National Emergency Plan for Fuel

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans, if any, they have to activate the National Emergency Plan for Fuel.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

The UK benefits from a strong and diverse range of energy supplies, and the physical supply of fuel to the UK is stable. The national emergency plan for fuel, which has been in place for over a decade, sets out a number of levers that can be deployed in a fuel emergency depending on the type of issue being faced, and this is summarised on GOV.UK. We would consider intervention, with a preference always for the least invasive measures first, if it appears that there could be a shortfall of fuel nationally; but, to reiterate, we are not in this situation.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, this morning the CEO of Wizz Air, which carried over 30 million passengers last year, warned that European airlines risk collapse by September if jet fuel prices remain at current record levels. We are starting to learn of flight cancellations taking place to save aviation fuel and passengers being compensated so airlines can make savings now. Businesses are saying that the Government are not prepared. We have seen the closure of two refineries here in the UK in two years and the threatened closure of the remaining four due to carbon taxes and electricity prices four times higher than in the US, which makes the UK particularly vulnerable. Given that President Trump has stated that there is no timeframe for ending the Iran war, when will the Government listen to industry, level openly with the public, be transparent and heed the words of the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, who has admitted that shortages are coming? Now, the Government should publish a national emergency plan for fuel to show how we can shore up our domestic supply of all forms of fuel and allow the public to make considered decisions.

Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2026

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Monday 27th April 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for bringing forward this SI and explaining it in such detail, especially given the fact that we have already debated this at some length, when my colleague from the Liberal Democrat Benches also participated in certain aspects of it.

The focus on Scotland allows us to look at some specific aspects relevant there and to consider why the Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2026 are so important for Scottish households—needed as they are, I might add, because of the high cost of energy and electricity in not only Scotland but the rest of the United Kingdom, because of the doubling down on the policy of building intermittent wind farms far from the grid and energy costs that are sky high relative to international comparisons. With those wind farms operating at some 31% to 40% of their maximum potential capacity, we are required to continue to import gas and to pay for gas-fired CCGTs all year long for the sole purpose of being available when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. For that reason, it is all the more important that this draft warm home discount provision is available—because of the high prices of electricity and the need to protect those most in need in Scotland.

We understand how important this is, since the warm home discount is being immediately offset for so many by rising energy prices, driven by the Government’s own policy choices. It is important to note that suppliers are not funding this support; it is paid for by households through an additional levy. The Government are increasing taxes on working people to fund handouts to others, rather than fixing the problem at source by addressing the issue of making electricity cheap.

In addition, the administration costs will continue to rise. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the administration costs alone are estimated to be about £20 million per annum. It is time the Government addressed the need to cut electricity bills. We hope that during the brief coming recess, DESNZ will have the opportunity to see whether it can axe the carbon tax, scrap renewable subsidies and overturn the North Sea licensing ban. That will provide the greatest benefit to people on low incomes, not least vulnerable Scottish customers.

As the Minister has said, the WHD scheme supports those on low incomes, vulnerable to cold-related illness, or living wholly or mainly in fuel poverty. That is of course right—it is a policy that has been supported by both sides of the Committee. We need to target fuel-poor households, with the highest estimated energy costs identified through data matching, which we covered when we last discussed this important measure in the context of the rest of the United Kingdom.

I welcome the recognition of the Secretary of State being able

“to direct energy suppliers to communicate with ‘matched’ customers identified through automated data matching, and … requiring suppliers to provide information on eligibility, the use of automated decision-making, and where to find the Scheme’s privacy notice”.

We already agreed to that in a previous debate on the application of the WHD extension elsewhere in the United Kingdom. However, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that we should also consider Professor Dieter Helm’s concern that, in not considering the WHD orders in the context of the wider energy policy being pursued by the Government, we are, to use his words, simply “moving the deck chairs”. The most important issue is that the warm homes discount scheme must be judged in the context of the fundamental issue of energy costs, and, most importantly, the high energy costs that make us so lacking in competition, particularly in the UK industrial sector but also in terms of very high domestic costs.

For many of the people concerned, fuel is perhaps the most important and noticeable change in energy prices for low-income households. Only recently, industry chiefs have warned that British electricity costs mean that domestic refineries are struggling to compete, and therefore that Britain will be increasingly reliant, as will Scotland, on imported fuel. Average petrol prices, at 157.62p a litre, are currently 25p higher than at the start of the war, and diesel has risen twice that to 188.9p a litre. Does the Minister recognise that, as the war has proven, it is important for a major economy to be focused on increasing its reliance on domestically generated fuel and not on imported fuel? This issue of security of supply is one I hope that we will return to and that the Minister can also address today.

We still import 60% of our gas, which is around 20% of our national energy demand. I hope that, during the brief Recess, the Secretary of State will reconsider his refusal to allow production at remaining North Sea gas fields, particularly Rosebank and Jackdaw, and that, at least recognising that there may be political motivation behind his decision, he will return to this subject shortly after the 7 May elections. As we know, when we look at Rosebank and Jackdaw, the emissions intensity is substantially lower than imported LNG from the United States. Therefore, on any environmental grounds, it makes great sense to develop our own gas reserves, not to mention the benefit to the Treasury of the revenues that are generated.

