A379 was breached, one local pub reported trade being down by 80%. Other businesses highlighted the impact on their staff of a longer commute and issues with receiving deliveries. Matt Darke, who farms land on either side of Slapton, tells me that travelling between sites is now taking an hour longer every day than it used to, and even the viability of a local health centre is now at risk, as patients are choosing to move their prescriptions elsewhere.
Besides the damage to the A379, there has also been a serious impact on properties in the village of Torcross. The sea wall that protects the village has been left exposed by the recent loss of shingle along the beach, resulting in severe wave damage to homes and businesses and ongoing concerns about the stability of the buildings. Residents are scared and struggling to sleep due to the constant vibrations caused by the loss of shingle around the footings of the sea defences, which are an Environment Agency asset. The local EA team have been fantastic, working at pace to progress the case for an urgent project to install remedial rock armour in front of the sea wall, and while approval for that project is not guaranteed, the local team hope that the EA will find the funding to support Torcross. I look forward to receiving an update on this soon.
However, there will still be the question of what could and should be done to prevent outflanking where the Environment Agency’s assets end. There is a huge cost to works such as these, and there is always a cost-benefit argument to be won, which is what we will all try to do for Torcross. What is never easy to factor into such an equation, though, is the cost of doing nothing. What does it really cost to leave a village to fall into the sea? What is the cost to people’s health and health services, to the wider community, and to the social fabric of a place like this when defences are not maintained? Places such as Torcross and Beesands are more than just houses—they are destinations. They are lifelines for people looking for an escape from the demands of daily life; with their beaches, pubs and cafés, they are a magnetic draw for anyone looking to slow down, breathe the air, watch the birds, swim in the sea, or simply walk along the beach.
Who should pay when home owners lose everything that they have worked and saved for? These are not easy questions, which is why there is no clear answer, but the cost of prevention versus evacuation and loss must be part of this, and it is an issue with which the Government must grapple seriously. Time is not on our side, and that is abundantly clear in the village of Beesands, just down the coast. The erosion has accelerated rapidly in recent years. Where about 80 metres of village green previously separated houses from the sea, only 9 metres now remain in some areas, with the access road to the village also potentially at risk.
Amid all the trauma for the residents of this special place, I must express my sincere gratitude to officers and councillors from South Hams district council and Devon county council, who have been outstanding throughout the crisis; but for them, gratitude is not enough. Those councils are absorbing the cost of emergency repairs, facing potential loss of council tax, business rates and car parking revenue, and doing all this while operating under significant financial pressure, with limited central Government support mechanisms on which to draw. What they need, and what local authorities and coastal communities across England need, is a genuine financial partnership with central Government when coastal emergencies strike.
The Bellwin scheme is simply not fit for purpose when it comes to coastal flooding. As the coastal protection authority, South Hams district council has incurred huge costs since 2 February, including £100,000 for boulders to provide protection in the area that was worst affected. However, it has been informed that only expenditure within 30 days of the event is eligible for reimbursement under the Bellwin scheme. While I understand that the scheme is intended to support local authorities in respect of their emergency response, in the case of coastal emergencies it can easily take 30 days just to formulate and implement a plan. The current system asks councils to carry risks and costs that it is simply beyond their means to absorb, and that must change.
I must also mention the flood recovery framework. The current situation is illogical. The framework provides central Government support in cases of severe flooding affecting large areas of England, but weather incidents with localised impacts, however devastating, do not qualify. In Start bay the community is in crisis, but the answer from the system is “Sorry, but not enough people were affected.” That cannot be right, and I urge the Government to reform the framework so that it can respond to severe but localised coastal incidents of exactly this kind.
Let me now turn to the question of insurance, a common theme among my constituents. There is currently no specific insurance product for coastal erosion. Flood Re provides Government-backed cover for flood risk, but there is a clear and urgent gap when it comes to erosion. I therefore call on the Government to look seriously at implementing a Flood Re-style product for coastal erosion, and I note that a sobering report published last week by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee makes exactly that recommendation.
While home owners in Torcross may be successful in securing insurance payouts to support repairs to their properties on this occasion, it is unclear whether they will be able to obtain new insurance in the future. I therefore ask the Government for an assurance that those who are affected by coastal erosion and coastal flooding—particularly those whose properties are in areas with coastal protection measures in place that are supposed to work—will be helped to gain access to affordable insurance in the future. It is also crucial for people buying homes near the coast to be given the full picture of the coastal erosion risk that they face during the conveyancing process—not just the risk to the property itself, but the risk to the surrounding access routes, utilities and insurance availability. Given the climate-induced threats that we now face, those risks must be included as material information in conveyancing.
