Martin McCluskey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2026 · Energy Costs · Hansard source

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  I join the hon. Lady in those calls on nuclear energy, which is essential to our energy mix. She highlighted the example of France; one reason why its electricity cost is so low is that it carried on building nuclear through the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Unlike this country, where we had a stop-start approach to nuclear energy, France has been able to keep costs low. It is disappointing that we have seen opposition to nuclear from the SNP, which will not allow it to be built in Scotland, and from the Green party, which has opposed it, including at Wylfa in north Wales, where we are creating a whole generation of new jobs around nuclear. More than 1,900 Scots move from Scotland to England each week to work on nuclear projects—people who could be working far closer to home if there was a new generation of nuclear energy in Scotland. Turning back to the action the Government have already taken, in the autumn Budget we acted to reduce electricity costs, to the benefit of all households with a domestic electricity meter. We did that by scrapping the energy company obligation and moving 75% of the domestic costs of the renewables obligation to the Exchequer. By doing that, we have been able to provide immediate savings for households. The average saving was around £117 within the price cap, but because it disproportionately fell on electricity—I know that the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) is interested in the cost of electricity, particularly in rural areas—the discount for rural areas and those on electricity was well over £300 within the price cap. As I said earlier, those changes are still factored into energy bills now; without that action, the July price cap would have been significantly higher. We also announced the continuation of the warm home discount scheme until 2030-31. That will provide around 6 million eligible households with a £150 rebate on energy bills each winter; it is a significant extension of what was available under the previous Government, and it has reached far more people in the last year than it did in the past. The main, structural reason why we find our energy bills so high is because of our exposure, in this country, to volatile international gas markets. The only answer to dealing with those high prices is to take back control of our energy through clean, home-grown power and homes that are cheaper to run. That approach is supported by our warm homes plan. The hon. Member for Gorton and Denton alluded to the need for more retrofitting and improvements to be made to housing, and that is what we are doing through the warm homes plan, which represents the biggest public investment in home upgrades in British history.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Energy Costs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a champion for his constituents. He is making the argument not just for lower prices at the pump and lower costs of energy, but for doing that in a clean, green way. Those two things do go hand in hand; we can reduce energy and fuel prices while people can also make important decisions about clean energy in their own lives. That is exactly what the Government are doing. As I was saying, the approach that we are taking is supported by our warm homes plan, which represents the biggest public investment in home upgrades in British history. It is backed by £15 billion and will help upgrade up to 5 million homes by 2030; that means real improvements to the homes people live in. Households will benefit from solar panels, clean heat technologies and batteries, and improved insulation. Insulation is an essential part of what we are trying to do in the warm homes plan; it has always been part of Government schemes and will into the future. All that is to cut bills and improve comfort for homeowners, renters and others. It will mean a housing stock that is better prepared for the future and a country that is less vulnerable to energy price shocks.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Draft Energy Prices Act 2022 (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  That was part of the Energy Prices Act, as passed into primary legislation in 2022. It was intended to ensure that the powers were functioning at the time when the Executive were formed. I will go into more detail later. As I was saying, the EPA powers available to the Northern Ireland Department include a spending power and a direction-making power analogous to those that we have used to deliver reduced costs of bills in GB. Those powers will now be due to expire in February 2030. I do not expect my Department to need to take further legislative steps in relation to policy in Northern Ireland, with the Executive now taking on its implementation. Before I close, I repeat what I said when discussing the parallel regulations on the Secretary of State’s power: this is being taken forward in an international environment that is different from the one in which last year’s Budget took place. That difference reinforces the importance of what we are doing, but we also recognise that further steps may be needed. We have set out what we are doing in relation to heating oil, and contingency planning is under way in case further responsive and responsible action is required. Ultimately, the draft regulations amend the period in which powers will be available to the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy, following a request from that Department to ensure that it can act as it needs to in order to reduce energy bills. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Cost of Heating Oil · Hansard source

