Sarah Jones MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Jun 2025 · Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  This is a challenging and difficult time for the workers and their families at Alexander Dennis, as well as for the local area. As Members would expect, I have engaged extensively with ADL’s senior executives alongside the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Department for Transport and the First Minister of Scotland to discuss what we can do to support. We wrote jointly to the company, offering to support it in any way we can. There are many issues that we tried to talk through with its representatives. Bus manufacturing sits with the Department for Transport, so it is taking the lead, but we are working together to do what we can.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Northern Endurance Partnership, which is developing the infrastructure to transport CO 2 across Teesside and the Humber, will create thousands of jobs. There is a 50% local content target, but we want to exceed that, and I urge the partnership to use British suppliers. I think my hon. Friend is meeting its representatives this week. We stand ready to do so, and we want everyone to buy British.

• 7 May 2025 · Automotive Manufacturing: Employment · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John, and to have this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on securing the debate and on her words; she gave a very helpful summary of the importance of the automotive sector to the UK. She is absolutely right about the number of jobs it creates and the amount that it brings into the economy, as well as the importance of Toyota in her area, which is not far from mine—I know how important Toyota is. Other Members have talked about the importance of the factories in their constituencies, stabilising whole economies through their supply chains. I thank the hon. Member for Reigate for her valid points. I start by saying that we need to deal with the world as we find it, and the world we find today is a difficult one in terms of tariffs. I will talk about those in more detail. There are many challenges facing the automotive sector. However, as nobody has mentioned it, I will champion the trade deal with India that we secured yesterday. This is good for the automotive industry in the UK, in particular JLR and our high-end manufacturing —they are going to win from this deal. Automotive tariffs into India are historically incredibly high at 100%, and we have negotiated bringing them down to 10% under a new quota system. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade said that we could see 22,000 high-end cars from the UK being sold into the Indian market. That is very substantial for those high-end vehicle manufacturers, and hopefully it is something that everyone will welcome. We worked with the automotive industry as we developed our relationship with India and came to this deal, so we are confident that it is a good deal for the industry. Members rightly pointed to the challenging issues of the day in their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) and I spoke yesterday about those issues. We will continue to do so, just as she will continue to champion JLR, the number of people it employs and the importance of that site. I will come on to our approach to the US and what we are doing, but I hope that we will continue to have those conversations about JLR. My hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) also talked about the importance of her area in the supply chain, quoting companies such as Lavender’s, which is so important in JLR’s production. I will say more about our approach to the US in a minute. Of course, it is about not just the US but the rapid growth of China as a major car manufacturer, high energy costs—as Members have rightly said—and the transition to electric vehicles. That has led to lower sales and volumes of production, which in turn has put pressure on the supply chain, increasing the risk of job losses across the sector. This Government are not prepared to sit back and leave industry to face those challenges alone. I would say that I speak to the automotive industry every week, but often more regularly, and since the introduction of tariffs I have been having regular roundtables with the whole affected sector and talking in detail about what needs to be done. We are determined to do what is necessary to help our car industry to weather the storm and achieve the long-term growth that we all want to see. Where manufacturers are telling us that there are policy hurdles, we are listening, responding and helping industry to overcome them. That is why we launched the zero emission vehicle mandate consultation back in December, and in April we announced significant changes to the mandate, which I think everyone in this place welcomes, to ease the path for the automotive sector’s transition to electric vehicles. We have increased the flexibilities within the mandate for manufacturers up to 2030, smoothing the transition towards zero emission vehicles. We are allowing hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Corolla and the Nissan e-POWER, to be sold until 2035 to ease the transition and give industry more time to prepare. British supercar brands, such as McLaren and Aston Martin, have been exempted altogether from the 2030 phase-out date. Crucially, we are also boosting demand for electric vehicles by improving charging infrastructure—an issue that several Members mentioned. The current statistic on charging infrastructure is that there are now 76,500 public charging points, and the National Audit Office recently found that we were on track to deliver 300,000 charging points. However, I hear what Members are saying, and I heard what the hon. Member for Reigate said about the need to go further. Of course, we are working with our colleagues in the Department for Transport to do just that. Moving on to the US trade deal, Members will have seen speculation in the Financial Times this morning that we are very close to a deal. Of course, we cannot comment on that, but we know that we are in a good starting position. We have good relationships with our colleagues in the US, and the Business Secretary has been having regular conversations with them; the Prime Minister has also been talking to the President. We know that tariffs are a real concern for the sector, and we saw JLR temporarily having to pause shipments to the US last month. From the outset, we have been talking to the industry and playing back our approach to them all the way along. They very much support our calm and cool-headed response, as well as the discussions that we are having with the US. That is what industry wants us to do, and that is exactly what we are doing. At the beginning of April, we launched a request for input to hear from