Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Craig Mackinlay

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay]

My right hon. Friend has put his finger exactly on the pulse. This is a substantial Bill. I say to the Minister that I hope the Government will strip out criminal penalties for not adhering to unknown net zero certification, EPCs and all the rest of it in the future for something as simple as not complying with some of these net zero regulations. This is really serious. I hope that when the Bill returns to the other end of the Palace, consideration can be given to strip out such proposals.

I could have gone on at huge length this afternoon. I tabled many amendments because these are overweening powers trying to push and nudge us and to ban things. All I can imagine is that the Chinese embassy will be looking at the Bill with great enthusiasm, as it will drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore. China will be pleased that it will be able to sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on its steel, produced on the back of very cheap coal power. That is what we are doing here: driving our high-energy businesses offshore. This is not a recipe for energy security; this is a recipe for energy disaster.

I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net zero proposals banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this and banning that. That is not what we do as Conservatives. We actually allow freedoms. We allow the market to decide. The Bill goes in the wrong direction.

[Caroline Lucas]

There are some elements of the Bill to commend, not least the net zero duty on Ofgem, but overall it fails to deliver the scale of ambition we need or to set out a vision of an energy system free not just from Putin’s influence but from expensive and polluting oil and gas in their entirety. My amendments would address that failing.

New clause 29 would prohibit the approval of new oil and gas field developments and the issuing of new oil and gas exploration and production licences. I am sure that the Minister will seek to paint the new clause as somehow incredibly radical and the policy of Just Stop Oil, pretending that it would recklessly turn off the taps tomorrow. He will no doubt trot out the same tired lines about a quarter of the UK’s energy continuing to come from oil and gas in 2050. In reality, the new clause is far from radical. It would simply do what the science tells us is necessary if we are to secure a liveable future for ourselves and our children and rule out any new oil and gas licences. In doing so, it would follow the advice of experts including the Climate Change Committee, which in its latest report was clear:

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”

It acknowledges that while the UK will continue to need some oil and gas until the target is met,

“this does not in itself justify the development of…North Sea fields.”

Yet rather than heeding that warning, just one month later we had the former Secretary of State vowing to max out the North sea’s remaining oil and gas reserves. The Government re-announced 100 new licences and it was not ruling out the prospect of Rosebank.

However hard they try to obfuscate and evade, Ministers cannot deny the fact that, without additional abatement, the projected CO₂ emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure would already exceed the remaining carbon budget for a safe climate. Any oil and gas extracted from the North sea belongs not to us but to multinational companies, which will sell it to the highest bidder on the global market. The majority of fossil fuel projects in the pipeline are for oil, not gas, and will do nothing to boost energy security, given we currently export 80% of the oil that we extract.

Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Bill

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Craig Mackinlay

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay]

Thank you, Dame Rosie, for clarifying that. I think that we will find that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) was being a touch facetious.

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

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Craig Mackinlay]

I had not developed a point, but, please, make an intervention.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way—I am intervening on a previous point on which he was intervened on. Is he aware that the 65% tax that the Government are proposing is still below the global average? The figure in Angola is actually higher at 70%, so there is not any real logic to what he is saying. These oil companies are already operating in places where the tax is higher.

[Craig Mackinlay]

Let me take a couple of those points. The hon. Lady makes the point that tax rates on the oil and gas industry are higher elsewhere in the world. Well, that may be the case. I know that some will be fundamentally opposed to the whole concept of being energy secure in the UK. Gas, in my view, is part of an interim solution as we get on the path to net zero, but it is a fact of life. I do not have an awful lot of time for the output of the Climate Change Committee, but even it is saying very clearly that we will be using gas and oil up to 2050 and probably beyond. My view is that that gas and oil should be sourced in the UK. Hence my support for the nudge part of this legislation, which may encourage businesses to stay here and invest here.

I did not address properly the point from my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid). He makes the point that we have the most fantastic environmental standards not just in oil and gas technology, but in practically everything that we do in the manufacturing space in the UK. There will be very few regimes around this world that have such high standards. On the issue of methane venting, which we have not really addressed, I can be absolutely sure that, with a very robust and advanced regulatory regime, the advanced oil and gas companies of this country will be telling the truth and doing the right thing rather more than may be the case elsewhere, and I think we have to accept that as a fact of life.

[Caroline Lucas]

First, the hon. Member seems to think that just because gas is exploited in the UK, it will get used in the UK, yet he must know that it gets sold on global markets and therefore might get used anywhere. Secondly, he talks about our environmental standards being higher than others. He will know that we get most of our gas from Norway, where, actually, its carbon footprint is significantly less than it is here in the UK. His argument just does not stand up.

[Craig Mackinlay]

I am so delighted that the hon. Lady has expanded this debate. This is not somewhere that I wanted to go, Dame Rosie, but I think it is my duty to respond to the intervention. Surely it is obvious, no matter where on the spectrum on net zero we are—I am obviously on the rather more critical part of that spectrum—that we will be having gas in this country. We have a choice: do we import it halfway across the world on a liquefied natural gas ship, with the CO₂ cost of chilling it, transporting it and regasifying it, or do we try to do that domestically?

[Caroline Lucas]

We sell it on international markets.

[Craig Mackinlay]

If I may, Dame Rosie, I will address the hon. Lady’s questions. On international markets, I do not know any more about economics than this: if we add more capacity to any system, the price should drop. Even if her view of economics holds water and the price does not drop, which I think is the basis of what she is saying, would I prefer the pounds of gas revenue to be at least retained and spent in the UK, or do I want to export those pounds to Qatar? I do not think there is much choice, and the answer is obvious.

I will finish now, Dame Rosie—I am sorry for the time I have taken, but I am grateful for your indulgence. If we take up this type of proposal of penal taxes that can be changed within a month, we will lose in future deferred taxes the opportunity cost of investment. Big companies will say, “Do you know what? The UK is not a place for good investment. I think I will take my money elsewhere.” We may get £5 billion out of this tax as a windfall, but over time, in my view, we will lose more than £5 billion in the lost opportunity of businesses being attracted to the UK.

I have never believed, as has said in the House this afternoon, that the investment plans of the big oil and gas companies will be unaffected by this. I have been having discussions with them. There are already signs that they are scaling back their investment activities to the detriment of UK energy security, and I am afraid this Bill does not help with that all. If there is a Division on Third Reading, I will be voting against the Bill this evening.