Ed Miliband MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  Obviously, we are in the first few days of this crisis, but the best thing I can say to my hon. Friend and hon. Members in all parts of the House who are concerned about this issue, and totally understandably so, is that we are very much aware of where the exposure is. The price cap is a guarantee, and I chose my words carefully when I said earlier that, for the vast majority of people, the price cap provides a guarantee for domestic consumers, bearing in mind that those using heating oil are more exposed. We will look at that issue. To go back to the wider point that I made, both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have shown a determination to act on the cost of living crisis. Obviously, much of this depends on how long the crisis goes on, but the point is well taken.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is a very important advocate for his constituents and, indeed, for Project Willow. He will know that we have made a number of announcements about Grangemouth in recent months, but I can assure him that we will continue to drive forward on Project Willow. The Prime Minister has set out that £200 million will be available from the National Wealth Fund. We continue to work with private industry, because we are determined to create a future for Grangemouth and its communities.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend speaks very well on these issues, and I am sure the Minister for Energy will meet the group’s members and talk to them about these issues. As she will know, we operate under guidance from the last Government about avoiding the best available land where at all possible. Even on the most ambitious plans, solar would occupy a very small fraction of agricultural land, although we had the largest ever solar auction in allocation round 7—

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  Somebody asked me about standing charges earlier, and I neglected to respond. One important thing that we did was transfer the warm home discount to unit rates, which helped make a difference in bearing down on standing charges. I reassure my hon. Friend, and many of his constituents and others who are concerned about this issue—I talk to Martin Lewis and others about such matters—that we continue to look at it.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these issues, and he is absolutely right. As I said earlier, it is striking that so many countries now talk about this as an energy security issue. For the 80-plus countries that supported the road map for the transition away from fossil fuels at COP30, it was as much about energy security, about their own situation, about bills and about their fear of exposure as it was about the long-term threat that we face from the climate crisis, as crucial as that is.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well: this is about clean, home-grown power that we control. We need to get off the roller coaster of fluctuations in international markets, which does such damage to families across the country.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Energy Markets · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Indeed, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald)—who has briefly left the Chamber—is also a Minister at the Department for Business and Trade and has a particular focus on how we can help small businesses to get better deals. Better regulation of the deals they get is one area where Ofgem will have a role in what was previously an un-regulated or under-regulated market. On the wider point about the impact of the crisis on small businesses, I reiterate to the hon. Lady, by way of reassurance, what I have said to other hon. Members. The Government are absolutely focused on the impact of the crisis on households and indeed businesses, and we will not hesitate to act.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Clean Industry Bonus: Jobs · Hansard source

