Pippa Heylings MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I will look forward to seeing its answer when you send a letter back—

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  The answer to that is in two ways. First, we must take gas out of the system as much as possible. Secondly, we must fix a broken electricity market. The way we charge customers and businesses right now is broken, and we need to change that. I do not believe in what happened under a previous Government, when George Osborne as Chancellor reduced taxation on oil and gas companies three times. By the end of that we had negative receipts to the Treasury, because we were also looking at decommissioning exemptions. Until some of the windfall tax profits came in, negative receipts were coming into the Treasury at that point. If we talk about the economy, let us talk about the transition. As we have already heard, research from the CBI and the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit shows that the green economy is already contributing more than £100 billion and over 1 million new jobs. Clean power and decarbonisation are about growing our economy, creating those jobs, lowering energy bills and strengthening our energy security. Although we welcome the carbon budget, setting targets is the easy part; delivering them is what counts. That is why we look forward to the Government’s delivery plan and seeing the steps that will be taken, because we worry that there is a risk they will fall short. The carbon budget will take much more than decarbonising our power supply and cannot be delivered in a centrist way from Whitehall alone. We Liberal Democrats want to see more action and ambition from this Government, not a focus on energy alone. Emissions reductions will be experienced in people’s lives, and not just environmentally but economically, through changes in how homes are heated, how people travel and how energy is used. Local authorities, communities, farmers and businesses will be required to be partners in delivering change. We will have to double our efforts to restore nature, which is one of our most powerful tools for tackling climate change, by more generously supporting our farmers to accelerate tree planting and peatland restoration. But please, we should not treat nature protections as a blocker to economic growth. I ask the Government to get rid of the lazy, reckless rhetoric that divides climate and nature, rather than seeing them as indivisible necessities. We will also have to increase powers and funding for local authorities and communities to implement credible local climate and nature delivery plans.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  Can the hon. Lady confirm by when China said it will meet its net zero commitment?

