Carla Denyer MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Apr 2026 · Middle East: Economic Update · Hansard source

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  I am relieved that the Government are now committed to breaking the price link between expensive gas and cheap renewables, but given that the proposed solution is voluntary for electricity generators, how will the Chancellor ensure that the proposals that she and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero are putting forward will actually deliver substantially lower bills? If I send them to her office, will she consider the proposals from the think-tank Commonwealth for a mandated, not-optional, fixed-price model to ensure that billpayers are not left at the mercy of the volatile international fossil fuel market?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Middle East: Economic Update · Hansard source

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  I am relieved that the Government are now committed to breaking— [ Interruption. ]

• 21 Apr 2026 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 21 Apr 2026 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Green-led Bristol city council received glowing peer review from the Local Government Association this month, specifically noting how moving to a committee system has strengthened democratic engagement and transparency. It also, by the way, enables cross-party co-operation, and an honourable mention goes to the local Lib Dems in Bristol. Does the hon. Lady agree that if independent, non-political reviewers can see the benefits of a committee system, the Government should not be imposing the more tribal, less co-operative leader and cabinet model on councils?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  Those Members answered the challenges from the shadow Secretary of State, so I will move on, given the limit on time. Given that the measures proposed in the motion will not secure our energy supply, protect jobs or bring down bills, what will drilling more oil and gas from the North sea do? It will undo so much progress we have made in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. We are proud to have ended polluting coal power in the UK—indeed, I thought the shadow Secretary of State was proud of that—but allowing Rosebank would be the equivalent of running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year, undoing all that good work. Drilling more oil and gas from the North sea will also make some people a lot of money, including those on the Reform and Conservative Benches who take dirty money from fossil fuel donors.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  No, I will not. I will continue for now. What the shadow Secretary of State’s motion would achieve is the raising of a lot of money. When war inflates oil and gas prices, fossil fuel bosses cash in. Just five companies made nearly half a trillion dollars in the years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of course, those obscene profits should be taxed through the energy profits levy, because nobody should be cashing in on conflict. Again, I draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the attention of those who may be watching from home, to the proportion of donations from fossil fuel donors that go to certain politicians in this Chamber. The Chancellor said earlier today that she would crack down on price-gouging and profiteering, so I hope that this work will maintain the principles of the windfall tax in whatever shape it comes. The Government have done good work in driving forward clean energy and banning new oil and gas licences, and I desperately urge them not to backtrack by approving Rosebank, although I understand that they will not be able to comment on that today. I am also deeply concerned about the fact that, despite officially banning new oil and gas licences, the Government are creating a whopping loophole by introducing the transitional energy certificates, aka tiebacks. This is allowing new drilling at a new site on a technicality, because it involves drilling a new well but, rather than installing a new rig on top of it, attaching it to an existing rig with a very long hose, so it is technically not “new”. Opening up new oil and gas wells now is indefensible when we know that every drop of oil and gas burned puts our future further at risk, so I cannot support a Government amendment that “welcomes” these tiebacks. I ask Ministers to assure me that, at the very least, scope 3 emissions will be considered when the Government are deciding whether to grant the transitional energy certificates. Committing to renewable energy means change, and change can be unsettling, but if it is done right, the Government can ensure that it pays off for everyone. I have been campaigning for an energy jobs guarantee to support workers who are currently employed in the oil and gas sector to move into jobs in the green sectors. That could be done by ending the £2.7 billion a year in subsidies that the Chancellor hands the fossil fuel industry in tax breaks, and using that valuable public money to back workers rather than propping up an industry that is in terminal decline. Our dependence on oil and gas is making us poorer—that much is clear—and it is making oil companies richer. There is no future in fossil fuels, so I hope that the Ministers will give no ground to the reckless statements put forward today.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  My reliance is on the evidence, which shows that 93% of recoverable oil and gas in the British parts of the North sea has already been extracted. Whatever does remain will be sold on the international market to the highest bidder, as many Members have already pointed out. If the proposals in the shadow Secretary of State’s motion were implemented, they would do nothing for energy security and nothing for jobs.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  I beg the right hon. Lady’s pardon, but they say I am wrong about what?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  No, I will not, thank you—I will carry on. [ Interruption. ] Fine, I will give way.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  There is simply no case for opening new oil and gas wells in the North sea, for approving Rosebank and Jackdaw, or for removing the windfall tax from oil and gas companies. It is inaccurate, irresponsible and immoral for the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), to suggest otherwise in her motion. Expanding North sea drilling will do nothing to support UK energy security or jobs, as the Lib Dem spokesperson—the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings)—and the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) laid out very clearly in their speeches.