Ed Miliband MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2025 · Rooftop Solar Power · Hansard source

  More

  Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. You look younger every year, if I may say so. Last week, we launched the new future homes standard, which will ensure that the vast majority of new build houses will have solar panels installed as standard. This will end the absurd situation the previous Government left where new housing was built without solar panels. We are kick-starting a solar rooftop revolution, and the upcoming solar road map will lay out how we are bringing cheap clean power to families and businesses across the country.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Rooftop Solar Power · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend raises some important points. The first is on grid connections. With the grid reforms that we are doing, we are going to end this zombie queue where projects are taking up space when they are not going to connect or not going to connect in time. That will open up the future to projects such as hers. On the point about industrial estates, I can give her a sneak preview and tell her that this is part of the solar road map. She makes important points, and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) has volunteered to meet her.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source

  More

  I definitely believe that Sheffield Forgemasters has an incredibly important role to play in our civil nuclear programme. Contractual details for Rolls-Royce and our discussions with the company are for a bit down the road, but in my view, Forgemasters is central to our plans.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Clean Power by 2030 · Hansard source

  More

  As the Chancellor said last week, any aviation expansion has to take place within carbon budgets and environmental limits. I would also point out that this Government have achieved more in six months than the last Government did in 14 years. We have lifted the onshore wind ban, consented nearly 3 GW of solar, set up GB Energy and the national wealth fund and held the most successful renewables auction in history. This Government are delivering on clean power.

• 26 Nov 2024 · COP29 · Hansard source

  More

  I understand why the hon. Lady expresses that disappointment—indeed, a number of developing countries expressed that disappointment. However, I think that this is a considerable scaling-up of resources. That is to state the obvious, because $100 billion was the previous commitment. It is the provision and mobilisation of resources. She is right about the balance between grants and loans, and about the funds that are required for adaptation, but the truth is that public finance on its own will never meet the need. That is why the agreement on carbon markets that was part of this COP is important, and why the mobilisation of private finance, and working on a road map to that mobilisation, which is also part of the agreement, is so important.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for her brilliant advocacy on this issue. She raises an important point, which is that people will look at this investment and think that it is a big investment, albeit over 25 years. Is it the right thing to do for the country? Emphatically, yes. It is right for our industries and for the industries of the future, because the transport and storage networks are absolutely crucial, not just for the specific projects I have announced but for future projects, for our security as a country and for jobs in our industrial heartland. I thank her for her advocacy and we will keep moving forward on this.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I heard your statement, and Mr Speaker’s earlier. With permission, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s carbon capture programme. Last week was a historic week for our energy system. On Monday, 142 years of coal-fired electricity generation came to an end, as Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station closed for the last time. I pay tribute to the generations of coal workers, at Ratcliffe and elsewhere, who powered our country for more than a century, and to power station workers; we owe them a huge debt. I am sure that sentiment is shared across the whole House. As one era ends and we begin the next stage of Britain’s energy journey, the Government are determined to create a new generation of good jobs in our industrial heartlands. On Friday, we began a new era, as Government and industry agreed the deals that will launch Britain’s carbon capture industry. This has been a long time coming. I was proud, as Energy Secretary, to kick-start the process of developing carbon capture way back in 2009—some hon. Members were then still at school, and I am much greyer now—with a £1 billion competition. In 2011, that programme was cancelled by the coalition Government. In 2012, a new competition was announced, and in 2015, it too was cancelled. When we came to office, we inherited an in-principle aspiration to go ahead, but the very significant Government funding required had not yet been accounted for, so under the last Government we had fits and starts, dither and delay. By contrast, just three months since we came to office, this Government have turned promise into reality. I can confirm to the House that we have agreed commercial terms, and £21.7 billion of funding over 25 years for five carbon capture, usage and storage projects across two clusters: HyNet in the north-west, and the East Coast Cluster in the north-east. This announcement will enable the construction of two transport and storage networks that will underpin this new industry. The highways for carbon capture and the deals we have agreed will also kick-start development of Net Zero Teesside, the world’s largest gas with CCUS plant, and—these are both in Ellesmere Port—Protos, a new CCUS energy from waste facility, and EET Hydrogen, the UK’s first large-scale blue hydrogen project, which is the cleanest in the world. They will crowd in £8 billion of private investment across the two clusters, creating 4,000 jobs in our industrial heartlands and building an initial capacity to remove over 8.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions each and every year. I pay tribute to the six new Labour MPs in Teesside and colleagues across the north-west who have been brilliant champions for those projects. This is just the start; we will have more to say in the coming months about carbon capture sites in Humberside, Scotland and elsewhere around the country. This investment is the right thing to do for Britain. CCUS will unlock the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors, from chemicals to cement; enable the production of low-carbon hydrogen; and, by capturing emissions from gas-fired power stations, play an important role, alongside renewables and nuclear, in delivering clean power by 2030 and beyond. That is why experts in bodies ranging from the Climate Change Committee to the International Energy Agency are clear that carbon capture is critical to our meeting our climate commitments. There are those who doubt that. To them I quote James Richardson, the acting chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, who said on Friday quite simply: “We can’t hit the country’s targets without CCUS”. The IEA, in a report from 2020 that I very much recommend to right hon. and hon. Members, said: “Reaching net zero will be virtually impossible without CCUS”, pointing to “heavy industries” that “account for almost 20% of global CO2 emissions today”. To those who doubt whether the technology can work, I point out that it has been operating safely for decades in Norway and the US. Last week’s announcement puts the UK on the path to leading the world in deploying carbon capture at scale. Being an early mover in this technology offers huge economic and industrial benefits for Britain. The North sea means that we have the chance to lead; it gives us the capacity to store 200 years of our carbon emissions, has existing infrastructure that can be repurposed, and allows us to use the talents and experience of our highly skilled oil and gas workforce. Over the last few years, around the world we have seen the race for the jobs and industries of the future accelerate. For too long, Britain has opted out and lost out. No longer. We will harness Britain’s geology, know-how and expertise to be a world leader in this technology that will define the 21st century, building an industry that could support up to 50,000 jobs by the 2030s and using every tool at our disposal to seize the opportunities for Britain, with a proper industrial strategy and a commitment—which is absolutely crucial—to using public and private investment to build the future that our country deserves. That is all part of the action of a Government who, in the last three months, have shown that we are in a hurry to deliver our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. We have lifted the onshore wind ban, consented to record amounts of nationally significant solar, launched Great British Energy, delivered the most successful renewables auction in British history, and set out our plans to lift more than a million households out of fuel poverty. We are moving apace, both because of the urgency of the challenges that we face and because of this Government’s determination to win for Britain. Last week marked the end of one chapter in our country’s energy story and the start of a new one—a new era showing that we can decarbonise and reindustrialise, a new era of clean energy jobs and investment in our industrial heartlands, and a new era of climate leadership. I commend this statement to the House.