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  I hope the report will come back to us some time in June, and then we will examine it to determine what may be required in terms of further action. I want us to move as quickly as possible. I have another meeting with the chief executive of the CMA tomorrow to discuss progress on the market investigation and ensure that work is carrying on at the pace that we want. We are not moving slowly. We have already accelerated this process—it was a year, and it is now 12 weeks. That is significant, but we obviously want it to move as quickly as possible. Let me turn to the wider structural issues that we face in the energy sector. We recognise that the heating oil sector is under-regulated. Unlike gas and electricity, heating oil is not regulated by Ofgem, and we will put that right by exploring what regulations are needed to protect consumers and get them a better deal. Taking a step back, ongoing events provide us with yet another clear reminder that we must get off the rollercoaster of global fossil fuel markets and on to the path of clean, home-grown energy that we control. We will learn the correct lessons from the crisis, unlike the previous Government, who went through the situation in 2022 and did not. In our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower, we have already brought in £90 billion of investment in clean British energy. In the light of spiking oil and gas prices, we intend to go further and faster in the pursuit of national energy security. We are bringing forward the next renewables auction, just months after the most successful auction that we have ever had, which secured enough power for the equivalent of 16 million homes. We are making plug-in solar available for the first time in Britain so that families can buy a low-cost panel straight from a supermarket and set it up on their balcony or in their garden. We are speeding up delivery of the £15 billion warm homes plan. I heard what many Members said about the fabric of housing. There is obviously support within the £5 billion that we have set aside for low-income schemes, but there is also work going on about low interest and no interest consumer loans. I am trying to accelerate that work so that we can get that to people as soon as possible.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Cost of Heating Oil · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Lady knows, the Department runs a range of programmes. We took the decision to abolish ECO4 because it was not working effectively. In some cases, it was costing more to find people who needed the measures than it was to deploy the measures. The Department has been provided with an additional £1.5 billion, which took the total up to £15 billion for this financial year. That money is being deployed through the local government schemes—the warm homes social housing fund and the warm homes local grant. That is enhancing what has already been provided to low-income households through the Department. As I say, £2.7 billion of capital is being deployed to provide low interest or no interest consumer loans. We need to accelerate that. At the moment, we are probably looking at early next year, but I would like to see that come forward so that we can use those consumer loans as a response to the current situation. We know that there is significant demand for home upgrades, including solar, battery and heat pumps, but we have to give people the support they need to take up those options. We will speed up the delivery of the £15 billion warm homes plan—the largest home upgrade programme in British history—and we are reforming nuclear regulations following the Fingleton review so that we can fast-track new nuclear power stations.

• 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.

• 6 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to highlight the work of the Brockmoor Energy and Environment Scheme. I met Richard Parker recently, and I hope to come and see some of these projects myself in the future. We will soon publish the warm homes plan, which will set out further plans to support such projects, but we have already allocated £1.8 billion to local authorities and social housing providers through the warm homes local grant, and the warm homes social housing fund.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Home Insulation · Hansard source

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  I would be more than happy to look at that. I have been working to help develop the warm homes plan and am looking particularly at area-based approaches; one of the most effective is when entire communities and neighbourhoods are upgraded at once. The effect is much larger, and neighbours can see the impact on their bills, which helps to spread the benefit. The warm homes plan will set out in more detail how we are going to meet the challenge addressed in this debate. We have been working hard behind the scenes to get it right and will publish it in full soon. We have been clear from the moment we came into government about the scale of the ambition. My hon. Friend mentioned £13.5 billion; after the Budget today that number is actually £15 billion, and we have extended our ambition to upgrade 5 million homes. As a student of history, I think of the first Labour Government in the 1920s with their housing Act—the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924—which upgraded and subsidised half a million homes. What we are trying to do with the warm homes plan is 10 times that. That is the level of ambition we have. It means entire streets and whole neighbourhoods benefiting from solar panels, heat pumps, home batteries and better insulation. We have already kick-started that. We are not waiting for the plan to get on with delivery. We have allocated £1.8 billion through the warm homes local grant and warm homes social housing fund. We have set out proposals to increase minimum energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector in England and Wales to EPC C or equivalent by 2030 and introduced a minimum standard in the social rented sector, which is incredibly important for many of our constituents. Those measures, combined, will lift hundreds of thousands of households out of poverty. For homeowners, we are making it cheaper and easier to install a heat pump. To the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), we announced the extension of the boiler upgrade scheme to new technologies last week, and we have an ongoing consultation on alternative technologies. We have doubled the funding for the boiler upgrade scheme to £295 million this year and, because of decisions made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget, we will be increasing it year on year up to 2030. Just this month, as I said, the expansion has meant that we are able to extend the scheme to air-to-air heat pumps, a technology that I know many of our constituents were calling on the Government to make a change on last summer. While we deliver the plan, we know there has to be short-term as well as longer-term action. That is why we have expanded the warm homes discount this year to every household where the billpayer is on a means-tested benefit. That is £150-worth of support directly to billpayers this winter. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) mentioned Beat the Cold; I met Fiona Miller yesterday and had a very good conversation with her about the work she is doing on data sharing between the NHS and her organisation. That is something I want to look at, and I am keen to visit Stoke-on-Trent Central to see in person the work that Beat the Cold is doing. All those action that are taking place are good in the short term, but how do we tackle the cost of living and bring energy bills down for good? In the long term, we do that by pushing for our target of clean power by 2030: clean power generated in Britain, which we control and which will end the rollercoaster of energy bills that, bluntly, are at the moment decided by dictators and upheavals beyond our borders. We do that by upgrading homes with electrified, energy-efficient technologies, putting people in a position to benefit directly from clean, secure, affordable energy. My immediate focus remains on some of the issues that we have heard about today, and on the people across the country living in homes that they can barely afford to heat. As we enter another winter, people should not have to choose between heating and eating. A large part of the reason the Chancellor took the action that she took in today’s Budget is that she wants to stop people having to make those incredibly difficult choices. When we publish it, the warm homes plan will set out our path to a future that we all want to see. We want warmer homes, no matter where we live or whether we rent or own—homes that are smarter, cheaper to run and greener, and are protected by a system that keeps them free of damp, mould and other issues. I welcome this debate, and I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. Question put and agreed to.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Home Insulation · Hansard source

