Ed Miliband MP: speeches

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Speeches

10 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Yes, if the hon. Member gives us the details.
10 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend makes an important point. I congratulate the scout group. The Minister for Energy promises that he will visit, and that is now on the record in Hansard .
10 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What is really important is not just the funding we are providing but the regulation we are introducing in the warm homes plan—promised by the last Government but never delivered—so that people who are privately renting get the decent, warm, comfortable homes they deserve.
10 Feb 2026 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Jobs · Hansard source
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There is huge potential from small modular reactors for both our energy security and jobs. I am proud that the decisions this Government have taken have enabled us to fund the UK’s first SMRs at Wylfa, supporting up to 3,000 jobs on site and thousands more across the supply chain. We want every part of the country to benefit from this potential, including Scotland.
10 Feb 2026 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Jobs · Hansard source
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Obviously, this is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, but I think the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Throughout the United Kingdom, there is huge potential for SMRs. This is the technology of the future, and it can play a really important role in our energy mix across the UK.
10 Feb 2026 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Jobs · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend speaks incredibly well on this issue. It is just common sense to have nuclear as part of our energy mix. We know why it is not going to happen in Scotland under the current regime. It is because SNP politicians, for dogmatic reasons, have set their face against it. They are even embarrassed to have this policy. The answer to it is to vote Labour in May.
10 Feb 2026 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Jobs · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman makes his point in his own way. As I say, I believe the SNP’s position makes no sense. I gently point out to him that although he might have had grand ambitions, with no delivery they are completely worthless—and that was the Conservatives’ record on nuclear.
10 Feb 2026 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: Jobs · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman is right about this. Let me put it this way: given the scale of the climate change challenge, only those who are dug in dogmatically can oppose new nuclear. Given the scale of the challenge we face, we need all the tools at our disposal. It provides good jobs and energy security, so it is only for dogmatic reasons that the SNP Government oppose it. There is one difference between him and me, and that is that he promised SMRs, but we are delivering them.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend speaks about a really important issue, which I am aware of from my experiences of visiting such areas. The Minister for Energy Consumers, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), has heard his statement, and we do need to think about this, because there are areas such as Harlow and elsewhere that have particular challenges.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend raises an important point. We will be working urgently with the banks and others—indeed, I think a roundtable is being convened next week—to work out how quickly we can get on with this process. We want to do this as soon as possible. It will take time, and if there is one lesson from the past it is that we need to get this right. We do not want a green deal and all of that malarkey happening. We want to get it right, but we want to do it as quickly as we can.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for his important question. The Minister for energy consumers met the Minister for Communities yesterday to talk about how we can work together—for example on the Warm Homes Agency, which is UK-wide, and hopefully on the solar loans as well. We want to do everything we can to work with the Northern Ireland Executive to help serve the people of Northern Ireland.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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It is always a pleasure to be opposite the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). Let me make a few points to him, in the gentlest way I can. Let me deal first with his point about the cost of electricity. In her Budget, the Chancellor did more in one decision—namely, to transfer 75% of the renewables obligation to public spending to cut electricity costs—than the last Government did in 14 years in power.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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Absolutely, yes. I am so sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituents. We must ensure that we do not let that kind of thing happen.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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We love Vaillant and what it does. The Minister for climate, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Katie White), loves it so much that she is going to visit tomorrow. It is part of the £90 million heat pump investment accelerator programme. This plan is about working with companies such as Vaillant so that we can get domestic manufacturing in this country, which I am sure is what Members across the House would like to see.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend asks a really important question, and I want to tell him a nerdy fact. I like nerdy facts; it is in character. Nearly half the people on the boiler upgrade scheme are in rural areas, and I think am I right in saying that a third are off the gas grid. That tells you something about the appetite, particularly in rural communities and among those who are off the gas grid, to find alternatives. Hopefully, the continuation and expansion of such schemes will help my hon. Friend’s constituents.