Andrew Bowie MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on bringing this private Member’s Bill before the House today. The Conservative and Unionist party has a record of which we should be incredibly proud when it comes to protecting our environment. We were the first major economy to halve our carbon emissions. We stopped the burning of coal for electricity. We built the first, second, third, fourth and fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world, which are generating power for the United Kingdom right now. And we introduced the world-leading contracts for difference process, blending the Conservative principles of competition and enterprise. As referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)—and he is a friend—Margaret Thatcher, who became the leader of our party 50 years ago next month, was famously the first world leader to raise the issue of climate change on the global stage. She warned the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 of the “insidious danger” that climate change posed through “the prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to earth itself.” I know that right hon. and hon. Members across the House will agree that, as in almost every other case, she was absolutely right. We have seen extreme weather patterns across the globe, indicating the severity of the challenge facing the world in the 21st century. Alongside our global partners, we must embrace technology, build new nuclear, reduce waste and enhance efficiency to bring down bills for households, consumers and industry in a way that allows us to protect nature, conserve our landscapes and leave the climate in a better state for generations to come.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but how do we get away from the problem of double accounting for those emissions? If, for example, India is counting them as part of its global emissions and we start to count them too, in addition to what we are doing within our borders, how will we ever get an accurate picture of emissions across the globe? If we were to take into consideration the global effect of our consumption emissions and the carbon footprint of what we import, the British people would soon realise that there is no way to decarbonise consumption as rapidly as possible, as the Bill seeks, without a huge economic challenge, and that is not recognised in the Bill. That brings me to the next aspect of the Bill: the requirement—not just the ambition—that the UK ends “the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels…as rapidly as possible.” I am sorry to say that that is not a serious proposal. Even the Climate Change Committee has said that oil and gas will remain a crucial part of our energy mix for decades to come—something that the Secretary of State and his Ministers have accepted. As we have been saying, turning off the taps in the North sea will result only in higher imports—something the Labour Government seemingly accept. But even worse, the Bill would require us not only to completely end domestic exploration and production, but to end the import of fossil fuels. Just this week, on Wednesday, gas power stations provided 65% of the UK’s electricity. Just 2% came from wind power and 1% came from solar. If the Bill is successful and we end not just the extraction but the import of all fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, MPs who are backing it will have to explain how we keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I will make progress, because I know more Members wish to speak. When the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, we simply do not have the technology available—we do not have enough clean power from batteries or long-duration electricity storage—to meet demand. That speaks to the major contradiction in the Bill: it talks about protecting the British countryside from development, but it would require an incredible roll-out—at pace and scale unprecedented—of renewable technologies, pylons, substations and battery storage facilities.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member is drawing me into setting out what a great record the previous Conservative Government had on investment in new technologies. I would love to believe that Great British Energy will make a positive difference to the direction this country takes on investing in technologies, creating new jobs and driving the transition, but we have seen no evidence that that will actually be the case. Indeed, every time we ask the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero what it expects GB Energy to do, it singularly fails to come up with a response. Far from GB Energy being welcomed in Aberdeen and the north-east of Scotland, it is that part of the country that is being decimated more than any other by her party’s position on oil and gas and our industry in the North sea.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  My problem is that the Government’s position on oil and gas, and their position on the support of our domestic industry in the UK, is having a detrimental impact. The advancements and the technologies that the hon. Member speaks about are being developed by the very companies involved in that extraction in the North sea right now. Of course, everybody believes we need to invest in transition, and many say that we should be speeding that transition up. The accelerated decline of the North sea basin will see a lot of that skilled workforce and investment leave the United Kingdom and go overseas. That is something I am incredibly worried about. I have much to say on the Conservatives’ record on the environment: we had the Environment Act 2021, the 25-year environmental strategy, the creation of new national parks, 34 new landscape recovery projects and 13 offshore marine protected areas.