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Puberty Blockers Clinical Trial · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. As an MP, I hear far too often from young trans and gender-questioning people and their families who are unable to get the treatment they need. It is important in this debate to start by being clear what puberty blockers are and are not. They do not, on their own, make any permanent changes to a young person’s gender. Some people who start puberty blockers will go on to further treatments, and some will not. Puberty blockers can give young people time to explore their gender without the added distress of unwanted physical changes. That gives them the time and space to decide if they want to take more permanent steps. Puberty blockers alone do not lock young people into any permanent decision. New prescriptions for puberty blockers were banned indefinitely in November 2024, meaning that the PATHWAYS trial has been the only legal way to get a prescription. The Green party opposes the ban on puberty blockers and always has, because they are a safe and reversible way of reducing gender dysphoria that is recognised by international research and advisory bodies. The list is too long to give in the time we have, but it includes the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the European Society for Sexual Medicine, and so on. My concern is that the PATHWAYS trial has not been paused because of genuine concern about young people’s safety or because the Government have listened to the constructive concerns of the trans community about how the trial will be run. It now looks like a political decision. If further research on puberty blockers is needed—I understand that most medical treatments benefit from ongoing research—that research must be carried out in a way that does not exclude or disadvantage one patient cohort over others. It should centre the needs of the young people involved. There should not be a cap on participants or an unmedicated control group, and it should take account of all uses of puberty blockers, including on cis children experiencing premature puberty. We so often talk about trans people without including them in decisions made about them. I ask the Minister to reconsider the Government’s path.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I am just coming to an end. We must leave no stone unturned, whether it is housing standards, taxation, jobs, transport, energy, defence or food. That is my main message today, and I hope the Government are open to hearing it. It is important that we look at climate change across every single Department, because that is how we will build a safer, more positive, more equal and happier country together.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy), my fellow member of the all-party parliamentary group on climate change, for securing this debate. The climate and nature emergencies are the most pressing issue of our time. They go to the heart of every area of Government, and we ignore or sideline them at our peril. A suppressed national security assessment report, partly released in January in response to a freedom of information request, warns: “Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse”, threatening UK national security and prosperity. Let us give that a moment to sink in. The first job of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, yet there is a yawning gulf between climate reality as recognised in that national security report and the actions that the Government are undertaking. As we have heard, ambitious action now makes economic sense, too. Failing to tackle the climate and nature crises will cost far more in the long term than investing properly now. The Climate Change Committee, the Government’s own specialist advisers, recently crunched the numbers and worked out that for every pound spent on reaching net zero, the benefits outweigh the costs up to fourfold. That is a good return on investment. Crucially, the Climate Change Committee recognises that the benefits of climate action will be felt in all areas of our lives. Warm homes and better public transport will have huge benefits for our health and wellbeing, and will save the NHS money, too. The health service spends £895 million a year just as a result of cold and damp homes. While the Government are grasping the big picture in some areas, such as growing clean energy, for example, all too often that is not being done in a joined-up way. It does not feel like they are aiming for the massive social and environmental wins that acting boldly and thinking genuinely long-term could secure. Last year, the Chancellor scrapped the energy company obligation scheme in the autumn Budget. It required energy companies to pay into programmes that cut fuel poverty. The impact of that cut falls not only on the 8.9 million households classed as fuel poor, but on jobs. The Installation Assurance Authority Federation, a leading representative body in the retrofit sector, found that a staggering 12,100 skilled professionals have been made redundant since the end of the ECO scheme was announced in the Chancellor’s Budget. A further 79,000-plus may be made redundant within the next 12 months. Such fragmented policy making, where a gap is left between an old scheme and a new scheme, puts jobs at risk and undermines ambitions on warm homes. I acknowledge the commitment of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and of the Minister, to this agenda. I also acknowledge the degree to which they appear sometimes to be thwarted by the Treasury and others that seem singularly incapable of grasping that building a strong, resilient economy will be an impossibility inside an environment going haywire. They also seem to be thwarted by those who seem unwilling to understand that delaying action and an overreliance on techno fixes, such as carbon capture and storage, are paving the way for a cliff edge of social chaos and economic freefall when we should be planning for an orderly, fair, controlled transition. Continuing to subsidise the fossil fuel industry is downright dangerous when the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is still the main driver of global warming. Burning the fossil fuels at the proposed Rosebank oil field would release more than the combined annual emissions of all 28 low-income countries globally. That is all without any evidence that that oil would bring down costs at home, because prices are set on the global market. Rather than propping up the oil and gas giants, I have been calling on the Chancellor to end the £2.7 billion of tax breaks given every year to fossil fuel companies. Instead she should fund a jobs guarantee to support workers currently employed in oil and gas to move into new green jobs. Climate adaptation must become much more prominent, too. The Government’s climate watchdog has warned us that preparedness for extreme weather in this country is disjointed and piecemeal, and that has consequences for all our constituents, for public services and for the economy. That brings me full circle back to my opening point: the climate emergency has ramifications for every single Department and every aspect of all our constituents’ lives. That is why there was such a large appetite for the climate emergency declaration that I pioneered as a councillor in Bristol in 2018. After adopting my climate emergency declaration, Bristol ramped up its ambitions, and the idea has since spread across the UK and internationally. It shows the public’s appetite to go further and faster to protect our planet for future generations. While recognising the good work done so far, we still need vastly more ambition across government. No stone can be left unturned if we want to operate within safe climate limits.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Immigration Policy · Hansard source

