Claire Coutinho

I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to introduce a plan for cheap power by cutting public expenditure to remove the ‘Carbon Tax’ (UK Emissions Trading Scheme) from electricity generation and end Renewable Obligation subsidies; notes that the UK has the highest industrial electricity prices in the world and the second highest domestic electricity prices; further notes that high power costs are holding back economic growth and making households poorer; believes that cheap energy is essential to enable economic growth, the expansion of the artificial intelligence sector and the electrification of heating and transport; further calls on the Government to stop the Allocation Round 7 auction, which will lock consumers into high energy bills for decades; also notes that three quarters of the UK’s energy needs are met by oil and gas, and recognises the vital contribution of the North Sea industry to the nation’s energy security, to skilled employment, and to the public finances through billions of pounds generated in tax revenue; notes that shutting down domestic oil and gas production would increase reliance on foreign imports with higher carbon emissions; and also calls on the Government to end the ban on new oil and gas licences and to scrap the Energy Profits Levy in order to maximise investment in that sector. Our cheap power plan would cut electricity bills for everyone by 20%, and under it, we take a common-sense approach to British energy security by backing the North sea. The plan recognises that the biggest problem the country faces is the cost of our electricity. It is a problem for living standards, for industry, for artificial intelligence and for electrification. The focus of any Government should be making electricity less expensive, not more expensive, as Labour’s plans will. They should be about making electricity cheap. Under our cheap power plan, we would axe the carbon tax—which has gone up by 70% this year under Labour, pushing up everybody’s energy bills—and scrap the renewable obligation subsidies, which result in some wind farms get three times the market price for electricity. I would like to start by thanking the Liberal Democrats, who came out this morning as backing the second part of our plan. I would also like to thank Reform, which appears to have copy and pasted the plan wholesale, and the Tony Blair Institute, which just two weeks ago said that we need to ditch Labour’s disastrous clean power plan in favour of a cheap power plan that takes off carbon taxes. That sounds familiar.