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  Perhaps I would contest the fact that we cannot equate the emotion with a rational mind as well. These are science-based targets that the hon. Member’s Government agreed to set. What is recommended in the carbon budget order is set by the independent Climate Change Committee, with robust figures, and the science has shown us that this is our best chance to limit warming to under 2°. Global collective action avoided—at least for now—a 4° warmer world, and as I understand it, the Treasury has accepted modelling to show that we have accepted a 2° warmer world. It means that every Department will have to look at what a 2° warmer world means and how we adapt to that. I agree, however, that the impact on our industry, with some of the highest energy prices, means that it is less competitive. Let us therefore work together and focus directly on how we can get energy bills down. The Liberal Democrats welcome the seventh carbon budget, and we are glad that the Government have accepted the advice of the robust and science-based Climate Change Committee, which puts us on a consistent and achievable pathway to meeting net zero while building a fairer and thriving new economy.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend often brings that issue up in the Chamber and in the Select Committee. We have to fix the broken system whereby households and businesses do not feel the benefits of cheaper renewable energy from solar and wind. Finally, the Liberal Democrats believe that building public confidence in the transition to net zero requires people to see the benefits in their own communities. That means empowering those best placed to deliver change on the ground. Local authorities, community organisations and local leaders understand the needs of their areas, can bring people with them and are uniquely placed to turn national ambition into practical action. We need regulatory change so that community energy projects can sell energy locally, but those bodies can also take action on better public transport, warmer homes, nature restoration or street-by-street electrification. Too often local climate action remains fragmented, underpowered and dependent on short-term funding. Critically, local authorities still have no statutory responsibility for delivering net zero for climate and nature duty. Such responsibility has been voted down every single time it has been introduced in devolution legislation. Will the Minister look at placing local authorities at the centre of delivery of the seventh carbon budget by legislating for a clear climate and nature statutory duty for local authorities, and by ensuring that they have the funding and powers needed to unlock these opportunities? Many Liberal Democrat Members have been local councillors and we know that local authorities can do that, together with local people. Climate change will not wait and neither should we—the time is now.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  Like the hon. Member, I regularly meet young people across my constituency. I find it hard to look my children and children in my constituency and beyond in the eye, because that is one of the things they talk about the most. I challenge any MP in this Chamber to say that they do not receive those emails or have those meetings in schools where this issue is brought up. I feel that responsibility deeply, and I believe that that feeling is shared across the majority of those in this Chamber. Without action, we risk handing our children and the next generation a Britain where extreme heat regularly keeps children out of classrooms. Did we not learn from covid, during which the more disadvantaged were left behind because they were told to go home? They did not have large homes, cool gardens or broadband, and that is happening yet again this week. We will have a Britain in which thousands die prematurely each summer and in which water scarcity, with a deficit of 5 billion litres a day of public water, is a reality. In my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, which is one of the most water-stressed in the country, this issue is affecting growth right now, so we know how critical it is.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  Absolutely, I agree with the hon. Member. Let us no longer hide from this, but look it clearly in the eye: there are clear costs. They are no longer in the future; they are here now. There are costs to our economy, but also to our communities. Let us talk about food costs. Food supplies are coming under increasing pressure. Three of the UK’s worst harvests on record have occurred within the last five years, hitting our farmers and driving up costs for families at every shop. Floods and wildfires are making homes uninsurable and putting lives and livelihoods at risk. But this is much more than a story about a few hot days. If we think that this week’s heat is uncomfortable, the difficult truth is that what today feels exceptional will increasingly become normal, and without purposeful climate action, it will keep on getting worse.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister and the Government for allowing a good length of time for us to debate and give due consideration to this issue of national security, just as it demands. On the day that we are debating the draft Carbon Budget Order 2026, which aims to balance our carbon emissions from 2038 to 2041, it has just been confirmed that we have surpassed the UK’s record June temperatures, which were set in 1976. The record has been surpassed in Charlwood in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan). The Met Office has also issued a red warning for extreme heat this week, with temperatures likely to hit 40°C, but once again the UK is woefully unprepared because we keep putting our head in the sand. Climate change is no longer a future threat; it is here with us today and the consequences are already being felt. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), asked about costs. This week alone, hundreds of schools have closed. GCSE and A-level students are taking what may be the most important exams in their lives in sweltering conditions, in schools unfit for the current temperatures. Public transport is gridlocked and trains are being cancelled today. Telecommunications are down and the economy faces hundreds of millions of pounds of lost productivity and infrastructure failures. Turning to the public health costs, last summer’s heatwaves contributed to an estimated 16,500 avoidable excess deaths across Europe, with 1,504 heat-associated deaths last year in the UK alone. We know that that is affecting our elderly and the most vulnerable.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I feel deeply about what my hon. Friend says. He is a well-known champion for rural and coastal communities that are facing such an insecure future, not knowing whether their homes will still be standing and whether they will be insurable. That is definitely something we need to look at. Most importantly for this carbon budget, as we have heard from Members across the Chamber, electrification across key sectors is the key to rapidly reducing emissions and helping households to cut bills. Today, the Climate Change Committee has warned that progress in electrification has slowed, with heat pump installations up just 7% this year compared with 56% the year before. What is more, the share of electricity in industrial energy use fell last year, so we must see greater acceleration of electrification.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I very much appreciated the work that the hon. Member did in her former role, and we were together at that COP meeting. Yes, I congratulate the Prime Minister, but I also congratulate former Prime Ministers. I was working internationally, and I worked on the macroeconomic budgets of developing countries, particularly the emerging economies, and we saw what they could do to follow the UK’s lead and leapfrog technologies in their economies. I absolutely agree with the hon. Member, which is why it is disappointing to hear from those on the Conservative Front Bench that they want to delay science-led targets and oppose environmental action, which would lead the world in a more insecure and uncertain place, and leave businesses without the certainty they need. I urge them to help us rebuild the consensus that we need. It can only smell of a desperate attempt at political opportunism to join Reform and gamble with the lives and livelihoods of future generations.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  When a response to the letter comes back. Let us talk about the economics.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend, as always, for her passionate defence and her knowledge on this issue. I worked for 20 years in east Africa, southern America and the Caribbean on UK climate policy, including under the previous Conservative Government. I saw countries already facing water shortages and what that meant: devastating crops and economies, and putting countries into recurrent economic recession. We must be committed to net zero emissions by 2050 because the science when the former Government agreed this—