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about the warm homes plan, which we publish today. It is a plan focused on the No. 1 issue facing our country, which is the cost of living crisis, and on the scourge of fuel poverty, which affects millions of families across Britain. At the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took an average of £150 off the costs of energy bills from April. This winter, we have expanded the warm home discount to a total of six million families, and today, we allocate £15 billion in our warm homes plan. That represents a more than doubling of public investment in home upgrades compared with the last Parliament—in fact, it is the biggest public investment in home upgrades in British history to cut bills and tackle fuel poverty. In making this investment, we turn the page on the lost decade of the last Government’s failure, with home insulation levels falling by more than 90% between 2010 and 2024, the promise of minimum energy efficiency standards for renters broken, the cancellation of the zero carbon homes standard, the repeated failures of schemes such as the green deal, the green homes grant and the energy company obligation scheme, and—worst of all—our dependence on fossil fuels leaving us exposed to the worst energy bills crisis in generations. The last Government failed time after time; this Government are doing the work to put it right. The starting point for this plan is that clean energy is the right choice, not only for energy security and reducing emissions, but for cutting people’s bills. The public agree: they are showing record demand for technologies such as solar, batteries and heat pumps that can save families hundreds of pounds a year. Heat pump sales in Britain have grown by around 50% annually—it is one of the fastest-growing markets in Europe—and last year saw a record number of rooftop solar installations. The driving purpose of this plan is to ensure those benefits are available, not just to the wealthiest, but to families throughout our country at every level of income. The driving purpose of this Labour Government is to stand up for working people and tackle the affordability crisis. Let me set out the measures we are announcing in our plan today. First, today we announce £5 billion of public investment to directly deliver home upgrades for low-income families. This will help families living in social housing and low-income owner-occupiers to have warmer homes and lower bills. In setting out this plan, we are abolishing the failed ECO scheme and making the principled decision that we should fund support through public investment, not levies on bills. Our plan also pays heed to all the evidence that says that funding is best delivered with local authorities and mayors in the driving seat—with those representing local people delivering for local people. At the same time, we recognise the challenges facing suppliers who used to deliver the ECO scheme, so we will ensure that this extra money is used to help support them. The Minister for Energy Consumers will convene a working group of contractors, social housing providers and local authorities to oversee this work. Overall, this allocation is the biggest public investment in tackling fuel poverty in our history. Secondly, it is a scandal that 1.6 million children live in private accommodation are suffering from cold, damp or mould, according to Citizens Advice. We on the Government Benches believe in a simple principle: if someone rents a home, private or social, their landlord has a responsibility to ensure it is safe, warm and affordable to heat. The last Government promised higher standards, and then they ripped up that promise. Today, we deliver. By 2030, private landlords will have to upgrade their properties to meet minimum standards of energy efficiency, and we have consulted on similar rules in the social rented sector, tackling the scourge of poor-quality rented homes and cutting bills for renters. These measures alone will lift more than half a million families out of fuel poverty. Thirdly, it is right that we target help at those most in need, but we know the affordability crisis stretches well beyond those on low incomes. We want to make it easier for all households to cut their bills by choosing a heat pump, solar or batteries. Building on the steps we took at the Budget to make electricity cheaper, we are expanding the boiler upgrade scheme, increasing investment every year out to 2030. For the first time, we have a universal offer of £2,500 for a heat battery or air-to-air heat pump, as well as £7,500 to install a conventional heat pump, but I want to go further. Currently, just one in 20 homes in Britain has solar panels installed on the roof. We are determined to unleash a rooftop revolution, helping many more families to generate their own energy in order to cut their bills. I can announce that the Government are, for the first time ever, setting aside up to £2 billion to subsidise zero and low-interest loans for solar panels, batteries and other technologies, learning from the successful experience of other countries and meeting demand for this technology. That is just a first step, with a further £3 billion available for loans and investments over the coming years through our warm homes fund. Fourthly, as we upgrade existing homes, we will ensure that new homes are built cheaper to run, with solar and clean heating as standard. That is just common sense. People cannot understand why we are building new homes with higher bills. The reason is that the previous Government refused to act. We are putting an end to this absurd situation. We will publish the future homes standard shortly. For the first time, solar panels will be fitted as standard in new homes. Alongside the other measures I have set out, this is designed to help treble the number of homes with solar by the end of the decade. Fifthly, to make these changes happen, we cannot go on with the old system of accountability and delivery that has failed. People have had to navigate a fragmented and confusing system of home upgrades, delivered through a bewildering number of organisations and schemes. We need to face up to the fact that, after the previous Government’s repeated failures to deliver schemes effectively, we need a specialist body with the technical expertise and focus required. By consolidating functions from Ofgem and other organisations and abolishing Salix—there will be no increase in arm’s length bodies—we will establish a new warm homes agency. It will deliver impartial advice and guidance, work with local authorities and businesses and oversee Government schemes, and it will be backed by a reformed system of consumer protection. We will put an end to the scandalous failure of accountability and regulation, and waste of public money, that we saw under the previous Government. Finally, we are determined to ensure that this roll-out delivers not just for consumers, but for workers. We are the largest producer of gas boilers in