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I agree in part with my hon. Friend—indeed, the committee has neglected some of its responsibilities—but I want to make progress on the Bill, which does not address the Climate Change Committee. Clause 1 would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to achieve the climate and nature objectives that it sets out, as if mere will alone could bring those objectives into reality. One objective is that the UK “reduces its overall contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero at a rate consistent with…achieving its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) emissions reduction targets” in accordance with the 2015 Paris agreement. That would entail reducing UK emissions in line with the 1.5° objective. Clause 2 explains that the strategy that the Secretary of State would be duty-bound to produce and then take every possible step to achieve “must include measures that…will achieve the objectives specified” by “limiting the United Kingdom’s total emissions of carbon dioxide, including territorial emissions” to levels in line with the Paris agreement’s 1.5° objective. What does that mean? The Bill stops short of providing year-on-year limits for overall emissions, but does not indicate that our current carbon budget system is not sufficient for the objectives of the Bill. Zero Hour, the climate campaign group behind the Bill, thinks that the UK’s carbon budgets are no longer sufficient to achieve 1.5° and that, once we include emissions from the goods we import, the UK’s total carbon footprint will exceed its share of the global carbon budget for a 67% chance of 1.5° by more than a factor of two.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I will not. I have given way a few times and other Members want to speak, so I want to make some progress. Aligning to the targets, which the Bill would oblige the Secretary of State to achieve, would require even more drastic action to reduce emissions. The Secretary of State has already signed the country up to an even stricter target of cutting emissions by 81% by 2035—something the Climate Change Committee said will require people to eat less meat and dairy, take fewer flights, and swap their boilers for heat pumps and their petrol cars for electric vehicles at a pace that will require taxes and mandation. That is not sensible, nor is it feasible. Let us turn to the objective to include import emissions in the scope of our carbon budgets. Zero Hour correctly identifies that the current carbon budget system focuses on territorial emissions, rather than consumption emissions—in other words, we count the carbon emissions of what is produced within our own borders, rather than the carbon emissions of products that are produced overseas, shipped in and then used within the UK. Some may think that underplays our true contribution to global emissions, and they may have a point, because if we shut down our oil and gas sector, for example—as the Labour party seemingly wants to do—that will not mean that we consume any less oil or gas; it will just mean that we ship it in from overseas as liquefied natural gas, which has four times the carbon emissions in the production process. We may have reduced our territorial carbon emissions and stuck to our carbon budgets, but we would actually be increasing our carbon emissions overall. That, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) likes to say, is carbon accounting gone mad.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I would never seek to argue with my hon. Friend, but actually the Bill does not do that. What the Bill does is set a limit at 100 MW, which even the largest solar farm does not quite reach, so there would still be a presumption in favour of large solar park developments. Shotwick solar park on the Welsh border, for example, is the largest in the country, and it is at 72.2 MW, so it would be automatically approved. That again speaks to the contradiction at the heart of the Bill: we cannot say that we want to protect farmland and the great British countryside while seeking to approve at pace large-scale renewable projects that would do the exact opposite.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Opposition believe that we should not ride roughshod over the views of communities up and down this country, which is why we were so reluctant to develop onshore wind at the scale the Labour party seeks to do.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I was actually right here on the Front Bench listening to my hon. Friend, and I agreed with a lot of what he said. However, we are here to debate the contents of the Bill and to decide whether they are something we should support, and I am afraid—to break with the consensus that has been expressed across the House this morning—that we cannot. The Bill would undermine the power of this Parliament and its democratically elected Members and would bind their hands. As the Bill suggests, the Secretary of State would be duty-bound to act as directed by an unelected body. A world with a cleaner climate and with thriving nature and wildlife is one we all aspire to; it is the core belief of Conservativism that we should seek to leave the country and the world in a better place than that in which we found them, for both our children and our grandchildren. But I am afraid that this Bill would not do that. In government, we aspired to be a world leader in the energy sector and to embrace a new energy mix that would reduce our carbon footprint, and that is what we did. We should want to pave the way for other nations, but it should be a path that they would actually want to follow. If the Bill means green levies, soaring bills, the highest electricity prices in the world, boiler taxes, job losses, and rejecting our ability to produce fuel domestically, while increasing imports from abroad and generating lower tax revenues as a result, nobody will follow this path.