business about their concerns and assessments of what the next steps need to be. We are working through all those responses now. Following that request for input—it was not a consultation; for some reason we have to call it a “request for input”, but I do not know why—we are looking at the feedback and my colleagues are continuing to talk to the industry every day. We will always act in the best interests of UK consumers and businesses, and throughout the last few weeks we have rightly focused on negotiating a deal. My hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury mentioned the letter from the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), and other Members mentioned preparations in the event that there is not a deal. Obviously, our focus is on getting that deal, but we would not be doing what we should if we did not also look at the available options in the event that there was not a deal. Of course the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee has suggested some options and, as I say, we are considering all options in the event that there is not a deal. However, we firmly believe that we are in a good position. We have a good relationship with the United States and we want to secure a deal as quickly as we can. In addition to trying to achieve a reduction of tariffs, we are really investing in the automotive industry. In the Budget last year, we committed over £2 billion of capital in research and development funding until 2030, as has been mentioned, for zero emission vehicle manufacturing and the supply chains, and a further £300 million to drive the uptake of electric vehicles. This new funding will support cutting-edge research and the scale-up of innovative zero emission vehicle technologies. It will also unlock capital investment in ZEVs, batteries and the wider supply chain. And that comes on top of the great work being supported by our Automotive Transformation Fund, which enables British brands and car manufacturers to benefit from a globally competitive supply chain for electric vehicles and their batteries. That has given much confidence to the sector and helped to secure major investment in the UK —including, of course, the £4 billion investment by Tata in its new gigafactory in Somerset. We also want future initiatives to work alongside the National Wealth Fund as part of a comprehensive offer to other big-hitting international investors. Several Members raised the issue of skills, and they were absolutely right to do so. We recognise that we have a skills gap, and we need to ensure that we can fill it through the development of the industrial strategy, which will come out in a few weeks’ time. We are working with the Department for Education and with Skills England to look at the skills gaps across a whole range of industries in the UK, including advanced manufacturing and automotive, to see what the gaps are and to see how we can tilt funding to help to fill them. That is exactly the work that we are doing. Apprenticeships are also incredibly important in this space. There are some brilliant apprenticeship models out there in our car manufacturers. Of course we will continue to support those models. We are also making the apprenticeship levy more flexible, so that a wider range of people can use such models. The hon. Member for Reigate mentioned East Surrey college, which I know; it is very good, and I am very pleased to see that it is helping in this space. She also raised the level 7 apprenticeships issue, which I recognise. We are working on all these issues in the run-up to the industrial strategy and the publications that will go alongside it. Skills have to be at the heart of this agenda. We do not just want to grow the automotive industry. It is an industry in transition, so we must ensure that we are transitioning skills and creating the workforce of the future that we want to see. So, Members are right to raise these issues. Of course we are working very hard on them, and I hope that we will have much more to say about them shortly. The hon. Member for Reigate also mentioned a couple of tax issues—the employee share ownership scheme and the double-cab pick-up vehicles. We have no plans to change those things at the moment, but I hear what she says about the pressures that exist. What we are doing through the run-up to the spending review is looking at how we can support the industry more widely. How do we increase demand, how do we provide support, how do we help to fund, and how do we break down further barriers? So, she is right to raise those issues and of course we continue to look at them. There will also be technical consultation later this year on the employee car ownership scheme, which she might want to look out for. However, I have heard the points she makes. We are currently in a period when we are developing plans but are unable to speak about them, because we cannot yet confirm what the spending review will tell us. However, I hope that the industrial strategy and the spending review will give her reassurance that we are very serious about the automotive sector and will support it in the future. In the run-up to the publication of the industrial strategy, we are engaging with the sector on very complex issues such as access to finance or the planning system when it comes to electric vehicle charging infrastructure. We are looking at everything. Of course, all Members rightly mentioned energy prices. I am acutely aware of how high our energy costs are in this sector compared with other sectors. Our industrial energy costs doubled under the last Government, and we want to take action to tackle that. Of course, we are pushing for clean energy by 2030 to ensure that energy bills come down in the long term and that we have the stability to ensure that we never again suffer a massive shock, as we did when the war in Ukraine began. However, we know that we need to do more. I am working at pace to do that. I hope that, through the processes that we have coming up in the next few weeks, we will see movement; but I completely understand the situation. I am working with lots of sectors, including ceramics, chemicals and automotive. Everybody has the same challenge, and we are looking to see what we can do about that. To conclude, the automotive sector is incredibly important to our country. I appreciate Members’ caring so much about those high-quality jobs and supply chains. We know we need to upskill and reskill the workforce, provide the industry with support for the transition, and build our strengths in new technology, artificial intelligence software, connected and autonomous vehicles—which comes under this remit—and of course, our off-road vehicles as well, which we are supporting. The automotive sector will be at the heart of our industrial strategy, and we will create the right climate for the industry to thrive.