• 24 Jun 2026 · North Sea Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend. We have many discussions about this issue, and he is absolutely right to point out that it is complex. We know that if we extract beyond what has already been licensed, the UK can contribute only a tiny fraction of global supply, particularly of oil, even if new licences are given. It will not cut bills, and it will not shield us from global price shocks. The next argument is about UK energy security. On that point, Members from across the House have admitted that most of the UK’s recoverable North sea oil and gas has already been extracted.

• 24 Jun 2026 · North Sea Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I am sure that the whole country joins you in finding it difficult to deal with this heat and to perform to the best of one’s ability. I am thinking about those students who are sitting GCSE and A-level exams this week. I thank the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. We have heard how seriously we are considering our current and future jobs for oil and gas workers in the North sea and in the new renewable energy sector. Families across the country and businesses are struggling with skyrocketing energy bills. We are also seeing hits to our economy and avoidable deaths from a warming planet. This week, we have had the first red alert under our new UK Health Security Agency alert system, alerting us to the climate impacts of global warming. Less than a month ago, families and households received the news that, once again, their energy bills are going up, this time by an average of 13.5% or £221 a year—what we could call a Trump tax. We know that rising energy bills are one of the biggest worries facing households and businesses. They bring stress, anxiety and uncertainty, and they are plunging more and more people into unaffordable debt. Right now, energy debt in the country is about £5 billion, and it is due to rise exponentially. Also, our businesses are seeing some of the highest industrial energy prices, making us as a country among the least competitive, which is hitting our economy. Families, too, will now be bracing themselves for the next price cap announcement and wondering how much they will have to pay through the colder winter months. The reason for these spikes in our energy bills is clear: our dependence on the rollercoaster of volatile global fossil fuel markets. The energy crisis is an oil and gas crisis. Just as with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the middle east conflict shows how a single geopolitical escalation can send energy prices soaring, leaving households and businesses exposed to shocks entirely beyond their control. That is not inevitable. In Spain, an increase in renewables has seen the Spanish electricity market go from the 10th most expensive in the EU to among the cheapest. But as we have heard in this debate, a transition will not happen without a careful, concentrated and accelerated focus on the oil and gas we need today, on the renewables that we need to scale up, on the infrastructure, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, on the jobs and, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) mentioned, on the culture and identity involved in this change. We need a serious and honest debate about this transition. Even proponents of the “Drill, baby, drill” argument from the Conservatives and Reform have recognised that further expansion of oil and gas production in the North sea, a mature basin from which we have already extracted 93%, will do nothing to cut people’s energy bills. Any oil and gas extracted is sold on the international market to the highest bidder.

