Energy Grid Resilience

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

While Great Britain’s energy network is incredibly resilient and robust, there are outages for a whole range of reasons. The system continues to function, as it did entirely, without any concern at all, in the instance he raises. While it is not a regular occurrence, outages do happen in any system, particularly in the energy system across the whole of the UK. I will take away the point about whether there can be more transparency, but I suspect that the answer will be that this is the day-to-day operational running of the electricity system, and it is not something to be alarmed about at all.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement and the measured way in which he has approached the situation. As he and other Members have said, these kinds of blackouts happen, whether systems are dominated by fossil fuels or renewables. I particularly welcome the Minister’s rejection of the approach of some Opposition Members, including the honourable Inspector Clouseau, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), who has already jumped to blaming renewables. Is it not the case that some on the Opposition Benches want to weaponise this situation because of their ideological obsession against clean energy, which will leave my constituents colder and poorer while they enjoy the warm embrace of Vladimir Putin?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend always makes his point in his particular style—perhaps a more political style than I will use from this Dispatch Box, but Inspector Clouseau is a new one that I will certainly add to my list.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The broader point here is that we do not know the causes of the outages, and any sensible Member of this House will, I am sure, await the full response of any investigation that will be carried out by the relevant authorities in this case, rather than just jumping to speculation. As my hon. Friend says, the rush to conclusions betrays the truth of the matter, which is that many hon. Members in this place have an ideological, extreme and damaging opposition to clean energy. That includes Members in the party of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) and other parties, including the Conservatives, who defended this for such a long time and now seem to be working together against it. They want to leave us colder, poorer and in the pocket of Putin. We will not accept that.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourth sitting)

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Michael Shanks]

I will first respond to a few points in the debate generally. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East—across the Clyde from my constituency—made the absolutely right point that sums up what this connections reform process is all about: the absence of reforming the queue is driving away investment. Reform is critical for investment in our generation capacity and for how we connect demand projects that will be so important for unlocking economic growth. With more than 750 gigawatts currently in the queue to connect in the UK, the truth is there is no scope for that to happen without some radical reform of the queue. The Conservative party, when in government, recognised that that was a challenge and had already set about some reforms to make that happen.

We think we need to go even further. The shadow Minister, in a ray of honesty, said he was glad he was not the shadow Energy Minister. Based on the script on net zero, I think we are all fortunate that he is not the shadow Energy Minister, frankly, but it is the same script we are hearing from everyone at the moment.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. Might it not be that the hon. Member for Hamble Valley is embarrassed by his party on net zero? After all, on 17 January he said:

“I will conclude—many will be pleased to hear—by reaffirming the Conservative party’s strong commitment to the UK’s target of reaching net zero by 2050”—[Official Report, 17 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 650.]—

only for that to be scrapped by his leader exactly two months later.

[Michael Shanks]

There is always a quote, as they say, and my hon. Friend is always there with the quotes at his fingertips, which is helpful. The truth is that the only way we are going to bring down bills and deliver energy security is the sprint to clean power. This is a crucial element of that, and of how we unlock investment—predominantly private investment—over the next few years as we build that clean power system. Even if we were not doing that, the grid is essential. It is an essential part of how we deliver electricity to homes, businesses and industry and it is critical that we upgrade it anyway.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting)

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Gideon Amos]

Q Thank you, gentlemen, for the work you are doing. My question is around the balance of community engagement with affected communities. There is a lot of attention on that in the Bill. Could you comment on planning committees themselves? You have observed that they are a particular problem in the national infrastructure regime, as a minor point. More generally, there is a lot of attention and discussion about the pre-application process being one of the lengthiest stages. Do you have any observations on that? Where does the delay really sit in the national infrastructure regime?

Sir John Armitt: I would argue that local planning committees are not really professionally equipped to deal with NSIPs. As I said at the beginning, these are very significant projects. They are likely to be in the interests of a much broader area than that which any single planning committee is going to be taking an opinion from. The planning committee inevitably finishes up looking at things through a local lens, and I would argue that that is not really appropriate for projects of national significance. Clearly, their views can be taken, but one should recognise that local interest when doing so, and that should be set alongside the much broader considerations, recommendations and advice that could sometimes be received from much larger statutory bodies that clearly have a much more national interest.

Robbie Owen: Certainly, I do not see local planning committees as being particularly problematic so far as responding to proposals for national infrastructure projects is concerned. That is a segue into a broader point: improved guidance could be given by Ministers, not just to applicants about how they should go about their pre-application consultation and engagement, but to local authorities and other public bodies about how they should respond to proposals for national infrastructure.