In the context of Scotland, we are losing nearly 1,000 jobs a month in Aberdeen—1,000 valuable jobs that are highly regarded around the world. It is so important to recognise that, from Aberdeen to Ardersier, we need to make sure that we protect jobs in Scotland and that this policy of being completely opposed to new licences, and not adjusting the commercial and fiscal terms that would encourage the extension of current production in reservoirs and tie-backs, is very damaging to the economy, puts up prices and, in turn, means that, in future, more people may have to avail themselves of the regulations we are discussing today.

We are approaching a brief break, which is an opportunity to test how popular the Government’s energy policies are in Scotland. I hope that this will allow DESNZ to undertake a comprehensive review of its doubling down on an energy policy that is high-cost—one of the highest in the world—and regrettably more polluting than it needs to be. I gave the example of LNG imports from the US against our own production from, for example, Rosebank and Jackdaw.

We are increasingly highly reliant—I know that the Minister will always expect me to say this—on Chinese solar imports from Uyghur slave labour and coal-fired factories. We are also highly dependent on ever-enlarging warm home discount schemes, which, we both agree, are a fundamental responsibility of parties in government. However, those schemes, which should be welcome because they ease some of the consequences of these policies, do not deter us from the most important issues: addressing the policies and reducing the cost of energy. Ultimately, if we can do those things, such policies will be less necessary because we will have addressed the facts that we need to be more competitive, that energy needs to be more affordable and that we need to protect jobs—not least in Scotland—which are absolutely vital to our economy and our energy mix.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate; I will attempt to address them in the best way I can.

I have got to know the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, well during my time as a Minister in this House. I say to him, with respect, that, although he is unfailingly constructive and courteous and makes important points, I fear that he has today given us a tour d’horizon of all the things we have been discussing over the past few months, wrapped within the carapace of the SI before us, which relates only to the specific Scottish circumstances of the warm home discount scheme. I hope he will forgive me if I do not give a detailed reply to some of his points because they have been discussed on other occasions; perhaps we could, over a drink at the end of the Session, tease out some of these issues between ourselves as we prepare for the proroguing of Parliament.

On the contributions concerning this specific SI, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, for his contribution. His concerns relate to the enormous increase in coverage that has been achieved by these new arrangements. Because the Scottish Government asked the UK Government to set up an SI for a scheme similar, but not identical, to that in the rest of the UK, the benefits of the substantial increase in coverage now relate to Scotland and England just the same. However, there are of course questions relating to the fact that there are, and have been since 2011, considerable differences between some of the detail of the Scottish scheme and the English one. That is partly because of the identification of virtually everybody who is taking part in the expanded scheme in England, but it is not quite so as far as the Scottish scheme is concerned.

In the Scottish scheme, there is a core group and there is a broader group. The broader group is subject to identification by application and is then put into the assistance system by the energy suppliers, but there is a question about whether those energy suppliers are going to do that properly. How will it be ensured that they do, and, if they fall short, how can that be rectified by things such as making sure that industry initiatives are brought up so that the broader group does not suffer in the way that it might otherwise do? It is down to the Scottish Government and Ofgem to make sure it happens, but it is clearly something that we need to keep a close eye on as the scheme develops.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that the Government are taking action on energy prices and bearing down on them. As he will know, we have the energy price cap, which has made sure that prices go down by about 7% over the next few months. We have had the transfer of renewables obligation levies and the ending of eco-levy costs to reduce bills. We have an ambition to take considerably more off energy bills in the future using those sorts of devices.

The noble Lord talked about domestically produced fuel. We completely agree on the need to have domestically sourced power in the UK. That is exactly what the Government are doing with increased offshore wind and solar. I have already talked to the noble Lord about how we can increase the amount of domestically produced onshore gas by increasing the biomethane that is injected into the grid—a completely domestic source of gas. The Government are acting on these things.

The noble Lord quoted Dieter Helm, saying that we are only moving the deckchairs. Sometimes moving deckchairs is a good thing, particularly if the deckchairs were previously in the shade and you can bring them out into the sun by the things you are doing. For example, one of the things that we are doing here is to move the effect of the funding from standing charges to individual markers related to the amount of power that is being consumed by particular customers. Instead of that money being taken for these warm home discount schemes from standing charges, they will be a combination of matters now, which will save people something like £39 on standing charges. So yes, we can move the deckchairs. I am conscious that we need to move further and faster—to move more deckchairs more rapidly—and transcending that. If this measure is about moving deckchairs, the deckchairs have been moved very efficiently and we have a good scheme as a result.

Low-carbon Heat Networks

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an excellent point on the need to run the expansion of facilities such as heat networks, and indeed many other green and low-carbon technologies, alongside an assurance that the skills are available to put those into place and the workforce is available to do those things. That is part of the wider government plan to make sure that training and skills are properly matched to the low-carbon future that we have in front of us, rather than training people for, dare I say, obsolete technologies that will have a relatively short life in the future and will be superseded by this widespread series of low-carbon technologies.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, low-carbon heat networks, while commendable, face major disadvantages and risks, including financial risks, technical challenges in retrofitting, and operational challenges such as overheating and service outages. Do the Government really believe that, given local authority financing constraints, councils such as Lewisham—where my former constituency lies—can meet the targets set by government for 2035, and indeed the targets for 2030 set by Lewisham Council?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

Yes, the Government believe that those targets can be met, and local authorities up and down the country have shown, by activities in their own areas, that they are very keen to make sure that those targets are met. Following earlier requests for expressions of interest, the applications for heat networks have shown that there is enormous interest in developing heat networks in various parts of the country—interest led not only by local authorities but by various local communities, including possible interest in the Great British Energy plan to develop 1,000 local schemes by the end of this Parliament. The will to do it is there; we need to make sure that there is the support for these new developments as they go forward, so that the schemes can come forward in the best way possible.

