Claire Coutinho MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Feb 2026 · UK Emissions Trading Scheme · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it is great to see you back on your feet. Last week, the Labour party voted to increase the carbon tax, which increases costs for households and industry, and those costs have already doubled because of its policies. It is absolutely shameful for the Government to say that they have had no impact on the carbon tax whatsoever. It now accounts for over 10% of household electricity bills, and the rise is in effect a £5 billion a year tax on the British economy. Can the Minister explain why the Labour party wants to tax our industrial jobs out of existence, leaving Britain reliant on dirtier imports from abroad?

• 10 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  That is frankly another patronising non-answer from the Secretary of State. I am not sure whether he got the memo, but his party is fed up with the sexist boys club. What is crucial is that the public have lost faith in the Labour party. This is a serious moment. Does he accept that when he stands at the Dispatch Box and tells the public that by his calculation their bills are falling, not rising, they simply do not believe him? Does he also accept that when he does not set out what any of his plans—such as doubling the carbon tax or clean power 2030—will do to bills, he makes a mockery of his party’s pretence that it cares about the cost of living? Does he not reflect on all this—the £300 nonsense pledge, the Great British Energy fig leaf—and realise that when it comes to loss of trust, he is not their salvation but their problem?

• 10 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last year, the Secretary of State signed a secret energy deal with China, which he has refused to publish. This is simply unheard of. We have heard repeatedly from intelligence services that China might seek to disrupt our energy system, so it is crucial that the public get to see what he has signed us up to. Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing the full text of his secret energy deal with China, and if not, will he tell the House what it is that he is trying to hide?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Nurses up and down the country, including the Darlington nurses and Jennifer Melle, are being hounded and harassed by the NHS simply for recognising that biological sex is real. I am grateful that the Minister has previously agreed to meet Jennifer and hope that she still will. The Minister takes up the cause of working-class women—these are working-class women, and they are being abused by people in positions of power—so will she go further by holding accountable those in the NHS, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the unions who have harassed and victimised those hard-working nurses?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In the case of Gorton and Denton, we heard this week that the Muslim Vote has decided to endorse the Green party. This is overt sectarism in our midst, and we know that where we have sectarian politics, conflict and strife follow. Even one of Labour’s candidates at the last election was threatened with beheading, but nobody in the Labour party seems to be able to confront this problem. Will the Secretary of State call it out for what it is—sectarian politics that has no place in Britain?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the Minister’s graciousness in understanding our concern for industry. His priority is decarbonisation, but I am sure he will understand the very real risk that it is not the case that the UK is decarbonising, because those industries are not remaining in the UK and cutting their emissions; instead, UK businesses in those industries are going abroad, often to countries that have more polluting regimes than the UK—which has some of the cleanest electricity of anywhere in the world—including places that are still powered by coal. Rather than reducing global carbon emissions, we will actually increase emissions by moving our businesses from the UK to countries that have more polluting regimes. That will mean fewer jobs in Britain for more carbon in the atmosphere. Do the Government plan to monitor whether that is happening, and if it is, will the Minister change course? Surely he would agree that such a scenario would not count as decarbonising well; in fact, it would not be decarbonising the planet at all.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  Originally, the choice was between coal and gas, but there is no coal in the system anymore; there is only gas. Even in the Minister’s clean power plans, gas is the dispatchable power in the system—there is no other choice; nothing else will keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Even in his plans, gas will set the price 50% of the time. He is needlessly imposing a tax that inflates that price of gas to the consumer when there is no other choice available. Will he at least come up with a forecast for what this will mean for energy bills and consumers in this country, considering that they do not have another choice, even in the Minister’s plans, apart from using gas power?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I think what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that the impact assessment makes it clear that consumers will face higher costs. The question I am putting to him is what that will mean for people’s energy bills. I suspect that is something that his constituents would be concerned about. Given that he does not have an answer, he should ask of his Government what it will mean for people’s energy bills.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I am sure that Members will have been hanging on to the Minister’s every word, but they may not have made it through the dense forest of governmentitis, so let me be very clear: the measures in the instrument, which will be imposed from 2027, will reduce the supply of free allowances, thereby increasing the carbon tax in this country. That is explicitly stated in the Government’s impact assessment. Free allowances have been the mechanism that we use to protect businesses such as cement and steel from being undercut by cheaper imported products from countries that do not charge carbon taxes. That has meant that those businesses have not faced higher costs from the tax, and therefore, neither have consumers. Because of the CBAM, the protection is being moved to a tariff placed on imports at the border, which means the free allowances in the domestic UK market are being phased out. Members should be clear that that means the carbon tax will now start to be charged on the production of goods produced for the British market that otherwise had been protected by free allowances, and British consumers