Martin McCluskey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We have supplied £17 million to the Northern Ireland Executive, and I had a constructive conversation last week with Minister Archibald about how that is deployed. We will keep other measures under review as the situation develops.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend’s advocacy for those people. No one with a terminal illness should have to face concerns about their energy bills. I will soon be meeting the Minister for Health Innovation and Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), to discuss how Government can better share data in order to target support at vulnerable people and those with health conditions.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The support on offer is not means-tested; it is at the discretion of local authorities to decide the criteria for those applications. That is the first point. The second point is that the CMA is investigating this in detail. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, if there are any examples, please bring them to my attention and to the CMA’s attention, so that they can be considered as part of that review.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We heard in the responses to our 2024 consultation the concerns about the continued risk to consumers arising from some of these TPIs. The Government plan to bring in new regulation of TPIs and will appoint Ofgem as the regulator, which will be empowered to put in place rules to protect small and medium-sized enterprises and other TPI customers.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Energy Bills: Scotland · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. I know that he is an advocate for nuclear in Scotland, as am I. We are missing out on the opportunities of nuclear, and it is a disgrace that 1,300 Scottish nuclear workers have to move south every week just to get employment in the nuclear industry. I hope that the Scottish National party reverses its ideological ban on nuclear power as soon as possible.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Energy Bills: Scotland · Hansard source

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  Bills are going down by 7% from next week. We do not need to imagine a future with independence and what would happen with the SNP in power. Let us look at the record. The hon. Member’s party promised a publicly owned energy company six years ago; we delivered Great British Energy within 18 months. His party scrapped fuel poverty targets; we are lifting 1 million households out of fuel poverty by the end of this Parliament. While his party in government in Scotland abandoned the heat in buildings Bill, this Government are making the biggest ever upgrade to home efficiency through the warm homes plan, with £15 billion of spending.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Energy Bills: Scotland · Hansard source

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  The Government know that energy bills in Scotland remain too high. That is why we are fighting the consumer’s corner. The action we took at the Budget will ensure that from April the price cap will fall by 7%, or £117, which is fixed until the end of June. That is in addition to support offered to vulnerable heating oil customers in Scotland and the expansion of the warm home discount, which means £92 million in annual funding for Scottish consumers.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Member will know, the price of gas and oil is set on an international market and, as I have said, extracting more from the North sea would not make a penny’s difference to the price in this country. The North sea is a super-mature basin that accounts for around 0.7% of global oil and gas production. Production has been naturally falling for more than 20 years, which means that our North sea no longer has the reserves available to support domestic energy demand. Crucially, any new licences now would not make any difference to people’s energy bills because, regardless of where it comes from, oil and gas is sold on international markets, where we are price takers, not price makers.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  The Conservatives want us to remove a tax that is contributing £12 billion to the Exchequer, funding our public services and allowing us to invest in our schools, hospitals and other public services. If they oppose that funding, they need to come forward with their own proposals. The only route to energy security and lower bills is to get off our dependence on fossil fuel markets over which we have no control, and on to clean home-grown power over which we do.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  I will say to the right hon. Gentleman what I said to his Front Benchers last week: the Conservatives need to stop talking down the North sea. With 1.1 million barrels a day being extracted, that is not an industry being shut down; that is an industry continuing to produce. Just last week, the Minister for Energy met our North Sea future board in Aberdeen with representatives from industry, unions and local groups to discuss how we can drive a fair, orderly and prosperous transition. Net zero is the economic opportunity of the century—

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor has had discussions with industry and will continue to do so, and that is the right and appropriate way to conduct these decisions. I was pleased to be in Aberdeen a couple of weeks ago talking to the same workers that the right hon. Member mentions. Of course, we need to do as much as possible to ensure that oil and gas workers are properly protected through this transition, but we must not lose sight of the great potential, for example, in floating offshore wind, which will also provide a significant future for his constituents and people across Scotland. As I was saying, the transition that is under way is the only way to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels and build a more secure energy system. Following a consultation with businesses and communities last autumn, we set out the steps we are taking to unleash the North sea’s clean energy future. That plan recognises our world-class energy workers and supply chains and the importance of supporting them through that transition.