• 23 Jan 2025 · ECO4 and Insulation Schemes · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement, and for taking the time to meet me this morning prior to making the statement. The ECO scheme and the Great British insulation scheme were set up because we know that improving the energy efficiency of homes is one of the best ways to cut energy bills and keep people warm. This is especially the case for those who are in fuel poverty. When we took office in 2010, just 14% of homes in this country had an energy performance rating of A to C; today, that figure is around 50%, and for social housing, we went from 24% in 2010 to 70% today. That is a record that we are proud of—a record of reducing bills for households and keeping families warm. Almost half of the measures installed under GBIS have been in low-income households. Solid wall insulation is a small proportion of the overall work that the ECO scheme and the Great British insulation scheme undertook. The vast majority of installations under those schemes have been cavity wall and loft insulation, alongside installations of smart thermostats and boiler upgrades under the ECO scheme. However, it is deeply concerning that examples of substandard solid wall insulation have been identified in some of the installations under those schemes. We of course support the action that the Minister has announced today, and Ofgem being given responsibility for overseeing the repairs and remediation, and it is right to conduct additional on-site audits to inform action moving forward. I thank TrustMark for the work it has done to identify examples of poor-quality solid wall insulation, and we also welcome the fact that there will be a review of the quality of solid wall insulation under other schemes. It is absolutely right for installers to fund the repair work, and to ensure that the situation is remedied for affected households as soon as possible. Nobody should have to live in a house with damp or mould as a result of poor-quality insulation. Could the Minister, in addition to taking the action that she outlined in her statement, please answer the following questions? First, have the audits undertaken so far identified what proportion of the solid wall insulations are affected by poor-quality work? Can she confirm that all 39 companies that have been suspended still exist, and set out the mechanism by which they will be required to remedy their work? What action is being taken to make sure that remedial work is of the required standard, to ensure that consumers are protected from yet more poor-quality work? What action is the Minister taking to make sure that everyone who had solid wall insulation installed under the schemes is informed promptly and in full, and that nobody will be missed? Will she publish a full list of the 39 companies suspended from the scheme for carrying out poor-quality work, and has the Department considered taking legal action against them? Members in all parts of the House want to ensure that families have a warm and comfortable home that is efficient and cheap to run. The Minister has our assurance that we will work cross-party to ensure remediation for those affected.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Draft Heat Networks (Market Framework) (Great Britain) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg, and a great pleasure to be back at another Delegated Legislation Committee. I am thinking about getting a camp bed and staying on this corridor for the rest of the year. Of late, His Majesty’s official Opposition have been accused of seeming to oppose for opposition’s sake; in last week’s Second Delegated Legislation Committee there was an uncomfortable moment when the Minister quoted a 2023 speech of mine back to me verbatim. That will not be the case this morning, however, because the Opposition welcome the move to regulate the heat networks market, which has hitherto been largely unregulated. Heat network users currently have fewer rights and diminished customer protections compared with other utility consumers. Although heat is an essential utility, the existing legislation covers only issues that pertain to metering and billing usage. We welcome the consumer protections that the draft regulations entail. Consumers and bill payers are at the crux of our energy systems, and changes made must be in their best interests. I believe that this change is indeed in their best interests: in this instance, the consumers stand to benefit. Sadly, that does not seem to be true of the Government’s energy policy more widely. We are not seeing the £300 saving on energy bills that was promised in the election campaign. What we are seeing is a ruinous overreliance on renewables, with wind generation supplying just 0.7% of the UK’s energy demand today; the boiler tax, which Labour MPs waved through Parliament last week; and the increases to employer national insurance contributions, which will depress wages and dampen employment. Households and consumers rarely seem to be the focus when this Government are making policy. Today, however, that is not the case. In the heat networks market, the consumer stands to benefit from the introduction of this regulatory framework. As the market for heat networks expands, the risk of exploitation of consumers becomes more pertinent. It is therefore right that legislation be introduced to remedy the gap and bring heat networks into line with the frameworks that regulate gas and electricity markets. I will not detain the Committee any longer. The Opposition absolutely support the regulation of the heat networks market for the sake of the protection of consumers from exorbitant charges, so I do not wish to stand in the way of the draft regulations. I strongly encourage the Government to prioritise bill payers and consumers across the rest of their energy policy, so that once again we can be in a place where I am not opposing for opposition’s sake, as I was accused of doing last week.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Great British Energy · Hansard source