Electricity: Domestic Pricing

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I cannot stand here and guarantee that that move will be brought forward by one year, as he suggests. It is a very sound idea. The future homes standard, which is now in place, is instead of the net-zero low-carbon standards that should have been implemented about 15 years ago, if the previous Government had not thrown them out. We are catching back up, as far as possible, and making sure we can get that done in good order.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, by our doubling down on intermittent renewable wind and imported Chinese solar, as the Secretary of State announced this morning, does the Minister agree that while the wholesale price link to gas and electricity constitutes, as he said, only some 30% of the consumer price, the main culprits of ever-escalating industrial and domestic prices are the Government’s green levies, the taxes and the system costs, which constitute the remaining 70% and are increasing month by month? When will the Government address these costs?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

Of course, the Government have addressed those costs, particularly in the recent move to take elements of the levies away from levy arrangements and into the general Exchequer. That is part of the £150 off energy bills that the Government have recently reported. The noble Lord is absolutely right about the effect of levies on prices, but I hope he will also accept that that is exactly what the Government are doing at the moment: bringing prices down for the consumer by transferring how those levies work for the future.

Data Centres: Energy Demand

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I have lots of reasons to agree with my noble friend about particular Administrations and how they might be replaced. As far as the future of AI nuclear is concerned, it is certainly the case that new nuclear can sit very well alongside, for example, AI growth zones. One example of that is the Wylfa area, where the contract for a new SMR has just been signed, which will also be an AI growth zone where a number of data centres can establish themselves and directly use the power coming from that new SMR on that site.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, given that the environmental footprint is rightly central to the Government’s net zero policy, what is their reason for not opening the North Sea to a new licence round tied to long-term take-or-pay contracts to power new data centres, for example, when the average carbon intensity of the North Sea is 24 kilograms per barrel of oil, Jackdaw is 8 and imported LNG from the United States is 85 kilograms of carbon intensity? What is the Government’s rationale for not developing our own reserves rather than importing LNG, at the expense of energy security, with an environmental impact four times more polluting than developing our reserves in the North Sea?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I am afraid the noble Lord is back on his fairly standard topic. As far as AI is concerned, we ought to bear in mind that clean power already represents 73.7% of GB electricity generation and we are targeting clean power providing at least 95% of that power by 2030 or so. Importing a lot more gas to deal with the introduction of AI does not necessarily follow, because it is really a question of using that clean power in the most optimised way possible to make sure that AI is supported, so his thesis does not quite stack up.

Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards and Contract Budget Notice Amendments) Regulations 2026

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Monday 23rd March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the chairman of Acteon, a global specialist subsea services company that operates worldwide in offshore wind and oil and gas.

It is good that the Government are investing in UK supply chains. However, whether it is cables, batteries, inverters or critical minerals, the Government’s rush to meet their unrealistic clean power targets will make the UK more dependent on imports, particularly Chinese ones. With all the energy security risks that brings us, the world becomes more dangerous; I will concentrate on that in a moment.

The clean industry bonus provides additional CfD financial reward for offshore wind developers, provided they prioritise investment in regions that are most in demand or in cleaner supply chains—for example, traditional oil and gas. I assume that this also includes ex-industrial areas, ports and coastal towns. Ana Musat, the executive director of policy at RenewableUK, stated:

“The Clean Industry Bonus is a good starting point as part of a wider industrial strategy which the Government is due to unveil in full this summer, and which we hope will be complemented by new policies to support the expansion of UK ports. With larger ports, we could secure even more investment in offshore wind manufacturing and turbine assembly”.


We have already debated ports, particularly in the context of Northern Ireland, over three and a half hours in the Chamber. The reality is that most developments in ports are not going to take place for many years: in Belfast, electrification—the ability to charge—will not happen until 2035, and there is little sign of investment in ports across the United Kingdom. Can the Minister give the Committee greater clarity on exactly what he sees on the time of the rollout to support ports, modernisation and the level of investment?

On my reading, although it is good that the Government are investing in UK supply chains, the current timeline is too onerous on UK supplies; it is that timeline on which we really need to concentrate in the Minister’s response. Take NESO, which has observed that Clean Power 2030 will require more than £60 billion of private investment. It says that

“meeting the target would require the deployment of more supply-side technologies, such as onshore and offshore wind, solar energy and battery storage, on average each year to 2030 than there ever has been in a single year before”,

with

“nearly 1,000 km of onshore”

electricity network infrastructure

“and over 4,500 km of offshore network”.

It goes on to say:

“That is more than double over five years what has been built in total in the last ten”.


This is an issue: the question of timing and the headlong rush towards the target of 2030 are of major concern to my colleagues.

Two other aspects that cause concern have been raised; I hope the Minister will respond to them. The first is the supply chain and the offshore wind fair work charter, which has slipped in via the back door somewhat. In another place, the Minister stated that

“clean industry bonus applicants will need to sign up to the offshore wind fair work charter … The charter builds on forthcoming commitments in the Employment Rights Act 2025, in particular by asking that the offshore wind sector proactively implement voluntary access agreements for trade unions”.—[Official Report, Commons, Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee, 17/3/26; col. 4.]