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  The letters will be sent, I think, from today. Many of those households will already have received knocks on the door or possibly direct contact from scheme providers. We are clear that the system needs to remediate this in the first instance. The issue was caused by the system, and there are guarantees available through the schemes to ensure that they are remediated. If any Member is dealing with constituents whose audits are not getting done properly or who are having difficulty with the guarantee providers, I ask them please to come directly to me, because we need to know exactly what is happening as this action takes place. Despite all the actions we are taking on ECO4, we still need to think about the future system. That is why we have committed to reforming the system and to accelerating that process. I can confirm that we are looking at the entire landscape of consumer protection, from how installers work in homes to where people turn for rapid action and enforcement if things go wrong. The Government are planning to consult on the specific proposals early in the new year, and are already working with industry and consumer protection experts to develop and stress-test plans, including through the retrofit system reform advisory panel, which was set up under my predecessor and began work in July. As this is one of the most urgent challenges that the Government face in our mission to improve the lives of working people, my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister gave me the clearest of instructions on my first day in the job: to reduce bills by making millions more homes warm, safe and fit for the 21st century. We face a number of challenges, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley alluded to. More than 80% of UK homes rely on gas for heating—among the highest percentages in the world, meaning that we are particularly exposed to crises or energy shocks, as we saw after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, we have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe; more than a third of houses were built before the second world war, most with uninsulated walls, meaning that yet more money and fossil fuels are needed to heat them. My hon. Friend mentioned a project in Saltaire, and I will be more than happy to visit. I have had good and constructive conversations with Members across the House regarding heritage retrofit. That is something we have to address in the new plan.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Home Discount: Fuel Poverty · Hansard source