  More

  Despite mighty work by Conservative Members of the other place, sadly the Great British Energy Bill continues to make progress through the House of Lords. To remind you, Mr Speaker, the chairman of Great British Energy is based in Manchester but leading a company headquartered in Aberdeen. In Committee in October it was claimed that GB Energy would directly employ 1,000 people; by November, that had fallen to 300 people. What is the figure, what are those jobs, where will they be based and what on earth will GB Energy actually do?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Farming Industry · Hansard source

  More

  Of course we do not agree with the policy in the Budget; the policy is purely wrong. Farmers were not consulted on it. Indeed, they were misled by the Labour party when they were told that this would not happen. It will lead to the demise of the family farm and undermine our food security, as farmers will simply stop farming. The concern, worry and fear that these changes have wrought on Scotland’s farmers are real and are on these Ministers and their Government. If the Secretary of State will not attend the rally this weekend, will he and the Minister at least use their position as Scotland’s man and woman at the Cabinet table to urge their colleagues to do as the NFU asked, which is to stop, reset, reflect, properly engage and consult on an alternative approach to stop this change?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Farming Industry · Hansard source

  More

  May I associate myself and the Official Opposition with the Secretary of State’s comments regarding Denis Law, a proud son of Aberdeen who never forgot his home town? Indeed, his legacy lives on through the Denis Law Trust, which does such good work with young people in and around the city. This Saturday, the National Farmers Union of Scotland is planning a national day of action in protest at the pernicious, ill thought through and destructive changes to agricultural property relief and its threat to the future of family farms in Scotland. I will be attending the local rally in Aberdeenshire to show my and my party’s support of our farmers. I notice that the Edinburgh rally is taking place but a few miles from the Secretary of State’s own constituency in Ingliston. Does the Minister know whether he will be attending the rally?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Jardine. Congratulations on your appointment to the Panel of Chairs, and I am sure that this is the first of many long sessions in the Chair in Westminster Hall. Today’s debate on marine renewables has been fascinating, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing it. Before I go any further, I will echo his comments on EMEC, the incredibly important role it has played and Neil Kermode’s leadership over the past few years. It has delivered a world-leading technology and, indeed, makes for an inspirational visit, if anybody has the time or inclination to go north to the Orkney Islands. It has, for the most part, been a thoroughly pleasant afternoon listening to an oral tour of some of our great coastal communities—and of Taunton and Melksham and Devizes. I have nothing against Taunton; it is just that it stood out for me. I have personal links with many of those communities, so it was a genuine pleasure to listen to the debate. As so many people have said, the United Kingdom is uniquely placed in terms of marine energy. We are an island nation, and our history has been written by the seas. Given the potential of marine energy to help drive us towards our clean energy future, our future will be written by them too. Energy from the sea is not a new concept in the United Kingdom, especially not to somebody who hails from Aberdeen. The UK continental shelf and the Norwegian continental shelf have been the lifeblood of the UK’s energy industry since the 1970s. Aberdeen, in the north-east of Scotland, has been the powerhouse of the European energy sector for decades. My sincere hope is that that remains so in the decades ahead. [Mr Clive Betts in the Chair ] As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has shown this afternoon, the east coast of Scotland, and particularly his constituency, is well designed for marine energy technologies, and particularly tidal. Marine energy generation in the UK covers many technologies, some of which—such as tidal and wave generation—are not yet deployed at scale and not quite at a commercial level. That also includes offshore wind, which has successfully scaled up in the United Kingdom over the past few years. I did not want to get drawn into yet another list—I know how much the Minister enjoys my reeling off the previous Conservative Government’s successes when it comes to investment in renewable technologies—but I was prompted into it by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young). I am very proud that we built the first to the fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world, which are delivering power into the United Kingdom right now, that we halved our emissions and that we were the fastest cutter of emissions of any country in the G7. We are very proud of what we did, which is supporting thousands of new jobs across the United Kingdom, particularly in the north-east of England, in communities such as Grimsby and around the Humber. The UK’s seas are home to the emerging technologies we have heard about this afternoon. Many of the technologies we will employ in the energy transition might not be fully fledged, but the previous Government were proud to announce a record £650 million of investment—for example, into the development of nuclear fusion technology, in which the UK is a world leader. We support the development of fusion and the development of technologies such as tidal, because, moving forward, we need to support all energy solutions. As I said, the previous Government did a great deal to provide an economic framework for various technologies—especially marine energy projects—and to try to attract private sector investment through the contracts for difference scheme. In 2021, we announced that £30 million per year would be ringfenced for tidal stream projects. Allocation round 4 in 2022 made allocations to four tidal stream projects, which was a first. Allocation round 5 in 2023 is often castigated as a failed round, so obsessed are some people with wind at the expense of everything else, but it made allocations to 11 tidal projects, with capacity totalling over 50 MW. Allocation round 6, which was run under the previous Government and announced by the current Government, made allocations to six tidal stream projects, with a total capacity of 28 MW. With the CfD mechanism, the previous Government created the conditions for new technologies such as tidal to thrive. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland set out at the beginning of the debate, the world’s most powerful tidal turbine was launched off the east coast of Scotland by Orbital Marine Power, an Orkney-based company. Constructed in Dundee, the 2 MW turbine capitalises on some of the strongest currents in the world. In 2024, thanks to the dogged and determined campaigning by Neil, the right hon. Gentleman and others, the then Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—now the editor of The Spectator —and I secured £3 million of new funding for EMEC, recognising the work that it does. That was in addition to having invested over £7 million between 2016 and 2022. The question posed by many is, why bother with marine energy when we have so many other technologies we are investing in right now? We have offshore, onshore, nuclear technologies that are coming on stream, solar power and everything else. Well, it is because we must. We need to invest in all the technologies available to us in order to drive us forward into our clean energy future, to make us more energy independent and energy secure. Sadly, there was no mention of tidal in the “Clean Power 2030” document published by the Government. There is a perception—it might not be the reality—that tidal technology has fallen through the gap. In the rush to decarbonise the energy system, the Secretary of State seems to be putting all the eggs into two baskets. It would be good if the Minister could set out that that was not the case and that the Government were as committed to tidal and wave power as they should be. When the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, wind and solar will not keep the lights on in the United Kingdom.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister is being very generous, and I apologise for taking his time, given that I have just spoken. He talks about reforming the planning system so that projects can be built faster. Obviously, a lot of the projects we are speaking about are in Scotland. Can he update us on discussions with the Scottish Government about reform of the planning and consenting provisions in the Electricity Act 1989, which are seen by some—not by all—as an additional burden for companies seeking to develop such projects north of the border?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  The previous Government looked at the Swansea tidal lagoon in great detail and depth, but the decision was taken before my time in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero not to proceed with it. I am informed that it was due to a combination of the cost and the reluctance of those involved to make the case that the technology would be successful. However, if it can be presented as a viable project—if the costs can be brought down and the technology can be proved to work—of course the current Government could look at it again. We should be investing in things that work and that return a benefit to the taxpayer. Last week, the UK learned the word “Dunkelflaute”—I have probably pronounced it terribly—which expresses what happens when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. The recent cold snap illustrated just how insecure a system reliant on intermittent renewables such as solar and wind will be, so we need to invest in new baseload generation, including gas, nuclear and tidal. Those technologies sadly got little mention in the Secretary of State’s “Clean Power 2030” action plan. There were few words about nuclear and nothing about tidal—seemingly, no plan for future generation. It is clear that a wide mix of energies will be required to ensure our energy independence and security. Offshore wind and solar are obviously essential parts of the mix, but so too will be—or at least should be—oil and gas; nuclear, large and small, with microreactors; and new and emerging technologies such as wave and tidal. The developments happening across all those technologies in this country are great. We should support Great British and Northern Irish scientists, innovators, engineers and technicians who have the opportunity to build on the successes of the past decade, which saw Great Britain and Northern Ireland lead the world in investing in new energy generation. To echo the sentiment of other right hon. and hon. Members, we need more direction and clarity from the Government about where we are heading on this journey to more tidal and wave investment. We fully support the calls for a road map and a taskforce to drive that forward and support the industry. I say to the Government: please do not just put all our eggs in two baskets, but invest in and support other technologies. We need all those energy sources in future. Many of the technologies will be developed and deployed around the coast, in some of the more deprived communities in this country, so the jobs and investment that they will contribute will be massively beneficial not just for our energy security but for the wider economy. If we invest now—if we spend the time and money and expend the energy—Great Britain and Northern Ireland can yet again be the beating heart of this new global industrial revolution.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Draft Clean Heat Market Mechanism Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