We cannot see the final fair work charter that is intended. The draft charter and the draft code of practice for trade union access are still subject to government consultation so, as I understand it, are not final yet. I have certainly not seen the final drafts. It seems the wrong process to have this very important commitment at the centre of the SI without the opportunity for parliamentarians to review what is intended in detail.

We know that the draft code leans towards giving unions practical workplace facilities. It says that, “where practicable”, the employer should “provide a notice board” in a “prominent location”, allowing union material to be displayed without employer veto. Even if the employer or the employees do not want it, that is what is required. When needed, the employer should allow a union official on to the site to display it. It also points to meetings, surgeries and the use of workplace facilities. It even suggests joint meetings and joint notice boards as ways to deliver information.

It limits the employer’s ability to manage around union meetings. The employer should

“avoid the scheduling of other conflicting … events which would draw workers away from the union’s meeting. Unless reasonable in the circumstances, the employer should not offer inducements to workers not to attend”.

The example given is that employers should not tell workers that they can go home early instead of attending the union meeting.

The employer is expected to respond incredibly fast during that negotiation. If it rejects the union proposals, the code says that

“it should offer alternative arrangements … at the earliest opportunity, preferably within three working days of receiving the union’s initial proposals”.

This is probably the closest thing in the draft to the burden of very short notice that people are talking about. Many other aspects of this code are really concerning.

The central point I am making to the Minister is that it is vital to have sight of the final code and for us to be able to debate it. If that code is too onerous on the supply chain, we risk losing good-quality companies in the United Kingdom that could add value to the supply chain and to what the Government are seeking to achieve. We live in a highly competitive global market and, unless there is a reasonable approach towards what employers should and can do, we risk losing investment.

I emphasise to the Minister that the draft code of practice for trade union access is insufficient and, because it is still subject to government consultation, is not in final form yet. It really should have been presented to the House before these regulations were agreed.

My second point is about the security of our energy supplies and suppliers. Recent reports suggest that the Treasury may allow Ming Yang Smart Energy to supply turbines for the Green Volt North Sea wind farm. As I understand it—I look forward to the Minister’s confirmation—Ming Yang is planning £1.5 billion of investment to build the largest offshore wind turbine manufacturing facility, at Ardersier near Inverness. That this is a Chinese firm has led to considerable questioning from UK government officials who, I understand, are currently evaluating the proposal amid warnings from experts of potential security vulnerabilities—such as Chinese-manufactured sensors and potential kill switches in critical energy infrastructure. This comes on top of a series of initiatives that the Government have taken to engage with the Chinese, not least in our civil nuclear programme.

It concerns me that in wind and solar we now have the potential for our supply chain to be significantly impacted by Chinese manufacturers. We know that close to 90% of our solar panels come from China; all include polycrystalline. Of these imports, 45% are understood to come from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where slave labour is known to have been used in the manufacture of solar panels. Despite the requirements introduced by the Secretary of State in the Great British Energy Act to take full responsibility for the ethical sourcing of solar panels, the Minister’s department has consistently been unable to assure parents, teachers and children alike that their newly installed solar panels have not been made by slave labour.

As I say, the secrecy surrounding the UK-China MoU aroused yet further suspicion on this, since co-operation with China has now been extended to the supply chains to include civil nuclear; charging infrastructure; battery storage; offshore wind; carbon capture, usage and storage; and renewable hydrogen. They are all identified in that MoU. Where are the resilience and security in our own energy sector to be found if we are opening wide the door to the Chinese, who are now setting up a wind turbine business in Ardersier?

I hope the Minister can respond to both those points. The fair work charter is a significant concern, as is the growing prominence of Chinese suppliers to meet the clean energy objectives that the Minister and the Government have set out.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their important contributions to this debate. I did not hear any particular dissent from the idea that this is a good thing that will help British supply chains in offshore wind and, we hope, onshore wind, to develop significantly in the future. That will be done through a process whereby, in future rounds, those bidding for services will put in, as a pre-bid to the AR7, AR8 or AR9 bid itself, a notice of intent about what they will do as far as British supply chains are concerned and how they will source from them. When they get the additional CfD arrangement for doing that, the money will be released only when those commitments have been met. It is not a “money for pie in the sky” arrangement; it is very much a “money for pie firmly affixed to the ground” arrangement for the future.

Of course, one can never be sure exactly what commitments will be made by people putting forward their proposals to get into a particular realm but, certainly in AR7, they have covered all sorts of aspects of the supply chain, including port infrastructure, et cetera. The noble Earl raised the question of port development. A lot of investment is going into ports in general at the moment, and into the ability of ports to provide the sites for fabrication, et cetera, for offshore wind, as well as making sure that the ports are as well equipped as possible for Sea Jack-type erection vessels and so on. The idea is to thoroughly uprate investment in ports to support the offshore wind energy industry of the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was concerned about the fair work charter. I just looked it up: it appears on the government website and seems, pretty substantially, to be a final document. I am sorry not to have got my speech finished before the Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

My Lords, votes in this House are tremendously helpful for securing clarity where maybe there was not clarity before in certain aspects. They are particularly helpful half way through a speech, enabling that speech to end on a clearer note than might otherwise have been the case.