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  Norway has managed its fields in a very different way from the way this country has over the course of 40 or 50 years. Every country will take its own decisions on how best to secure its own energy supply, and many other countries are taking a similar approach to the United Kingdom. Let me turn to Jackdaw and Rosebank, which are addressed in the Opposition motion. At the outset, I should say that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the merits of individual cases because doing so could prejudice the decision-making process. As with planning decisions, which are comparable in nature, offshore oil and gas projects are subject to a robust and legally-grounded regulatory framework under which information submitted by developers must be carefully assessed. In both the Jackdaw and Rosebank cases, the Secretary of State will make a decision on whether to agree to these being consented in due course. It is imperative that all relevant material is properly considered so that decisions are sound, defensible and robust. When reaching a view, the Secretary of State will assess the overall balance between any potential significant environmental effects and the wider benefits to the interests of the country. As Members would expect, that assessment will involve considering a range of factors, which may include energy security, alongside environmental considerations. Some have asked why the decisions are taking time. The answer is straightforward: these are planning-type decisions that must be taken in full knowledge of the facts. The guidance on the assessment of scope 3 emissions, published last year in response to the Supreme Court’s judgment, is the first of its kind, and it is therefore crucial that we take the time to apply it properly. [ Interruption. ] It serves no one’s interest for decisions to be rushed—it certainly does not serve the industry or the constituents of the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who is chuntering from a sedentary position—only for it to be overturned later by the courts, which was the mess that the previous Government got into.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  That is despite what the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) might say. This Government will ensure that our oil and gas workers can take advantage of that opportunity while driving for energy sovereignty and abundance with clean home-grown power.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add: “welcomes the Government’s approach to the future of the North Sea, which maintains existing oil and gas fields for their lifetime, as well as introducing Transitional Energy Certificates while accelerating the transition to clean energy; notes that new licences to explore new fields would take many years to come online and would make no difference to energy bills; recognises that oil and gas prices are set on international markets; and further welcomes the measures announced by the Government to go further and faster on national energy security by reducing reliance on volatile fossil fuel markets and expanding secure, home grown clean energy.” As I have said many times in this House, the North sea oil and gas sector is one of our great industrial success stories. We are proud of the role that the North sea’s workers and communities have played in helping to power our country and the world for decades, and we recognise the role that oil and gas will play in our energy mix for decades to come, as well as the vast skills and experience of our offshore workforce. However, as a Government we also have a duty to be honest about the challenges we face, and the reality is that more domestic oil and gas production will not make us more energy secure and will not take a penny off bills. There is a lot of debate when it comes to this issue, so it is important to focus on the facts.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a real advocate for the industries in his constituency. The Minister for Industry is looking in detail at this and coming forward with proposals for industry to take us through this moment, as we deal with the situation in the middle east. We are bringing forward the next renewables auction months after our most successful auction ever secured enough power for the equivalent of 16 million homes. Just today, we set out plans to make plug-in solar available in supermarkets so that more people can put a panel on their balcony or outdoor space and begin saving energy. We are also ensuring that heat pumps and solar panels will be standard in new-build homes. The energy profits levy has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members across the House. Since its introduction in 2022, the levy has raised around £12 billion. As I said earlier, this revenue supports vital public services. As the Chancellor noted at the recent spring forecast, the energy profits levy will be replaced by the new oil and gas price mechanism in 2030, or sooner if average oil and gas prices over six months fall below the thresholds of the energy security investment mechanism. The Chancellor recognises industry’s calls for the EPL to be replaced by the mechanism, and wants to work with industry to provide certainty on the future fiscal regime while taxing the windfall profits of energy companies.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  We have been importers of gas since 2004, and the Conservatives will know—because they presided over the period of decline—that it has been declining for some time. Recent events in the middle east are yet another reminder of the need to speed up the transition and protect British people from price shocks. Thanks to our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower, we have already seen £90 billion of investment announced for clean British energy, but we are now determined to go even further and faster in pursuit of national energy security.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  And on that point—about facts—I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important point that gets to the heart of this debate. We are not going to learn the wrong lessons from the current situation in the middle east. We will not make ourselves more reliant on fossil fuels, at a time when we can see playing out day after day in all our constituencies the effect—rising prices—of being overly reliant and exposed to gas and fossil fuels. We are incredibly fortunate to have the North sea on our doorstep. For almost half a century, the oil and gas buried there has fuelled development and charged our economy. But for too long, Governments have ignored the transition happening before their eyes. We owe it to the North sea’s workers and communities, which have done so much for our country, to set out a proper plan for their future and to seize the immense potential in clean energy.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady will know that this is a windfall tax on windfall profits. If there are no windfall profits, there will not be a windfall tax. The motion calls for an end to the ban on oil and gas licensing. The Government have been clear that we will support the management of existing fields for their lifespan. That is why we have committed to introducing transitional energy certificates, which will enable some offshore oil and gas production in areas adjacent to already licensed fields linked via a tieback or in areas that are already part of an existing field. New licences to explore new fields would make no material difference to overall production and would run contrary to the science on tackling the climate crisis.