Energy

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected amendment (b), in the name of the Prime Minister. I call the shadow Secretary of State to move the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

I will make a bit more progress, because other Members want to get in.

We heard a lot this morning about the different factions jostling to replace the Prime Minister, but I have an idea that they can all get behind. I say to the Blue Labour faction, “If you want to protect industry, you need cheaper electricity, so back our cheap power plan.” I say to the Blairites, “If you want to make the most of AI, you need cheaper electricity, so back our cheap power plan.” I say to the soft left, “If you care about lifting people out of poverty and improving living standards, then back our cheap power plan.”

Our plan will not just help 6 million households by jacking up the bills for 22 million, which is what the Government are doing—it is what the Minister will no doubt boast about when he talks about the warm home discount. Instead, it will cut electricity bills by 20% for everyone. Government Members should think about this: at the last energy price cap, the reason bills went up was not gas—Ofgem was very clear about that—but because of the political choices of this Secretary of State. He keeps making them defend the indefensible.

Speaking of the Secretary of State, where is he? Thousands of Aberdonians are losing their jobs—where is the Secretary of State? We are being locked into higher bills for two decades—where is the Secretary of State? We are missing out on an AI future—where is the Secretary of State? Since July he has bothered to come to the House to explain himself just once. He is a walking, talking cost of living crisis, and his mistakes will be with us for decades. If I have read the news correctly, he is apparently tucked away somewhere plotting his leadership bid. But let us be honest, the country was asked that question and it was very clear what it thought about the prospect of Prime Minister Miliband. He should stop plotting and start cutting people’s bills.

The final question I would ask Labour Members is this: are they not fed up? Are they not fed up of defending these policies that keep turning to dust as soon as they meet reality, of telling their constituents they will cut their bills when instead bills keep rising, and of being political mushrooms left in the dark and fed a pile of manure? We were all mushrooms once, Madam Deputy Speaker.

If this is going to be the one and only Parliament the Labour Members have, they should at least use it to do something worthwhile. They must stand up to the Secretary of State and stop him from locking their constituents into higher prices for longer. Put cheap energy first and vote for our motion tonight to back 200,000 jobs in the North sea, get back to growth and cut all our constituents’ electricity bills by 20%.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

For the record, I have never been a fungi.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin McCluskey]

The Conservatives are turning their back on the policy they followed for 14 years, which the shadow Secretary of State supported for years.

Bills did not rise because we built too many solar farms or wind turbines. As the Conservatives’ motion helpfully points out, we are still dependent on oil and gas for three quarters of our energy. Bills rose precisely because they did not build enough clean, home-grown energy. They were not ambitious enough. They buried their heads in the sand and accepted the status quo.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Before Matt Rodda makes his intervention, I want to be clear that the language we use also means that we do not accuse each other of falsehoods.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

I commend the Minister for his speech; I hope my words will reflect the seriousness of the issue in front of us.

Does the Minister agree that, sadly, the last Government fell woefully short on building new solar in particular? I think the statistics are very much along the lines of more solar being approved in the first few weeks of the new Labour Government than was approved in the whole term of the last Conservative Government. Will the Minister update me on those figures and provide a little more light and less heat in this debate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin McCluskey]

The other solution is that we get off gas—that we move away from gas on to clean power. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that the warm home discount, which is giving support to one in six households across the country this winter, is providing £150 of support—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) dismisses that, but it is essential support for families and the most vulnerable people in our country who need it.

We must not lose sight of the fact that clean energy is the economic opportunity of this century. Since July 2024, the confidence instilled by our clean energy mission has seen £50 billion of private investment announced for clean energy, creating jobs, strengthening supply chains and rejuvenating industrial communities across the country. Our carbon capture clusters will support over 35,000 highly skilled jobs in Merseyside, Teesside, the Humber and Aberdeenshire, including 1,000 apprenticeships. Sizewell C will support 10,000 jobs at peak construction. Our small modular reactor programme, for which Rolls-Royce is the preferred bidder, will support 3,000 jobs in Northern Ireland, and £100 million has gone to Belfast harbour to support two new major wind farms in the Irish sea, creating more than 300 jobs. In East Anglia, future offshore wind projects are supporting another 100 jobs. In Carrington in Greater Manchester—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The Minister will be aware that many people hope to contribute, so I hope he will come to a conclusion shortly.