I mentioned the offshore wind fair work charter to noble Lords just before we departed to vote this afternoon. It is true that the final offshore wind Fair Work Charter is now complete and live on GOV.UK, which I showed to noble Lords on my phone. However, it is also true to say that the Department for Business and Trade is pursuing a consultation on make work pay, which has many elements of the offshore wind fair work charter in it. That is what is not complete and is being consulted on at the moment. As far as the offshore wind industry is concerned, the charter that I have mentioned is complete and was, as far as I understand, extant before this SI.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister. Let me put to him my understanding of where we are at the moment, because this is a really important point. I majored on this so I have looked into it. We have the Fair Work Agency, of course, and we have the overview of what the offshore wind fair work charter will look like. A cornerstone of that charter for the offshore wind sector is the issue of trade union access. That was what I was concentrating on; I gave some examples on the record of the issues that trade union access would raise with companies. It is still a draft code of practice for trade union access. It is not finalised. It is still subject to consultation and, I assume, to an SI that will be brought before Parliament.

My position was therefore that while we were debating the importance of an offshore wind fair work charter, we were unable to be specific about what it would include, particularly on the cornerstone point of access for trade unions to companies in this sector. That is the important point. It has yet to be finalised, and I understand that there will be an SI in due course. My point was that it would have been better for us to look at that in the context of a complete offshore wind fair work charter, so that employers could understand the issues about trade union access, and a final code of practice for that access.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that clarifying intervention. Essentially—forgive me for putting it quite like this—both of us are more or less right: the charter is there and has been there for a little while. But obviously, once a charter is up on the noticeboard, as it were, there are details of its implementation still before us. One of them is that question of the detail—not the principle—of trade union involvement in the offshore wind industry as a whole, and the requirement that from AR8, the companies involved in bidding sign up to that fair work charter overall.

One important thing to say is that the whole process of the fair work charter has been tripartite throughout, with government, industry and unions all involved in setting up the charter itself and its consequences. It is not that anyone is going to impose anything on anybody; it will be a question of continuing tripartite involvement and interest in the detail of the fair work charter, as well as the charter itself. While I take the noble Lord’s point that in an absolutely ideal world it would have been a good idea if the sub-details of the fair work charter itself had all been worked through, in the real world it is very seldom possible to do that when something comes into place. I think he will appreciate that trying to get this in place so that it runs for AR8 and onwards, for example, is an important process of pace. Therefore, having the principle in place, with everyone clear what they are supposed to sign up to for AR8, is an important move in its own right.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Indeed, the Minister is right as well. The key point, however, is one of emphasis. To me and to my colleagues, and to companies that may access government funding through this scheme, not to know the detail of what is proposed through the draft code of practice for trade union access negates, to a great extent, the initial tripartite agreement, because that agreement can hold only when all three parties to it know the details.

I am not disagreeing with the Minister’s overview about the Fair Work Agency being in place and the fair work charter being drafted. But I am genuinely concerned that if government money is to be made available to companies in this sector—and we are really looking to encourage UK companies and international companies to come and play an important role in the supply chain—we need to have those details before we trumpet an offshore wind fair work charter without actually seeing them. I do not think that is an unreasonable point to make.

Onshore Wind Farms

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Monday 23rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all her work in this field and for introducing that Bill. As far as getting on with it is concerned, there is nobody who wants to get on with it more than I do. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has drawn attention to the fact that we have probably 10.7 gigawatts or more of onshore wind capacity that could retire between 2027 and 2042, and those onshore farms will be completely lost if they retire without any repowering. So repowering is clearly essential, not only to keep those wind farms going on the same sites but because of the tremendous power gain that could come about by using modern turbine methods and modern blades to increase the output by perhaps up to two-thirds when those existing sites are repowered.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, when considering repowering our intermittent wind energy when, to use the Minister’s words, the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow, does the Minister agree that the main energy policy lesson from the current crisis is that, as a nation, we should prioritise our own firm power energy independence? Does he agree that the best way to achieve this is to reduce our LNG imports from the Gulf and the US by accelerating gas development in the North Sea, and for his department to provide the one piece of paper we are all waiting on—the approval of the Jackdaw gas field to heat 1.6 million British homes this autumn?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

We have been around this path several times before recently. Suddenly introducing lots more gas into the system will make no difference to the resilience of this country against international prices, whereas developing genuinely homegrown power over a period makes all the difference. I should add that homegrown power is not just variable homegrown renewable power; it can be batteries, biomass and so on, which can be firm power in its own right. It is a question of getting the whole picture together to make sure that variable power and firm power on a renewable basis complement each other, so that you have reliable power that is homegrown and secure in the long term.

UK Energy Sources and Cost of Energy

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Thursday 19th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Lord mentions what is potentially a very effective, long-term and secure method of homegrown energy. As I mentioned in my initial Answer, the long-term way to protect ourselves from these price spikes is to develop homegrown energy. Clearly, tidal range, which has a very stable supply of energy and a not particularly long period of development, could play a role in that process. However, I emphasise that we are very far at the moment from developing tidal range in the way that the noble Lord seeks to promote.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, two days ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that all countries must play their part in boosting oil and gas production. The Energy Secretary demonises and bans drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. Who is right?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

No, the Energy Secretary does not wish to see drilling for North Sea oil banned. What he is doing, as the noble Lord will know, is developing transitional energy certificates, which will enable tie-backs to take place in existing fields. The noble Lord will know that the existing structure of the North Sea fields largely consists of fields that have not been tapped—small fields that are adjacent to additional fields—and so the tie-back arrangement will ensure both production and drilling for those tie-back fields in association with the existing fields.

Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2026

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

First, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. The Government have listened carefully to the concerns expressed, particularly in relation to investor confidence, which I will come back to in a moment, to policy stability and to the long-term credibility of the UK’s renewable support schemes.

