Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope and expect that we can move forward in the right way and get the balance right between being overly prescriptive to the banking industry and setting a clear sense of direction to make sure that no one is left behind, as so many Members have set out.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.”
“Is my hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Minister—I know she is new to her post—has come here to propose a six-month extension of the movement of costs from bills to the Exchequer and cannot tell the Committee how much money that will cost?”
“The Minister is being most generous again. I did not ask her about protecting consumers from energy price shocks; I asked about a clear, unequivocal manifesto pledge to reduce household energy bills by £300. She, like her predecessors, refuses to address it directly. It was a clear promise.”
“Banking hubs themselves came out of an industry response from the NatWest executive. Does the Minister agree that we must present the information from the Lloyd review to the banking groups, be clear about what we want, and give them the opportunity to respond and provide a solution, as they did with banking hubs, so that we can perhaps a…”
“I am pleased to say that Lloyds listened and, as of this morning, people can deposit cheques at those places. These issues being raised by Members across the House today are important. I trust that given the timing of the Richard Lloyd report, the Minister in her seat will make sure that they are be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
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“I thank my right hon. Friend who, along with colleagues, has been assiduous in championing constituents’ interests and making sure that no infrastructure that imposes a burden on constituents goes in if it is not necessary. I am pleased to say that we have launched the £100 million offshore co-ordination support scheme, which provides funding to ensure a more co-ordinated approach. Although we recognise that we cannot forcibly change some contracts, we can—including with that funding—encourage developers to look at doing their infrastructure in the way that has the least negative impact on her constituents.”
“I will write to the hon. Gentleman as I do not have those numbers to hand. I am delighted that we have gone from just 14% of homes being rated EPC C or above in 2010 to more than 46% now. That is not enough, but we have transformed the situation of UK housing stock that we inherited from Labour.”
“The idea that we should just leave that law there makes no sense. What we should do is make sure we have law that is fit for purpose and fit for the needs of this country. The time is right to end the special status of retained EU law on the UK statute book on 31 December this year. The Bill will abolish that special status and enable the Government, via Parliament, to amend more easily, repeal and replace retained EU law, precisely in order to improve the agility with which we respond to things such as scooters with exploding batteries or children’s toys with dangerous button batteries. The Bill will include a sunset date by which all remaining retained EU law will either be repealed or assimilated into UK domestic law. It provides the impetus to ensure that the regulation that stops those things is properly fit for this country.”
“Gentleman, who I thought spoke very well, started his speech by making accusations of fearmongering, before going on to suggest that this Government were going to remove the very standards upon which trading standards rely. The scaremongering in this debate was clearly his. The Government introduced the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill on 22 September 2022. The Bill is an important step closer to the culmination of a journey that began on 23 June 2016, when more than 17 million citizens of the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, including more than 1 million in Scotland, voted for the UK to leave the European Union. Retained EU law was never intended to sit on the statute book indefinitely. There will always be other priorities and challenges facing the country and the Government at any time.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing this important debate. I listened to his contribution and the interventions of other Members with interest. I begin by assuring the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, Michelle that we take these concerns seriously and that the aim of the Government is not to reduce consumer protections or the effectiveness of the trading standards regime of enforcement. I applaud the sterling work done by trading standards departments and services across the UK, including those of Michelle and her colleagues in Scotland, and the Government will continue to ensure that those departments and services have access to the information, and the regulations, they need to continue their important work. It was ironic that the hon.”
“I will move on. By ending the special status of retained EU law, we will reassert the sovereignty of Parliament. I think that is what makes the separatists so unhappy: they hate the idea that the Ministers of an elected UK Government in this sovereign Parliament should be the ones to ensure that we have a regulatory regime bespoke to the needs and interests of consumers and businesses in the UK. I will now turn to standards and consumer protections. My Department has responsibility for a number of pieces of retained EU law that we are in the process of reviewing.”
“As energy Minister I was personally responsible for reviewing emissions trading scheme law. It turned out that the vast bulk of that regulation is now redundant.”
“Having stated that on the Floor of the House at the Dispatch Box, I hope we will not hear SNP Members suggest the opposite from now on for their own perverse political aims. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and the accompanying reviews of retained EU law in areas such as consumer protections will ensure that we use our new-found regulatory freedom to its fullest potential. Is this perhaps what lies at the heart of the frustration felt by some hon. Members? The truth is that there are Brexit benefits, and this is one of them. We are going to have a better system of law that is based on the needs of people in this country, and more agile and effective. A crucial part of the review is removing retained EU law where it is obsolete or outdated—something to which SNP Members are obviously opposed. They want to keep obsolete law.”
