Claire Coutinho MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 10 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Jennifer Melle, a black nurse with a faultless record, was racially abused by a convicted paedophile for correctly referring to his biological sex in a medical context. She was called the N-word multiple times in her workplace, yet she was the one who was punished by her NHS trust and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. She is still suspended from the job she loves, 18 months later. Does the Secretary of State agree that the dedicated nurses who are being punished for asserting that biological sex is real are facing a gross injustice, and will she meet Jennifer to hear her story?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I appreciate the Secretary of State’s willingness to meet Jennifer. Does the Secretary of State believe that an eight-year-old child with autism can consent to a medical pathway that will leave them infertile and without sexual function for the rest of their life? If not, will she personally tell the Health Secretary to stop this puberty blocker experiment, which will biologically castrate children?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Let me make this point to the hon. Gentleman. The average person on benefits in work is working 20 hours, sometimes less. Why should a family with kids who are not well off and are working 40, 50 or 60 hours a week be worse off than a family on benefits working far fewer hours? I quit a job in the City to go to work for the Centre for Social Justice and work with people fighting poverty, and I have worked with struggling families in some way since I was 16. It is not compassionate to make welfare pay more than work. It is not a helping hand; it is a trap. The Government should also talk to the many couples who have put off having children or stopped at one or two children because they cannot afford it. Younger brothers and sisters simply will not be born. Those missing children are a personal tragedy for every couple who are having to make that choice, but there will be more of those decisions, because the Government are loading more and more costs and taxes on to hard-working families.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I will come to what Martin Lewis says about the hon. Gentleman’s party’s policies in a second. Labour promised £300 off energy bills, but bills have gone up by £200 instead. Going by his own election promise, the Secretary of State owes the public a £500 cut. Why have those bills gone up? It is because of the costs introduced by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Hon. Members do not have to take my word for it—they can just listen to Martin Lewis, who says that wholesale prices have plummeted but energy bills are up because there are countless costs landing on those bills thanks to the Secretary of State— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) wanted to talk about Martin Lewis a second ago but he does not want to hear about him now. Among those costs are the cost of backing up wind farms and switching them off when it is too windy, all the grid costs that are multiple times higher because of the system that Labour is creating, the warm home discount that everyone is paying for through their bills, the carbon tax that has gone up by 70% this year, and the tax on gas to pay for hydrogen that is coming in January. I am not sure whether Labour Back Benchers know about all these costs, but they add up to hundreds of pounds extra. No wonder the Secretary of State never did a costing; he did not want anyone to know the truth. He is piling hundreds and hundreds of pounds on to energy bills, and now he wants a round of applause for this £150 off them.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member makes an impassioned case, but why did Government Members not make it at the election? Why did the Government remove the Whip from seven Labour MPs who voted against keeping the cap last year? Why did the Government make all Labour MPs vote to keep the cap, including the Secretary of State? That is the question that Members need to ask. The Government want to be known for having helped people with the cost of living. They must think that the public are stupid. Everyone out there can see that everything that the Government are doing is making the cost of living worse. They do not understand the basics, and the situation is apparently so bad that No. 10 has been giving Back Benchers lessons about Government debt. Given that we have seen Labour Back Benchers cheer at two job-killing Budgets, perhaps the Government need to expand the curriculum.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  We have a fundamental difference in belief. Labour Members believe the best way out of poverty is welfare; I think the best way is jobs and growth, but the Government are killing those things. The problem with the Labour party, as we can see from its policies, is that it clearly thinks the only answer to the cost of living is redistribution, even past the point at which there will be no one left to redistribute from. Conservative Members know that jobs, low taxes and low costs improve the quality of life, but the Government are killing those jobs—every month under them, parents are losing their jobs. What do Labour Members think the cost of living is like for those families who have lost their salaries under this Labour Government? There are 170,000 fewer people on the payroll since the election. Young people cannot get a foot on the jobs ladder—because of this Government, the cost of hiring a young person has gone up by £4,000. They say they are raising the minimum wage, but they are crushing businesses’ ability to pay for it. The result is hiring freezes and redundancies, and for all those people just above the minimum wage who are also struggling, there will be no money left for wage progression. The best way to improve living standards is growth, but this was not a Budget for growth; it was a Budget for Labour Back Benchers. That is why it did not contain a single growth measure. Labour’s entire approach to the economy has been to raise the cost of basic goods, to raise taxes, and to crush wages and employment. The Government are expecting a shrinking group of hard-working taxpayers to pay for more redistribution, to cover the costs that they are choosing to impose on the public. In the words of one Labour Cabinet Minister, this Budget has been a “disaster”. Those are not my words—according to a No. 10 source, they think they are the words of the Secretary of State. Labour will not be known as the party helping people with the cost of living; it will be known as the party that has broken its promises to working people, broken its promises on tax and on bills, and broken the social contract that sees work pay more than welfare.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Let us talk about that £150. If someone has a gas boiler, the figure is £130. I remind the Secretary of State that that is almost everybody in the country. Oh yes, and if they pay tax, the amount has not come off—it has just been moved from their energy bill to their tax bill. Most importantly, that amount does not even touch the sides of what this Secretary of State will cost people in the end. Like so much of what Labour says, it is just sleight of hand. The real question is this: since the election, have bills gone up or down? The answer is up. The Secretary of State should be honest that this policy was never part of his plan. It is not part of Great British Energy or clean power 2030—all the things that he promised would lower bills. In fact, it is a tacit admission that he has failed. The centre knows that his plan cannot lower bills. In fact, if the reporting is correct, the Secretary of State fought against the policy, but he has been forced into it, because his promise to cut bills by £300 has become a national embarrassment to them all. It is taxpayers who are bailing him out to the tune of £7 billion.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  The public are thinking of a phrase that ends in “you”, but the first word is not “thank”. The Government want to talk about the cost of living, but they are clobbering low and middle earners with tax rises and higher bills. That is why the majority of the country says that this Budget will leave their family worse off. The majority of the country has also said that they think the Budget is unfair. The Secretary of State talked about fairness, but the public do not feel that it is fair, and they are right. All the things that hurt disposable income are up: inflation, bills and taxes are up. The things that help—growth and employment—are down. Household disposable income has been revised downwards because of this Budget.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  My right hon. Friend is right, and here is the problem: this Budget might have made the Back Benchers happy, but it is not the Budget that they promised at the election. Let me help them. To start with inflation, we left Labour with inflation back under control at 2%. That took difficult decisions, which needless to say Labour opposed, but it was important to do that because inflation hurts: it picks the pockets of families who find themselves working just as hard but able to afford less and less. However, under Labour, inflation has doubled thanks to the choices it made at the last Budget. We have now broken away from our international peers—Labour Members can check the graphs—and we have significantly higher inflation than Europe and the United States. In fact, we have the highest inflation of any major economy, and the OBR has said that, compared with March, it now expects inflation to be higher for longer. Why? It is because Labour has chosen to make the cost of energy and the cost of food more expensive, and to pursue policies that will push up rent. People’s weekly shop is up because of Labour’s choices: taxes upon taxes—a jobs tax, a packaging tax, a family farm tax. These are Labour’s choices, and they mean that the average family will pay almost £300 more for their groceries this year. With Labour’s war on farmers, is it any surprise that a pack of mince, a family staple, is up 40% this year alone? Let us take housing: rent is going up by £700 this year for the average renter. Labour does not understand that a lower supply of homes to rent means higher rents, yet it is written in black and white in the OBR document that its new housing taxes risk “a steady long-term rise in rents”. Labour’s choices mean that the cost of going away on a family holiday will set people back up to £400 extra because of its flight tax. Those choices mean that food will cost £300 more, rent will cost £700 more and holidays will cost £400 more—that is £1,400 more and I have not even got to energy bills or taxes yet. On energy, where do we even start?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Yes!