Response performances, if I can put it that way, from local authorities differ markedly across the country. More uniform guidance would be really helpful there. The changes that the Government heralded yesterday in terms of pre-application consultation pave the way for a new set of guidance dealing with the pre-application period, because that is where most of the delay rests at the moment. As the Government said, and I agree with them, yesterday’s changes should really help to about halve the pre-application period, and that would be very welcome.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

Q I thank our witnesses for coming. My question concerns growth and the timeline of the NSIP regime. We know there was a significant deterioration, as the Minister said, between 2012 and 2021, and the time taken to get development consent almost doubled. From 2.6 years in 2012, it rose to 4.2 years. Is there a target timeframe or average we should be getting to that you would like to see? One of the things my constituents will be most focused on is what this will do to growth in the economy. What impact do you think the Bill will have on overall economic growth?

Sir John Armitt: There are two things there: what should the target be, and will the Bill deliver it? I think the target clearly should be to try to get back to what we were handling and seeing back in 2010 to 2012. That was just over a two-year period. These projects are getting more complex and getting a lot larger—there are some very big ones coming down the line in the next 10 years—but if we could get back to that sort of level, clearly that would be welcome. Would the Bill deliver that degree of improvement? Frankly, I would be surprised.

Robbie Owen: We should not forget the role of national policy statements. They became rapidly yellowed at the edges in the late 2010s, which led to a dramatic increase in judicial review of decisions. The Bill does include a number of valuable proposals to improve how national policy statements are kept up to date. It is really important that they are, because they are the basis for decisions that are then taken on individual projects.

As a rule of thumb, we should really, at the very least, be aiming to be getting back to the performance levels in about 2015, which were approximately 12 to 18 months for pre-application and then around 15 to 18 months from application to decision. Obviously, if we could improve on that a little bit, that would be ideal, but if we could get back to that, that would be my rule of thumb.

[The Chair]

I call shadow Minister Simmonds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Taylor]

Q As a follow-up, also at Hams Hall, JLR has a battery assembly plant, and its representatives told me that it could probably power the whole of the industrial estate there, but that there was no chance that it would be able to get a grid connection. Is there an estimate of those sorts of things, which are feasible and possible but have not entered your radar because they have not applied?

Beatrice Filkin: One of the purposes of the queue reform is to make sure that the projects that we need and are ready earliest get earlier access to the network. At the moment, we have a lot of projects in the queue that are at an early stage of development, and are not so critically needed by the strategic plans that we are setting out. Projects such as connections for demand or for factories are already in the queue and are deemed as needed. They will therefore be prioritised for the queue, and we expect their connection dates to improve as a result of the connections reform process.

[Luke Murphy]

Q It was not that long ago that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in a massive income shock because our energy system is not that secure. Building on the Minister’s question earlier, what impact will the Bill have, in terms of expediting connections to the grid, on securing our energy supply in future? Can you also say a bit about what impact it will have on economic growth?

Dhara Vyas: I think that the Bill is going to be crucial. It was as true for the previous Government as it is for this Government that clean energy and investment in clean power is seen as the safest and surest way to ensure the UK’s energy security. There is a programme of work for investing in clean power, but there is absolutely nothing to be gained from all of that net investment unless we can move it around the country. That is why this part of the energy industry is so crucial.

In terms of the impact on bills, the reality is that, at one point, energy bills were four times what they were in 2019. We are now seeing bill debt of £3.8 billion and growing. It is also important to note, generally speaking, that households are under more pressure now than they have been for well over a decade. I think more than half of households who go to Citizens Advice have a negative budget. Households are really feeling the pressure, and the conversation about energy bills has not really been off the front pages for the last four years.

As for being able to expedite the investments in clean power and make sure we are reducing the amount we are spending on curtailment costs, that should mean that in the future, if we experience an energy shock again, we will not spend the £40 billion that was spent in 2022-23 to support people. That is why this is so important.

[Luke Murphy]

Q Very quickly, can you say something about the benefits, in terms of economic growth, of electrifying the economy?

Dhara Vyas: I think it links neatly to the last question around demand. The reality is that we need to decarbonise business in a significant way. Right now, what businesses in this country are paying is among the highest of OECD countries, if not the first or second highest in that group. This is a big part of the discussion with the Department for Business and Trade around the industrial strategy.