“Now that we have left the European Union we must ensure that approaches and methodologies that trading standards uses to enforce regulations are tailored to work best for our local authorities, consumers and sellers, and are able to be consistently updated in consideration of our unique interests. Subordinate legislation that the Government put forward to the House following the review of our retained EU law is not intended to impact or erode core protections to consumers set out in primary legislation, such as the vital consumer rights enshrined in the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Those rights include consumer protections against unfair terms in a contract, protections against faulty physical and digital goods, and a variety of other crucial rights that thousands of consumers depend on every day.”
“I guess if someone is a monomaniacal separatist, they will use any opportunity to try to make allegations suggesting that things are worse, but we will retain high consumer standards. As it stands, there are insufficient powers to make subordinate legislation that enables the amendment of standards that are entrenched in retained EU law. In layman’s terms, that means that standards set out for commercial operators, as well as other areas of regulation, do not get updated as frequently as they should. We will be able to update them more frequently, more effectively, and protect consumers in Scotland and elsewhere. Regulations are currently unable to adapt as quickly as they should.”
“We now have the opportunity to use e-labelling, which industries have been calling for, and to do so in a way that is environmentally friendly and leads to better and cheaper products for the consumer. At the moment, there are regulations in EU retained law that cannot cope with new products, scientific advances or—as the hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned, ironically—e-marketplaces. I would argue that the existing EU regulatory regime is not sufficiently agile to deal with that. That is exactly the sort of thing we are going to sort out and improve, and any right-minded person who was not just trying to make political points for the sake of it would support that.”
“We will retain our high levels of consumer protections, but deliver them in a way that is less bureaucratic and less costly, as well as ensuring that our rules are properly targeted at the real problems that consumers face. There may be limited time, but there are a couple of areas we are looking at. For instance, package travel regulations provide an opportunity not only to make sure we continue the protections for foreign travel, but to look at whether they could be extended to domestic situations. That is the kind of agility that we have the opportunity to show. On labelling, there are cumbersome EU laws that dictate labelling on sometimes small products, leading to waste and inefficiency.”
“] SNP Members may chunter from a sedentary position and seek to intervene in an Adjournment debate, but I will carry on setting out the reality after we have heard the— [ Interruption . ] After we have heard the counter to that—thanks so much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will try to stay on the straight and narrow. We must modernise our regulations where they are outdated, and ensure that unnecessary burdens are minimised and vital protections continue to be upheld. These are all things that everyone across this House should support, rather than getting engaged in scaremongering based on false premises, which I hope I am allowed to say, Mr Deputy Speaker.”
“The Bill does not mean that there will be a reduction in standards, or that the protections that consumers and sellers enjoy will be reduced. This Government are committed to maintaining high standards and, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East even suggested, seeking where possible to raise those standards, as appropriate, across the UK and ensure high levels of consumer protection. The UK has a proud record and a proud history of excellent trading standards work, which sits independently of our membership of the EU. However, now that the UK has left the EU, it is only right that this Government look at all areas of policy to see where we can innovate and modernise, as well as to capitalise on the regulatory freedoms that we have for the long term. [ Interruption.”
“I happily and quickly do so. I am sure any misrepresentations were, in the parlance, inadvertent. There is retained EU law that underpins various areas of consumer protections and trading standards work. The list of retained EU law that BEIS is responsible for can be accessed via the retained EU law dashboard, which is publicly available on gov.uk. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill means that Departments will need to review their policy areas to determine whether existing regulations inherited from the EU are fit for purpose in the UK, or whether reform is needed ahead of the sunset date. These are entirely common-sense approaches as we assert ourselves as an independent country. They will allow Departments to take an active decision on whether this retained EU law is a good fit for the current UK landscape.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman want to leave that on the statute book, so that we must retain those bits? We have gone through that and come up with a practical solution. That is what Ministers across the Government are doing.”
