Sir Bernard Jenkin

Let me be the first to congratulate the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) on his maiden speech. He has demonstrated in two ways that he is quite a rare beast. Being an engineer is not a widely held profession in this House, and he will no doubt bring great value with that expertise and experience, but his business experience is also extremely valuable. I am afraid that if he looks around him on the Labour Benches, he will see precious few people with any business experience—as the Secretary of State has shown with his Bill. The Bill is about setting up a shell company. That is it. The idea that that constitutes an energy policy is a complete myth. In fact, the Government have not even produced an energy policy. There has not been a White Paper on UK energy policy under this Government. There are no pages full of data and numbers to give us any confidence that the Government know what they are trying to achieve, how they will achieve it, or what the risks are. In fact, that was given away in an astonishing letter that the Secretary of State wrote to the director of the electricity system operator, asking for all the information that one would expect the Government to have given that this was a major platform in their manifesto. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), shakes his head—I will give way to him if he wants to intervene—but where are the numbers? Where is the data backing up this wild assertion that just going all out for renewables will provide security of supply and lower energy costs? It is a mantra that Labour Members keep repeating to themselves with increasing enthusiasm and vehemence to make up for the fact that they have no numbers to back up their assertions. Let me be clear about one thing: I am an advocate of achieving net zero. I believe in the target of net zero by 2050—indeed, I am a member of the net zero all-party parliamentary group. When Members hear me speak, they are not listening to some luddite or climate change denier. I want this policy to work, but there are very considerable risks, which are evidenced by reading between the lines for what is not in the Secretary of State’s letter and what is clearly flagged in Fintan Slye’s response to it.