• 29 Apr 2025 · National Wealth Fund: Opportunities for Industry · Hansard source

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  The Government welcome the plans to invest in and around Luton, including the expansion of Luton airport and the incredibly exciting Universal theme park, which is on the “perfect site”, as its president said. It also has perfect MPs. These projects, along with the mass clean power investments we are delivering, will grow the economy and deliver direct benefits to the communities that host this vital clean power infrastructure which will take all of us off the fossil fuel market rollercoaster.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Reducing Industrial Electricity Prices · Hansard source

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  As UK Steel said recently, the main driver of the price disparity is the wholesale electricity cost, which is driven by the UK’s reliance on natural gas. The best way to secure bills for the long term is to deliver clean power by 2030, and that is what we are doing.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House not just for participating in this debate, but for returning to this place in these exceptional circumstances. There seems to be some debate about it, but I think this is the sixth time since the second world war that we have met on a Saturday, and only the second time that the House has been recalled on a Saturday—the other being during the Falklands war. Before I respond to Members’ comments, I echo the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in his opening remarks: this Government will never hesitate to protect our steel industry and the thousands of steel workers in this country who built it. We always said, from the outset of our negotiations with Jingye, that we would keep every option on the table and would act in the national interest to protect jobs. UK-forged steel built our railways, bridges and buildings. It is integral to our economy’s future, just as much as it has been to our rich industrial past. That is why we need to pass this legislation today. I will try to address as many of the points raised as I can. Members made the argument for British Steel. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) pointed out that 95% of Network Rail steel is from British Steel. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) pointed out that TfL would not get anywhere were it not for steel. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), who has such expertise, pointed out that steel is the future and everything we have is made from or with steel. I can reassure the House that our plan for steel—the £2.5 billion that we committed to in the manifesto—will work to break down the trade barriers that we have on steel, consider the all new technologies that we can introduce, and look across the whole of the UK to ensure that we protect steel everywhere.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  In the first 10 weeks after coming to power, this Government negotiated a better deal on Port Talbot and delivered a £200 million commitment to secure the future of Grangemouth. We acted last week on the zero emission vehicle mandate to secure our automotive industry. We are acting today to save the workers of Scunthorpe. The Government believe in direct action—in an active state securing the future of our industry across the UK. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) raised trade protection issues. I want to reassure her that we will ensure that the right trade protections are in place for our steel industry. Concerns were raised about future decisions about moving towards nationalisation and whether we would come back to this place. I can reassure the House that we will come back to this place if are any further matters relating to ownership or otherwise. We will keep the House updated. Concerns were raised about the “reasonable excuse” part of the Bill, and examples were requested. The “reasonable excuse” clause could include physical inability, illness or accident, and it is reasonable and measured in this case. Many hon. Members talked about China. We are focusing on this company today; we are not focusing on the nation of China. The Bill is about what has happened with British Steel and what this Government are going to about British Steel. I would not want this House to believe that the policy of this Government is anything other than a belief in free and fair trade, and that includes with China. Turning to the sunset clause amendments that have been tabled and the suggestions during the debate that those measures should be included in the Bill, I reiterate what the Secretary of State explained about the risk of a hard backstop reducing our leverage, which was why we did not include a sunset clause. However, we have heard the House’s concerns. I confirm that we will repeal the legislation as quickly as we can and that we will involve the Select Committee. I also make this pledge to the House: we will update the House regularly and the Secretary of State has committed to do so every four working weeks. I hope that that will give the House reassurance.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Scunthorpe Steelworks · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, the Secretary of State is and has been talking to Jingye, as have I and officials. Those negotiations will continue. The site at Scunthorpe produces a lot of different types of steel, as he will know. It provides 95% of all steel used by Network Rail. It is incredibly important in that sense, and he is right to draw attention to that. There are many different ways of making steel. On the primary steel point, we are investigating the merits of investing in direct reduced iron, which is when hydrogen is used instead of the old blast furnaces. The reality is that the Scunthorpe blast furnaces are old infrastructure—decades old—that needs updating. We need to move to new technology, and that is what we are trying to do with Jingye.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Scunthorpe Steelworks · Hansard source

