Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris McDonald]

I share the hon. Member’s affection for Dounreay—I have family based in Reay and Thurso and have enjoyed many a holiday on the north coast of Scotland. As he said, it has a talented and experienced nuclear workforce, and I very much hope that they will play a part in Britain’s nuclear future.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to support communities in Scotland with the cost of energy bills.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)]

The Government know that energy bills in Scotland remain too high. That is why we are fighting the consumer’s corner. The action we took at the Budget will ensure that from April the price cap will fall by 7%, or £117, which is fixed until the end of June. That is in addition to support offered to vulnerable heating oil customers in Scotland and the expansion of the warm home discount, which means £92 million in annual funding for Scottish consumers.

[Stephen Gethins]

Scotland is one of the most energy-rich countries in Europe, and the Treasury and the UK Government have benefited to the tune of hundreds of billions as revenues have flowed in over the years, yet bill payers in Scotland pay among the highest prices in Europe. Labour promised that bills would be hundreds of pounds lower than they are now, yet two years in they follow the failure of successive Westminster Governments in terms of resilience and bills. Would Scotland not be better off looking after its own energy resource?

[Martin McCluskey]

Bills are going down by 7% from next week. We do not need to imagine a future with independence and what would happen with the SNP in power. Let us look at the record. The hon. Member’s party promised a publicly owned energy company six years ago; we delivered Great British Energy within 18 months. His party scrapped fuel poverty targets; we are lifting 1 million households out of fuel poverty by the end of this Parliament. While his party in government in Scotland abandoned the heat in buildings Bill, this Government are making the biggest ever upgrade to home efficiency through the warm homes plan, with £15 billion of spending.

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[The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)]

I congratulate all those in my hon. Friend’s constituency on what sounds like a fantastic project, and it is an example of what we want to see all across the country. The local power plan unlocks £1 billion of investment, with the ambition that communities right across the UK should be able to own and operate their own energy infrastructure, and the profits from that should flow into local communities.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

T5. Mr Speaker, the energy bills crisis is happening right now, but you might not know that from Ministers’ responses today. The Scottish Government’s actions have helped to deliver clean, green, renewable energy as a net exporter, bailing out the UK Government in terms of heating oil as well. Will they work together, and will they respond positively to the First Minister’s call for a four nations summit?

[Michael Shanks]

We do work very well together, actually, contrary to what it might appear from the hon. Member’s contribution. He suggests, quite wrongly—twice now—that Scotland is generating all this electricity by itself. Of course, those projects are funded by bill payers across the UK investing in that infrastructure. His plan seems to be to take a third off energy bills with independence, with absolutely no credibility whatsoever.