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  We can exchange quotes, but the hon. Gentleman might want to— [ Interruption. ] Let me respond. He can go and check the quotes of the most respected energy economist in the country, Sir Dieter Helm, who says that the Government’s plan is locking people into higher bills for longer. One of the fundamental problems we have in this country is that energy costs are too high, and the Secretary of State is locking people into those higher prices for longer. If the Government truly want to cut bills for everyone, they should use our cheap power plan. Do you know what is extraordinary, Madam Deputy Speaker? The Government have come up with a package that costs the Exchequer more, cuts bills by less and does nothing to cut energy bills for struggling businesses. Food bills are up. Rents are up. The costs of holidays are up. Energy bills are up. That is cost after cost after cost because of the Government’s policies, and they want a round of applause for moving a fraction of those costs off energy bills and straight on to people’s tax bills. Only people with the Labour party’s grasp of numbers could think that that is a good deal. The Secretary of State says that there is an affordability crisis, but he does not explain the cause; the Government are the cause. That is before we even get to tax. Taxes on student loans, taxes on income, taxes on saving, taxes on housing, taxes on driving, taxes on pensions, and even taxes on taxis—if Labour could, it would tax the air that we breathe. Taxes are rising more in this Parliament than in any since the 1970s. The freeze in income tax thresholds means that the average worker on £35,000 a year will lose £1,000 in tax by the end of the decade. That is an extra two weeks they will be working, not to feed their family but to pay for Labour’s benefits bill. Let us be clear. When the Government say that they are asking for a contribution, they are not asking, are they? It is not like anyone can say no. I do not know whether there has ever been a more irritating formulation of words than that phrase, which we have heard so much over this weekend. There will be so many people out there who will look at this Budget and think, “Why do I bother? Why do I get up at 5.30 am? Why do I work overtime? Why do I barely see my family? Why am I going to pay more tax for people on benefits who are not working those hours?”