In considering the valuable and detailed contributions from noble Lords, I must say one thing to start with. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is tempting me into a widespread debate about energy changes, energy prices and so on, but I kindly suggest that that is not the subject of our discussion this afternoon. The points that he makes are certainly ones that need replying to, and I hope that replies are being undertaken—but of course we are undertaking those replies at a time of energy crisis, and indeed a period of great volatility and uncertainty. That perhaps underlines why it is a better idea for the long term to have homegrown sources of energy that are not volatile and which can actually inform what is happening in the domestic market without inevitable consequences on the international market. The move towards renewables and low-carbon energy sourced from within the UK is a very effective way of doing that in the long term.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I absolutely do not want to start a debate this afternoon, because we will unquestionably have plenty of opportunities in the future to cover this ground, but there is nothing more secure, in terms of our security of supply, nothing that creates more firm power, than our natural gas in the UKCS, which is much cheaper and far less polluting than importing gas from Qatar or liquefied natural gas from the United States. That reserve is critical, and if there is one lesson that comes out of this crisis, it is that we should maximise that reserve for our own country, for our own people, in exactly the same way as the Norwegians are doing at the moment for their people—unless the Minister thinks that the Norwegians are hopelessly wrong and should have shut in their basin, which he may wish to say. I think that our differences on this subject are worthy of future debate, but I think it is important to place them on the record.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for placing that on the record. The Norwegian basin, of course, is far less mature than the UK basin, and indeed the Norwegian system works on substantially the same basis of international pricing as the UK system as far as gas is concerned.

The noble Lord has used the word “incredible” on several occasions. It was incredible, over the years, how much gas we were exporting from UK fields, even at a time when it was absolutely necessary to have the maximum supplies bought and used in the UK. Indeed, even during the Ukraine invasion crisis, there were still substantial exports on to the international market of gas that had come into the UK in the first instance. It is also the case, of course, that as far as marginal cost pricing is concerned, gas still makes the market over 65% of the time, so the whole market is still informed by international gas prices and international gas market-making in a way that is inimical to the stable, homegrown future energy that we need to import so that those positions are no longer taken.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

To place it firmly on the record, Norway and ourselves share the same basin in the northern North Sea, delineated by a median line. Geology does not recognise a median line, which is why in 1990 we were, broadly speaking, producing about 2 million barrels a day each, and in 2010 we were, broadly speaking, producing about 4 million barrels a day each. Today, we have gone right down to 400,000 barrels, and the Government are driving it down lower, while the Norwegians are going north of 4 million barrels.

My second point is that yes, the Minister is absolutely right that the Norwegians are exporting it to the international market. They do that because they can satisfy their domestic demand from hydroelectricity. As a result of that, however, they have managed to set up a sovereign wealth fund that assists their healthcare and their social security. The money they are earning is fundamentally important to the success of their economy. If we had done the same thing, we would have been in a far stronger financial position and would be able to take significant tax receipts to the Treasury to assist us with the many other challenges that the Government face.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Lord is exactly right about a sovereign wealth fund, and it is our joint regret that the UK did not pursue that path many years ago. However, that is not the fault of the current Labour Government, as those actions were taken many years ago. He is right to point out that we would be in a much better position had that path been taken, but we did not take that path. We are where we are and we need to move on from that in terms of homegrown energy of a different form.

I am anxious to make progress with the business in hand, and I am pleased to see the overall welcome for these measures from both sides of the House. I will very briefly deal with one or two concerns that were raised. For example, on the concern about the effect of these measures on investor confidence, the future investment is of course not going to be carried out through the renewables obligation. As I mentioned, the renewables obligation is a sunset measure: indeed, it closed to new entrants in 2017. We are therefore talking about the remaining years of this measure, not the years in front of us of future and present measures, which we are undertaking in order to expand and stabilise the renewables and low-carbon world. Investor confidence will, therefore, be determined by how those measures are working.

In any event, the path that was taken to not freeze the RO, but to relate it to CPI rather than RPI, actually continues to allow RO to grow, albeit at a slightly lower indexed case. Therefore, in terms of the returns that those historic companies thought they were getting as far as the RO is concerned, there is not a great deal of difference—especially since we are so far past the point at which new entrants were accepted to the scheme.

As for legal challenges, we have been very scrupulous in making sure that we have received full advice, and that we are well entitled to make these changes. It is difficult to see how a legal challenge on the basis of not liking the changes very much might succeed, as opposed to a legal challenge on the basis of making the changes in the first place.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked whether there could be a more comprehensive measure as far as future ROs are concerned, and this is something I have been quite interested in doing myself. It would involve trying to move RO recipients on to a CfD contract, which can be done in various ways. I suggest that if we did that forcibly, it would probably result in a legal challenge, but there are other ways of making the change.

