Rosebank Oilfield: Government Policy

Anna Gelderd Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

Meur ras, Mr Twigg.

The climate and a thriving and resilient economy in which the cost of living works for my constituents are not independent issues; they are two sides of the same coin. These types of political and economic issues are national, international and deeply personal. My granddad Frank never got to know his Dad, a miner who died in an industrial accident deep under the North sea. The history of our national energy policy, from the industrial revolution onwards, is written by the jobs, families and people who built our great fossil-fuelled economy. However, we must now forge a new, practical path—one that includes the current use of oil and gas but ends at the prize of a secure, richer, renewable energy-fuelled Great Britain.

We live in an unprecedented era in which our energy security is more vital than ever and in which jobs and wealth must be protected and economic opportunities seized. On both of those points, Rosebank fails. The UK has sovereign rights to explore resources in the seabed of our continental shelf, but rights over the seabed do not give us sovereignty over the waters above it. Our energy security must consider that point. The biggest economic opportunity lies in renewable energy. I do not want to see us fall behind.

[Alice Macdonald]

On that point, does my hon. Friend welcome today’s announcement of a £12 billion deal for Vanguard wind farms off the coast of Norfolk, which will help support 2,400 jobs? Does she agree that our focus should be on investing in renewable energy projects and unlocking jobs for constituents such as mine?

[Anna Gelderd]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who is doing great work on behalf of her constituents. I do not want to see the UK fall behind while other countries race towards maximising the economic benefits of the energy transition. Government decisions send important signals to investors. Clear, consistent support gives renewable energy businesses and their supply chains the confidence to invest, expand and create the skilled jobs here in the UK. As the Government, we must provide stability and choose our signals to the financial markets wisely. There are opportunity costs in not doing so.

This weekend I talked to a local resident called Dave, who told me that his renewable energy business, which previously had over 80 orders a month, fell to just five when the then Prime Minister David Cameron indicated that he was minded not to support onshore wind. A few offhand comments—not legislation or Government investment, just signals from a Prime Minister—had a material effect on a thriving local business in Cornwall and on our ability to build the industries that we need for the future. We must do better. We must give renewable energy businesses the confidence to grow. We must give the North sea workforce the support to continue to build a more secure, cleaner and resilient energy future.

Remote Coastal Communities

Anna Gelderd Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Perran Moon]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Again, I will come on to that a little later in my speech.

On higher costs, the pressure that is felt most acutely by residents of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, as I hear on the doorstep or in constituency surgeries, is housing. Coastal housing markets, shaped by seasonal appeal, have a high proportion of second homes and short-term holiday lets, which significantly reduces supply and drives prices beyond the means of local people, while many of those homes sit empty for months. I appreciate the decisions that this Government have made on stamp duty to dampen demand for second homes, but I was horrified to hear last week that the Reform party suggests that the excessive purchase of second homes in Cornwall is not a problem. I am disappointed that Reform Members are not here now.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

In my constituency, high levels of second home ownership, short-term holiday lets and holiday homes reduce the housing supply for local families and force them away from their important support systems. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need stronger support for generally affordable housing delivery in coastal areas such as ours, backed by sufficient infrastructure?

[Perran Moon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is something I will talk about in a moment. There is a particular pressure in Cornwall, but there is also pressure in other remote coastal areas relating to second home ownership and Airbnbs—sorry, I should say short-term lets. According to 2024 data from Lighthouse, Cornwall had the largest supply of short-term lets in the country. The figure was around 24,000 properties, which is up by 30% since 2019. I have long supported a compulsory registration scheme for short-term lets—one that includes fire safety regulations—and I look forward to the Government’s forthcoming housing strategy.

Cornwall suffers from a chronic lack of affordable homes—I appreciate that it shares that problem with other remote coastal locations. With the second highest housing target in the country and over 23,000 people on the housing waiting list, the scale of need is clear, but our remote geography, infrastructure limitations and construction skills shortages make conventional housing delivery extremely challenging.