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  I do not want to insult this House by suggesting that there was any kind of deal on the table under the previous Government and that anything happened on steel other than a halving of production over the last decade—a halving. Lots of things shut down and closed during that period, not just in the steel industry but in many others. I look at my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) for proof of that. Whether in steel, in shipbuilding or in the automative sector, the previous Government had neglected to take major decisions or had kicked the can down the road. All we inherited were a series of industrial crises that we are now trying to solve. We delivered a better deal with Port Talbot than had been negotiated under the previous Government. We are still in talks with British Steel and hoping that we can come to a resolution, and not just because of the very many very highly skilled workers in Scunthorpe who we respect, honour and want to make sure stay in their jobs. I have nothing more to say on that front. On tariffs and the situation with the US, we are in a good position in this country in that the relationship that our Prime Minister has built with President Donald Trump and his team means that we are in active conversations about a potential trade deal. This is a good, positive thing, and we are carrying on having those conversations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been talking regularly with our American counterparts, as Members would expect. We will have cool heads in this space and navigate our way through. We—our officials—are talking daily with British Steel. We are talking with the trade unions and all the players to try to ensure that, in the difficult global landscape that we find ourselves in, we are doing right by the people of Scunthorpe.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Manufacturing: West Midlands · Hansard source

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  It was a good night for Villa fans last night, so I congratulate anyone in the west midlands who supports the club, as my husband does. The west midlands, in many ways, leads the country on manufacturing, and it has one of the UK’s largest specialist workforces. Whether in automotive, aerospace or the rail supply chain, it is an incredibly important area. We have invested in the west midlands investment zone—Made Smarter, the High Value Manufacturing Catapult; it is all there—but we want to keep breaking down barriers to growth in the area, which is why advanced manufacturing is such a key part of the industrial strategy that we will announce soon.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend asks a very good question. I am very pleased that the Department for Transport today launched the new UK bus manufacturing expert panel. We need to support our bus manufacturing, both for the transition to net zero and for building our businesses in the UK. I am very happy to work with him on that.

• 4 Mar 2025 · North Staffordshire Ceramics Industry: Energy Costs · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for those points, which he has previously raised with me. I can certainly take away the point about the public sector decarbonisation scheme. Bizarrely, as he knows, it is not part of my brief, but that does not matter. This Government work across Departments and across barriers, and I will endeavour to look into it. The point is well made that it can be challenging when a company has small margins and big up-front costs, especially in these industries where there has not been infrastructure investment for a long time. A lot of places need general infrastructure investment, and we are looking actively at this issue through the spending review process. Happily, I can say that we are looking to answer all the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. I cannot promise what the answers will be at this point, and I cannot promise that we will do everything we seek to do, but we are well aware of all his points and are looking at them in depth. We are looking at subsidies on energy costs. My hon. Friend said that the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero should work together. I sit in both Departments, so I have conversations with myself about these issues. There are competing vantage points that we need to grapple with, but the advantage of my sitting in both Departments is that officials from the two Departments meet to find solutions before speaking to me, which is helpful. They are working well together. We are also looking at the energy-intensive industries exemption scheme. As my hon. Friend knows, grid connections are an issue across the board. We are working on how to remove undeveloped, speculative programmes from the grid connection queue and prioritise others. One of my roles as the Minister for Industry is to point to the need not to forget our existing industrial base and the need for it to connect to the grid, as well as the need for the important data centres, artificial intelligence and new technologies and new investment that we want to come to the UK. If we cannot get our own industry connected in the way we want, we are getting something wrong, so my hon. Friend is right to make that point. I met representatives of the energy-intensive industries last week, including Rob from Ceramics UK, and I am following up on all these things with the Treasury and with officials. We agreed on a couple of things at that meeting, and one is to have a session with the industrial strategy team and the energy-intensive industries to make sure we are all working towards the same outcome. Another is to talk to the Treasury about the challenge we face in how the ETS and the CBAM align and fit together, or not, depending on policy. These things are enormously complicated, as my hon. Friend knows, and CBAM is a Treasury lead. However, I am very aware of the need to get that relationship right; otherwise, the system does not work at all. My hon. Friend talked about hydrogen, which is very important and is part of my brief in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We are developing a kind of hydrogen network. We have had what we call HAR1, or hydrogen allocation round 1, which was the initial agreement to fund 11 hydrogen projects—electrolyser projects—around the country. There is hydrogen in the carbon capture and storage clusters that we are developing, and we are currently looking at what the next phase of the hydrogen roll-out will be. My hon. Friend knows that hydrogen is currently very expensive. We need to work out a path to reduce costs, which is what we are grappling with at the moment, in a climate where it is difficult to bid for money in the spending review. How can we unleash the hydrogen industry and give certainty to businesses that want to invest but need the right signals? How can we do that and use money wisely? And who pays for it? People are very interested in hydrogen, whether in steel, in transport or in the green energy space—it has a lot of uses. We need to make sure we are making the right decisions. I will speak to the hydrogen team about ceramics, and I will ask what we are looking at in that space.