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  That was a fine performance, but anyone listening to it out there will think that the Secretary of State is in cloud cuckoo land. The Government have taxed working families up the wazoo. They have taxed tens of thousands of people out of their jobs. They are clobbering them left, right and centre with rising bills, and for what? It is not for growth—no, there is none of that coming—but so that they can go on a welfare spending spree. In the election, Labour promised the public that it would not lift the two-child benefit cap, just like it promised that it would not raise taxes on working people. It has broken promise after promise, and it has fudged the reasons why, to say the least. In this debate, the Government want a thank you from the public because they have handed them back a tiny fraction of the money that they took from them. I can tell you that the public are thinking of a phrase that ends in “you”—

• 25 Nov 2025 · COP30 · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Let us be clear: when this Secretary of State resumed office, he decided to impose the most punishing climate policies at home, because according to his argument, if we lead, others will follow. That is why we are the only country in the world to be shutting down our domestic energy supply in the North sea, and why he is forcing us into ever higher energy bills. He has taken the most hair-shirt, ideological approach to climate policy, with thousands of jobs lost and high bills for decades. We are not setting an example to the rest of the world; what he has created is a warning. It is now the renewables advocates at home who are raising the alarm about the folly of the Secretary of State’s plans to shut down the North sea. [Hon. Members: “Who?”] They say, “Who?” Let me name them. Scottish Renewables, Octopus Energy and—they may have heard of this one—the chair of his very own Great British Energy have all said that we have to continue to drill in the North sea, because they know that there is no just transition by pulling the plug as thoughtlessly as the Government are doing. This is student politics, yet thousands of Britons— [ Interruption. ] Labour Members laugh. I might remind them that it was their Minister who got booed when we went to Aberdeen, because thousands of Britons are paying the price with their jobs. Secondly, while the Secretary of State has been gone, it has become even clearer that his plans are raising energy bills at home. Martin Lewis and all our country’s biggest energy suppliers have publicly made it clear that the Secretary of State’s costs are now raising bills. The truth is that he promised the public lower bills and more jobs, when in fact his policies are destroying jobs and signing us up to higher bills for decades. That is not what the public were promised. The real path to lower emissions is cheaper electricity. If we want people to choose electric cars or electric heating, we need to make electricity cheap, and our cheap power plan would cut the cost of electricity for everyone by 20%. We have some of the cleanest but most expensive electricity in the world. Our plan would address that, and even the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), has said that it merits consideration. Let me return to COP to see what the Secretary of State did achieve. How many countries joined his new Global Clean Power Alliance? We did not hear about that in the statement because the answer is, “Not a single one.”. Perhaps the terrible outcomes that he is achieving at home have put them off. Worst of all, despite this conference cutting down acres of the Amazon rainforest, the Secretary of State chose not to support this conference’s flagship forest fund. Every Conservative Government since 2021 have supported global funds on deforestation, but he made sure that Britain, for the first time in four years, did not contribute. Is this not the height of hypocrisy? When people say they support environmental policy, first and foremost they mean protecting the natural world that we all cherish. Does this not show up his green ideology for what it is— bureaucratic, punitive and ultimately ineffective? The Secretary of State’s plans are completely counterproductive, so he should answer these fundamental questions. First, what do his plans mean for electricity bills, when everyone from Martin Lewis to Ofgem have made it clear that his policies are raising bills? What assessment has he made of how damaging those higher electricity bills are for electrification? Here is the rub: he is making electricity more expensive, and expecting people to use it for their heating. As a plan, it is simply absurd. Secondly, how many more emissions will the UK account for if it is increasing its imports of liquefied natural gas, which has four times the emissions of North sea? The Secretary of State is driving away British jobs to import gas with higher emissions, and he should explain to the House what the environmental benefit of that is. Thirdly, how will it help climate change if AI firms that want to use gas power set up shop in some other country rather than Britain? Those data centres will still exist, just not here in Britain, thanks to his policies. Fourthly, what does he say to Martin Lewis, who has made it very clear that the problem pushing up bills is not gas, but his plans? Here is the problem: from our electricity price to the North sea and AI, the Secretary of State is impoverishing Britain for no benefit to global emissions. This is student politics. We have become a warning, not an example, to the rest of the world. Here is what he should remember: no country is going to be convinced by a moral lecture from this Secretary of State. They are persuaded by prosperity, and his hair-shirt approach is the biggest blocker to British prosperity.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Home Discount: Fuel Poverty · Hansard source