[Martin McCluskey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. With that in mind, I might not take further interventions from hon. Members.

In Carrington in Greater Manchester, there will be 200 jobs in the region—I could go on. All those jobs are what the Conservatives are turning their backs on—the new clean jobs of the future.

While we sprint towards our clean energy goals, we are also doing everything we can to protect those who have borne the brunt of this crisis. As I said, the warm home discount is providing support to an extra 3 million households this winter. We are working with Ofgem to relieve the burden of energy debt that many consumers face. To support British industry, from next year 500 of our most energy-intensive businesses will get a cut to their bills, with thousands more firms getting discounts in 2027.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Before I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, to ensure that most people can get in, Back Benchers will be on a four-minute speaking limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a spirited speech that gets to the heart of what we are all trying to address. There are fiscal levers that we can pull to ensure that we bring down bills. Does he share my sense of disbelief about the irony in the Conservatives’ earlier motion suggesting that there should be no further tax rises of any kind while they are simultaneously willing to propose a set of multibillion-pound measures to scrap all those levies?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Back-Bench speeches are already limited to four minutes. If interventions are long, the limit will drop further. Please be mindful of that.

[Tim Farron]

I will limit the number of interventions that I take, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Conservative party had a record of being, or at least presented itself as, the party of sound money. This appears to be a decision to move away from that and instead to chase after our permanently absent colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Anderson]

The hon. Member raises a very interesting point. China looked at this issue 30 years ago; when I went over to Australia about five years ago, the Australians were looking at it, and the US was looking at it, too. Every country outside of China has left this way too late. Putting in place a critical minerals strategy now is way too late, but we still need one in place. We need to look at this issue. All the magnets that we use in this country, including for MRI scans, require rare earth metals. That strategy should be in place today. We got that wrong—I am happy to admit that we did not get our rare earth metals strategy right—and it is costing us. Everybody is waking up to the need for that strategy, but we cannot say, “Let’s just pull those metals in from China; we are very happy for them to offset our carbon emissions over there.”

I also want to look at energy from a defence perspective. We need energy to ensure that we have strong defence. Recently, the Government committed to the NATO standard, which is to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence and 1.5% of GDP on defence-related areas. We should focus on article 3 of NATO—internal defence—and that 1.5% of defence-related spending should be focused on a couple of things, namely energy security and food security. I am a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and discussions are ongoing about how that money should be used. If our tanks do not have any fuel to get where they need to go, they cannot fight; that is before we even look at ammunition and things like that. Rather than saying, “We have to go faster on renewables,” we should be having the bigger discussion about national resilience and energy security. The world is the most unstable it has been since the second world war. We need something in place now, and we need to move to what is sustainable. Defence is key to that.

I have mentioned food security. Outside of Much Wenlock in my constituency, which has just been voted the happiest place to live in Shropshire—it is a lovely place to live—there are 600 acres of prime agricultural land that can grow food, and a beautiful view that is one of the best in the country. There is an application to replace it with 600 acres of solar panels. I have not found one person in the constituency who wants to turn that land into a site for solar energy; it is only the landowner who wants to. If we put solar panels all over it, as part of the roll-out of solar at speed—the Minister has mentioned that the Government are going quicker—we will be doing so with no regard for local people and what they want for their communities. This is really detrimental; the discussion about net zero is getting killed because local communities are being overridden.

I have talked about the speed of solar, and about defence and food security, but we also need to look at homes that are off the grid. In South Shropshire, only 42% of homes are on gas mains; many are off the grid. I think the average across the country is about 73%. Some of the Government’s plans that the Minister has set out are not working for a lot of off-grid communities. There are a lot of old homes in South Shropshire, many of them built pre-1945, that are too expensive to retrofit.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order.