Europe, and there is a huge opportunity to harness this expertise to produce heat pumps, too. Manufacturers are already embracing this opportunity, including Ideal Heating in Hull, Vaillant in Derbyshire, which I visited last year, and Copeland in Northern Ireland, but currently less than 40% of heat pumps sold in Britain are made in Britain. We are setting a new aim of at least 70% of heat pumps installed in the UK being made in the UK, backed by a trebling of public investment in heat pump manufacturing, with £90 million set aside today. Overall, we expect the warm homes plan to support up to 180,000 additional jobs in energy efficiency, heat pumps and heat networks by the end of the decade. That will create opportunities for builders, electricians, plumbers and installers, as well as new workers entering the industry. We will establish a new taskforce with the TUC, working with business, to ensure that those jobs are well paid and highly skilled, with a proper role for trade unions. Because we are a Labour Government, we expect the rights of working people to be at the heart of this industry’s future. Taken together, these are the elements of a landmark plan that stands in a great reforming tradition of Labour Governments: after 1945, delivering on the promise of “homes for the people”, modernising the nation’s housing stock under Harold Wilson in the 1960s and introducing the decent homes standard for social housing in the 2000s, with each Labour Government meeting the rightful expectations of working people that the next generation can expect higher standards of living than the last. That is what this Government seek to do in our time, with a plan to cut bills for millions, help lift a million families out of fuel poverty, and create good jobs. I commend the statement to the House.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right. Working with the private rented sector to raise the standards is incredibly important and, frankly, we cannot let this scandalous situation, which affects so many private tenants, carry on. She makes another important point: upgrading the nation’s housing stock is a big journey. We have been left a long and bad legacy, and we are determined to make a difference.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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I thought that for the first time in 20 years, we were going to agree completely, and we nearly got there. However, three-quarters agreement is better than we have done in 20 years. On the first part of what the right hon. Member said, Barnett consequentials have already been allocated for this. It is obviously for the Executive in Northern Ireland to make their own decisions about how they spend the money. We want the warm homes agency to work with the devolved Governments as well. We also want to look at how a zero or low-interest loan scheme could work across the United Kingdom. We want to work as much as possible with the devolved Governments to help people across the UK.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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I think that remediation of the previous works should happen whatever, and residents should not be required to apply. There should be a process with TrustMark, which I think is the overseer in the case that the hon. Member is talking about. This is an issue that my Department is very focused on. It would have been much better if the mess had not been created in the first place, but we are determined to clean it up. If he knows of areas where it has not been cleaned up, he should draw them to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister for energy consumers.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend puts it very well. We are turning the page on a decade of failure. It is really important that the public know that we get the scale of the crisis that they are facing—the long-term crisis that this Government were determined to deal with when we came into office. We are not over-claiming for this plan, but it will make a difference. We are about making a difference to the costs that people face, so that we can help tackle the cost of living crisis.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. The solar road map set out some of the work that we are doing, but the whole point of the taskforce—this is a much more intentional way of thinking about the workforce challenges than the previous Government’s way—is to make sure that we have the workforce in place. There were more than 200,000 installations last year; that shows the demand for rooftop solar. Some of the eco organisations that are struggling with the transition could be part of this. We want to make sure that happens.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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The target we are setting in this plan for 2030 is 450,000. Our skills taskforce is designed to do what my hon. Friend set out, which is to meet the skills needs—the very significant skills needs—we are going to have. On the first part of my hon. Friend’s question, I do think that the Chancellor deserves real credit for this plan, because she has recognised the importance of long-term public investment, which the last Government singularly did not. The easy thing in difficult times is to cut public investment, but she did not do that. She has increased it, and she is investing very significantly in this area.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend speaks with very good sense on this issue. This plan is a huge opportunity for people. We are seeing record demand, and the question for this House and for all of us is whether we want that to be just for the wealthiest or for everyone. The point of the public investment is to bring opportunities within the reach of ordinary families. That is what is at the heart of this plan.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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We are making big investment in the transmission infrastructure and I urge all hon. Members locally to support, not oppose, that. We are also doing a big reordering of the grid queue, which is crucial because we then get the projects in the places where we need them.
21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source
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As an MP with park homes in my constituency, I am very sympathetic to the issues facing people who live in park homes. To give the hon. Lady a proper answer, I will take that away and pass it on to the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West.

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