  More

  Does the Minister accept that 22 million households are seeing their bills go up to pay for this policy, which is a handout for 6 million households? Is that not like the Government’s promise to cut bills by £300 when actually, bills have gone up by £200 instead? Does he acknowledge that the best way to help families who are struggling with their bills is to cut electricity bills for everyone? Our cheap power plan would do exactly that and cut electricity bills by 20% in time for winter. Why will the Government not consider it?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Home Discount: Fuel Poverty · Hansard source

  More

  But it is not the Government that are providing support; other households are doing so through their bills. The Minister should be honest about that. Even the chief executive of Ofgem has said that axing the carbon tax would bring down electricity prices. Our cheap power plan would cut people’s electricity bills by 20% now—for everyone, not just for few. If he really cared about families struggling with their bills, he would look at it.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  At this COP, acres of the Amazon were chopped down so that the Secretary of State can lecture us about saving the planet. Can the Minister justify why his Government did not even put a single penny into the forest fund, which could have at least repaired some of the damage?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa · Hansard source

  More

  It is no secret that I am a fan of new nuclear in this country, so I welcome the progress on SMRs. If we are to have a strong economy and a good standard of life, we need abundant, reliable and cheap energy. Nuclear works in the winter, can run 24/7 to power artificial intelligence, and is 100% clean to boot. It uses 3,000 times less land than wind and solar energy, and the latest prices around the world show that it can be much cheaper, too. The Conservative position is that we need a lot more nuclear. We were the party that overturned the complete failure of the previous Labour Government to start any British nuclear plants, so I say this with some feeling. I have been told that there was just one nuclear welder left in the country when we started work on Hinkley Point C. We invested in the supply chain and in skills, which had completely withered under the previous Government. Now the most important thing is to keep building. I personally signed off on a third large nuclear plant at Wylfa because it is our best site. It could host both large-scale nuclear and small modular reactors. By ruling out large-scale at Wylfa and ditching the 24 GW target, are the Government calling time on new large-scale nuclear? That is what it looks like to the rest of the country. It would be a huge mistake—the same mistake that Labour made last time it was in power. If we want cheap energy and growth in this country, we need to build, build, build when it comes to nuclear. The Minister talked about power generation from SMRs in the 2030s, but industry is being told that it will be 2042 at the earliest. Who is right, and is that really the best the Government can do? We have plans to make nuclear building much cheaper. In fact, to cut environmental red tape, we tabled radical amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, but the Government voted against them. The nuclear regulatory taskforce will report soon, though; will the Government consider our proposals when it does? Lastly, does the Minister agree that it is fundamentally absurd for the Green party to talk about clean power while it has a policy of dismantling Britain’s nuclear power plants?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is exactly right. These are political choices and the Government should reflect on them. When it comes to the North sea, we know that we will need oil and gas for decades to come—even the Climate Change Committee acknowledges that—yet thanks to the Government’s policies, we are paying Norway billions of pounds for gas from the exact same fields they are banning the British industry from drilling.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  I will make a little more progress. The truth is that, with the winter fuel payment cut, the promise to cut bills by £300, shutting down the North sea and supposedly achieving clean power by 2030, their Secretary of State has told Government Members to back policy after policy that unravel as soon as they meet reality. Time and again, he has made them look like fools. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line as well as billions of pounds in tax revenue. In fact, the Government would have to pocket less tax from working people at the Budget in two weeks’ time if they just backed the North sea. Never in my life have I seen a Government deliberately shut down a successful industry like this. It is economic vandalism based on student politics—no wonder their Minister got booed when he went to Aberdeen. The Government should scrap the windfall tax, end the mad ban on new oil and gas licences, and back our cheap power plan.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  That is exactly right, and I will come on to that point in a moment. Everyone remembers those contracts. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; the Secretary of State is signing us up to this century’s PFI, but this time, the cost goes straight to our energy bills.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  It is not cheap!

