Gas-fired Power Stations

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

It is rather odd to be asked about the ability to scrutinise this, when yesterday was the launch of a consultation that will go on for some time and, as the hon. Lady knows, I was in front of the Select Committee yesterday. It is rather strange that she should highlight that point.

The hon. Lady is confused, as she often is, because she is so political. She would appear to set politics always ahead of climate. She struggles to recognise that that United Nations framework convention on climate change rules are about territorial emissions—countries own the emissions in the territory where they take place. Her numbers on embedded emissions are wrong, but she does not care about that; she just carries on with a political diatribe against the Government, who have done more than any other in any major economy on this Earth to decarbonise their economy. And we have done it not as the hon. Lady would have us do it—by being reduced to living in yurts—but while growing the economy by 82%. It is people like the hon. Lady who make people on my side of the Chamber at times think that we are perhaps engaged in some form of madness; we are not, but she doesn’t half make it sound like we are.

Can these new gas plants be consistent with the Government’s commitment to decarbonise the power sector by 2035? Our published net zero scenarios for the power sector—I invite the hon. Lady to read them—show that building new gas capacity is consistent with decarbonising electricity by 2035. From those scenarios we expect that, even with new gas capacity, rather than the 38% of electricity generation which in 2022 came from gas, that figure will be down to 1% by 2035—or, if we follow the scenario set out by the Climate Change Committee, perhaps 2%. We are going to have that as a back-up. It is sensible insurance; it is about keeping the lights on while we carry on the remarkable transformation this Government have achieved in moving from the appalling legacy of the Labour party of less than 7% of electricity coming from renewables to nearly 50% today.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The announcement on gas-fired power stations is extremely welcome, but at the moment a kilowatt-hour of electricity in the UK costs 44 cents, against 17 cents in the US and 8 cents in both China and India. We have become fundamentally uncompetitive because of this green obsession. We want cheap electricity and we should have gas and we should have coal, and we should postpone net zero indefinitely because we are only 1% of global emissions. We are making no difference, and the US economy is growing consistently faster than ours because of cheap energy. This is a good first step against the net zero obsession. We need to go further.

[Graham Stuart]

I would chide my right hon. Friend with the science and evidence that are emerging all the time. There is a climate challenge and emergency, which is why we are looking to reduce our emissions. He is quite right to challenge that by saying, “We are less than 1% of global emissions, so how does this make sense?” That is why we hosted COP26 and got the rest of the world to commit to following us. We are bringing in the carbon border adjustment mechanism from 2027 precisely to ensure that we create an economically rational system that supports jobs in this country, while meeting the climate challenge that needs to be met.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

Thank you for calling me in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. It has not been all jolly hockey sticks, despite the fact that this Bill has taken up quite a considerable amount of the House’s time over the last number of years and Sessions.

Northern Ireland has more than 60%, maybe approaching 70%, of its houses heated by solid fuel. As a representative of a constituency with a vast rural section that relies on coal and heating oil, I cannot put my name to something that will say to my constituents, “I don’t know what this is going to cost you, but this decision will actually inflict a higher cost on you when there is a suitable and available product there that you can use to heat your home or to drive your car.” That presses heavily on me, and it has pressed heavily, I notice, on some other Members across the House, because there are significant cost implications in going down the proposed route.

Northern Ireland is not behind in making change. It is actually front and centre in the hydrogen revolution. It has been making hydrogen products and will be part of the hydrogen hub and the most significant hydrogen manufacturer in the entire island of Ireland. I listened carefully to the points made from the Government Front Bench about the hydro levy, and it will be interesting to see how that follows through.

I was delighted by the comments made by the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). I know he was not trying to hang anyone out to dry today, but it was important that we got from the Minister a clear indication of what is happening, not just in Northern Ireland, with regard to liquid renewables. It is important that the Government must support a variety of heating technologies to give the UK the best chance of hitting the 2050 carbon reduction target, if that is what they wish to do. They must reflect the diverse types of houses that people live in across the entirety of the United Kingdom and do something that is fundamentally fair to people. We cannot inflict this massive cost on people when we have an overreliance on solid fuels, especially in a country such as mine.

We heard some comments from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) on the issue of battery disposal. It concerns me considerably that whenever a battery car has finished its life cycle, the battery largely ends up in landfill. What benefit is that, when there are other technologies out there being explored, utilised and developed that could give us a much better and more user-friendly experience?

A ban on new replacement fossil fuel appliances in homes from 2026 will put a substantial cost on people. I also agree thoroughly with the points made about the disruption to many people and about heat pumps. This Bill needs to have even more thought given to it.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

In my point of order earlier I said that this was a 328-page Bill. That was what it was when it came from the House of Lords; it is now a 427-page Bill, which we are expected to debate in detail in three hours, on a day when we had two relatively lightweight statements. That really seems to me not the proper way to have scrutiny in this House. It does not allow this House to do its proper job of looking at the detail of legislation—it is as if we had abdicated it entirely to their lordships.

I have supported my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) in a number of amendments, every single one of which has basically the same aim: to ameliorate the burden this Bill will place on all our constituents. Throughout the Bill, we are creating cost, regulation, penalties and obligations. New clause 42 is there to say that the lowest possible cost should be at the forefront of the mind of the Government in everything that they do, irrespective of how the energy is generated. If that means fossil fuels, let it be fossil fuels. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said, we need to keep people with us, and we risk losing them if we put undue burdens on them.