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend and I have previously talked about this great opportunity. The rapid development and breakthrough of new AI models such as DeepSeek tell us that we need to go further and faster to remove barriers to innovation and make Britain the most competitive market. We need to be developing the technology ourselves. That is why we have set out our new AI strategy and why we are scaling up our capacity, creating AI growth zones and putting in place every vehicle we can to support the growth of technology innovation in our country, because we will need it in future.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I would be happy to meet a group of MPs from her area. The ambition on airport expansion was very clear in the Chancellor’s speech yesterday. We are hungry for growth; we set that need alongside the need to decarbonise our airspace. Yesterday, I chaired a meeting of industry experts looking at how we can turbocharge our decarbonisation of aviation. I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson), and I agree that we need to grow all parts of the UK to make this work.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her work supporting workers at Stellantis. I met several of her colleagues and representatives from Stellantis this week, who I meet regularly. We stand ready to talk to them about whatever they need to remain. The consultation finished on 24 January and we await the final decision. She makes a good point about Luton airport, which I use very often because there are very good train links from Croydon to Luton. I should say that there are also good train links from Croydon to Gatwick. We know that the Secretary of State will be making a decision in due course, but the direction of travel on growth and breaking down barriers was clear in the Chancellor’s speech yesterday.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Support for the Automotive Industry · Hansard source

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  As we have already discussed, the automotive sector is absolutely vital to the Government’s plans for green economic growth, and for growing the economy more widely. That is why, at the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor committed to ensuring over £2 billion of capital and research and development funding before 2030 for zero emission vehicle manufacturing and its supply chains. We are also consulting the industry to make sure that the zero emissions transition works for the UK’s car industry, and working with the automotive transformation fund and the Advanced Propulsion Centre to make sure that we carry on innovating and seeing the growth of the automotive sector in the UK.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Solar Farms: Agricultural Land · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I cannot comment on the individual case in his constituency, of course. But of course when developers are applying for planning permission, they go through a series of criteria and have to adhere to a series of criteria, whether that is for the development of smaller solar plants, where it goes through local authorities, or whether it is through the nationally significant infrastructure project process. The solar taskforce is looking at all these issues as well. We are making sure we are mindful of all of the range of issues that we need to consider when we are looking at bringing infrastructure into communities. I will come to this later, but it is really important to say that we want to do this with local communities—with consultation of local communities and with consideration of what other options are available to us as well. That will continue. Solar is one of the cheapest sources of power available to us, which is an important consideration when we are looking at the full range of options that we have between us. We are setting a target for around 45 GW to 47 GW of solar power by 2030. That is up from the 17 GW that we have today and it is a substantial increase. I want to tackle the issue that a number of Members mentioned—the rooftop versus ground-mount issue. The hon. Member for South Cotswolds is right to talk about how we need to be going further to make sure we are putting solar panels on our roofs, and to ask what Government can do to encourage that. We are bringing in new building standards to ensure that all newly built houses and commercial buildings are fit for a net zero future. We expect those standards to encourage the installation of solar panels on new developments. We are issuing later this year a call for evidence on the construction of solar on outdoor car parks. The reconvened solar taskforce is focusing on rooftop solar, and further actions to increase deployment will be set out in the road map this spring. I was talking to one of our big mayoral authorities yesterday about the power purchase agreements that people could potentially have in this space. If people look at public sector roofs and the collaboration they could have across some of our transport infrastructure and some of our public sector infrastructure, they could do more ambitious projects when it comes to solar, and of course we want to push that as much as we can. If we can put solar panels on rooftops, that is what we want to do. But we consider that we need a mix of both: we need ground-mounted and rooftop panels to get to the numbers that we want to see. Let me turn to the planning system. All proposed solar projects are subject to a rigorous planning process, which considers the interests of local communities, as I said to the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller).