• 24 Jun 2026 · North Sea Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  Once again, I thank my right hon. Friend; I will be coming on to exactly that point. For more than a decade, the previous Government had a policy of maximising North sea oil and gas extraction and of removing and reducing taxes on oil and gas companies. With the issuing of hundreds of new licences in a maturing basin, what we have seen produced after 14 years is little more than a month’s worth of gas to date. Energy security is national security. We know, and have admitted in the debate, that we have to reduce our dependency on gas and come to a transition. The Liberal Democrats recognise not only that we will need oil and gas for decades to come, but that the North sea’s most productive years are behind it. That is why we support a managed and just transition away from North sea oil and gas, with investment in renewables at its heart, and strong support for the workers and communities most affected. Those working in the North sea are skilled workers. They have kept our lights on and have contributed enormously to our economy. They deserve our support through transition—not just words—and honesty about the future. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for the creation of a just transition commission and an acceleration of the clean energy jobs necessary. Under the Conservatives, jobs in the oil and gas industry fell by 70,000, and at that time we did not hear the cries that we hear now about what is happening or how those workers are being supported. I grew up in Hull, a city that knew the devastation of unmanaged transitions—from coal and from the cod fisheries—and through my father’s work as a GP, I saw the human cost of industries collapsing without a plan. We cannot repeat those mistakes. No community should be left behind. In Hull today, when I go back, I see what success can look like: the manufacture of offshore wind turbines by Siemens; the Humber region pioneering the offshore wind industry; investment creating skilled, well-paid jobs now and for the future. Confederation of British Industry economic data has shown that beyond Hull, across the country, the new green economy underpins the jobs of 1.1 million workers throughout the UK, generating £105 billion in gross value added. That is the model we should be scaling up towards, with our skilled oil and gas workers and the supply chains front and centre of the transition. Finally, in this sweltering heat, with this first ever red health alert for danger to life from extreme heat, we must recognise the costs of failing to tackle climate change. This week has shown us the future we face if we do not act—lives lost to extreme heat, schools closed, fields parched, transport networks gridlocked and economic costs spiralling. Climate breakdown is a national security threat, driving instability, displacement and economic shocks. It is incumbent on us to do all we can to avoid worsening climate shocks, so we must find a way forward through electrification that balances cheaper energy bills and security of energy supply, and meets our climate commitments. The future of the North sea plays a vital role in that endeavour of transitioning from being a net exporter of oil and gas in the past to becoming a net exporter of home-grown green energy—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said—again trading in the EU internal electricity market and joining North sea countries in meeting joint offshore wind investment goals, while decarbonising the gas production we will still need for decades to come. I therefore ask the Minister to clarify whether he agrees with the Liberal Democrat proposal: a just transition commission, acceleration of clean energy jobs, and our essential energy guarantee, to ensure that all families have their basic energy needs met. In addition, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) talked about the identity and culture of the communities that have to face this transition. That, too, is crucial. The sooner we embrace the transition and the sooner we can deliver a secure and affordable energy system, the sooner we can finally give families the lower, stable bills that they deserve.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Draft Climate Change Agreements (Administration, Energy-intensive Installations and Eligible Facilities) (Amendment and Revocation) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. It is positive that the Government are looking at costs and energy bills for businesses and non-domestic consumers. Extending the scope of the climate change agreements scheme is a good step to support our industries in the transition. Decarbonising our industry, and encouraging energy-intensive businesses to be more energy efficient and to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, will be vital to meeting our carbon targets. That could not be more relevant than in this week: not only is it London Climate Action Week, but for the first ever time we have a UK Health Security Agency red alert for extreme heat. Climate change is no longer a future threat; it is here with us now. We must do all we can to decarbonise and avoid the worsening of climate impacts on our economy and way of life, so it is right to include the three processes the Minister mentioned—the mechanical recycling of plastic, the packaging of spirits and the production of automative-grade battery cells—in the reduced rates scheme. Ultimately, to decarbonise industry we need a package of policies, including ones to make low-carbon actions and technology viable for businesses. We Liberal Democrats feel that the Government also need to take steps to simplify the current energy-tax system, and that once the emissions trading scheme is fully effective in the UK, complicated taxes such as the carbon price support and the climate change levy should be abolished. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that. As we have heard, the price of energy is currently a huge and disproportionate burden for our businesses, across sectors, compared with other countries, which makes the UK less competitive. We need to take action to help businesses—not just energy-intensive businesses but the many small business that are currently left exposed to exorbitantly high energy costs—to decarbonise and have affordable bills. If the Government are serious about meeting our climate targets and driving British industry forwards, we need action and ambition to help to support businesses and industries to stay competitive.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the petitioners on their resilience not just this evening, but over time. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) on the excellent way in which he put across the central tenets of the petition and our debate, which I think has been misrepresented by several Members, unfortunately. I am grateful to the hundreds of constituents who wrote to me over the course of the debates on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to share their views and perspectives. I pay tribute to all those who provided compelling, powerful and emotive evidence on, and personal testimony to, what they thought should be the choice available to people with a terminal diagnosis in their dying days. This is also personal to me. I have long held with the principle of assisted dying, but I have had long, deep conversations with my husband over the last couple of years about the choices he would like available to him if and when his leukaemia eventually becomes terminal. I know which choices he would want to be available. The Bill had well over 175 hours of scrutiny in both Houses, and that followed the Health and Social Care Committee hearing evidence and expert testimony on assisted dying and assisted suicide—18 months-worth in 2023-24, before the private Member’s Bill was introduced—to determine how such a Bill could be acceptable to the legislature and the public, so there was plenty of evidence, testimony and analysis before the private Member’s Bill came forward. After all that, a principle is clear to me and many constituents: legislation should succeed or fail because our elected body in Parliament has reached a decision on it—it has primacy. The House of Lords does indeed have a role in scrutinising Bills that come before Parliament, but it works through conventions, such as self-regulation. Earlier, the Chair set a strict speaking time for today’s debate so that every single one of us could have the chance to make our points, and also to ensure that we had a timely discussion and a conclusion to the debate. That does not happen in the House of Lords because of self-regulation. The Lord Speaker also does not group amendments to make sure that there is timely progression of the proceedings. That, ultimately—because the process was abused—failed both Houses, democracy itself and faith in democracy, because the House of Lords did not allow the Bill to be returned to the Commons in time for further decision. No matter one’s view of the Bill, I believe, like many constituents and the petitioners, that Parliament should determine the fate of any Bill. I therefore ask the Leader of the House if he will seriously consider the reform that is now needed of the procedures for the timely passage of Bills through Parliament, and his view of the relationship between both Houses and the fact that we can no longer have an unelected House of Lords that frustrates the will of the House of Commons.