“As committed to at the Dispatch Box by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who did a particularly fine job on the Bill’s Second Reading, the Government will, as a priority, ensure that necessary legislation is in place to uphold the UK’s international obligations. Where retained EU law is required to maintain those obligations, we will set that out through the dash- board, so that the public can scrutinise it. To conclude— [ Interruption. ] Well, before I conclude, as there is time left, why don’t I let the hon. Gentleman intervene?”
“If I was going to give way I would have given way by now. The hon. Gentleman may sit down, and I will let him know if I am going to give way. This Government are committed to ensuring that the burdens of delivering the best regulatory schemes are removed, while ensuring that we maintain the highest standards. We have also been clear that we will maintain our international obligations—something the hon. Gentleman should be able to applaud. Some retained EU law on our statute book is required to continue to operate for things such as the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. The Bill, together with the appropriate exercise of powers under it, will uphold the UK Government’s commitments to complying with their international obligations.”
“Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) cannot be persuaded that they wish to leave the United Kingdom. Why would they? This Parliament is able, on a sovereign basis, to provide better standards of protection, better regulation, and regulation that is brought about and driven by a democratically elected United Kingdom Government.”
“What is obsolete, following the decisions of the courts, is the hon. Member’s separatist party’s desire to have a referendum and the false narrative of some partnership of nations being unwillingly held together. What is obsolete is his party’s failure ever to respect the result of a referendum. It does not like what the public decide. Well done to him and his party, who have done quite well electorally, except when it comes to the thing that matters most to him: separatism. That is what he wants, but the Scottish people do not want it. The Scottish people voted against it, and his party rails and rails against the fact that, despite all its efforts to use every single tool that it has available in the Scottish Government, his constituents and those of the hon.”
“I did not hear that in a single contribution from the Opposition Members who say they care so much about this issue, but care insufficiently to share any of the vital facts.”
“His contribution was grounded not in the unreal parallel universe presented by Opposition Members but in a real understanding of his constituents in Cornwall, their homes and the rules and barriers that stand in the way of those people being able to have more energy-efficient homes. Those rules and barriers need to be identified and removed to ensure that those people who can and will invest themselves to green their homes are better able to do so. That is what we need—practical, focused, real and honest engagement with the challenges. People have to accept the wider context, and they have to recognise what this Government have done after the woeful performance previously, which can be seen in all the numbers. Where were we on renewables in 2010? Practically nowhere. Where are we now? Leading Europe.”
“This Government have done more than any other and taken action on the woeful situation on energy efficiency in homes. We are still way behind where we need to be, but where were we in 2010? I will tell people where we were: just 14% of homes had an energy performance certificate of C or above. If people want something risible or laughably poor, that is it. What is that figure today? Forty-six per cent. We heard nothing but condemnation from the hon. Member for Bristol East, who spoke for the Opposition, about the “shambles” of this Government’s policy. Well, under our policy, we have moved from 14% to 46%. This Government are committed to setting up an energy efficiency taskforce—further details will be coming soon—precisely to deal with the points that my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) was so right to raise.”
“Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) to say that it is laughable to suggest that burning domestically produced gas with much lower emissions attached to it, when we must burn gas and we will be doing so under net zero in 2050, is somehow not the right thing to do is, again, frankly absurd. I hope to return to my actual speech, but I must address the reality of the impact on ordinary people and the most vulnerable. Those people are ill-served if we do not recognise the actual realities of the economy and society that we live in today and, instead, just pose to the public in a kind of virtue signalling. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) totally condemned every action by this Government, as though nothing the Government have done has helped in the journey to net zero or in tackling climate change.”
“We heard an absurd world view, co-ordinated between the SNP, the Greens and His Majesty’s Opposition. Frankly, it is bizarre. Get real about where we are actually at. To talk, as the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) did, about the crisis and its impact on the most vulnerable people in his constituency and not be honest about the context or the need for oil and gas in the meantime, and not to engage with the fact that producing oil and gas from our own waters with ever-higher efforts to reduce the emissions from that production, is simply wrong. And for the hon.”