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  I was pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman yesterday to discuss some of the issues in his constituency. As we look at future schemes, we will look at how they can apply to different types of housing across the country. As for this winter, the support that we have put in place is the warm home discount, which is on offer to 6 million people across the country—that is one in six households—and comes to £150 off bills. That is the support we are offering this winter. If he has other suggestions about how the warm home discount should operate, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) earlier, a consultation is running that closes next Thursday and I encourage him and organisations in his constituency to respond to that.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  I am going to make progress because we are so tight on time. Crucially, it is not just homeowners who will benefit from our plan. Back in March, we allocated around £1.8 billion to local authorities and social housing providers to deliver home upgrades through the warm homes local grant and warm homes social housing fund, which will support around 200 projects over the next three years, with work already under way. To achieve our goals, we are also backing improved standards in the private and social rented sector, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire mentioned. We know that far too many tenants are faced with the daily reality of living in damp, draughty homes that they cannot afford to heat, which is why we have set out proposals to increase minimum energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector in England and Wales to an EPC rating of C or equivalent by 2030 and to introduce a minimum energy efficiency standard in the social rented sector. Combined, these measures will lift hundreds of thousands of households out of fuel poverty, giving renters the warmer homes and cheaper bills that they deserve. Our plan is not just about retrofitting the older homes, but building the homes of the future. We have also set the target of building 1.5 million new future-proofed homes by the end of the decade, and our future homes standard will ensure that for the residents of those new homes, heat pumps, heat networks and solar panels on rooftops will become the norm, saving the typical household £500 on their bills each year. While we deliver our plan, we are giving families the short-term support they need this winter. Earlier this year, we expanded the £150 warm home discount to every household where the bill payer is on means-tested benefits, meaning that this winter around 6 million families —one in five across Britain—will get this crucial benefit. As for the long term, it is really very simple: home-grown clean power is the way through. It means that we can control our energy prices—the end of rollercoaster energy bills, price spikes, and an uncertain future decided by dictators and upheavals beyond our borders. By upgrading homes with energy efficient technologies, we can ensure that people feel the direct benefits of that clean, secure and affordable energy. That is how we will bring clean power home. The Labour Government have a plan: to make millions more homes fit for the 21st century, to finally and properly tackle fuel poverty, and to protect working people and ensure that they will not have to worry about every degree turned up on the thermostat, every light switched on and every penny spent. We welcome constructive views on our approach, but we will not entertain those who would abandon our mission to decarbonise our homes and buildings or the wider transformative architecture of clean power and, with that, abandon a hopeful, forward-thinking vision for this country. The British people want change and that is what we have set out to deliver with the warm homes plan. Question put and agreed to.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) for securing this debate, and for the constructive way in which she has engaged with everything that the Department has been doing since the election last year. In the seven minutes available to me, I will try to address the points she has raised, but I am more than happy to discuss them with her further afterwards. Everything we do in life starts at home, and the state of our housing stock, as has been mentioned by many hon. Members, is a national issue. It is therefore only right that the warm homes plan should receive proper scrutiny. We invite that scrutiny. We encourage people with a range of views to make their voices heard. Today, I reaffirm our commitment to the warm homes plan, restate our ambition, and remind hon. Members of what we will deliver in the years ahead, because this is one of the most urgent challenges the Government face in our mission to improve the lives of working people. When I was given this role 10 weeks ago, the clearest of the instructions I was given was to reduce energy bills by making millions more homes warm, safe and fit for the 21st century. That is the challenge. Our housing stock is among the oldest in Europe. Over a third of it was built before the second world war, and that has a cost: high bills, damp and mould, miserable winters, risks to health, families wasting their hard-earned money on heating leaky, poorly insulated homes, and persistent, debilitating fuel poverty. This is an obstacle that we must overcome in our mission for national renewal. It is not just an economic imperative, but a moral and social one. This is how we rebuild people’s trust that the Government still have the power to intervene and improve their lives. It is why upgrading our homes is at the heart of our clean energy mission and our national mission. We have been working hard to get our warm homes plan right and will publish our full plan soon. It has been a priority for me since I took on this brief two months ago, and it will be published soon. We have been clear from the moment we came into government about the scale of our ambition, and we are planning to upgrade up to 5 million homes by the end of this Parliament; that is entire streets and whole neighbourhoods benefiting from solar panels, heat pumps, home batteries and better insulation. To ensure that we deliver on that, we have matched every penny that we promised for this in opposition, investing £13.2 billion to improve homes up and down the country, slashing both bills and emissions—and, importantly, reducing fuel poverty. To achieve our goals, people need to have full confidence in the system. We are aware of the recent National Audit Office report into non-compliance in two Government schemes delivering solid wall insulation, as many hon. Members have mentioned. Let me be clear: we will never let that happen again. More than that, we are taking this chance to completely overhaul the consumer protection landscape for retrofit measures so that work is done right the first time, guaranteeing customers the level of service that they deserve and swift redress on the occasions when those levels are not met. The warm homes plan will work only if we take people with us and deliver change at pace and at scale to the highest standards. We are not waiting for the warm homes plan to start this work. We have already kick-started delivery, making it cheaper and easier for families to get heat pumps installed, almost doubling the funding for the boiler upgrade scheme to £295 million for this financial year, with a commitment to increase that funding year on year up to 2030, and removing the 1-metre rule for air source heat pumps in England, giving people more flexibility to install them without applying for planning permission. Today I was pleased to say that we have published our response to the boiler upgrade scheme consultation, extending the eligibility for that scheme. We have also published a consultation on alternative heating solutions today, including—my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) will be interested in this—on renewable liquid heating fuels, which I know is of interest to many Members in rural constituencies.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will have heard me respond on peatlands a moment ago. As I said, there are existing protections for peatland habitats in the national planning policy framework, but I am more than happy to meet him to discuss the Government’s plans for clean power and the impact of them.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  While I cannot comment on specific planning decisions, I can reassure the hon. Member that the planning regime considers the importance of peat for biodiversity, water and carbon storage in decisions about renewable infrastructure, and there are existing protections for peatland habitats and deep peat in the national planning policy framework.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Fuel Poverty: Greater Manchester · Hansard source

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  We will bring forward the warm homes plan this year. In March, we allocated around £1.8 billion to local authorities and social housing providers through the warm homes local grant. The hon. Member may want to direct his constituents to the Greater Manchester combined authority, which received a settlement of £134.9 million of devolved capital funding for buildings retrofit. They can access that through the retrofit portal, which has an eligibility checker, so that households can check whether they qualify for free or discounted home upgrades.