Ed Miliband MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 14 Oct 2025 · Tackling Climate Change: International Co-operation · Hansard source

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  In the best traditions of the UK, we see it as our duty to work with other countries to tackle the climate crisis and protect future generations. It was British leadership that saw the Climate Change Act 2008 emulated in 60 countries across the world, and it was the leadership of the UK at COP26 that now sees 80% of global GDP covered by net zero. We will maintain that tradition of leadership into COP30 in Brazil and beyond.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Tackling Climate Change: International Co-operation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and Ella for her interest in and enthusiasm for this incredibly important issue. Deforestation is a terrible thing for the planet, but it is also terrible for the people who are affected—the indigenous people who live in the forest. Nature-based solutions and solutions that put indigenous people at the centre make a huge difference. This is a COP in the forest, and I think the Brazilian presidency deserves congratulations on that emphasis. It is developing a number of initiatives, including the so-called TFFF—the tropical forest forever facility—to finance the prevention of deforestation, and we are working with it on that.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Tackling Climate Change: International Co-operation · Hansard source

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  Part of what we are doing is devolving more of the funding around warm homes, for example, so that local authorities can play a leading role. I congratulate local authorities on the interest that they are taking in this. The hon. Lady raises the wider picture of COP30, which is important—this is a crucial moment. The UK has already shown leadership in the past 15 months, including by publishing our nationally determined contribution at COP29 last year.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Tackling Climate Change: International Co-operation · Hansard source

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  Plastic waste is something that my colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs work on. I think my hon. Friend’s wider point is important. There is a global context to this—and sometimes that context might not actually be as it appears—which is that, when we look across the world, we see that countries are still acting on these issues. Why? Because they recognise that it is in their national interest economically and in the long term for future generations. There is no future if people bury their heads in the sand and say, “We’re not going to act.”

• 14 Oct 2025 · Tackling Climate Change: International Co-operation · Hansard source

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  I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question. Part of the answer here is that the economics have changed, so getting private finance into developing countries can make a massive difference. The “Baku to Belém road map” is being produced as part of the COP process—it is a $1.3 trillion road map—and most of that is about private finance. We can see across the world the effect of private finance in developing countries. In Pakistan, for example, solar has gone from playing almost no part in its electricity system to being the top part of that system in only three or four years, because it is in Pakistan’s economic interests. That is what we are seeing across the world. We need the private and public sectors to play their role.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  First of all, Mr Speaker, let me congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his promotion to shadow Secretary of State. [ Laughter. ] On the specific issue he raises, we will take no lectures from the Conservatives. Some 70,000 jobs were lost in the North sea on their watch. And here is the difference: we are building the future. The Acorn project was talked about for year after year by the Conservatives but nothing was done. This Government are delivering.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an important issue about her constituency and the steel industry, and I would say two things. One is that what this Government have done, which I am afraid was not done previously, is set up a dedicated fund for steel so that we are able to make the green transition. We talked about this in opposition, and we are now delivering billions of pounds to help the steel industry transition. The other is that I will take up the specific pensions issue she raised with my right hon. Friend the Business and Trade Secretary.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  Here is the difference between them and us. They would keep us hooked on fossil fuels for time immemorial. They have learned not a single lesson from the disaster they inflicted on this country: family finances ruined; business finances ruined; public finances ruined. A year on, there is not a word of apology.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Later this year, we will publish a clean energy skills plan to address precisely this question: how do we make sure we equip workers with the skills they need to take advantage of those jobs? That is being led by my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary in the work she is doing with Skills England, but there is a whole range of things we can do. For the first time, the Government will publish what the skills needs are for clean energy jobs and how we will meet them, which will be an important step forward.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  The industrial strategy published last month set out our plans to build clean energy supply chains in the UK, including a new £1 billion fund through Great British Energy to partner with the private sector to create jobs in Britain and the new clean industry bonus, which has the potential to unleash billions of pounds of private investment in offshore wind supply chains. We are determined that the clean energy future will be made in Britain.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is so wide of the mark it is unbelievable. The Grangemouth closure was foreshadowed before this Government came to power. We have worked hand in glove with his colleagues in the Scottish Government—all the way along, Gillian Martin and I have been working on it—and for him to try to make party politics out of the issue is, frankly, a disgrace.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Green Industries: Supply Chain Jobs · Hansard source