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  I am more than capable of forming my own conclusions, and what is in this speech are my own conclusions. I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to listen to what I have had to say throughout this speech. Harbour Energy is continuing to operate. He talks about dependence. The dependence that we see at the moment is dependence on fossil fuels and on oil and gas, which has left every single one of our constituents across this House exposed to volatile oil and gas prices and to higher prices. As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), the only way out of that is to get off this rollercoaster of fossil fuels and on to home-grown energy where we can control the price. That is a responsible action from a Government who are focused on the long term and not the short term.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) (Specified Period) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) (Specified Period) Order 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. The draft order was laid before the House on 26 January this year. This Government remain fully committed to ensuring that households, particularly those on low incomes or at risk of fuel poverty, can live in warmer, more energy efficient homes that are affordable to heat. At the heart of that endeavour lies the warm homes plan, which is a comprehensive and long-term strategy to reduce energy bills, alleviate fuel poverty and enhance energy security. We have committed to investing £15 billion, the biggest ever public investment to upgrade British homes and cut energy bills. Of that amount, £5 billion is allocated to support low-income households. The energy company obligation has played a key part in helping households to reduce their energy bills. ECO was launched in 2013, and the current phase, ECO4, which has run since 2022, has delivered more than 1 million energy-saving measures to around 300,000 households. The scheme places an obligation on the larger energy suppliers to deliver energy efficiency improvements to vulnerable and fuel-poor households that result in measurable bill savings. Although ECO4 has delivered a significant volume of home energy efficiency improvements, it has not been without challenges. As the National Audit Office recently set out, there have been widespread, systemic issues in the delivery of solid wall insulation, which we have taken urgent steps to tackle. We are also bringing forward comprehensive reforms to the retrofit consumer protection system to make it stronger, more transparent and more accountable, so that this cannot happen again. We expect all installers to ensure that households receive timely and high-quality remediation of any non-compliance identified. Given these systemic issues and inflation that is still too high, we have taken the considered decision not to replace ECO4, therefore easing pressure on household energy bills. This, in combination with the Government’s funding 75% of the domestic cost of the legacy renewables obligation, will remove around £117 of costs on average from household energy bills across Great Britain. This instrument will introduce a small and necessary change to the existing scheme by extending the end date of ECO4 from 31 March 2026 to 31 December 2026. The extension provides obligated suppliers with additional time to meet their existing targets, and most importantly allows them time to focus on the remediation of non-compliant installations. The instrument does not change targets, impose new obligations, increase supplier costs or increase consumers’ bills. Finally, the changes made by the draft order are limited but important. By extending ECO4, we are ensuring a stable period of delivery and an orderly closure to the scheme, and we are safeguarding consumers. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) (Specified Period) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I thank hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. I will turn briefly to each of the points that were raised. The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire asked about cost. The measure comes at no cost, and there is no additional funding behind the amendment. It is an extension of the obligation largely to ensure that remediation is conducted on those properties that require it. That comes at no additional cost. The bill savings that the Chancellor outlined in the Budget stand, and consumers will see them when they receive their energy bills on 1 April, after which the new price cap will see energy bills reduce by 7% over the price cap period, funded by the move of 75% of the RO to general taxation and the abolition of ECO from bills. On the second point, the remediation programme is moving at pace. We have already contacted all affected households. We are encouraging everyone to come forward for an audit. If any Committee members have affected households, I encourage them to ensure that their constituents take up the offer of an audit. There is no route to remediation without constituents contacting us to ensure that they get an audit. As I said in the House, I think in October, this will happen at no cost to the consumer. It is backed by guarantees that will ensure that it is paid for through the system and the supply chain, not drawing on any additional funds, at this stage, from the Government. On the supply chain more generally, we recognise the fact that there has been disruption—the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire raised this as well. We have done a number of things to try to combat that. First, we have set up a taskforce alongside industry and the Local Government Association to bring together the bodies that procure from small and medium-sized enterprises in the ECO supply chain. That has already borne some fruit; hon. Members may have seen last week that an additional £295 million, announced to run through the warm homes local grant and the warm homes social housing fund, will provide a bridge through to the additional schemes that will come in future. I would like to push back gently on some of the points about the lack of a fuel poverty plan. Significant amounts of money are already being deployed through the warm homes local grant and the warm homes social housing fund. The deployment of the new scheme from 2028 will involve integrating those two schemes, which are working right now and are already delivering measures to people’s homes. I have also heard, not just from hon. Members today but more generally, the idea that we are no longer standing behind insulation. I would not want people to leave this Committee with that impression. The warm homes plan has a significant focus on new technology, but also on insulation, and I anticipate that the amount being deployed for insultation will remain. I agree with the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire: there is no point deploying measures