• 17 Dec 2024 · National Wealth Fund: Opportunities for Industry · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the uncertainty faced by people in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have Project Willow and the plan for the site’s future. A joint committee, which I co-chair, has just been set up with the Department for Transport looking at sustainable aviation fuel and other options to fund and support that, to ensure that we have that emerging industry.

• 17 Dec 2024 · Great British Energy: Job Creation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Green hydrogen is vital, not just for the decarbonisation of heavy industry but for aviation and maritime. It has the potential to create thousands of very highly skilled jobs in every region of the country. We have already confirmed support for 11 green hydrogen projects from Cumbria to Cornwall, and from Scotland to Kent. I look forward to saying more on our hydrogen journey soon.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Road Fuel Market · Hansard source

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  I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on securing this debate, making such an excellent contribution and championing the needs of consumers, both in his constituency and across the UK, where so many people have the same struggles. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the important matter of the road fuel market. This Government are committed to fixing the foundations of the economy, delivering change by protecting working people and rebuilding Britain. It cannot be the case that fuel retailers register record profits and do not pass on savings when the burden is being unduly felt by hard-working families and businesses. That is why I am so grateful for my hon. Friend’s story about Aimee. Her story is one that I suspect is familiar to many other MPs from their constituencies. We are committed to supporting people with the cost of living and the cost of fuel. I agree with my hon. Friend that, for so many, vehicles are more than just a means of transport; they are a lifeline. They play an integral role in connecting working people, families, communities and businesses, especially in rural areas. In the case of young people, including Aimee, their car is a means to forge a career and earning meaningful, well-paid work. This Government are committed to delivering for drivers, but also providing a range of transport options to make it possible that people such as Aimee should not have to worry about how they get to work. That is why this Government made the decision at last week’s Budget to freeze fuel duty for a further year, which I know my hon. Friend has welcomed. I commend his dedication to campaigning against high fuel prices and for families, working people and small businesses to get a fairer deal on fuel across his constituency and Scotland. It is imperative that we have a well-functioning, transparent and competitive road fuel market. We want to ensure that drivers can get a fair price for their fuel, and that fuel retailers remain transparent and do not overcharge. We expect all fuel retailers to pass on any savings at the pump. As my hon. Friend set out, the Competition and Markets Authority published its road fuel market study in July 2023, and it found that competition across the retail market had weakened. The CMA found problems in relation to three aspects of the retail market: national, local and motorway. At a national level, the CMA found that retail margins had risen significantly since 2019, with the supermarket retailers following a similar trend of increased margins on fuel. The historic price leaders in the market—primarily Asda, but also Morrisons to some extent—had taken a less aggressive approach to pricing and had significantly increased their margins over recent years. The rest of the fuel retailers took a passive approach and followed that trend. At a local level, the CMA found significant price differences between local areas, with lower prices at a forecourt typically associated with having a supermarket competitor nearby. I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about that and recently raised it with the Leader of the House at business questions, as he has done today in this debate by sharing Aimee’s experience. On motorway pricing, the CMA found that drivers without access to fuel cards, which account for 20% to 25% of fuel sales on motorways, were paying significantly more to fill up at a motorway service area than they would elsewhere, due to limited competitive pressure. As a result of those factors, the CMA found that drivers have been paying more than would otherwise have been the case. It is estimated that the financial impact of the 3% increase in average supermarket fuel margin from 2019 to 2022 resulted in a combined additional cost of around £900 million for customers of the four supermarket fuel retailers in 2022 alone. That is equivalent to approximately £75 million a month for this period. While fuel prices are now a lot lower than at the all-time peak in July 2022, weakened competition persists. The CMA’s latest monitoring update in July this year estimated that the increase in retailers’ fuel margins compared with 2019 resulted in increased fuel costs for drivers in 2023 of over £1.6 billion. Weak competition is still failing consumers; that is hugely concerning. The price of petrol and diesel is an important issue. When prices are high, the impacts are felt by everyone. We expect all fuel retailers to pass on any savings at the pump. As my hon. Friend said, to address these issues, the CMA made recommendations for the Government to implement an open data scheme for fuel prices, requiring retailers to share their prices on a real-time basis and allow drivers to be better informed on prices