There is also a problem with the way in which the Government respond to crises of this kind. The community impacts of coastal erosion fall primarily to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, while the physical erosion challenges are overseen by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That fragmentation has real human consequences, and it places an additional burden on local authorities, which find themselves navigating a confusing and fragmented central Government landscape at precisely the moment when they need clarity and support. I want DEFRA to set out clearly how it recognises the full range of the human impact of coastal erosion and incorporates it in policy development and funding decisions, with clear actions and a defined approach to community engagement. The EFRA Committee report calls for exactly that, and I endorse its call.
Finally, one of the most troubling gaps of all is the complete absence of any national strategy for those who lose their homes to the sea. No one should face the loss of their home to the water and find that the state has nothing to offer them but a place on a housing waiting list for social homes that simply do not exist. The EFRA Committee has recommended that a long-term national strategy providing financial assistance and relocation support should be in place by no later than March 2027. I fully support that recommendation, and I urge the Government to commit to it.
What are my asks? First, we need funding for the repair of the A379 Slapton line and for the improvement of our inland road network. Devon county council is currently working on a full business case for the Department for Transport, and I urge the Government to respond to the application swiftly.
Secondly, we need funding for sea defences along the Start bay coastline. I ask the Government to commit that the Environment Agency will have what it needs to respond in an agile and timely manner to coastal emergencies such as this one. The process for accessing such funding is incredibly complicated, but speed is of the essence in a situation like this.
Thirdly, we need meaningful, dedicated financial support for local authorities dealing with coastal emergencies, which have to cover the cost of emergency repairs and the potential loss of business rates revenue, car parking income and council tax. Councils are doing extraordinary work in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. They should not be left to carry the financial consequences of a national challenge on their own.
Fourthly, we need urgent action on the flood recovery framework to ensure that localised weather incidents are treated just as seriously as national events. This is a big problem in a small place, and it needs a big solution. Fifthly, we need a national strategy for households displaced by coastal erosion to be in place by March 2027.
Lastly, we need a commitment to provide Government-backed insurance for coastal erosion, and insurance policy premiums must be capped for people whose properties have been damaged by coastal flooding, including those in Torcross. I am very aware that not all those asks are the responsibility of MHCLG, but I hope the Minister will relay them to colleagues in other Departments.
I will close by making a broader point, because although this debate is about Start bay, it is also about something much larger. Communities the length of England’s coastline are facing versions of what Start bay is facing right now. From the Holderness coast in Yorkshire, where land is disappearing into the North sea faster than almost anywhere else in Europe, to the eroding cliffs of Norfolk and Suffolk, coastal communities are watching the ground literally shift beneath their feet. Many of them are already among the most socially and economically vulnerable in the country, and many feel forgotten. According to the EFRA Committee’s report, over 10,000 properties are at risk from coastal erosion in the next 80 years, as are 183 km of roads and 6 km of railway. If local authorities are to be able to manage the impacts of coastal erosion, they must be supported by the Government to carry out long-term strategic planning.
What this Government do in response to the crisis in Start bay will be noticed far beyond South Devon. It will send a signal about whether coastal communities can expect a national Government to treat their situation with the seriousness it deserves, or whether they will continue to be managed at the margins and left to local authorities and agencies that are doing their very best with nowhere near enough support. The sea does not respect administrative boundaries, departmental silos or funding formulae designed for a different kind of emergency. It requires a response that is strategic, sustained and genuinely cross-governmental. The EFRA Committee has provided a road map, and the communities of Start bay have provided the urgent human case. What is needed now is the political will to act.
The people of Torcross, Beesands, Hallsands and the wider Start bay are not asking for the sea to be stopped; they are asking for a Government who see them, who invest in them and who work with them to find a way forward. They are proud and resilient communities that deserve a response equal to the challenge they face, and so do coastal communities the length and breadth of this country.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing this important debate. I start by saying that the Government absolutely understand and sympathise with those impacted by coastal erosion in Start bay. I was hugely saddened to see the impacts of the recent storms on the hon. Lady’s constituents and communities. The Government are committed to supporting her communities and indeed all coastal communities, because we understand and appreciate the urgency of the issue and the huge impact it is having.
I want to reiterate that coastal communities are a vital part of our national identity, serving as a reminder of our national pride and shared maritime story. We know that we must do more to both protect and preserve these communities against the vulnerabilities they face with coastal erosion. That is why, between April 2024 and March 2026, around £609 million has been invested into protection from sea flooding, tidal flooding and coastal erosion. It is also why the Government announced major changes to our flood and coastal erosion funding policy last October. This reform, which will take place this April, will make it quicker and easier to deliver the right flood and coastal defences in the right places by simplifying our rules.
Most recently, in January, the Government announced £30 million for coastal adaptation pilots, £12 million of which will be made available across England to deliver adaptation action in areas affected by coastal erosion. These pilots will help communities to take practical steps to prepare for coastal change, from relocating vulnerable community buildings to strengthening local infrastructure, such as beach access and coastal tourism facilities. The insights from these pilots will be applied across all coastal communities as they adapt to coastal change.
