Claire Coutinho MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  If everything is so hunky-dory, why did half the Defence team quit last week? The Government will not find the money to keep our country safe, so let us go through some of the things they can find money for. They can find millions of pounds to build solar farms in the Congo, and tens of millions of pounds for an experiment to dim the sun, but they are turning down £25 billion in tax revenue from the North sea to please their out-of-control Energy Secretary. Does the Deputy Prime Minister really think that any of that is more important than defending our country?

• 17 Jun 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I asked the Deputy Prime Minister about pay cuts, which the Government should care about, because if the Mayor of Manchester gets his way, I am pretty sure that half of the Front Bench will be getting a pay cut pretty soon. This is serious. The world is getting more dangerous, yet last week the Prime Minister asked the Energy Secretary to help fund the defence of our country and he ghosted him. Let me repeat that: the Energy Secretary refused to meet the Prime Minister on a matter of national security. Why has he not been sacked?

• 17 Jun 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  If everything is fine, why do we have a new Defence Secretary? [ Interruption. ] He was not here last week, was he? Let us face it: this is a Government on life support. What is their grand plan now? Let me get this straight: they want to make the job-destroying Energy Secretary Chancellor; they want to bring back the former Transport Secretary, who resigned for nicking phones; and they want to replace the Deputy Prime Minister with the former Deputy Prime Minister, who resigned for dodging taxes. Those are all pointless distractions. Here is a better idea: why do they not cut welfare, fund defence, make energy cheap and back the North sea?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  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?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

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  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.