  More

  Very well delivered.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Draft Clean Heat Market Mechanism Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Mr Vickers. The clean heat market mechanism imposes Government targets on the manufacturers of gas boilers. It tells them that they have to sell a certain amount of heat pumps each year and imposes fines for every gas boiler they sell above their quota. Inevitably, the fines will be passed on to the consumer. Far from having consumers in their mind’s eye, the Government have already shown flagrant disregard for consumers in a host of areas: including their grocery tax, which will cost families £56 a year; their family holiday tax, which will cost up to £300 a year; their eye-wateringly expensive energy policies; and their misguided national insurance hike, which the Bank of England warns will raise prices and lower wages—a double whammy hitting people’s pockets. Now they are asking us to support the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, who clearly has no interest in the cost of living in this country, having unfettered power to interfere with the price of people’s boilers. Last year, when we were in government, the then Secretary of State was clear that we would not introduce a policy that punishes people who choose not to install a heat pump. The current Secretary of State has an ideological obsession with going further and faster than any other country. Handing him the powers to push up the cost of installing new gas boilers in this country is a recipe for piling extra costs on to consumers. Because people usually have to replace their boilers at short notice, that will come at a time when families are least expecting it and can probably least afford it. The British people will once again be forced to pick up the bill for this Government’s ideological approach to net zero. Around 1% of people in this country have a heat pump. Many who have chosen to install them are happy with them. If people want to spend their money to electrify their heating, it is not the Government’s job to prevent them from doing so, but the Government should not punish people if they do not want, or cannot afford, to make that switch. We were happy to give families a helping hand, which is why we increased the grant available through the boiler upgrade scheme by 50% to £7,500, making it one of the most generous schemes in Europe. Applications actually increased by 75% as a result. It is simply not sustainable, however, to impose ever larger taxes to force consumers to switch to technologies if they do not want to do so. That is even more dangerous given that the Labour party’s plans will make electricity much more expensive and, therefore, electrified heating much less desirable. The Electrification of Heat demonstration project report, published last month, found that the average installed cost of a high-temperature heat pump was more than £17,000. Even with the £7,500 Government grant, that means the cost of installing a heat pump is about three times that of installing a new gas boiler. That is before considering the extra hidden costs that go along with heat pumps, such as more insulation, replacing radiators, underfloor heating and more. Furthermore, let us not forget that many properties are not, and never will be, right for a heat pump. The same report found that even 34% of homes recommended for heat pumps as part of the trial were found, in the end, not to be suitable. If the cost of gas boilers is pushed up, those families who have no choice or who live in unsuitable homes such as older properties or blocks of flats will face an unavoidable and unjustified price hike. In government, we exempted households who were not suitable for heat pumps from ever having to rip out their gas boiler. If the briefings to the newspaper are correct, of course, we welcome the Secretary State’s decision to scrap the 2035 boiler ban, but it is plain to see that the Government are simply replacing a boiler ban with a boiler tax. This draft SI will give the Secretary of State the power to increase the cost of new gas boilers, making things harder for people, even those whose homes cannot be made suitable without extra work costing tens of thousands of pounds. During the election campaign, the Minister and her colleagues promised the British people £300 off their energy bills, a promise that we hear no Labour MP repeating at the moment. As soon as they got into Government, they snatched the winter fuel payment away from millions of pensioners in poverty, taxed family farmers and taxed the North sea oil and gas sector. Now, they are taxing people’s boilers, too. The evidence is increasingly clear that the Government’s rush to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 will increase the cost of electricity in this country, so that all those who have been told to move over to heat pumps—in fact, all our constituents—will face higher electricity bills as a result. Last week, the Secretary of State said that we will only tackle climate change by working with other countries. But there is no sense in making our own people poorer and enforcing hardship on them in the name of reaching net zero, because no other country will want to follow our lead. Only by increasing prosperity and living standards will we convince the world’s largest polluters to cut their emissions. Once Ministers have snuck this power on to the statute book, they will be free to ramp up the fines dramatically in the years ahead in order to meet the Secretary of State’s targets. In fact, if they are to meet their legally binding climate targets, they will have no choice but to ratchet up the fines and to inflict more hardship on the British people. Ministers should ask people why they do not want heat pumps, not force people to have one by making gas boilers increasingly unaffordable. The Conservatives believe that consumers get the best products when they drive the market through choice. As the Secretary of State has said, an overly centralised approach to net zero targets will slow down the take-up of new technology, requiring ever larger subsidies and ever stricter punishments to force consumers to buy the products that Ministers in Whitehall have decided are right for them. That is why we have said that the carbon budget system needs a rethink. It is sending us down an increasingly prescriptive path, where Government tell businesses that they must sell a certain amount of a certain product by a certain date. It is central planning by the back door, and it is leading to perverse incentives, where Ministers are presented with endless submissions that say, “We must implement this policy”, not because it lowers costs for consumers or businesses, but because it will help us to meet our carbon budgets. That is wrong. I am afraid it is why Ministers are before us today to push through a policy that they know will make life harder and more expensive for people across this country. When we were in government, we pushed back on that policy because we were not willing to pile extra costs on consumers to force them to adapt to and adopt technologies that they did not want. We said that free markets were a much better route to cheaper products and better technology, which actually improve people’s lives. If the Government want households to install heat pumps, they should let the manufacturers make the case to their consumers to convince them that they are worth while and that the power of the market brings prices down naturally without endless Government intervention. In this area more than any other, we need to put living standards before ideology, but I am afraid that with this Government, whether it is their family farm tax, their rush to shut down the North sea or their attack on educational standards, ideology seems always to come first. That is why we cannot support the introduction of the boiler tax.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