Energy and the price of energy is hugely significant to business users, as well as to households. So while we need to be having conversations about linkage with Europe, we also need to be having significant conversations here about how we can speed up demand and connections for demand—and have that conversation for both homes and businesses. More broadly, we also need to be having a conversation about how we support businesses to consider how they can move off their dependence on gas.

[Lewis Cocking]

Q I will follow up with some questions to Ofgem. You said earlier that we are moving from a first come, first served system to one where somebody is going to determine what should take priority and what should come before something else. Who is going to make that determination?

Beatrice Filkin: What has happened to date is that NESO has done some preparatory work assessing options. We have made a decision about how they should go about reordering the queue based on need and readiness —that is the decision we made last week. NESO now needs to implement that decision, which is what they will be doing rapidly over this year to make those choices.

For the reordering of the queue, it will prioritise the projects that were due to connect in the next year or two, first of all, and then the completion of all the projects that are needed for clean power by the beginning of 2026. That is the process. We are not walking away from that. We are regulating NESO, but also working with them on this process. We see this as a very critical enabler of clean power. Working through this year of that process, we will be a partner alongside them. That is also why we very much welcome the provisions in the Bill to provide the legislative security of what they are looking to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Luke Murphy.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

Now that the Conservative party opposes large-scale solar, net zero and onshore wind, I am tempted to ask the Minister what he makes of that party’s new energy policy, which is to take us back to the past, rub two sticks together and hope for the best. Instead, will he update the House on the progress of Great British Energy in delivering our clean energy mission?

Warm Home Discount

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Luke Murphy, a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents, like others across the country, will be concerned about the increase in their energy bills announced today. I therefore welcome the Government’s extension of the warm home discount, as well as the measures to tackle unsustainable debt and push the regulator to do more to support consumers.

I must say that the shadow Minister talks as if his Government left a legacy of low energy prices, when it was his Government who left an appalling legacy of high energy prices. I have stood in both this Chamber and Westminster Hall and heard shadow Ministers attack renewables and electric vehicles—do they not realise that they are attacking the very means of bringing down the cost of energy? Does the Minister agree that our clean energy mission and renewables is the fastest way to ensure we end our dependence on volatile fossil fuels, which also leaves us at the mercy of Vladimir Putin?

Cost of Energy

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western; you were a wonderful shadow Minister, and it is fantastic to see you here today. I praise the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this debate. Hon. Members will rarely hear me heap praise on another political party, but at the risk of sounding as if I am working cross-party, I commend her for her excellent points.

I do not think any of us can argue with some of the points highlighting the exorbitant cost of electricity bills here in the UK, and I find the regressive levies on electricity bills quite shocking. I thought the hon. Member’s innovative and positive policy solutions for reducing the cost of electricity bills were a welcome breath of fresh air; I hope that we can have further debates to bring forward those important points. I am more on the side of scrapping the levy, but I think we could come to a compromise about how to move forward.

Many Liberal Democrat Members brought up the importance of community-owned energy schemes, and I advocate for Marlow community energy. It is important that hon. Members on both sides of the House are advocating for community energy schemes; that theme ran through most hon. Members’ contributions and is an important aspect of energy to take forward.

It was wonderful to hear contributions from the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) about the great Horsham energy scheme and from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) with his expertise in energy. It is always welcome when people bring their professional expertise to the House.

We have also heard about the challenges in the highlands; I am sure that the Minister will be able to give further explanation about the plans and challenges for the highlands. Although they are producing renewable energy, and will probably produce even more, it will be interesting to see what capacity they will have.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the wonderful hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and everything that he contributes to this House—his wonderful contributions and his praise for Members across parties, not only in this debate, but in every single Adjournment debate. We are lucky to have such a wonderful and hard-working Member.

The cost of energy affects every aspect of our economy; few things are more important for our economic success than the cost of energy. It affects the global competitiveness of our industries and therefore the number of jobs and our constituents’ energy bills. The new Labour Government promised to cut energy bills by £300 by 2030—we are still looking forward to that—to create 650,000 jobs from the £8 billion that they are taking off taxpayers for Great British Energy, and to launch the era of clean, cheap, home-grown power. After more than six months in Government, however, it is clear that they will make energy more expensive, with bills going up, not down, and that they risk shutting down swathes of British industry, with jobs lost to more polluting countries. In short, their energy plans will result in lower growth, fewer jobs, higher energy bills and more carbon in the atmosphere.