State of Climate and Nature

Anna Gelderd Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

We definitely look forward to discussing those ideas, and my hon. Friend is right about the interlocking nature of the climate and nature crisis, and climate and nature solutions. Those things go together. There are big economic opportunities, and my hon. Friend is a great champion of them.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that rural and coastal communities are on the frontline of the climate and nature crisis, and that investment in clean energy, nature recovery, and resilient infrastructure is essential not only for protecting areas such as South East Cornwall, but also for unlocking new jobs, strengthening my local economy, and ensuring our future national security?

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend was a fantastic champion of these issues in her previous incarnation, as she is in her current incarnation. I know her constituency, and I could not agree more with the work she is doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Gelderd Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

Many households in rural and coastal areas, including in South East Cornwall, are not connected to the gas grid and rely on alternative fuels, which often cost them more. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that, unlike under the previous Government, these residents are not left behind in future support schemes?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We are very clear that every part of the country must benefit from this transition, so whether it is through our warm home scheme or the work that we are doing locally through Great British Energy, we are making sure that there is a solution for every single part of the country. In my Department, I am doing a lot of work to make sure that we have a set of propositions for households in rural areas, so that they can upgrade their homes and have bills that are cheaper and homes that are warmer, which is the central plank of our warm home scheme.

Large-scale Energy Projects and Food Security

Anna Gelderd Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. In following the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters), I will start by putting the other side of the argument that he was trying to develop about compatibility or incompatibility with solar installations. I use the word “installations” deliberately, because the word “farms” conjures up images of warm, cuddly, nice things that we all like to see in our countryside, rather than these brutalist fields of glass, metal and plastic that take away the natural landscape as well as food production. I have no issue with farmers who wish, on a very modest scale, to take 10, 20 or perhaps even 50 acres of totally unproductive land in order to diversify into an energy project, be that ground-mounted solar or a wind turbine, or whatever it might be, but the clue is in the debate title: this is about the large-scale solar installations that are being proposed.

Rosefield in my constituency started off as a 2,100-acre proposal; the developers are trying to trim the edges a bit, but there is still a reality that it will take away food-producing land. The National Farmers Union’s own statistics show that we are losing land from cultivation at a rate of 100,000 acres per year. I understand that the proponents of ground-mounted solar want to talk about very low fractions of a percentage today, but if we look at the number of applications coming through in my constituency and, I dare say, in many other hon. Members’ constituencies, the cumulative impact will be considerable. Take Rosefield alone: we have already seen two battery storage proposals on prime agricultural land right next door, as well as National Grid having to come along and say, “Ah! If all these proposals go ahead, we are going to have to rebuild East Claydon substation to take in the power that these facilities are allegedly going to be generating.” And guess what, Sir Mark? That is on yet another farm in that neighbourhood, taking away more food-producing land.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way, and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Llinos Medi) for securing the debate.

Cornwall, and South East Cornwall in particular, has the potential to lead the way in the renewable energy revolution and in relation to our food security, offering significant opportunities. Does the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) agree that it is essential to have a balanced approach that respects our farming and fishing communities, which play a vital role both locally and in national food security and in relation to the environment, on which they depend? We must seize this opportunity to address Cornwall’s economic challenges and ensure that we do not damage ecosystems, as they play such an important role. A partnership approach would enable these essential areas across the UK, and Cornwall in particular, to succeed.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and congratulate her on squeezing her speech into it. I would argue that, yes, a balanced approach is right and important, but this goes to the nub of the argument that ground-mounted solar is actually incredibly inefficient. When we have something in scarce supply—land, in this country—we need to go for the technologies that are going to deliver.

I have used these important statistics in Westminster Hall before and I will make my penultimate point with them today. We need 2,000 acres of solar panels to produce enough power for 50,000 homes on current usage; for a small modular reactor, we need the space of two football pitches and it will produce enough power for a million homes. A single wind turbine will produce enough power for 16,000 homes and probably needs only half the size of the room we are in right now.

This debate is about efficiency and proper land use. It is about getting to renewable energy production, but it is also about using technology that does not destroy our countryside and that does not fundamentally take away our other core source of national security, which is food production.