  More

  ( Urgent Question ) : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on gas storage levels.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

  More

  All our constituents will be aware of the freezing temperatures experienced across the United Kingdom last week, dipping to minus 18° in the north of Scotland. However, many will not be aware of just how close this country came to an energy shortage, blackouts, or demand control—closer than at any point in the past 15 years. On Friday Centrica, the owner of British Gas, issued a stark warning that freezing weather and a spike in demand had reduced our gas storage to “concerningly low” levels—26% lower than this time last year. At a time when temperatures dropped below freezing for an extended period of time, our stores were set to last for less than a week. Earlier in the week the National Energy System Operator issued a call for electricity providers to step in to provide extra electricity to meet demand and limit the risk of blackouts, paying 10 times the average daily amount to keep the lights on, all of which will end up on the energy bills of our constituents. With an incredibly tight margin between demand and available power generation, we were once again forced to rely on reliable gas power plants to keep the lights on in this country, showing that gas is and will be a vital component of our energy security for decades to come. With their rush to meet the Secretary of State’s ideological target to decarbonise the entire electricity grid by 2030, this Government are playing fast and loose with our ability to keep the lights on. They are rushing headlong into a renewable energy dominated system—a Chinese renewable energy dominated system—but Ministers cannot escape the fact that when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, wind turbines and solar panels will not keep the lights on in Britain. We should be in no doubt that this Government’s ideological plans for our energy supply will leave the UK dependent on foreign imports, send bills soaring, and leave us teetering on the brink of blackouts. Interestingly, when Labour was last in government in 2010, the Secretary of State whipped his then Ministers to vote against Conservative proposals to increase gas storage capacity in the United Kingdom, with a Labour MP on the Energy Bill Committee saying that “the climate of this country, other than in the past month, is usually such that we do not quite need the same storage facilities as other countries in mainland Europe?” –– [ Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 19 January 2010; c. 282.] Does the Minister think the Secretary of State regrets not backing that proposal in 2010? Does he accept that the push towards renewables will lead to higher levels of intermittency, and does he accept that we will need to urgently review our gas storage capacity in the immediate future?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