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  Aside from the cruelty of asking people who have fled war and persecution to re-justify their already-recognised refugee status every 30 months, how does the Minister plan to pay for this huge additional administrative burden? As we have heard, the Refugee Council has estimated that it will cost £725 million over 10 years, but he contests that estimate. Perhaps he can tell us how much he thinks it will cost, and why—when our NHS and schools are crying out for funding—he is spending taxpayers’ money on scapegoating migrants instead.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Social Cohesion Action Plan · Hansard source

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  Muslim people across the country face intensifying, dehumanising and often violent racism every day. Now that we have a definition, I am desperate for the conversation to move towards action. How quickly will the Government now move from definitions towards a clear and funded road map for action, including proper monitoring and accountability?

• 5 Mar 2026 · Local Museums · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making an important speech, and is particularly talking about small independently run museums. Does she agree that, since many local museums are owned and run by local authorities and face the risk of closure because of severe underfunding, the Government must ensure that local authorities have sufficient funding to keep those local museums open, especially given that all the research shows that they have a huge benefit in our local economies? In Bristol, for example, our arts and culture sector created nearly £900 million of economic and social value this year.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. I hope the Secretary of State has seen the reports that show that the proposed Rosebank oil field, as well as being a climate catastrophe, risks breaking international law. If approved, Rosebank’s profits could flow to Delek Group, a company accused by the UN of supporting illegal Israeli settlements. If he cannot comment on Rosebank specifically, can he tell me what steps his Department is taking to ensure that all UK oil and gas projects respect international law?

• 9 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain: Poverty · Hansard source

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  5. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain on the number of people living in poverty.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain: Poverty · Hansard source

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  Some 300,000 children living legally in the UK will face a decade of living in limbo under the Government’s earned settlement proposals, according to new research out this week by the Institute for Public Policy Research. Those children’s wait for settled immigration status will be extended by at least five years, during which many families will face no-recourse-to-public-funds restrictions, and we know that that raises the risk of homelessness and destitution. How does the Minister reconcile that poverty-increasing measure with the Government’s new child poverty strategy, which states: “Reducing child poverty is a moral imperative”?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  On that point, last week more than 45 migrant rights groups described the earned settlement proposals as “fundamentally racist and classist.” Does the hon. Member share my deep concerns that the proposals will hit the most vulnerable the hardest, and create a discriminatory, two-tier system in which wealth and certain jobs or nationalities are prioritised over others?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member is giving a most powerful speech. On her point about false narratives, I wonder whether she agrees that it is so important to distinguish between legitimate criticism of the actions of a state, and hate directed towards people because of their religion. It is worrying to have heard remarks in today’s debate—a debate on the Holocaust, of all things—that seemed to blur the line between those two things.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you advise me on what course I can take when a Member of this House repeatedly uses speeches to misrepresent members of the public, who are not able to be present to speak for themselves?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Commonhold and Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  Leaseholders in Bristol Central are being ripped off. I am disappointed that the Minister and the Government will not enforce peppercorn ground rents immediately, although a £250 cap is an improvement and the movement towards commonhold is really welcome. However, there are big problems for leaseholders that are still unaddressed. Will the Minister please commit to tackling the soaring insurance premiums that have left homes unmortgageable and leaseholders trapped, unable to sell and move in the wake of the cladding scandal?