Claire Coutinho MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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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  The hon. and learned Gentleman is right to raise the plight of Northern Ireland. As he knows, there is a single energy market on the island of Ireland, but we need to cut electricity costs for everybody, right across these isles. The first part of our plan would be to axe the carbon tax. The carbon tax on electricity pushes up the price of gas, wind, solar and nuclear, and it has gone up by 70% this year, thanks to the Government’s policies. We asked Labour Ministers about this, and they pretended not to know anything. We warned them not to put the tax up, and they said it was a Conservative scare story, but here we are. The Secretary of State blames gas for high bills, and I am sure the Minister will do the same in his speech, but a third of what we pay for gas is a carbon tax that the Government choose to impose. If the Secretary of State thinks that the price of gas is too high, he could take off the carbon tax and cut the price of gas by a third tomorrow. Guess what? That would make wind, solar and nuclear cheaper, too. Every time someone blames gas, it is like them complaining that their bath is overrunning when they will not turn off the taps. It is in the Government’s gift to axe the carbon tax. It has gone up because of them, so what are they waiting for? Secondly, when the wind blows, there are wind farms in this country getting three times the market price for electricity, thanks to renewables obligation subsidies. That is clearly mad. The Secretary of State doubled those subsidies when he had his last chance to ruin the energy system. We closed the scheme in office, but it is time to scrap it. Those two policies would cut people’s electricity bills by 20% now, in time for winter—and in time for us to be a world leader in AI, and to stop the crippling redundancies in the industry that are coming down the track. Instead of taking up those policies, the Labour party is doing something very different: it is intent on locking us into higher prices for longer. The results of the Secretary of State’s botched wind auction will become clear in January. When the Government promised to cut bills, the cost of electricity was £72 a megawatt-hour. Last year, they locked in a fixed rate of £82 for offshore wind, and this year they are offering up to £117. These are fixed-rate, inflation-linked contracts, and they have extended the length of those contracts, so we will be paying these prices for 20 years. Essentially, they are signing us up to a 10% fixed-rate mortgage for 20 years, because they do not want to be on a 4% variable that moves around. The problem is this: if they sign up to higher prices than the current cost of electricity—this is before we include all the extra costs of wind, such as paying to turn it off when it is too windy, and paying for back-up when it is not windy enough—how will that cut bills? There will be higher prices for longer. Those are the prices that not only you and I will pay, Madam Deputy Speaker, but that our children will pay.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Electricity Market Review · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I know that this has been a difficult decision for him. He told everyone that his flagship mission was to commission more renewable power than ever before by 2030—more wind than ever before and faster than ever before in a market that was already facing supply-chain challenges and soaring costs. I said at the time that it was completely unfeasible but that if he was going to do it he should take every opportunity to minimise the grid infrastructure that needs to be built and the costs of his plans. On the other hand, I know that he will have had wind developers telling him that if he takes those decisions and makes those choices, they will not be bidding into his auction in the next couple of years—the auctions he needs them to bid into so that he can meet his self-imposed targets—because they want to protect their returns. When faced with a choice between protecting the profits of wind developers and cutting bills for the British people, the Secretary of State has chosen the wind developers, who know that they have him over a barrel. In setting himself an unachievable 2030 target that was based on ideology and ideology alone, he was telling those wind developers that he has to buy whatever they are selling, no matter the price. A little over a year ago, the Secretary of State told the country that bills would come down by up to £300, but his statement today shows that when push comes to shove he will choose higher bills for the British people to fund profits for renewable energy companies. Worse still, what he did not mention is that today’s announcement means higher bills to pay wind farms billions in constraint payments not to produce energy but simply to switch off. I have warned the Secretary of State repeatedly about the risks of building more wind before grid, and I asked him to continue my work on what a full system cost of energy would look like, which includes the cost of back-up and constraint payments. But he did not listen. He axed that work because he did not want to know what those costs were. Instead, last year he signed us up to the most expensive wind prices in a decade, at about £86 per megawatt-hour. That is almost 15% higher than the average cost of electricity for the last year, which has been about £74 per megawatt-hour. This year’s prices will probably be the same, if not higher, and he wants to extend those contracts to 20 years. He has not explained how locking us into much higher prices for longer will bring down bills—but lower bills is what he has promised the British public. There is more. The Secretary of State’s plan requires more grid to be built faster than before—that means £74 on to household bills. His plans mean that constraint payments for wind farms to switch off will rise to £8 billion—that means £100 on to bills. Now we read that we will be paying solar farms to switch off when it is sunny too, and the Office for Budget Responsibility says that green levies will rise by £5 billion. People may have noticed that the Secretary of State used to talk a lot about cheaper energy but now talks about less volatile prices. What his Back Benchers need to realise is that most people would not swap a 4% variable rate mortgage for an 8% fixed one. What they care about is the price of their bills, and they want cheaper prices. If he was truly interested in bringing down bills, he would not have scrapped the analysis that I started last year to find out the true cost of a system dominated by wind and solar. I have now read—twice in one week—that Downing Street is starting to pressure the Secretary of State about when his plans might actually bring down bills. All I can say is: I share the feeling! Before repeating all the empty promises about cutting bills by £300, Downing Street might have wanted to ask where his evidence was, but I will ask him now. Will he reinstate that cost of energy work so that we can clearly see the differences between the systems? Will he set out a road map to show exactly how he will lower bills? Will he confirm that he will not sign up to prices in this year’s wind auction that are higher than the current average cost of electricity? Can he also confirm whether he saw a full cost-benefit analysis of the choices in front of him today, and does he share the views of Ofgem and NESO? I will leave the Secretary of State with two quotes. The chief executive of Octopus Energy—one of the country’s biggest advocates of renewables—has said that the Secretary of State’s plans mean “soaring costs, locked in for years to come, and more on the way… And the more we build, the worst it gets, for years.” He also said, “It’s brutal for families and crippling for growth.” I think the Secretary of State said in his statement that the biggest problem for businesses is uncertainty, but it is not; it is high energy costs. The second quote—perhaps the most revealing— comes from one of his closest advisers, his chief energy system adviser, who said, “If we procure lots and lots of renewable generation and then we do not build the grid that allows it to get to markets, we will be wasting lots and lots of money.” I could not have put it better myself.