Claire Coutinho MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Nov 2024 · Clean Energy by 2030 · Hansard source

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  Last week, the National Energy System Operator published a full systems cost analysis of the Secretary of State’s flagship project to carbonise the grid by 2030. This morning, the Secretary of State said on several media outlets that the report shows that his plans will lower bills. I remind the House that the report assumes that gas prices are 40% higher than the Department’s own estimates, that the price of carbon price is at least double what it is now, that the Government can commission more offshore wind in the next two years than in the last six combined without moving prices, and that they can build the grid at a pace we have never seen before in this country, without any delays. Even if all that is achieved, page 78 of the report shows that the cost of the system will be higher. For clarity, would the Minister like to repeat at the Dispatch Box the Secretary of State’s claim that the NESO report shows that Labour’s system will lead to a lower cost of electricity?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It is always a pleasure to see him in the Chamber making excellent points. The question that I have is this: why has the Secretary of State set up a duplicate programme with no instructions for governance, independent review, investment plans or consumer savings that he can be judged by? Why should taxpayers’ money fund a similar entity when the only difference that I can discern is that it gives the Secretary of State unchecked power? What is it about the £8 billion of taxpayer money that he can direct without checks or balances that first attracted him to the idea of GB Energy? These are fair and reasonable questions for us as the Opposition to ask, and he must look to improve the governance in this Bill. Let me turn to the promises that he made. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Secretary of State and at least 50 Labour MPs promised their constituents in the July election that GB Energy would save them £300 a year on their energy bills. They said it on their election literature, on social media and in hustings. They said it because they were told to do so by the Secretary of State, but I listened very closely to his speech today and I did not hear him make a promise that GB Energy will save them £300 on their energy bills. In a debate just before the summer recess, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), would not repeat the promise either. That is because they all know that it is not true. In fact, one of Labour’s first acts in government has been to take away up to £300 from 10 million pensioners this winter, including two thirds of pensioners in poverty. It takes some nerve for the Labour party to say that it never wanted to do this, because the winter fuel payment was in the manifesto of the Secretary of State’s party when he wrote it in 2010. It was in there when he was leader in 2015, it was in there in 2017 and in 2019, but in 2024 it was omitted. There was no mention at all for the first time in 14 years. I will give credit to the right hon. Gentleman—something that I do not always do. When he was leader in 2015, he put it in his manifesto that he would take the payment away from the top 5% of pensioners. He will remember that. He had the courtesy of telling the public his plans, but, professional politician that he is, I suggest that he would have clocked that it was not included this time round. He has been in politics for 30 years and would have known what that meant, so I hope that he can confirm today whether he had any conversations with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor or Morgan McSweeney before the manifesto came out. If so, he sent out those Labour candidates—all the people on the Benches behind him—with this false promise of the £300 energy savings when someone clearly knew that they were going to take that amount away from millions of pensioners this winter.

• 26 Jul 2024 · Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman, but as I said, we have to look at the full system cost. He is very experienced in the energy sector, and he knows as well as I do that the flexible capacity that is used to back up an intermittent system is where the true costs lie. It is fair for Opposition Members to ask for an assessment of what those costs will be, and what they will mean for British bill payers. The other area where the Government must be honest with the public is about what they are going to build. The Secretary of State’s first week in the job saw him approve 4,000 football pitches’ worth of solar farms on farmland in Rutland, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Those projects were not sat on my desk, as the Secretary of State has claimed. I had made a decision to reject Sunnica on the basis of a scathing examining authority report, and I changed policy to protect our best agricultural land. These are not projects that were likely to be approved; these are bad decisions. Work was being drawn up to be announced, but the decision had been taken in the case of Sunnica. The Secretary of State will know that from civil servants, who are duty bound to brief him honestly in the Department. In the case of Mallard Pass, the site has been signed off, 40% of which will be built on our best and most versatile agricultural land, taking no notice of legal planning guidance that says that best agricultural land must be avoided. The Secretary of State and his Ministers will have to justify that, and many more decisions, to his new colleagues, many of whom now represent rural communities and whose constituents will be rightly concerned that they are next. I wish the new Minister well for his time in the Department. The energy sector is one of the most interesting and important policy briefs affecting this country, and it is in all our interests that he does his job well. However, what the Government have done so far —make claims during the election that they cannot stack up now they are in government—will just not do. They have set out a hard target to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and the Secretary of State stakes his entire political reputation on it, without being honest about the costs. These issues are far too important for Government not to take seriously, and they are far too important for Labour Members to follow the Government blindly without asking questions. They did that during the election with promises to save households £300, and they can no longer stack up those promises just three weeks into Government. I humbly suggest that this is their first lesson of the Parliament: they should not give the Secretary of State a blank cheque again.

