Contribution
“Truth” is quite an interesting word coming from the party that has decided to prioritise train drivers over pensioners and that, on the very day it announced a 22% increase in junior doctors’ pay, told the pensioners of this country they would be going cold this winter.
To go back to the matter at hand, what will be the relationship between GB Energy and UK Industrial Fusion Solutions or the International Atomic Energy Agency? How will that affect the plans for STEP—the spherical tokamak for energy production—at West Burton? The Secretary of State wants the UK to export more energy, but has he done an analysis of the impact on bill payers of building the required infrastructure and interconnectors? Will GB Energy and not Ofgem now be the final decision maker when it comes to the approval of new international interconnectors to the continent? If so, how will it be held responsible for those decisions by the Department and by Parliament?
I know the Minister is a respectful person, so I ask him sincerely to please end the disrespect being shown to the people of Aberdeen, with the “will they, won’t they” game being played around the location of GB Energy’s headquarters. Politics aside, that area of the country is already worried about its economic future. My plea to him, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) asked earlier, is to end that situation and make an announcement as soon as possible.
Ultimately, the simple question the Minister will have to answer, after having considered all the points made by hon. Members this afternoon, is why? Why are the Government doing this? Britain is already a world leader in clean energy production. We are already leading the world in cutting our carbon emissions. We already export energy. We are building new technologies at unprecedented rates. We have halved our emissions and done so while growing the economy.
The Secretary of State regularly, and rightly, claims that it is Britain’s over-reliance on gas that has led to bill payers here paying higher bills than in other countries. As I say, he is not wrong. It is acknowledged by the Climate Change Committee that we will be reliant on gas for a significant proportion of our energy supply for many years to come, so his decisions for the North sea will leave us, in the short term, even more reliant on foreign imports and on the countries and regimes he claims he wants to free us from, and there will be a lower tax return for the Treasury from a smaller sector. Jobs, capabilities and skills will be lost overseas, and bills will not fall, certainly not by the £300 he claimed during the election.
So if there is nothing in GB Energy for bill payers, it does not have the capital to enable it to be an Ørsted or an EDF, we are already a world leader, it will open the taxpayer up to huge risk, investing in emerging technologies might fail and it will not increase our energy security, the question is why do it? What is the point in GB Energy? Surely the Secretary of State is not that desperate to have something to put on his “Ed stone” or to have a new plaque to unveil. It may well be about the “Ed stone”, but the Secretary of State should be aware that this Bill could be the Government’s tombstone. We have seen how these projects end up: Robin Hood Energy collapsing, leaving Nottingham City council with a bill of £38 million; and the same with Bristol Energy. What will the bill for the country be if GB Energy follows the same path?
Great British Energy will not produce any energy, it will not cut household energy bills by £300 as the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero have all stated, and it will not compensate for the amount of investment in energy projects that will be deterred by the Government’s plans to prematurely shut down the UK’s oil and gas sector. It is an unjustified use of taxpayers’ money at a time when the Government are withdrawing the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners as energy bills rise. I echo the words of the Secretary of State and urge Members on the Government Benches to ignore their Whip and vote for our amendment this evening.