and easily compare prices, and to launch an ongoing monitoring function for the retail market to assess how well competition is working. The Government accepted those recommendations. On the CMA’s first recommendation, as part of the Budget last week, we confirmed that we will implement a statutory open data scheme called fuel finder. It will require all retail petrol filling stations in the UK to report prices and when a fuel becomes unavailable within 30 minutes of a change. The data will be shared openly and freely to third parties so that it can be incorporated into their price comparison websites or apps, sat-navs and other consumer-facing products that consumers can use. Fuel finder will empower drivers to compare prices more easily and make more informed decisions on where to buy their petrol and diesel. That will increase pressure on fuel retailers to compete strongly to attract consumers by lowering their prices or improving their services at the forecourt. The Government are committed to implementing fuel finder as quickly as possible. We will begin procurement for the fuel finder aggregator in early-2025. The Data (Use and Access) Bill that the Government have introduced will provide the legislative basis to set up fuel finder. Subject to parliamentary timings, we aim to launch fuel finder by the end of 2025. On the CMA’s second recommendation, it will receive statutory information-gathering powers through the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 to undertake the permanent monitoring function. We are aiming to commence those provisions by January 2025. The CMA will be able to assess and monitor the state of competition in the retail market, both nationally and locally, provide ongoing scrutiny of prices and advise the Government if further intervention is needed to protect consumers. The transition from fossil fuel to zero carbon vehicles is likely to lead to further risks of weakening competition in the remaining fossil fuel-based road fuels market. The transition is likely to be felt particularly by less well-off consumers and those living in rural areas. The CMA will be able to monitor the market through the transition and benefit consumers by ensuring that the market continues to function properly. The CMA will therefore publish an annual report on the state of competition in the sector, three shorter updates on prices, costs and margins, and information on price trends across the UK and over time. Taken together, fuel finder and the CMA monitoring function will reinforce each other in providing a new source of competitive pressure in favour of greater competition in the road fuel retail sector.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Road Fuel Market · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is why we need to start monitoring the situation properly. When we all have access to that real-time data and can understand exactly what is happening—the CMA can be monitoring that and reporting to the Government—the Government can say, “Actually there is a more systemic problem here that we need to tackle. We need to make more interventions.” The Government stand ready to look to do those things, but the first stage of having the data available so that we understand properly what is going on will help us to do that. Fuel prices are inevitably uncertain and sensitive to wider global factors, but our published impact assessment estimates that increasing transparency and encouraging competition between petrol filling stations could result in fuel cost savings for drivers totalling £7.7 billion over 10 years. That amounts to savings of 1p to 6p per litre at the pump. I am sure that my hon. Friend and others will agree that that would be welcome. In addition, at the Budget the Chancellor announced that the Government are extending the temporary 5p cut to fuel duty rates for a further 12 months, until 22 March 2026. Alongside that, the Government will not increase 2026 rates in line with the retail price index, or RPI. Taken together, that is a tax cut worth £3 billion in 2025-26. The freeze in fuel duty will save the average car driver £59 in 2025-26. These actions have been welcomed by stakeholders such as the RAC and the AA. Let me assure the House and my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to delivering for drivers. Our ultimate goal is to increase the levels of transparency for consumers and encourage fuel retailers to become more competitive. That way, consumers will send the clearest signal to them that they will not pay extortionate prices when given a range of options to choose from. We are confident that these measures will help facilitate a competitive road fuels retail market, increase price transparency and protect consumer interests. I thank hon. Friend again for securing this important debate. Question put and agreed to.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I will not take any lectures from the Opposition, who said “eff business”. Conservative Members have some cheek to come at us when we are clearing up the £22 billion black hole that we inherited, and setting in train stability. I spent quite a lot of yesterday, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, talking to and having meetings with businesses about the Budget and its implications. We talked about the potential for growth, long-term stability, and changes that this Labour Government are making.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. It is essential that local communities see the benefits of landmark investments. I am pleased that Blackstone is investing £110 million in a fund to support local skills training and transport infrastructure. I am happy to have a conversation with my hon. Friend about what more can be done.