Carbon Budget 6

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

On EV rollout, the noble Earl will be aware of what has been put in place for ending internal combustion engine use in vehicles and the phase-out of hybrid by 2035. The rollout of electric vehicles continues unabated, and the number of electric vehicle charging points in this country, currently at more than 80,000, is well on target for what we think necessary over the next period to ensure that the fleet works as well as it should.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Does the Minister accept that in the UKCS we have a far smaller carbon footprint for our own North Sea gas than the full life-cycle emissions of imported LNG from Qatar and the United States? Given that the Government’s energy security is challenged with growing dependency over the next 10 years on LNG ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, why are we the only country in the world that is failing to accelerate development of our own gas reserves, in the North Sea, for energy security and environmental objectives so that we can deliver firm and affordable power to all our high-energy-use industries, which currently face crushing energy costs, four times higher than in the United States?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord knows that, even if we were substantially to increase the footprint of gas production in the North Sea, that would not come on stream for many years. Secondly, gas is traded on international markets at a particular price, so it would make no difference to energy costs in the UK, because the gas would go to one of the three international gas markets and bringing down that price would be beyond the control of the UK—unless we introduced draconian measures to prevent the price discovery of the particular levels of gas being undertaken on international basis, which I am sure the noble Lord would not be happy with.

Fire and Rescue Services: Clean Energy Projects

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I think that we should get this into some proportion. As I have said, the number of battery fires over the last five years is four. The percentage of fires that you might encounter in an industrial premises or commercial premises is higher than the proportion per thousand of battery fires. Battery fires stand within the general problem of fires across industry. As far as the extinction of those fires is concerned, there is protocol already in the fire service about how to deal with those particular fires. It is a process of enabling burnout, so that the battery does not self-reignite. The noble Lord is correct to say that there are issues relating to battery fires, particularly the ability of that battery fire to reignite itself even in the absence of oxygen. There is a protocol now to surround the fire with safety measures and allow it to burn out. That, as far as the fire service chiefs are concerned, is a perfectly adequate and safe response to those fires.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister revisit his figures on battery fires? On 6 September 2024, the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, led an outstanding debate in your Lordships’ House on lithium-ion battery safety. Superb contributions were made across the House, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Winston. Since then, battery fires in bin lorries and at waste sites in the UK have reached an all-time high—not four, but more than 1,200 in 2024. That is an increase of 71% from 700 in 2022, which was described by the Environmental Services Association as an “epidemic”. Will the Minister take this opportunity to go back to his department and agree that, at a minimum, we need the fire service, the Environmental Agency, and the Health and Safety Executive to be statutory consultees for all planning and new stand-alone battery energy storage systems? There is urgent action required in this sector.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I do not intend to go back to the department and tell it that its particular concerns are wrong. What we are talking about today are fires in large stand-alone battery storage plants, of which there have been four in the last five years. If the noble Lord would like the individual addresses and locations of those four fires, I have them here. It is not the case that this covers every battery fire there has ever been. We know that certain batteries—for example, illegally imported batteries in scooters—tend to be a little less safe than other batteries. There is proper concern about some areas of battery safety and maintenance, but not about this particular sector, which is very well regulated and safe now. As I have set out today, there have been further measures to ensure that the safety and integrity of those stand-alone batteries is maintained.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, which were absolutely up to the rather technical nature of this SI—although I would say that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, managed to take in a large landscape on the whole question of whether a decarbonisation policy is good or not. I suggest that that debate is for another day because we are talking about some specific changes that are being made to a specific policy.

That policy relates, of course, to an overall adjunct to decarbonisation policy in general, which is to secure a good carbon price to underpin moves towards developing a more sustainable, low-carbon, green economy based on making sure that fossil fuels are at the margins of the energy economy, rather than at the centre of it; and that incentives are put in place for that to happen and for the economy to run on low-carbon energy in general.

If the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, considers that a bad idea overall, perhaps he might say so; he has moved a little way along that path. I do not think that the Bank has yet cashed in all its good will, but we need to set one or two things straight about how that relates to this SI. The free allowances that are presently in place for a number of energy-intensive industries that are in danger of carbon leakage as a result of low-carbon policies are being continued for 2026 but are being tapered down—not because the Government think that they are a terrible idea and that we ought to stop giving out free allowances but because we are on the road to CBAM, which is in itself a comprehensive shield against carbon leakage.

Having a series of free allowances running alongside a CBAM arrangement would therefore duplicate the protections that are, and should be, in place. Having a mechanism that enables the CBAM process to come into place, while making sure that the industry has the free allowances it needs to move towards CBAM, seems a very sensible thing to do to keep the overall low-carbon energy show on the road in the longer term. I have not heard from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, whether he thinks that CBAM is a bad idea; the industry generally thinks that it is a very good idea.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

The Minister has put two points back to me. First, I have no dispute with that; I think that decarbonising the industrial sector over time is a sensible policy. The problem is that, if you try to accelerate that decarbonisation into 2030 and you must raise electricity prices to the level the Government have done through a carbon tax, you make industry uncompetitive. If you make industry uncompetitive on the altar of long-term decarbonisation, you will have serious employment problems; that precise point was made by an MP in another place in speaking on behalf of ceramics.

My issue, therefore, is not with the long-term decarbonisation of industry; I am totally at one with the Minister on that point. My point is that, if you hurry this along on an artificial timescale of three years, you will have to put up carbon taxes and you will put businesses out of business, in effect, from the moment when they must face these carbon taxes, which are not imposed by their competitors around the world; they may, therefore, find themselves uncompetitive.

I am not arguing against CBAM but I am making the obvious point that, if you then remove these allowances—say you have free allowances of 10 out of 100, and you take 10 of those free allowances away—you have to acquire the other 10 allowances from the market. There is a significant additional cost; that is outlined very clearly in the impact assessment before us today. Indeed, paragraph 18.8 of that document states:

“These factors combined can lead to domestic prices being consistently higher than import prices, enabling substantial price pass-through”.