“We led the world in passing legislation for net zero, and in putting in place the Climate Change Committee and the rest of it to keep the Government honest on the route to getting there, which is a tough one. The reality is that this economy, like every developed economy, is dependent on fossil fuels today, and it will be all the way through to 2050 on net zero, when we will still be using a quarter of the gas that we use today and we will still need oil products. That is the context, which people just absolutely would not have got a glimpse of from the contributions by Members on the other side of the Chamber today. We heard them all pat each other on the back on their ideological opposition to nuclear and their objection to a source of baseload energy that is clean—for what reason?”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate and I thank the other hon. Members who have taken part for sharing their constituents’ thinking on fossil fuels and the cost of living. However, listening to quite a lot of the contributions to the debate, I felt as if we were in some sort of parallel universe, away from the reality of the world we live in today. Three quarters of our energy comes from fossil fuels. That is the reality now. The cost of living crisis is driven by a global shortage of fossil fuels, which is driving up their price. We are moving faster than any other G7 country to decarbonise, which no one would have understood from listening the contributions from those on the Opposition Benches.”
“What is laughable is to suggest that it is somehow morally superior to burn liquid natural gas imported from foreign countries, with much higher emissions around its transportation and production, than gas produced here. Why would we want to do that?”
“Between 1990 and 2019 we grew the economy by 76% yet cut our emissions by 44%, decarbonising faster than any other G7 economy. But oil and gas will remain an important part of our energy mix, and that needs to be recognised. People should not suggest that there is some button that we are wilfully failing to press. We cannot switch off fossil fuels overnight and expect to have a functioning country. If we do not have a functioning country, we will have more people who cannot afford to heat their homes properly. That is the reality, and I do not think that has been properly reflected by Opposition Members today. Supporting our domestic oil and gas sector is not incompatible with our efforts on decarbonisation when we know that we will need oil and gas for decades to come.”
“I thank the hon. Lady. The cost of living crisis is because of the global position on the price of gas, driven by supply and demand, as every market is. She speaks as if there is a switch, and a wilful failure by people in my position to press the button that ends all fossil fuel. We hear careless suggestions—“From your friends in the City of London to your friends in the oil and gas industry”—as if there is some button we have not pressed. That is not true. This economy, like every developed economy, is dependent on fossil fuels, and it is a transition to get out of that. Pretending it is not does not serve those people who are suffering as the hon. Lady said. The Government are driving a reduction in our demand for fossil fuels, and we have achieved a lot on our road to net zero already.”
“There are 120,000 jobs, most of them in Scotland, dependent on oil and gas. I was delighted to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding with three major oil and gas companies looking to decarbonise their operations west of Shetland and bring down their production emissions. Emissions from oil and gas production in this country—remember how fast it is waning—are still around 4% of our overall emissions. The idea is to incentivise companies that are massively taxed to invest in electrification of their production. We need oil and gas for decades to come. If we can, we should produce it here rather than import it from somewhere else, and we should incentivise and ensure that production here is as green as possible. That is why it is not incompatible.”
“That is the right thing to do morally, for the environment and economically, and it makes sense. That is why the SNP’s policies, as re-announced this morning, are so completely out of kilter with reality.”
“We are a net importer of oil and gas, and we will continue to be. New licences simply help us manage a fast declining basin. Even with new licences, the production is falling by around 7% a year, and I think the IEA suggested that it needs to fall by 3% to 4% globally. It is a bizarre argument made by the Scottish nationalist party. The hon. Member for Glenrothes is right to say that it is not popular. It is not popular in Scotland because it is insane. It does not make any sense for us to import oil and gas, because we are going to be burning it. There is no button to stop us burning it. If we are going to keep burning it, we should burn oil and gas that we produce here if we can, and we should incentivise our producers here to operate to the highest environmental standards.”
“I think £400 billion has come so far from the oil and gas companies. They are not being subsidised when we encourage them—”
“As we know, the price of oil and gas has gone up, and hopefully it will go down again and become more affordable. Scotland is an integral part of this United Kingdom, which is why the hon. Gentleman is present in this United Kingdom Parliament. That is why we are in it together. That is how we are able to support Scottish households and families through the power of the Exchequer and the Treasury of this country, which, as he knows, provide much higher levels of public expenditure and support the Scottish nationalist party to take credit for every single penny spent, a large part of which is able to be spent only because of Scotland’s participation in this United Kingdom. We are in this together. Hon. Members raised the idea that oil and gas firms are being subsidised, but we have raised the level of tax.”
“On so many fronts, this country—and this Government, I am proud to say—is doing a brilliant job in leading the world in understanding the importance of getting to net zero, in tackling the reality of the transition from our dependence on fossil fuels, and on the need to keep producing those things in the greenest manner possible while doing everything we can to drive down demand, because it is the demand signal that we need to eradicate, rather than worrying about whether Rosebank, Cambo or anything else goes ahead. We have ensured through the climate change checkpoint that we look closely at that, and I am confident that our approach is compatible with the journey to net zero.”