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  First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on being such a brilliant champion of the port of Tyne and what it offers, and she is right to draw attention to this important issue. Approval of any works to reroute the line is a matter for Ofgem, but we stand ready to engage with her and, indeed, Ofgem to try to bring this forward. I suggest that my hon. Friend the Energy Minister meets her to discuss this important issue.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I made a comprehensive statement to the House on this last Thursday, and the grounds for the decision are these: first, there is the question of fairness, and secondly, there is the question of the cost of the transition and what would happen in the meantime. We need investment in our clean energy infrastructure, and we need investment in growth. I believe that our way—reformed national pricing—is the right way forward.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  GB Energy will prioritise a whole range of projects, and that is a matter for GB Energy, as a publicly owned energy company at arm’s length from Government, but there are huge opportunities right across our country, whether in floating wind, tidal, hydrogen or offshore wind and supply chains. GB Energy is owned by the public and will benefit people right across Britain.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a great example, and I will take a risk and say yes, I will come to Stourbridge. I love Stourbridge, and I look forward to seeing that project.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  On the first point, I completely respect the right hon. Lady’s decision to be with her young baby, and there was no offence intended. I think it is very important that we understand the needs of new parents and, indeed, parents across the country. On the question she asked, I do not know what she is getting at, frankly.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The most significant thing about the OBR report is that it says there is an 8% threat to our GDP by 2070 in a 3°C world, and a 56% rise in the debt to GDP ratio if we do not act on climate change. That is the most important thing from that report, which I recommend all hon. Members read over the summer.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It sounds like I am being educated about floating solar. I am happy to share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for it; if he has proposals about how we can take it forward, I am all ears.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Since the last oral question time for the Department, the spending review announced the largest investment in clean energy in our country’s history—investment in new nuclear; in carbon, capture and storage; and in hydrogen transport and storage. We are investing £8.3 billion through Great British Energy and £13.2 billion in our warm homes plan for energy security, lower bills and good jobs.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  There is no monopoly on good ideas, and the hon. Lady raises the important issue of how we adapt as a country to the climate crisis. We know we have a lot more to do, and we will listen to all good ideas.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am going to be radically honest and tell the right hon. Lady the truth: she is gambling on fossil fuels—the same thing she did that led us to the worst cost of living crisis in our country’s history, with family finances, businesses’ finances and public finances wrecked. The only way to bring down bills for good is through cheap, home-grown power that we control. We have an energy security plan. The Conservatives have an energy surrender plan.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  That sounds incredibly exciting, and I look forward to finding out more.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the strategic spatial energy plan will set out where we need our energy infrastructure, so that we can have a planned system that matches power needs and infrastructure at least cost to bill payers and taxpayers.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Renewable Energy: Private Sector Investment · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady raises an important issue, which was also raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). She is right about the virtues of community energy. Great British Energy is going to partner with local communities to deliver community energy up and down the country, because sometimes public capital—it could be loans, it could be grants—can help lever in the private capital that we need. She is also right about some of the barriers, as the Energy Minister mentioned. I want to assure her that we are going through the different barriers in granular, nerdy detail to see how we can break them down.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Renewable Energy: Private Sector Investment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend, who I have talked to on a number of occasions about these wider issues, raises a really important point. I was just talking to the Energy Minister about it. Let me take away my hon. Friend’s point about access. We are committed to driving forward community energy, and we will talk to NESO and Ofgem to get it right and make sure it happens.