Energy Security Strategy

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Clearly, this is not a strategy at all, but a series of high-level targets or rehashed information that the Government have spoken about several times. The reality is that the 2022 energy price cap is 75% higher than the April 2021 price cap, putting 6.5 million UK households into fuel poverty. People are going to die and yet there was no additional support announced to alleviate fuel poverty. How many fuel-poor households does the Secretary of State think is acceptable in modern-day Britain? Will he confirm that less than a third of his £9 billion support package is actually direct money from the Treasury that will not be clawed back?

Charities and energy companies alike are calling for much greater investment in energy efficiency, so why is there no additional funding for that? I am pleased that no new money has been announced for the Secretary of State’s nuclear fantasy. Does he stand by the impact assessment that states that the cost of a new nuclear power station, including capital finance, is as high as £63 billion?

The Government have included a blue hydrogen target, so why is the Acorn carbon capture and storage cluster still a reserve? Why is there no additional funding to match the doubling of the green hydrogen target? The 50 GW offshore wind target is very welcome, but what is the Secretary of State doing to upgrade the offshore transmission network strategy and to take account of the ScotWind leasing round? When, oh when, will they remove the iniquity of the transmission charges that prejudice Scotland, and does he understand the concerns about the new nodal pricing proposal that has been announced?

When will the Secretary of State get to grip with a funding mechanism for pumped storage hydro, so that SSE can get on and complete the Coire Glas project? If the new dash for oil and gas is to provide energy security, will the Secretary of State advise what percentage of North sea oil and gas gets traded and exported and how much goes abroad for refining?

Finally, will the Secretary of State commit to working with the Treasury to publish figures showing how much in additional oil and gas revenues, how much additional VAT from our energy bills and how much additional VAT on the petrol prices increase it has received, so that we can see the Treasury windfall that has happened during this cost of living crisis?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his barrage of questions; I will try to answer a few of them. His position on nuclear and mine could not be more different, and I am very glad that he is honest and frank about nuclear. I still do not understand what his answer is on decarbonised baseload, in terms of security of supply, but I am grateful for his honesty. He will know that the transmission charges are a matter for Ofgem, and I would be very happy to speak to him and Ofgem about how we can move forward on that.