[Stuart Anderson]

I will conclude with that. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Sandher]

The gasfields that the hon. Lady is talking about are geologically unstable, and it is not even clear whether we can get them out. Only 20% of the reserves of the gasfields that we knew of in 1997 are left—and when we get to 2050, what will we do then? That is precisely why this Government are investing in clean, home-grown energy that is cheaper and more secure for the future, and we know that is the case because the Conservatives used to believe it too. You used to believe in net zero. You used to believe in the Climate Change Act. Look at how much you have changed. It is a deep shame.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I have not changed; I am still here.

[Dr Sandher]

I do apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Our plan, which used to be shared across the House, is precisely to invest in cleaner, cheaper energy for all, because we know that wind and solar are 60% cheaper than natural gas. We know that because, after the capital costs, wind and solar are free. As for the network costs, we need to balance them in any case, and renew our grid. That too was an approach that we shared across the House, and it is a shame to see where we are.

Beyond investing in clean energy, which is cheaper, we are also investing in home insulation so that people use less energy at home and bills are lower for families, and they do have faith in us in this place. On top of that, we are redistributing the costs through the warm home discount and the standing charge. I am so glad that the living standards coalition put that forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aphra Brandreth]

I will continue because of time.

For those who doubt this, let me set out the cost of the Secretary of State’s policies, with statistics sourced from his own Department. The UK now faces the world’s second-highest domestic electricity prices: four times higher than those in the US, with 12.1 million households struggling to pay bills and 43% spending over 10% of their income on energy. At a time when energy security is crucial, the Government are closing our North sea oil and gas sector—an illogical move that in reality will cost us jobs and billions in lost economic value, all while not actually delivering the environmental benefit that many people understandably want to see. Shutting down domestic production does not reduce demand. It just means importing more from abroad, often with a far higher carbon footprint. Why do this Government persist with an ideologically driven approach when even the chair of Great British Energy and the Scottish renewables sector have both called for continued drilling in the North sea?

The Conservatives have set out a clear and credible plan for cheaper energy. Of course I want a clean and healthy environment for this generation and future generations, but we also need to recognise the wider context. If we make wise and prudent decisions today to support our economy, and if we utilise the resources we have and encourage investment and growth, we will have a springboard to pursue a greener future.

My concern is that we are making decisions influenced by the Climate Change Act. By only counting domestic emissions, one could, for example, close industries in the UK and shift production overseas, resulting in lost jobs, revenue and growth. Yes, it would meet the requirements of the Act, but all the while resulting in increasing global emissions.

Good intentions are not matching the reality for families or for the environment. I support our plan to cancel the carbon tax on electricity generation, saving every household £75 a year, and to end outdated renewable subsidies, saving families a further £90 annually. Labour promised a £300 reduction in bills, but bills have risen by £200. That is the price of putting ideology over delivery and pragmatism. I urge Members to back the Opposition motion and back our cheap power plan.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Martin Wrigley has agreed to do three short minutes before we go to the Front Benchers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston (Droitwich and Evesham) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier today we had an urgent question on the process for appointing the Independent Football Regulator. In her response, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was unable to give crystal clear answers about the involvement of the Prime Minister in that process. This evening we learned from No. 10 that the Prime Minister did sign off on the appointment of David Kogan, who donated to the Prime Minister’s campaign—an involvement that the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser has called regrettable. Can you advise if the Prime Minister will make a statement? What alternative mechanisms are there for him to inform the House and update the record?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving me notice of that point of order. I have not received any notice of a statement on this matter, but the Treasury Front Benchers will have heard what he has said and will no doubt share that information. Other parliamentary mechanisms are available for pursuing such matters. I am sure that the Table Office will be able to assist the hon. Member, if he needs further advice.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I hope it is not a continuation of that point of order, because I have made my statement clearly.

[Graham Stuart]

The Prime Minister is of course responsible for the enforcement of the ministerial code. If he has breached it, as appears to be the case, is there a role here for Mr Speaker? What other methods are there, not just for securing a debate on the matter in this place, but for the Prime Minister to be held to account for not doing what he is supposed to have done, and what his ethics adviser said he should have done?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The right hon. Member is incredibly experienced, and will no doubt know that the ministerial code is not a matter for the Chair. He will obviously pursue all avenues available to those in the House—there are many—to continue this conversation.