• 19 May 2026 · Energy Security · Hansard source

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  Oil and gas prices have a long history of spiking and damaging our economy. The UK was among those countries in western Europe worst hit by the price shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As long as we remain tied to volatile international fossil fuel markets, dictators and foreign wars will have a grip on our economy and on the pockets of families and pensioners across this country. Surely it is time to wake up to that reality and learn the lessons of the past. That is why we Liberal Democrats welcome the Government bringing forward a Bill on energy independence. We will scrutinise it carefully to ensure that it contains not only the urgent and ambitious measures necessary to bring down energy bills and ensure energy security, but a fair, managed and prosperous transition to clean energy. As households nervously await next week’s announcement of the energy price cap, with forecasts showing that households could be hit with a £300 Trump war tax on energy bills, we Liberal Democrats are clear that the best way to get energy bills down is through home-grown renewable power, with prices that we control.

• 19 May 2026 · Energy Security · Hansard source

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  Research has shown that the hundreds of new oil and gas licences awarded by the Government between 2010 and 2024 have resulted in only about 36 days’ worth of extra gas. We need to look at the jobs that people can move into. I think there were 75,000 jobs lost without any outcry from the previous Government. We are looking at a just energy transition that helps those high-skilled workers into jobs.

• 19 May 2026 · Energy Security · Hansard source

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  I will keep going. Proponents of prolonged over-reliance on fossil fuels often ignore the costs of inaction. There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that transitioning away from fossil fuels is essential to our efforts to tackle climate change. Communities around the country are already feeling the impacts and costs of extreme weather events. My South Cambridgeshire constituency is one of the most water-stressed in the country; last month, we saw 5% of the average rainfall, and we are feeling it. Floods and droughts have battered farmers across the country—they are reeling from the worst harvest on record, which will lead to problems with food security and put up our food prices. One avoidable death is one too many for the elderly and vulnerable during recurrent heatwaves. No one wants ravaging wildfires ripping through our most treasured woodlands and national parks. As the Government-suppressed assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security laid bare, the destruction of nature threatens the UK’s resilience, prosperity and national security. People want to know the truth. In my constituency and across the country, people’s emergency briefings are happening. People are taking control. They want to know and to be better prepared. That is why we must also look to prepare for the climate shocks that we cannot avoid. We reject the Government’s false dichotomy between climate and nature, where they say that nature is a blocker to growth. We have to be better prepared. We have to overcome the silos between energy, climate and nature. We need to promote nature-based approaches to capture carbon as well as adapting. We have to work on storing water, regenerating our soil, cooling buildings and protecting people’s homes from becoming uninsurable. A secure future for our country depends on our energy independence, on restored nature and resilient communities, and on meeting our responsibility to our children and young people for a healthier future for generations to come.