will face higher prices as a result. What does this mean in practice? The carbon tax is paid by industrial businesses such as gas power stations, oil refineries and food manufacturers. The Government make them pay a tax for every tonne of carbon they release during their production. Naturally, those taxes are passed straight through to consumers in higher prices, so if the Government increase the carbon tax they increase the price of basic goods like electricity, petrol and sugar. The Government know that, because in the impact assessment for this legislation they admit exactly that: higher carbon taxes will be passed through to consumers as higher prices—it is in paragraph 18.8 for any Members who are checking. That means higher energy, food and petrol prices. The Government insist that they need to do this because they have decided to link the UK carbon tax scheme to the EU’s. That was their decision—it was a political choice—and that alone has doubled our carbon tax since the start of last year. We are not talking about a slight increase; we are talking about a tax that has more than doubled in less than a year because of choices made by this Labour Government. Families across the country will have less money in their pockets, not because of an act of God or events outside the Government’s control but because of an active policy choice made by Labour Ministers. Doubling the carbon tax has increased electricity bills alone by £4 billion. In fact, the carbon tax imposed by the Government now accounts for over £100 per year, or over 12%, of the average electricity bill. The increase is costing the wider British economy an extra £5 billion a year, and the legislation that Labour Members will vote for today will pile more costs on to consumers. The Prime Minister recently said that his priority is the cost of living, but across his Government hundreds of decisions like today’s are raining down more regulations and higher taxes, which are pushing costs up. These are policies that will push rents up, that have driven food prices up and that are landing on people’s energy bills. The impact assessment accepts that today’s policy will push up energy bills but, extraordinarily for a Government who say that their priority is the cost of living, it does not give a figure of by how much. That is why the Prime Minister will fail and it is why this Labour Government are failing. There is no appetite, or accountability, in his Government for even understanding what these policies will mean for the consumer, let alone trying to act in the consumer’s interest.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is absolutely extraordinary that the hon. Member does not accept that a higher price of carbon imposed on the production of goods in this country will raise costs. The cost of the carbon tax now accounts for—rather than pointing to the document, it is worth him listening to what I have to say—£100, or 12%, of someone’s electricity bill. That is clearly a cost that has been passed through. If Labour Members cannot understand that taxes on businesses get passed on to consumers, I am afraid I cannot help them in this debate. Make no mistake: this is a massive burden on consumers and businesses. Why are the Government doing this? Who benefits? The Treasury will see an extra £1.8 billion in tax revenue because it has doubled the carbon tax. Through this legislation, by reducing free allowances, it will rake in even more from ordinary families who are already struggling. That is in fact the entire point. The aim of the carbon tax is to gradually increase costs for British industry until businesses have no choice but to spend hundreds of millions of pounds they do not have at the moment to decarbonise their production, or shut down and move abroad. The fact that companies are choosing to do the latter means that there will be no reduction in global emissions because those businesses are just moving elsewhere. There will be fewer jobs in Britain, and more businesses in countries that have more polluting regimes—so more carbon in the atmosphere overall. Page 68 of the Minister’s impact assessment says that the carbon tax would be £25 lower by 2030 if the Government did not make the changes we are discussing today. As the Government have admitted, higher carbon taxes feed through to consumers in higher energy bills and higher costs. The Minister is asking us to approve legislation that, by his own assessment, will hurt industry, fuel inflation and make people poorer. When defending alignment, Ministers point to a Frontier Economics report that says that alignment will save £800 million, but that is supposedly saved over five years, and completely ignores the costs that higher carbon prices impose on the wider economy. To be clear, they are imposing a £5 billion tax rise on the economy every year, in the hope of saving just £160 million a year. That is incoherent to say the least. When I asked the Department how increasing the carbon tax affects consumers and businesses, its response was that the Government were “not able to comment on current prices and price movements” because they do not dictate the market. That is total nonsense. They can and should forecast what this will mean for prices, and how much our constituents will pay in extra costs on their bills. All I am asking is for Ministers to be open about the costs, admit they are imposing them on businesses and the public, make the argument as to why they are justified to do so and then let the public decide. I do not think that that is too much to ask. I ask the Minister these questions: what is his assessment of how many jobs will be lost because of higher carbon taxes? How many more domestic industries will be replaced by foreign imports, which we are already seeing in gas, steel, chemicals and refineries? Does he accept that reducing free allowances through this legislation will increase energy bills? His own impact assessment says that reducing free allowances will increase carbon prices by £25 per tonne, so will he publish an assessment of what that increased cost will add to people’s household bills? The world is getting more dangerous, and our raw industrial power is hard power. The Government should not be making our industry even less competitive with soaring carbon taxes, and making us more reliant on foreign imports, just as the world is becoming less safe. It is the wrong measure for the wrong time, and for those reasons we will oppose it today.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  If I am wrong and the Labour party has an assessment for what the order will do to energy bills, perhaps the hon. Member can give us the numbers. I suspect that he will not be able to, but I will happily let him try.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress, unless the hon. Member has an answer on energy bills.