It is right here in the very document that we have been considering today, and it proves my point about an increase in prices—a significant increase from what are already very expensive electricity prices—that must then be passed through. Also, the nature of that pass- through goes even further than what I have said. Paragraph 18.7 of the impact assessment says:

“The results suggest that most sectors could pass about 80-90% of cost increases to consumers”.


It is the consumers who will feel the pain of this measure; that is the Government’s own clear statement on page 70 of the impact assessment.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The Government are of course very well aware of the whole question of how energy prices should be kept within reasonable bounds. By the way, the noble Lord went on a bit about gas a moment ago. He should remember his own period in government, when the Government spent something like £70 billion trying to bring prices back down when they had got completely out of control with the spikes in the price of shipped gas coming into the UK, which rose to 600p per therm at one stage in the mid-2020s.

You could say that, because the Government at that time did not control international gas prices in the way that the noble Lord seems to think can be done— I very much doubt that the various measures he is proposing to regulate international shipped gas prices would have the effect on volatility that he thinks they would have—we are still open to that enormous volatility in gas across the world. Indeed, just recently the price spiked quite substantially—probably not to the extent that happened in the early 2020s, but that is a spectre that continues to haunt us with reliance on international gas and not going to a low-carbon economy.

I am on the side of insulating the UK economy from those enormous global changes in gas prices, particularly by moving, broadly speaking, not to a no-gas economy but to a low-gas economy as far as the future is concerned. That will be of tremendous benefit to UK industry and exports, and jobs and industry in general, because we will have a stable energy economy for the future, which will allow us to plan ahead properly without the spikes, volatility and panics that we have seen over the last few years. I think the noble Lord wants me to give way again.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

May I say how flattered I am that the Minister thinks that I was in government on this side of the turn of the century? I must look a lot younger than I thought I did. I have to go back to 1990, to be precise, when I was Minister for Energy and we started the offshore decarbonisation of gas. In fact, we stopped flaring at that time, at the same time as we set up a non-fossil fuel obligation to encourage renewables. We had low domestic and industrial gas prices in the United Kingdom because we encouraged combined-cycle gas turbines. I just wanted to place that on the record, but I say it in a spirit of deep gratitude to the Minister for thinking that I was in government only recently and that I obviously look far too young to have been a Minister in 1990—or perhaps I look far too old.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that correction as far as his status in previous Governments is concerned. I was making a point not about his own distinguished period as an Energy Minister, which I appreciate was much earlier and perhaps in a rather happier energy era than we have today, but about the mangled response from the Conservative Government to the last gas volatility crisis in this country, and what resulted in terms of the money going out of the Exchequer for the attempts to protect domestic consumers and businesses from that spike, since he raised it as one of his concerns about this SI.

I ought to add, by the way, that, in the Government’s industrial strategy—yes, we have an industrial strategy, unlike previous Administrations—we announced additional support for 7,000 energy-intensive firms through the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which will reduce electricity costs by up to £40 per megawatt-hour. Through the British Energy supercharger, the Government are increasing support for the most energy-intensive firms by covering more of the energy network charges they normally have to pay. From 2026, the discount on these charges—namely, legacy costs, capacity market feed-in tariffs and so on—will be discounted by 90% from their present 60% level. That is a substantial boost to industry, as far as prices are concerned, by the direct actions of the Government under these circumstances.

I am conscious that I have spent rather too long addressing what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has perhaps wound me up to talk about more than I might otherwise have done. I have to now address the questions that were put to me by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering—who I applaud for being, as it were, on the side of these particular measures and ideas from the other side—and the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

I have, to some extent, covered the questions that the noble Baroness put to me. The first allocation period will be extended to 2026 to ensure that the changes implemented from the free allocation review come into force in 2027, to align with the introduction of UK CBAM. On her questions on bills, emissions trading has been a key element of power sector decarbonisation. Therefore, maintaining a strong UK ETS and, dare I say it, aligning it with the much wider market that we can enter into, for the stability of the ETS, will not be a joining of the EU ETS but a linkage of the UK ETS to the EU ETS. The UK ETS will continue. It has been determined following a recent consultation discussion that it will continue until at least 2040.

COP Climate Negotiations: Cities

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Lord Moynihan

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as non-executive chair of Amey and Acteon. In returning to the Front Bench, I pay respect to the Minister’s outstanding parliamentary contribution and extensive knowledge of energy and net-zero policies. I have no hesitation in asking him whether he agrees with the Prime Minister’s warning at COP 30 that the “consensus is gone” on fighting climate change? Does the Minister agree that it is now time to pause to reflect that last week, on the bitterly cold day of 5 January when the UK generated 47 gigawatts of electricity, over 52% had to come from gas because the wind was not blowing, and that fully developing our own offshore natural gas reserves, akin to the strategy adopted in Norway, would not only increase our energy security but be environmentally preferable and cheaper for the people living in British cities than relying heavily on imported LNG from the Middle East and the US?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the noble Lord to his place as the opposition spokesperson as far as DESNZ is concerned. He has had a distinguished career in energy, being a former Energy Minister himself, and a distinguished business career in renewables. I look forward to having a very fruitful and constructive dialogue with him over the next period, as the energy discussions move forward.

As far as his question is concerned, I say gently that last year had the highest-ever number of days that were powered completely by renewable energy—more than 80 days—so his concern about particular days being powered by mainly non-renewable power should be set against that overall trajectory, which will continue, particularly with the results of AR7 that have just come out today.