• 19 May 2026 · Energy Security · Hansard source

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  I definitely welcome that; as the hon. Gentleman will hear later in my speech, we want to go even further. As we know, it is Liberal Democrats who fix people’s church roofs and put the solar panels on them. For too long, the pace of change has been too slow. It has left people and businesses trapped, at the mercy of a broken energy system that they are literally paying the price for. It is time to take back control of our energy future, and that starts with our communities. In the last Session of Parliament, I welcomed the Government agreeing with our calls to include community energy and community benefits in the Great British Energy Act 2025. Now communities must be given the right to sell and buy energy locally, and we must mandate community benefit requirements where communities host renewable infrastructure. The transition must be done with those communities, not to them. I also welcomed the adoption of the New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill, or sunshine Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), which requires solar panels on all new homes—but why wait until 2027, and why not go further? We Liberal Democrats want to see solar on new warehouses and car parks, turning rooftops across the country into sources of clean, affordable power. We also want to see solar panels on schools and hospitals. Since 2019, energy bills for schools and the NHS have more than doubled, forcing impossible choices between heating and healthcare or between bills and books. The current Government investment reaches less than 1% of schools. Liberal Democrats would go further and faster, helping to protect frontline budgets for our schools and hospitals. Families, too, want to do the right thing; there has been a record increase in sales of solar panels and heat pumps since the start of the war in Iran. We must build on that momentum and help households and small businesses to take back control of their bills, giving them access to zero-interest or low-interest loans for upgrading properties by establishing an energy security bank to support electrification. At the same time we need to fix the broken energy market. It remains absurd that electricity is still priced so highly compared with gas, meaning that people are often not rewarded for electrifying their homes and businesses. It is also crazy that consumers are paying billions to switch off our wind turbines when the grid cannot cope with surplus renewable generation. That is why I welcomed the recent steps taken to begin breaking the link between gas and electricity prices, a reform that the Liberal Democrats have long called for. However, we urge the Government to go further and faster in their Bill: moving unfair policy levies off electricity bills, providing a progressive social energy tariff for those unable to absorb repeated bill shocks, upgrading grid infrastructure and ensuring that customers benefit directly from cheaper renewable power through flexibility when there is surplus renewable generation. Yes, we need energy independence, but that does not mean isolation. The UK and the EU have deeply interconnected energy systems, but the damaging Brexit deal has meant a huge increase in energy costs. Our future lies in ever closer energy ties to our nearest neighbours, and this Government need to drop their red lines on Europe. Rejoining the EU’s internal electricity market and linking our emissions trading schemes will reduce costs and strengthen resilience. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) was right to say that “it is simply fantasy and fabrication for some in this House to pretend that there is a solution in the North sea” —[ Official Report , 13 May 2026; Vol. 786, c. 31.] to people’s high energy bills. Even when North sea production was at its peak nearly 30 years ago, the UK was still exposed to global price shocks, because we have been price takers. Nor is the answer fracking, which some are calling for; it destroys our countryside and pollutes our waterways. We will push for a complete ban on fracking and complete clarity on closing all the loopholes. We need a secure energy mix, and that includes nuclear; we believe that small modular reactors have great potential to strengthen energy security alongside renewables. Oil and gas will also be part of that energy mix for decades to come, but we must recognise the need for a fair and managed energy transition, given that our remaining reserves are in decline. Communities cannot be left behind. We urge the Government to establish a just transition commission, to future-proof supply chain jobs, and to enable the retention of our brilliant, skilled oil and gas workers in high-quality jobs in renewables and other sectors.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Middle East: Economic Update · Hansard source

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  We welcome the Government’s announcement on cutting the link between wholesale gas and electricity prices, which will help to shield families across the UK from volatile fossil fuel prices. They are using the very measure that the Liberal Democrats proposed more than a year ago. It is now time to go further and faster to fix a broken energy market that results in households and businesses that are powered by solar and wind not having cheaper energy bills, and even having to pay on their energy bills to turn off wind farms in British waters. I have written to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Will the Chancellor meet me to discuss our proposals to accelerate reforms, bring down energy bills and secure our energy supply?