The hon. Lady is rightly concerned about the communities in her constituency. We know that residents in Torcross are concerned by the recent flooding, with wave overtopping and structural vibrations affecting some properties. As the hon. Lady has pointed out, the Environment Agency has done a huge amount of work in the area, and early investigations are clear that the defences remain structurally sound. However, we will continue to keep this under review.
The feasibility of further defence work at Torcross is currently being assessed by the Environment Agency and we expect the initial cost-benefit analysis findings to emerge shortly. Future schemes will, of course, depend on developing a full and detailed business case and securing the necessary funding, which the Department is committed to doing.
Caroline Voaden
Does the Minister accept that in such a cost-benefit analysis, there is also a cost of doing nothing? Maybe she could advise me if this is already the case. The cost of moving an entire community, with all the social and economic impact that has, is possibly much more than the cost of improving defences so that that community can stay put.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We are very alive to the cost of inaction in the context of not just coastal erosion, but climate change more broadly. We are very clear that we need to take robust action to prevent, adapt and build our resilience to the change that is coming. My colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are working very closely with both the Environment Agency and communities themselves to ensure that we are responding in the right way. To reassure residents, it is worth saying that the process of looking at how we bolster our defences is under way and being taken seriously, in addition to the work that DEFRA is doing.
I will take away the asks that the hon. Lady has set out. She will know that many of them sit with my colleagues over at DEFRA, and not with us at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but we do work closely together; as she says, the boundaries do not stop at DEFRA, and we absolutely need to work in lockstep. I will make sure that we relay all her questions, and ask the relevant Minister to respond to her and potentially arrange a meeting to discuss the particular issues in her area.
Alongside recognising the critical issue of coastal erosion—I hope the hon. Lady is reassured that we are taking that matter seriously and understand the need to act—we are also very clear that we need to continue investing in and supporting our coastal communities. We want to ensure that we are investing in the areas that are under pressure, and putting vital assets into retaining the heritage, the life and opportunities in our coastal communities.
That is why we have put in place Pride in Place funding across many of our coastal communities; at least 56 across the UK will receive more than £1 billion through the Pride in Place programme over the next decade. That money will be targeted at regeneration and, fundamentally, at investing in the priorities of the local community. Many will be thinking about how that investment in their infrastructure will best preserve their communities. We are also clear that the programme will champion local leadership, foster community engagement and strengthen cohesion. For me, that is important because we must absolutely do the job of protecting and insulating against the change that is coming. We must also make sure that we are investing and bolstering our communities, so that they continue to be thriving, vibrant places.
I thank the hon. Member once again for securing this important debate. I can reassure her that we will highlight the points that she has made with our colleagues in DEFRA and that we will do our part to build communities that are resilient and support those communities as they go through a very difficult transition to adapt to the changes that are coming. We will continue to do our bit to support coastal communities, and it is important that hon. Members continue raising the case for them.
Caroline Voaden
Something that came out in conversations that I had today was the complication of Torcross having assets that are owned by the Environment Agency and other assets, such as the road, that are owned by the council. There might also be third-party assets, such as quayside walls and other infrastructure. The complication of managing all the different agencies involved, alongside the complication of the MHCLG, DEFRA and the Department for Transport all having to work together, might suggest that we are reaching the point where the Government need to think about an office for climate change events or something like that; I do not know what we would call it, but we need to bring all those things together and for there to be oversight, because it is incredibly complicated to navigate this patchwork landscape of responsibility.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The hon. Member is right. We are acutely aware that the landscape is incredibly complex and has evolved over time. We are trying to work at a local authority level, but, increasingly, as we try to build up the structure at regional level, we want to allow far greater co-ordination so that, ultimately, all the priorities of the local area can come together. Critically, rather than working in silos, we Departments should be working with one voice, in lockstep with the community.
I come back to the point that I have consistently made. This is an urgent issue. We are hugely aware of the impacts on our coastal communities. We are very aware of the need for us to work across departmental silos, and with the Environment Agency and the local authorities, in order to respond. There is an absolute commitment on all the part of us all to do that for the very reasons that the hon. Member has set out. This issue is having a huge, profound impact on communities. If we do not get this right, if we do not adapt, if we do not build resilience and if we do not build the infrastructure, there will be communities that will fall into the sea, and that is an unconscionable outcome.
I hope the hon. Lady is reassured that we are trying to work across boundaries. I will pass on the points that she has made to my colleagues in DEFRA who hold some of the levers, but there is a commitment for us to work alongside them in order to make sure that we are supporting our coastal communities, not just so that they are protected but, critically, so that they can thrive.
Question put and agreed to.