onto homes that are leaky and will not keep people warm and dry. Many of the warm homes local grant and warm homes social housing fund projects I have visited in the short time I have been doing this job are benefiting from a combination of insulation alongside modern technology such as heat pumps, batteries and solar. For every building and project, it is about getting the mix of measures correct to deliver warm homes and lower bills. It would be remiss of us to publish a plan in this day and age that did not reflect the technological changes of the 10 years and the efficiency of batteries, heat pumps and solar, which are helping people to drive down their bills today. We intend to consult on the integration of the two schemes shortly. Again, I impress on hon. Members that we will not be left without a scheme for low-income people. Some £5 billion of the £15 billion for the warm homes plan is focused on low-income households. As I said earlier, an additional £295 million is already being funded through those schemes, in addition to what was already budgeted for in these scheme years. Finally, on remediation, which I know has interested and concerned hon. Members across the Chamber when we have discussed this subject before, I want to repeat that it is really important that people come forward for those audits. The supply chain and the system stand ready to remediate homes, but we cannot do that without people coming forward for those audits. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to this debate. As I said, the instrument before us will ensure that the ECO scheme concludes in an orderly, responsible and consumer-focused manner. I commend the draft instrument to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Draft Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I am not sure if the hon. Gentleman— [ Interruption. ]

• 18 Mar 2026 · Draft Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I know that my hon. Friend is a champion for her constituents in Holbrook and across her constituency. Like many hon. Members, she will have seen the increase in the numbers of people this year who are eligible for the warm home discount because of the decision made by the Government to expand the scheme to 6 million households. Her constituents and the constituents of all hon. Members will benefit from that this year. Last year, the Government expanded the warm home discount scheme, removing the high cost-to-heat threshold to ensure that an additional 2.7 million of the poorest households across Great Britain received the £150 rebate off their energy bills this winter, with nearly 6 million households now eligible overall. The current scheme period ends on 31 March 2026, and new regulations are therefore required to continue the scheme beyond that date. In September, we consulted on continuing the warm home discount scheme up to and including the winter of 2030-31. The consultation respondents, including consumer advocacy groups, charities and industry, strongly supported proposals to continue the scheme and to continue providing rebates to vulnerable households via automatic data matching. Today, we are discussing these regulations, as well as some additional changes to the scheme that will allow eligible households across England and Wales in or at risk of fuel poverty to continue to receive the rebate for the rest of this decade. Members will note that the regulations relate only to the scheme in England and Wales. The warm home discount scheme will also continue in Scotland to winter 2030-31 with £92 million a year of funding allocated. Fuel poverty is devolved in Scotland and, under these arrangements, the Scottish Government have determined eligibility for the next scheme period in Scotland within the funding envelope. Separate regulations have been laid in this Parliament to continue the scheme in Scotland, and I look forward to discussing these regulations with the House in due course.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Draft Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I am happy to be barracked under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Turning to the point that the hon. Member for Broxbourne raised, he knows that it would not matter if additional oil were extracted from the North Sea—it would not reduce the price of domestic energy in this country. It would not have any impact. If he has evidence to the contrary, I will be more than happy to take another intervention for him to demonstrate that energy prices would reduce if we extracted more oil from the North sea. No? Okay. Moving on to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, I thank her for the constructive tone of her speech. On the point around debt, Ofgem have consulted on a debt relief scheme, and more will be coming on that in the near future. On data sharing, I share her desire to ensure that there is far more data sharing. That is something that I have had discussions about, not just with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—and she may be aware of the kickstarter programme that is looking at how we can better share household income data—but with the Department for Health and Social Care too, specifically, around how we share data on vulnerability and health. There are some really great examples at a local level. For example, Beat the Cold is an organisation in Stoke that is already sharing data between local NHS organisations and third sector organisations in order to reach the right people with vulnerability. The point for me is, if that can be achieved on a local level, we should be able to achieve something similar on a national level. The hon. Lady talks about cold, leaky homes, and that is obviously a focus of the Government’s £15 billion warm homes plan, which is investing in that area. I will gently say to her that, while we did cancel the ECO programme, that was because it failed and did not provide good value for money. We have put an additional £1.5 billion into capital schemes through DESNZ, which will reach low-income people across the country. I point towards the announcement that was made by the Secretary of State on Sunday about the additional funding that will go into mayoral combined authorities, and elsewhere, for low-income schemes. That is from that £1.5 billion that resulted from the cancellation of ECO. On ECO, there were instances where, for example, about half of the cost was going into finding people to apply measures to, rather than actually applying measures, so from a value for money point of view, we needed to make sure that that worked far more effectively. To sum up, we are committed to delivering the £150 warm home discount for at least another five years to support the households in England and Wales who need our help most. The regulations will deliver a warm home discount scheme that is more transparent and provides stronger consumer protection and greater clarity around eligibility. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.