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman just said that the costs of building more wind and solar farms had not fed through to bills. But if we look at Ofgem’s last price cap, we see that paying wind farms to turn off when it was too windy made bills more expensive. We have spent £1 billion on that this year; by 2030, we are projected to spend £8 billion. That is an enormous added cost. Those are consented wind farms that cannot get into the grid.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  I remind the hon. Gentleman that when I was Energy Secretary, bills came down by £500. Under this Secretary of State, they have gone up by £200. What he needs to explain to his constituents is why signing up to higher prices on inflation-linked contracts for 20 years will fulfil the promise he made to those constituents to cut their bills by £300. I wish he could explain that. It is worth Labour Members listening to this. From the Tony Blair Institute to the most respected energy economist, Sir Dieter Helm, everybody has pointed out this risk to them. It has not come to them without warning, the fact that they are signing up to prices much more expensive than gas for decades. They are on the wrong side of this debate and they are on the wrong side of consumers. Come January, when the results are published, everybody will be able to see that. And they will ask them: were you warned? Did you do your job in Parliament and speak up for me and my bills? Here is the problem. Their whole position is not driven by what is best for consumers; it is driven by ideology. Nowhere is that clearer than in their war on the North sea. When Scottish Renewables says that Labour’s policy on oil and gas is damaging the transition, surely even Labour Members must realise that they are on the wrong path.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my right hon. Friend, who is so knowledgeable on matters to do with energy. He is right: the only people who have not got the message are Labour Members, who are on the wrong side of this debate. The Secretary of State promised to cut bills by £300, but bills have gone up by £200 since the general election. I warned Labour Members over and over again that this would happen, but they did not listen. Now, under their plans, energy bills will keep on rising. They might not want to hear that from me, but they should listen to the trade unions, or to energy bosses, who came to Parliament just a few weeks ago and, in a bombshell moment, said that even if gas prices went to zero, bills would still rise because of Labour’s plans. I would hazard a guess that their view is shared by the Prime Minister, given that he tried to sack the Secretary of State at the last reshuffle. What does the Prime Minister know that these guys don’t, I wonder? Our electricity is already some of the cleanest in the world, but it is also the most expensive. If we want people to adopt electric cars or electric home heating, we need to make electricity cheap. If we want artificial intelligence or industry to succeed in this country, we need to make electricity cheap. If we want people to have a better standard of life, so that they can spend more money on their families than on their bills, we need to make electricity cheap. Our cheap power plan would cut electricity bills by 20%, and not just for a favoured few, whereas Labour is pushing up bills for 22 million families to give handouts to 6 million. Our plan would cut bills for everybody—households and businesses. It would mean £165 off the average family’s bill, but even more if they spend more—and we could do it now.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

  More

  As the Chair of the Select Committee was happy to spend some time with me on this, I hope that the hon. Lady would be too, because she might learn something. Some 40% of our electricity prices are wholesale prices, while 60% are fixed costs, which covers things like building out the networks, which is going up phenomenally under the Government’s plans, as even Ofgem has pointed out; it also covers switching off wind farms when it gets too windy, which we spent £1 billion on this year, and will spend £8 billion on in 2030. I urge the hon. Lady to go and look at the numbers. Our imports of foreign gas, which has four times the emissions of British gas, have soared because of what the Government are doing to the North sea; they were up 40% year on year at the beginning of this year. When the unions, the chief executive of Octopus and even the chair of Great British Energy have said that we should keep drilling in the North sea, do Government Members not wonder whether their Secretary of State has got this wrong?