We are constantly told by Ministers that renewables like wind and sun are the cheapest sources of energy, but that does not take account of the huge hidden costs of increased reliance on renewables. Again, I thank the hon. Member for Bath for bringing the important aspect of renewables to the forefront of the debate. Industry has already warned that trying to quickly produce a record amount of renewable capacity to meet the Government’s 2030 target will push up the price and cost to consumers. The cost also depends on the generating capacity that we need to have in the background to kick in to keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

From what I am hearing, the hon. Member is making an anti-renewables, anti-action on climate change speech. She mentioned that electricity prices are some of the highest in Europe, but her party had been in government for 14 years when the Government inherited those high prices. Could you confirm on the record that you think it is the Conservative party’s position that all levies on bills to support renewables should be scrapped?

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members to refer to each other as “the hon. Member” as opposed to “you”.

[Joy Morrissey]

I welcome the hon. Member’s contribution. It is wonderful to hear his commitment to the climate change emergency. We need to move forward as a country to make sure that our energy costs remain low. We did not commit to a £300 reduction in energy prices, nor did we commit to scrapping the winter fuel payment for pensioners. We went into the election without making those promises. I am simply holding the Government to account right now.

[Luke Murphy]

We are not talking about what was committed to in the manifestos. My question was about what the hon. Member said a few minutes ago, that she is committed to removing all the levies on bills related to renewables. Could she repeat that pledge?

[Joy Morrissey]

The hon. Member makes a wonderful point. Personally, I feel very strongly about this, and the glory of being in opposition is that I can hold the Government to account. I can have also a Backbench Business debate or an Adjournment debate of my choosing about my own passion projects. Not to digress, but if the hon. Member looks at the Water (Special Measures) Bill, he will see my passion project flourishing. I do not want to detract from this wonderful debate, but what I am saying is that we can find a cross-party solution to many of these issues. We want to be positive about the UK and its future.

Rosebank and Jackdaw Oilfields

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is one of the Scottish National party cohort seeking to move to our other Parliament, but the SNP’s position in Holyrood is the same as ours, which is that we must be cognisant of climate change obligations with regard to any new licences. Perhaps he has a different position from his colleagues in Holyrood—I am not sure—but the SNP recognises, rightly, as we do, that the future requires investment in oil and gas for many years to come, to which we are committed, and that investment must match our climate obligations. The transition that is now under way must have Government at its heart, supporting the jobs and industries that come in the future. If the hon. Gentleman supported some of the investment that we propose, such as at Great British Energy in Aberdeen, instead of deriding it at every single turn—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, I have again united all the Members of Parliament from north-east Scotland who oppose investment in their own constituencies. If the hon. Gentleman supported that investment, maybe he would see the jobs of the future coming.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, thousands upon thousands of jobs were lost in the North sea, energy bills hit record highs and the Government put Britain’s energy security in the hands of Vladimir Putin. Having made a patently unlawful decision on Rosebank, the Conservatives are lecturing us on energy policy. The truth is that our clean energy mission will deliver the jobs and economic growth of the future, our commitment to climate action and lower bills. The Conservative party is stuck in the past. Will the Minister remain focused on the future and deliver our clean energy mission, which will deliver the economic and environmental benefits the public want to see?

[Michael Shanks]

As my hon. Friend says, the long-term future of our energy security in this country is not in oil and gas, as important a part as it will continue to play for many years to come. The clean power mission that we are driving forward at pace is about building home-grown renewable power that will deliver energy security in the long term, although oil and gas will continue to play an important part for many years to come, not just in our energy mix but in our country’s wider economic system. We will support the jobs and industries in north-east Scotland to ensure that transition is fair and prosperous for all.

Biomass Generation

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, although I would gently point out that the shadow Minister and I agree on a lot more than he likes to pretend—or I like to pretend, perhaps. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we are aware of the importance of the jobs at this particular power station and in the supply chain, and we will be working with Drax on what that looks like. We are of course changing the role that Drax will use the power station in Selby for, and I will ensure that I have those conversations about the supply chain. I would be happy to speak to him more about that in due course.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

The Minister should be commended for ending the terrible deal negotiated by the previous Conservative Government, which led to higher bills, excess profits and poor sustainability standards, but it is worth saying again that there seems to be no end to the Conservatives’ rank hypocrisy on energy policy. In government, the then Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), signed off planning consent for the Drax carbon capture project, saying that

“the public benefits…outweigh the harm.”