  More

  I would be delighted to give way to my SNP friend.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I join hon. and right hon. colleagues in congratulating you on your appointment. I hope you have enjoyed your first foray into Scottish politics this afternoon, and I look forward to seeing you back in this Chamber on many an occasion as we continue the various debates. Indeed, this is the second time in two days I have found myself here debating issues pertaining to Scotland, although in my view that is still not enough. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing this important debate. Cross-border connectivity is an issue he has championed as an MSP, as a Back-Bench MP and indeed as a Minister in the previous Government, and he continues that laudable work now. I am pleased that so many colleagues from across Scotland and Northern Ireland have come to the Chamber this afternoon to discuss this important issue. As I said, I and others here, including the Minister, found ourselves in this Chamber yesterday afternoon discussing the impact of the UK Government’s Budget on Scotland. To save Members from looking the debate up in Hansard or watching it on Parliament Live—I do recommend it; some stellar speeches were delivered—I will give a brief synopsis. For farmers, family firms, oil and gas workers, the Scotch whisky industry and the Scottish economy in general, the Budget was not good, but despite the best efforts of the Labour party and the SNP to undermine confidence, deter investment, stymie ambition and entrepreneurship and punish success, the fact is that across the UK and especially in Scotland, we need growth, investment and new jobs. For all those things, good connectivity to our biggest market by far—the rest of the UK—is key. It is integral to economic growth and business, but also to leisure, education and even health. Fundamentally, good transport links unlock opportunity across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is precisely why the Conservative Government launched the Union connectivity review. Despite the lack of co-operation from the Scottish Government, we made several critical commitments, including, as some have mentioned already, to supporting enhancements to the A75 between Gretna and Stranraer to improve the main artery linking south-west Scotland and Northern Ireland, recognising the vital importance of east-west connectivity within the United Kingdom; to funding for dualling the A1 between Morpeth and Ellingham, a vital road route between England and Scotland; and to funding for Network Rail to look at options for boosting capacity and improving services more broadly between England and Scotland. In other important areas, we delivered improved transport connectivity, with major projects taking big strides forward. We were delivering long-awaited upgrades to the A1 coastal route between Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh, reducing congestion for the communities of Ashington, Felton, Alnwick and Amble. However, as has been said time and again today, away from cross-border routes, responsibility for our roads lies with the Scottish Government. Companies and individuals seeking to export fish landed at Peterhead, for example, or on Orkney and Shetland, are reliant on increasingly dangerous roads to get it to the border and then into Europe, as a result of the SNP’s failure to deliver on its promises. It has been almost two decades since we first heard the SNP make promises to improve some of Scotland’s most dangerous roads, yet those promises remain undelivered and, frankly, broken. The SNP promised to fully dual the A96—a road close to my heart, connecting Aberdeen and Inverness—the A90 and the A9 between the central belt and Inverness, but not one of them has been. Of course, we now know that the SNP’s promise to dual the A96 to Inverness by 2030 has been shelved completely, letting down people across the north-east of Scotland once again—and let us not even begin discussing the Laurencekirk junction in my constituency or, just further north, improvements at Toll of Birness on the road between Aberdeen, Fraserburgh and Peterhead. While we are rightly talking today about cross-border connectivity, let us not forget those who are reliant on the SNP to ensure they can get their goods and themselves to the border. Air travel, which Members have raised this afternoon, is similarly critical for not just business but remote settlements. We protected socially and economically vital domestic routes through public service obligations, and indeed we reformed how the PSOs operated to include routes that operate to and from different regions of the UK, rather than just into London. However, one route into London we did back was from Dundee: in 2021, we provided up to £2.5 million to fund direct flights between Dundee and London for a further two years, keeping a critical route running and ensuring that people at both ends of the UK could keep connected. We cut the reduced rate of air passenger duty for domestic flights to just £6.50 and consulted on reform to airport landing slot allocations, including proposals to ringfence some slots for domestic flights, which, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, is so important. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the Government’s position on that and whether they intend to issue a response to the consultation on ringfencing those slots for domestic flights. When it comes to rail, we committed over £1 billion for east coast main line upgrades, including a programme to replace Victorian infrastructure with digital signalling, which provides drivers with continuous real-time information. That was designed to boost train performance and cut delays. It is hard to overstate the importance of the east coast main line. A third of the nation’s population, who together produce more than 40% of the UK’s GDP, live within 20 minutes of an east coast main line station. The dreadful decision of this Government to hike air passenger duty will mean that people who do not live within a few hours of London on a main rail line such as the east coast main line—for example, those living and working in and around Aberdeen—will face higher fares and fewer options for travel. It punishes those who live outside the central belt and flies in the face of better connectivity around the United Kingdom, which brings us back to the woeful record of the SNP Government in Holyrood. I have taken the long train journey from Aberdeen to London on many occasions, and the time it takes to reach Edinburgh is striking. Almost a third of the travel time to London from Aberdeen is taken up just reaching Scotland’s capital. The SNP promised yet again in 2016 £200 million to cut journey times between Aberdeen and the central belt by 2026. Almost 10 years on, not even 10% of that money has been spent. As with roads, people who rely on infrastructure for which the SNP is responsible to get to the border are failed by the Scottish Government.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Scotland: Transport Links · Hansard source

  More

  I think what most hindered investment in strategic transport projects was the ineptitude of the Scottish Government. Colleagues and I have already gone through the SNP’s litany of broken promises to communities across Scotland, be that on the A96, the A9, the A90, the work on the A75, the new ferries to the Western Isles or the protection of air routes across Scotland. It is quite rich for a Scottish National party Member to talk about under-investment in transport when his party’s own record is so woeful in that regard; it might be one of the reasons that he and his colleagues number only nine Members of Parliament, compared with the large number that the SNP had in the previous Parliament. Let me move on from talking about the SNP and focus on the UK Labour Government, because we also have plans for them.