• 14 Jan 2026 · Offshore Wind · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. What the Secretary of State has done today has given a massive boost to the profits of multimillion-pound energy companies, but will be paid for by consumers through their bills. What do the prices show us? First, wind power is not getting cheaper as promised. These are the highest prices that we have seen in a decade. Today’s strike prices, in a like-for-like comparison, are much higher than last year’s prices. If we use the Secretary of State’s own figures on the worth of the contract extension—he extended it to 20 years—the prices are 24% more expensive than last year’s. That is an enormous year-on-year increase, which is much higher than inflation. Can the Secretary of State explain why building a wind farm has suddenly got so much more expensive? Well, I can. It is because by setting himself completely unrealistic targets, he advertised to multimillion-pound wind developers that he would be buying whatever they were selling, no matter the cost. He flexed all the rules, he extended their contracts, and he gave the wind developers everything they wanted, and they repaid him with the most expensive prices for wind power that we have seen in a decade. The Secretary of State wants us to celebrate the fact that he bought a bumper round—in his own words, the “biggest in history”. Let us take his key argument on levelised cost of electricity. If he had looked at or replied to any of the letters that I have sent him, he would know that I did not agree with using a LCOE to compare wind power and gas power. He will know that I started— [ Interruption. ] He might want to listen to this; he might learn something. He will know that I started a full systems cost, which he cancelled, even though I urged him to continue it. That is because the full cost of these contracts to the consumer is £95 in today’s money, plus inflation and the extra costs that come with wind, such as turning off the turbines when it is too windy, having a back-up gas plant when it is not windy enough, and connecting the turbines to the grid. He has underplayed the true cost of wind in people’s bills. By the way, it is not just me saying that this is how we should look at cost; wind developers say the same. Sir Dieter Helm and senior economists say that we should look at the full systems cost. When the Secretary of State talks about the comparison with a new gas power plant, he is wilfully ignoring the fact that he needs to build new gas plants anyway. What does he think will power the country on wintry days when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow? Even his own plans acknowledge that it is gas power. In his plans, he will build the same amount of gas plants anyway, but he will just run them 4% of the time. Would anyone here buy a house that they use 4% of the time? Well, I guess out of all of us, it is probably the Secretary of State who would. Here is the problem: the Secretary of State is having to build more and more capacity, lots of which will sit idle most of the time, which means higher costs for a less productive energy system. These are all costs that the Secretary of State is choosing to ignore, but even if we use the figures that he is quoting today, which underplay the cost of wind, the truth is there. If we take out the carbon tax that he is choosing to impose, the cost of a gas power plant running fully is roughly a third cheaper than offshore wind. That is written in black and white on page 33 of the report, if hon. Members would like to check. He is hoping that Labour Members will not read what he has published today, but I hope that they do, because it should be facts, not ideology, that drive the decisions that we make for our energy system. People out there are at breaking point. They get up every day, they go to work, and everything they earn is being eaten up by Labour’s taxes and their bills. Last time we spoke across the Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State tried to tell me that people’s energy bills are going down, not up. Nobody out there believes him. Energy bills have gone up five times under him because of his policies, and now he is celebrating this botched wind auction that has seen him sign up to the highest prices for wind power for a decade—prices close to 20% higher than the cost of electricity. The question is: how on earth can the Secretary of State bring bills down with these higher prices? That is what people were promised. This will be the private finance initiative of the energy system, and it will be in place long after he has gone from this place. I warned him that if he set himself completely unrealistic targets, the wind developers would have him over a barrel, and that is what has happened. He talks about fossil fuel spikes, but he does not talk about the ongoing de-industrialisation of this country because of uncompetitive electricity prices—prices that he is locking us into for two decades. I have three simple questions for the Secretary of State. Will he finally publish a full systems cost of clean power 2030? Will he confirm that he will still need to build gas power plants for dispatchable power? If that is not his policy, what will keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine? Does he have a forecast for the constraint payments, and how much does he expect to pay wind developers to turn off when it is too windy?

• 14 Jan 2026 · Offshore Wind · Hansard source

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  Gas is falling!

• 6 Jan 2026 · Gas-fired Power Stations · Hansard source

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  Happy new year, Mr Speaker. This is just nonsense on stilts from the Secretary of State, and we know this because the biggest AI company in the world has said that it will need gas power to succeed in Britain. If a company wants to build its own gas plant here, at no cost to the British taxpayer, the warped green ideology of this Secretary of State, who is obsessed with domestic emissions above everything else, will block it. Those emissions will still exist, as that company will start somewhere, just not here in Britain. Does he agree that that is a completely mad reason to block the growth we need in Britain?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is freezing cold outside, and people are worried about their energy bills, yet on top of all the other costs the Secretary of State has lumped on to people’s bills, it is reported that he is about to tax people with gas boilers to pay for people having heat pumps. Can he definitively rule this out for the rest of this Parliament: no new taxes on people heating their homes?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The rumours are that the Secretary of State is pitching himself to be the next Chancellor. He did not rule out taxes on people heating their homes for this Parliament, he is shutting down the North sea, there is a disastrous EU energy deal and a secret deal with China, the industry is fleeing in its droves and energy bills have risen five times on his watch. Does this not show that he has to be the only person in the country who could do a worse job than the current Chancellor?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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.