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), has now come to the Dispatch Box to decry the costs, while the right hon. Member for East Surrey also opposes Drax. Has the Minister considered capturing the burning hypocrisy of Conservative Members, because it seems to be a truly inexhaustible resource?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend makes the point for me. He forgets, of course, that the Conservatives are under new management, so it is all fine—we just forget everything that happened in the last 14 years and move on. Of course, we have had to pick up the pieces from the last 14 years, and while the Conservatives will not take responsibility for those decisions, we have grasped the challenges and are moving forward as quickly as possible.

The truth is that not only did we inherit an energy system without the long-term planning it should have, but Drax did not have a deal that was good for the climate, good for energy security or good for the hard-working people of this country, who paid year after year for the subsidies that the previous Government negotiated. We have halved the subsidy every year, putting money back into people’s pockets and, of course, making sure that any excess profits come back to the Exchequer.

Gas Storage Levels

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

That is the kind of extremist scaremongering that we have come to expect from the shadow Secretary of State on Twitter, but we are now hearing it in the House. It is thoroughly irresponsible to use such language. In my answer, I read the very clear view of the National Energy System Operator, which runs the system and is the expert. I repeat it for the benefit of the House:

“At no point were electricity supplies less than anticipated demand and our engineers were able to rebalance the system without the need to consider emergency measures.”

The shadow Minister and Back-Bench MPs can repeat the phrasing around blackouts all they like, but at no point was that a concern. The reality is that while the Conservatives are happy to throw around such phrases without any evidence, we are building the resilient system of the future, and we will get on with doing that.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

In government, the Conservatives saw the closure of Rough and reduced gas storage. In opposition, they oppose our proposals for clean power, and would see this country more reliant on volatile gas markets and higher energy prices. Is it not the truth that the Conservatives want us more reliant on gas, with higher bills and more likelihood of blackouts, because they oppose our plans for clean power and tackling runaway and accelerating climate change?

[Michael Shanks]

The decision on whether to run gas storage sites is a commercial one for Centrica. The storage site at Rough was closed between 2017 and 2022—hon. Members may remember that that was when the “beast from the east” was attacking the country. The previous Government will have to answer for the decisions that they made on that. We are making it clear that the only way to build the energy system that we need in the long term is the clean power action plan. The Conservatives used to support much of that but, increasingly, they have decided to walk away from it. They will either keep us attached to the volatile fossil fuel markets, with all the price spikes that our constituents continue to pay the price of, or they will have to come up with an alternative plan. We are getting on with doing the work.

Electricity Grid Upgrades

Luke Murphy Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes]

With the insight for which he is known, my hon. Friend has anticipated two of the points that I was going to make. The problem with pylons being so close to SSSIs is that the birds do not know boundaries. Of course, the salt marsh in Lincolnshire matters because, exactly as my hon. Friend said, it is important as a site for geese and duck in particular. To run the pylons so close to that is at best highly contentious and at worse wholly destructive. The offshore grid that my hon. Friend describes can be run further out to sea, which is what we do with cables routinely. If we were able to see the ocean bed around our islands, we would see any number of trunked cables that run through them, which provide vital power and communications infrastructure.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

There is an interesting discussion about the balance of trade-offs. One of the other considerations is cost, and the cost of undergrounding is multiple times the amount of overhead pylons. The previous Government were not able to demonstrate that they could do it at the same cost, so how does the right hon. Gentleman balance that factor? Does he not think that his constituents, and constituents throughout the country, might consider the loading of those costs on to them unacceptable?

[Sir John Hayes]

There is a big argument to be had about costs because we are planning a project that will last decades—perhaps even longer. When I was the Energy Minister, I was very conscious of the fact that we might be making 100-year decisions. It is very hard to gauge costs over time because of two things. First, there are the ongoing maintenance costs associated with any line that runs above ground, and given the changing climate, it is likely that extreme weather events will become more frequent, and extreme weather events will have an effect on anything above ground. Secondly, the relative costs of underground and overhead cables vary according to the kind of cable laid, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said; and indeed some of the evidence from other places in Europe and elsewhere suggests that the cost of trunking cables underground is falling, whereas there is no similar reduction in the cost of overhead cables, which, on pylons, have been at the same cost for a very long time indeed.

The final point is about consent. The longer these things take, the more they cost. Certainly in Lincolnshire—and I imagine this is true in Essex, Suffolk and other places—there will be protracted legal challenges to the pylons, whereas, with local support and the support of local authorities like Lincolnshire county council, undergrounding would be a much more straightforward affair. Factoring in those costs is complex, but it needs to happen.