UK Energy Costs

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I echo the best wishes to Her Majesty.

The new Prime Minister takes up her role at a moment when the country is facing a series of multiple crises of staggering proportions, including a likely recession and, let us not forget, the accelerating climate emergency, which, in the words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, means that there is

“a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”

This moment, therefore, required bold, visionary thinking grounded in compassion, not cold and outdated economic dogma. It called for a retrofit revolution, a massive investment in home insulation and renewable energy upgrades that could finally deliver warm homes and lower bills. I was staggered that the Prime Minister did not mention once the demand-side measures that need to be put into the communities around our country, so that people can finally have lower bills and warmer homes.

What this moment did not call for were measures that would lock us into further dependence on fossil fuels. While Putin’s war in Ukraine has accelerated the crisis, fundamentally it is one caused by our dependence on gas, and it will not be solved by extracting more gas. It certainly will not be solved by a resumption of fracking, which would be a disaster for the climate and a measure which, as her own Chancellor admitted barely six months ago, would do nothing to lower energy bills and would fail to produce enough gas to meet even 1% of our needs for more than the next three years.

Coming on to the detail of the Prime Minister’s support package, I welcome the fact that she has finally acted on a price freeze, but the measures are nowhere near enough. They are poorly targeted, and without a substantial package of additional support they will fail to support millions of low-income families who are already in freefall. They cannot cope with current prices, never mind an increase. That is why my party would return the price cap to its more affordable rate of last October. The measures do nothing to incentivise a reduction in energy demand by those who can do that. Most staggering of all, as we have heard about so much, they allow the oil and gas companies to get off scot-free, despite the Treasury’s own documents showing that energy producers are in line to make £170 billion in excess profits over the next two years.

What we need to do is scrap the shameful investment allowance, put in a windfall tax that is proportionate to the crisis we face and make that the first step towards a permanent carbon tax on oil and gas companies to reach, at the very least, the global average of 70%. That would bring the UK in line with countries such as Angola and Trinidad.

I welcome the fact that the Government have been consulting on decoupling the price of renewables from gas—that would be a game-changing step—but I also want to ask the Prime Minister to make a massive investment in renewable energy. Renewables are a staggering nine times cheaper than gas. There are 650 wind and solar projects oven-ready and waiting. That is the way forward, not putting us into more and more fossil fuels. Finally, will the Government look at measures such as a rising block tariff approach, which would be much fairer in the future?