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ability to shoehorn in a question on a subject that is not in the Department for Business and Trade’s remit, but we are of course happy to help with his endeavours to talk to Ministers in the Department for Transport.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Draft Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024. As always, Sir Edward, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. This statutory instrument, which was laid before the House in draft on 30 July 2024, forms an important part of the Government’s commitment to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture, usage and storage. CCUS is critical to deliver clean energy and accelerate our net zero journey. As the Government recently announced, CCUS is vital as we enter into a new era of clean energy investment and jobs. By boosting this tried-and-tested technology, the UK has the potential to become a global leader in CCUS, delivering good jobs and economic growth for decades to come. A critical element of the CCUS mix is the successful deployment of power CCUS—gas-powered electricity generators fitted with carbon capture technology. [ Interruption. ] It is a bit more complicated than I just tried to indicate, but that is the gist. Power CCUS will complement the roll-out of renewable energy, providing the secure, flexible, non-weather-dependent, low-carbon electricity that is critical for a reliable energy system and for achieving our mission of clean power by 2030. The Government are committed to incentivising the deployment of power CCUS, and this statutory instrument will enable future payments to power CCUS plants under a business model called the dispatchable power agreement. The DPA is the contract framework to support power CCUS. It has been designed especially to incentivise investment in and the deployment of power CCUS in the UK. Dispatchable power agreements are a type of contract for difference. Like contracts for difference, they use the electricity supplier obligation to fund support payments. The levy is calculated and managed by the CfD counter-party—the Low Carbon Contracts Company—and collected from electricity suppliers such as Octopus or British Gas, which can pass the costs on to their customers if they choose to do so. In addition to the existing renewable CfD contract design, the DPA business model will provide an alternative payment based on a power CCUS generator’s availability. This availability payment is based on a generator’s availability in respect of electricity generation and carbon capture, and associated carbon dioxide transport and storage network costs. Under the DPA terms, payments will reduce proportionately to reflect any reduction in a generator’s CO 2 capture availability—in other words, its capture rate—or generation. A payment is made whether a generator dispatches power or not. This ensures that a CCUS power plant will run in response to market signals, ahead of unabated gas plants, but will not surpass cheaper renewables. This arrangement will strengthen our security of supply and ensure that a source of reliable low-carbon energy is available, but only when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. This statutory instrument enables only certain types of payments under the renewable CfD and DPA contracts to be funded by the supplier levy. Any future support offer to a project will be subject to rigorous negotiations with partners. Any decisions to award support will be subject to value for money and subsidy control tests to ensure the best value for money for consumers. The statutory instrument amends the Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) Regulations 2014. The changes will allow the payments made under the DPA to be funded by the supplier levy by changing how the supplier levy rate calculation works in the regulations. First, regulation 4 relates to the way that an electricity supplier’s daily contributions paid to the CfD counter-party are calculated. The statutory instrument amends regulation 4 to change the definition of “generation payments” so that the supplier obligation can be charged for payments relating to the activities of a dispatchable power plant fitted with CCUS technology—I hope everyone is still with me. The statutory instrument includes amendments to take into account the electricity generation capacity made available by a generating station on a given day; a generating station’s achieved carbon dioxide capture rate or capture capacity on a given day; the CO 2 transport and storage capital costs incurred from transporting such captured carbon dioxide; and, if required, the associated carbon dioxide transport and storage network shortfalls, proportionate to a DPA-supported generating station, that arose on that day. Secondly, regulation 7 of the 2014 regulations sets out how the CfD counterparty estimates the quarterly obligation payment that electricity suppliers will be required to provide to the counterparty. The statutory instrument amends regulation 7 to ensure the consideration of matters related to a DPA-supported generating station, including the carbon dioxide transport and storage network capital costs and, if required, revenue shortfalls, and the amount of carbon captured. Together, the changes allow a CfD counterparty to estimate and raise funds, and ultimately to pay a DPA-supported CCUS-enabled power plant. The existing payment calculation, based on the amount of electricity generated by renewable CfD-supported generating stations, is retained and unaffected. In summary, the statutory instrument represents a positive step forward in the delivery of the Government’s ambitious CCUS programme and 2030 clean power mission. It will lay the regulatory groundwork to encourage the deployment of power CCUS and begin to unlock the great economic and jobs opportunities. I commend the draft regulations to the House.