  More

  The first-of-a-kind clean industry bonus as part of allocation round 7 is set to crowd in up to £3.4 billion of private investment in supply chains and support up to 7,000 jobs across the country. After a legacy of failure under the previous Government, we are determined that the clean energy future is made in Britain.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Clean Industry Bonus: Jobs · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend makes an important point. One great thing about the clean industry bonus is that it will be focused on the industrial areas of our country, including those that are based on oil and gas. We also have, as part of our North sea future plan, a whole set of plans to help displaced oil and gas workers into these areas. There is huge potential in this innovation, as it rewards companies that invest in our country.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  Bills are too high and the cost of living crisis is the biggest issue facing the country. That is why, at the last Budget, we took decisions to raise taxes on the wealthiest, which will enable us to take an average of £150 in costs off household energy bills from April. That builds on the fact that the price cap and average energy bills were lower in real terms in 2025 than in 2024.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this morning’s auction, which saw record amounts of solar power. It is the cheapest form of power that we could possibly have in this country, and it costs less than half the price of building and operating new gas. On the point about infrastructure, he is right that we inherited a terrible legacy, and we are building the new infrastructure that we need.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate the hon. Lady on reading out the Whips’ handout. No, I do not, and I will tell her why. The Chancellor’s action in the Budget to take the renewables obligation off bills and put it on to public expenditure was the biggest single cut in the cost of electricity that we have seen dating back to even the Conservatives’ time in office.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend draws attention to the really important issue of standing charges. We have been consulting on moving the warm home discount from fixed cost standing charges to unit rates, which has been welcomed by Martin Lewis, among others. We want to bear down on standing charges, and we will announce the results of that consultation soon.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this important issue. As part of our warm homes plan, we are going to set up a warm homes agency to give people proper information, advice and guidance on what they can do to cut their bills. We have made the biggest public investment ever seen in this country to help people cut their bills and upgrade their homes, and we will make sure people know about it.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman’s first point is wrong; he is taking one quarter—summer 2024 —and comparing it with today. If we look across 2025, bills are lower than in 2024. Actually, I had hoped that he would support the £150 that we have taken off energy bills, but the Opposition oppose all the measures making that possible.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Household Energy Bills · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to our consultation. From talking to my ministerial colleagues, I know that we will take into account the points that she has made. We want to allow as many as people as possible across the country to convert to cheap, clean power. That is the point of our warm homes plan, and that is the point of the consultation she mentioned.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Lady—I say this genuinely—for her advocacy on this issue ever since we came into government and before. She is a powerful advocate for community energy. I congratulate the group in South Cambridgeshire, too. Let me deal with the points she raised. On investment, I think that in anyone’s view the scale of the investment we are making is very significant. As I said, it is £1 billion, compared with £60 million in the previous Parliament under the previous Government. This is a massive scaling up and a realist assessment of what can be spent over this Parliament, but obviously this is just the start of our ambitions. The hon. Lady made a point, I think, on working with local community groups, which is very important. She will know that one of the challenges local groups face is in getting to the stage of having a project that is ready to go. Part of this issue is about working with those groups to make sure that can happen. On Ofgem and some of the regulatory changes, absolutely we are going to work as quickly as we can to unblock some of the barriers and ensure that can happen as swiftly as possible.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence on these issues. I am very interested in the power, introduced under the Infrastructure Act 2015, to give local community groups the right to buy a share of large-scale projects. That power has never been triggered—I think it may have been the fruit of the coalition negotiations—but we are very interested in making that power a reality. That is just one of the ways that we can break down the barriers that my hon. Friend talks about.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  Well, there were no questions, but I will reply none the less. Let me start with the AR7 auction, because this is very interesting and it will give the House a picture of what has actually changed. What has changed is the Conservative party, not the reality. We had the AR5 auction a couple of years ago, when the Conservatives were in power. In that auction, the price of solar was higher than it was in this auction. The then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) stated: “our reliance on gas for electricity production today risks making power prices higher than they would be in a system with a greater share of generation from wind and solar…Moving to home-based, clean power mitigates risks to billpayers—now and in the future.” What has changed? What has changed is that the Conservative party has gone full MAGA. Let us just be honest about this. It has decided to chase Reform into a ludicrous position, doubling down on fossil fuels and rejecting even solar and onshore wind, the cheapest, cleanest form of power you can possibly have. I guess the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) was just reading out the script. On community energy, I have to congratulate the hon. Gentleman, because he has given a brilliant example of why the previous Government were so hopeless on community energy. He obviously thinks it is a terrible idea. He is very welcome to do so, but he is sending a message to every Member of Parliament and all their constituents that the Conservative party is against community energy projects and against the things that will cut bills for local community groups. To every sports club, community centre and library that will benefit from this funding, there is a very clear answer: the Conservative party says, “No, you don’t deserve it. We don’t want you to have those lower bills. We don’t want you to have that cheap clean power. We don’t want you to have the income and resources to reinvest in our local community.” If the Conservatives want that as a dividing line, bring it on, I say. This Government are on the side of local communities, on the side of cutting bills and on the side of reinvesting money into communities. The Conservative party, in its new incarnation, is against it.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  The two ideas that my hon. Friend puts forward sound absolutely ideal for this fund to me, but as for the eventual outcome, I must not put my thumb on the scale too much. He is right about this. We are starting something that will grow bigger and bigger over time. This is partly about raising our eyes and thinking, “Well, if it works in Germany and Denmark, why shouldn’t it work here? Why shouldn’t local people get the benefits of this?”. It represents a big, transformative shift in our thinking about what is possible.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  I congratulate the Cobblers and all the organisations in my hon. Friend’s constituency. He is absolutely right. We think there are huge benefits across the country. GB Energy is, I think, now opening its website so that different groups can register an interest and work with it.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Briefly, there are three important aspects to this: first, communities can have lower bills for their community centres and local institutions; secondly, they can generate a stream of income by selling power back to the grid; thirdly, there is something wider, and perhaps more intangible, which is the matter of giving local communities a sense of stake in the system. I think this is really important, because one of the ways that we gain consent from people is through the sense that it is not simply the big multinationals that will own our energy system, but local people themselves.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation, and I look forward to doing that. He makes the important point that we can look back at our history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) also pointed out, and draw inspiration from some of the pioneers who had a vision that is not the same as today’s but that has similar principles. I congratulate his constituents who are working on these issues and look forward to meeting them.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  Another really exciting part of this plan is working with local mayors, such as the excellent Claire Ward. There is a real chance here for mayoral vision to combine with the national Government’s vision, and local people’s vision of how they can transform communities and generate resources. I am very happy to endorse the sentiments of my hon. Friend, and I really look forward to working with him and Claire on this plan.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Local Power Plan · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have carried out a big overhaul of the grid connections queue, which, as he knows, was sort of like the wild west. There was a chaotic “first come, first served” queuing system. The National Energy System Operator has done a big reordering of the queue, but we still have to put pressure on the transmission operators, to make sure that they deliver. I encourage him to write to my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy about the project, and we will take that up with the National Grid.