Oil Refining Sector

Debate between Lee Anderson and Matt Western

Thursday 11th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Lee Anderson]

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, he is more than welcome.

What the Government did not realise at the time is that when they got rid of a coalmine—each coalmine had a football team, a rugby team, a cricket team, a community club, a miners’ welfare, a brass band and a bandstand in the local welfare grounds—it destroyed whole communities, and those communities will never come back. They will never be the same again.

Fast forward 40-odd years and we have a Labour Chancellor and Government, who we would think would protect these industries. Look at the hypocrisy in that part of the world. We have Drax power station, which used to burn coal from a nearby coalmine, just a few miles down the road. I think that was shut about 10 years ago. I remember the Energy Secretary at the time was campaigning to keep it open. How things have changed! The power station now burns wooden pellets from trees chopped down in North America—in Canada. They chop the trees down and put them on diesel-guzzling cargo ships. They then chop them up into pellets using diesel-guzzling machinery on the ship. They then come to this country, are put on diesel-guzzling cargo trains and transported to Drax power station, where we set fire to them. And we say that is renewable energy. That costs the British taxpayer about £1 million a day in subsidies. I think it has cost about £10 billion so far since we have been using wooden pellets there.

Just a few miles down the road we have the perfectly good Lindsey oil refinery, which appears to be doomed, with 400 jobs at risk and a thousand more in the supply chain. If the Government are going to use taxpayers’ money to subsidise industry or keep places open, they should look at the oil refineries, because once they have gone, they are never coming back, and we have lost the community and that sense of pride.

There are not many Government Members here, to be honest—I cannot see many—although I will thank the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) for his passionate contribution. I did not catch most of it because I am a little bit deaf; I will sit a bit closer next time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seamus Logan]

I hear what the hon. Member says about oil refineries, and I share many of his concerns—you will have heard what I said—but I have also heard him and his party colleagues talking about “net stupid zero”. Does he actually believe that we should cancel all the wind farm projects and all the grid infrastructure rebuilding? Is that what he firmly believes we should do?

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that when they say “you” they are speaking to me.

[Lee Anderson]

I have heard colleagues talk about “net stupid zero” in the past. We think the targets should be scrapped; we are not against trying different sources of energy to fuel our nation. We are saying we should have a sensible transition. China has got it right: it is burning coal. China is opening coal mines and using coal-fired power stations. The irony is that China makes solar panels and windmills using electricity generated by coal-fired power stations, and then flogs them to us. We think, “That’s great! Look at this: we’re reducing the Earth’s carbon.” We are not reducing the Earth’s carbon; we are just exporting it to other countries. It is absolute madness and hypocrisy. When we are committing this nonsense, it costs our Treasury billions of pounds in receipts a year. It is absolute nonsense. When some of my hon. Friends say “net stupid zero”, that is what they are referring to. And it is stupid—it is absolute madness.

I am going to finish now, because I have had an extra minute and I know other people want to speak. I have been one of those working men who gets up in the morning at 5 o’clock and goes and does a dirty, horrible, dangerous job. I know what it is like to come home, after doing a horrible shift on a horrible job. I know what the people in these communities feel like. They do it because they love their family and their community, so they go and do some jobs that nobody in this room would ever do. This Labour Government should remind themselves what the Labour party was founded on: helping the working man in this country.