• 26 Jul 2024 · Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I say how wonderful it is to see you in the Chair? I warmly welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) to his place on the Government Front Bench. I know that he used to be a schoolteacher, a wonderful profession, and I am sure that his ability to wrangle with unruly children will help him with his work in this place. I also welcome the continuation of the fine tradition started by my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) of having a Minister from Scotland in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Scotland has played, and will continue to play, a vital role in our energy security, and I know that the hon. Member will bring his local expertise to the role. I was surprised to see the title of this debate. Under the Conservative Government, we built more offshore wind than any other country bar China, much of it driven by our contracts for difference scheme, which weaves together the Conservative principles of competition and enterprise. It was under the Conservative Government that we went from having 7% of our electricity coming from renewable energy to almost half today, and it was under the Conservative Government that we kick-started the largest nuclear revival in 70 years, committing to three large-scale nuclear reactors and a whole new fleet of small and advanced modular reactors. That is the record that has led to more than £300 billion being invested in green technology since 2010, creating jobs up and down the country. The Labour party likes to say that the difference between us is that they are the climate believers and we are the climate deniers, but that is obviously nonsense. It was under the Conservative Government that we became the first country in the G20 to have halved carbon emissions, and we did that while growing the economy. The real difference between us is this: we know that the transition needs to happen, but we recognise that it is now at a stage where we are asking the British public to incur great costs—to change their cars, their homes and many other things. We are way ahead of other countries, and what happens next is not cost free. If it is not managed carefully, if it is driven by ideology rather than the national interest, then it will cost us jobs, hit struggling families and leave us reliant on fuel imports from foreign regimes. This country will succeed in the decades ahead only if we have enough cheap energy to power our nation. It is no use being world-leading at cutting emissions if the cost of our energy goes through the roof and all our businesses leave to set up in countries that still burn coal for 60% of their energy. That would be worse for global emissions and a disaster for the British public. We will do our bit from the Opposition Benches to hold the Government to account on their plans, but my message to those MPs now sitting on the Government Benches is that it is in their interest to ask these crucial questions too. Throughout the general election campaign, the people now sitting on the Benches behind the Minister told their new constituents that their plans would save them £300 on their energy bills—they said it in hustings, they said it in local media, they said it on their leaflets— but they will have noticed by now that their Ministers are no longer saying that at all. This is the problem, Madam Deputy Speaker: when you get into government and you speak in the House, you cannot use numbers for which you have no basis. [ Interruption. ] Labour Members will learn that. But their voters— [ Interruption. ] They laugh, but their voters will not forget that they made that promise. Their online clips and social media accounts will not go away. They all know that their leadership have sold them down the river on this one. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State know that those savings cannot be delivered; in fact, their approach to energy will add huge costs to people’s bills. That is not us being evil Tories. It is also the view of the European lead for Mitsubishi Power, who said that the Labour party’s plans would require a “huge sacrifice” from Brits; it is the view of the GMB trade union, which has said that the Secretary of State’s plans will lead to power cuts and blackouts across the country and come at an enormous cost; and it is the view of the Tony Blair Institute, which says that Labour’s plans would raise bills and harm our energy security. People the Labour party normally listens to, from the right to the left of the party, agree with us on this issue. I urge the hon. Members sitting behind the Minister to take this issue seriously and examine his plans in detail, because it is their promise, which they all made just a few weeks ago, that is being ditched. Come the next election, the first question their voters will ask is not, “Have you met the 2030 target?”, but, “What did you do to my energy bills?” If the trade unions, the business leaders and the Conservative party are right that their approach would place huge costs on British households, I can tell them that their constituents will check the parliamentary records and see whether they asked any questions, and they will have to explain why they let these measures pass without challenge.