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

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  Does the Minister have a timescale for when he expects the review of the market and any recommendations to come back from the CMA? When will the Government enact them? Will they be part of the energy independence Bill, or is there another way in which they could come into effect quite quickly?

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

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. As many have done, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this hugely subscribed and important debate and for representing rural constituencies across the country. As we have heard, people in rural areas already face higher living costs, higher levels of fuel poverty and poorer energy efficiency compared to urban homes, and those areas also have many vulnerable elderly people. The Liberal Democrats are deeply concerned that, once again, we are debating urgent support to rural, off-grid households facing immediate and unaffordable cost increases who are uniquely exposed to volatile global fossil fuel markets. Clearly, we have not learnt the lessons from the very recent past. In the current energy crisis resulting from Trump’s dangerous, reckless and illegal war in Iran, heating oil is not covered by Ofgem’s price cap, just as during Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 it was not covered by the energy price guarantee. We must not allow rural households to be left behind again. As the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association points out, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that the price of imported jet fuel is the largest component in the retail price of a litre of heating oil, and it is far more volatile than Brent crude oil. The association has reported prices jumping from 44p per litre in January to 100p litre this week and, as we have heard, the final price landing on consumers is way above that. In my constituency, 2,954 households—35%—are reliant on heating oil. That is much higher than any other Cambridgeshire constituency. As soon as the conflict began, I heard directly from constituents in the villages of Fowlmere, Barrington, Litlington, Weston Colville, the Abingtons and Heydon, who, despite having agreed a price, were being told that neither that price, nor even the date of delivery, could any longer be guaranteed. One vulnerable elderly resident had only two days of heating oil left in their home. Some bought heating oil from a different provider at double the price because they could not wait. It is questionable that the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association justifies that kind of action as acceptable and appropriate because it is approved by the Competition and Markets Authority. I was the first to demand directly of the Chancellor, when I talked to her in the Chamber, that she not leave households exposed once again, as they were in 2022. Her response was that public money would not be spent and that she would focus exclusively on price gouging and complaints to the Competition and Markets Authority. As Liberal Democrats, while we welcomed the Government’s U-turn to channel £53 million of funding through the newly launched crisis and resilience fund through county councils—Cambridgeshire county council was one of the first councils to get that up and running—we have heard that it is not enough. As other Members have said, it is averaging around £30 to £35 per household, and I have already been told that many struggling households are now complaining that they do not meet the criteria from the fund. As I have mentioned repeatedly to Ministers—and as highlighted by research from Energy UK—improved data sharing from Government Departments—that goes beyond the Department for Work and Pensions—is critical for the funds to be fair and effectively target and reach those who really need them. We need to look closely at price gouging and at whether this unregulated market for heating oil is fit for purpose in serving and protecting rural households. Will the Minister respond to our Liberal Democrat proposal for a three-month zero rating of VAT on heating oil; for a better regulated sector, with a proper price cap that shields households not only on heating oil but on LPG; and for improved consumer protection? Will he also look at the regulation we probably need on improved data sharing, so we can ensure that this help reaches those who need it most? As many have said today, the long-term solution is not to leave rural households on the rollercoaster of volatile fossil fuels. We need to increase the transition to home-grown clean energy, insulate homes and ensure that the warm homes plan works for rural and off-grid homes.

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

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  We welcome the publication of the warm homes plan, but we have not received details of what will replace the energy company obligation 4 programme, which was run through local authorities. Can the Minister tell us when he expects that detail to be available? Will it be published ahead of the winter so that it can be applied and homes can be upgraded?