Energy Security

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and can I take the opportunity to welcome him to his new role? We support new nuclear, and I welcome the announcement on Sizewell. The Climate Change Committee tells us that nuclear should play a role as part of the balanced pathway to net zero. In his reply, could he tell us the timetable for Sizewell’s final investment decision and when we expect it to be up and running? I also welcome the return of the delayed Energy Bill, which should never have been paused by the Government.

As for the rest of the statement, I am bound to ask: is that it? Alongside nuclear, we need a sprint for cheap, clean, home-grown renewables, and I have to say to the Secretary of State that, given the chaos, confusion and embarrassment of the Government on onshore wind, I find it extraordinary that he did not clear that up in the House today. Let me remind the House of some facts. The ban on onshore wind in England that they put in place in 2015 has raised bills for every family in this country by £150 each, and keeping the ban in place up to 2030 would mean customers paying £16 billion more on bills compared with a target of doubling onshore wind. Let us be clear: opposing onshore wind waves the white flag on our energy security and raises bills for families.

The only reason we are debating this issue is not that the public do not support onshore wind—they do, by 78%, according to the Department’s own polling—but that dinosaurs on the Government Benches oppose clean energy, and David Cameron and every leader since has indulged them. The problem is that the Secretary of State, who prides himself on being a truly modern man, is part of the fossilised tendency. He was part of the lobbying effort against lifting the ban in April. He said onshore wind was an “eyesore” and created “problems of noise”, and he urged the then Prime Minister to “largely” reject it. I may have had some issues with his predecessor, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), but the Secretary of State’s position is making the Victorian of the Tory party look positively on trend, because the right hon. Member for North East Somerset after all called for the consenting regime for onshore wind to be brought into line with other infrastructure. Can the Secretary of State clear up once and for all what his position is on onshore wind? Will he now act in the national interest, properly end the ban and finally bring the consenting regime in line with other infrastructure?

On solar, it is the same problem. The Prime Minister spent the summer saying he wanted to block solar, echoed by the Environment Secretary in the last couple of weeks. Blocking solar risks preventing the equivalent of 10 nuclear power stations-worth of power being built, so will the Secretary of State rule out the plans of the previous Environment Secretary to further block solar power on land?

On energy efficiency, frankly this Government should be ashamed of their record, with the green deal fiasco, the green homes grant fiasco and energy efficiency installations running 20 times lower than under the previous Labour Government. Can the Secretary of State tell us from his announcement, which I am afraid contains no new resources, in what year the 19 million cold, draughty homes below energy performance certificate band C would be brought up to that level of decency under his plan? We would do it in a decade. Can he confirm that, at the current rates of installation, under this Government it would not happen till the next century?

We have seen five Energy Secretaries since 2019. To overcome the bills crisis we face and to tackle the climate crisis, we need ambition, consistency and going all in on the green energy sprint. I am afraid we have not had these things from this Government. All we have had is inconsistency, dithering and a Government looking over their shoulder at their own Back Benchers. The Secretary of State has a lot of work to do to convince the country that that is going to change, and if he does not, it means that this Government will land us with higher bills and more energy insecurity, and will fail to take the leadership we need in tackling the climate crisis.

[Grant Shapps]

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber earlier for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy questions, but I did point to a quote from him back in 2010, when he said it was “pie in the sky” that the then new Conservative Government would get to 40% renewables by 2020. What happened? By 2020 we had got to 43.1% renewables. That is our record of delivery when it comes to renewables, so I do not think we need to take too many lectures from the Labour party, or from the party that five minutes ago did not support new nuclear power. It failed to commission any of it during its time in office—13 years, was it?—but now that we are getting on with it, all of a sudden it seems to have swapped sides.

On wind power, both offshore and onshore, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman recognises the fact that the strike prices in the contracts for difference are now lower for any version of power production at all when it comes to offshore wind. These turbines are now so large that they cannot even be constructed onshore. They are so big that the turbines cannot be carried by road; they have to put offshore.

[Edward Miliband]

How big are they?