“This country is doing a fantastic job, and the vision for the future is that we should be an exporter of electricity. I hope to see us being an exporter of hydrogen. I see us as being potentially able to export, as it were, our carbon storage capability to our European friends and allies, and recently I was delighted to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on North sea co-operation with all the other countries involved in the North sea. That shows that we are working constructively with our EU allies.”
“The data shows—notwithstanding the sometime mis-steps in energy efficiency—that, overall, our performance compared to what came before has been transformative, I look forward to the energy efficiency taskforce, my colleague Lord Callanan, and a co-chair who will soon be announced taking these matters forward and listening to colleagues’ practical, proper suggestions on everything from getting the right balance between conservation and installing energy efficient windows to looking at issues such as solar installation on homes, planning and other aspects. We are working together on all those things and also ensuring that we take an holistic approach around our coast as we make plans and aim to ensure that we have a strategic spatial understanding of the North sea and its role in the transition.”
“Through our COP presidency, we have encouraged the rest of the world to follow us. Just 30% of global GDP was covered by net zero pledges in 2019, when we took on the COP presidency, and it is now 90%, so the world is following us. We are leading on those policies. We are a world leader in tidal, which was mentioned. I am delighted that we have now been overtaken by China in offshore wind, but we are the leader in Europe. We transformed the economics of it thanks to our contracts for difference—the mechanisms that this Government put in place. The truth is that this country has done comparatively a fantastic job.”
“Thanks to the Climate Change Act and the carbon budgets, we are on track to reduce demand. That is another point: hon. Members talk as if oil and gas exploration drives the world’s use of oil and gas, but it does not; the demand side does that. Petrol cars need to be filled, which is why we are encouraging electric cars. Methane-burning boilers demand gas, so we need to replace them with heat pumps and green our electricity system. It is the demand side that we need to focus on. I just think the whole conversation nationally has been focused on how oil and gas exploration drives usage, but it does not. Putting the price up massively and having a shortage does not massively drop usage because we are so dependent on this stuff. We are moving as fast as we can to get ourselves off that dependency, and we are leading the world in doing so.”
“Members should look at what we are doing in the North sea basin. We are transitioning, but we will need all that offshore expertise. We need the engagement of the major oil players, which have now made commitments to their journey to net zero. We want them to produce the oil and gas that we will be burning for decades to come here in a green way. We want to retain those 120,000 jobs. We want to retain the people with subsea and platform knowledge, because we will need that for carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and the transition to the green economy. Again, it is an absolute betrayal not only of the interests of those workers in Scotland and elsewhere but of our transition to suggest that there is a kind of brake. It is a transition, and we are moving through it.”
“A reduction in tax from a level that is way above that which any other type of company pays in this country is not a subsidy, and anyone who suggests it is is dealing in semantics and not helping. Hon. Members can say they want to tax those companies higher, and they can say, “I absolutely do not want to encourage them to electrify their operations offshore and reduce the emissions around their production,” but they cannot say we are subsidising them. Even when our net zero targets are met in 2050, we will still need a quarter of our current gas demand. As we have seen, constrained supply and dramatically increased prices do not eliminate demand for oil and gas. We will still need oil and gas, so it makes sense for our domestic resources to retain the economic and security benefits. Most importantly, hon.”
“At Government level, local government level and local community level working together we can accelerate the reduction in demand. Hon. Members did not mention the Chancellor’s announcement setting a target of reducing energy demand by 15% by 2030. I hoped that might have been commented on and welcomed; I certainly welcome that.”
“We need top-down, we need the high-level policy and we need the funding. We have that from His Majesty’s Treasury, and we have the commitment on the energy efficiency taskforce, which has a positive role to play, but it also needs to look at how we galvanise the real will and desire there is across different parties running councils across the country, in different communities, to have a bottom-up approach to empower and enable communities and regions to do their bit to tackle net zero. A big focus of their work will be energy efficiency, understanding and surveying their housing and other building stock to come up with plans to build the required skills base, ensuring a career for people who enter that world. Through that, we can make a real difference.”
“On the issue that came up around warrants, clearly, the legal side of that is a matter for His Majesty’s Courts Service and the Ministry of Justice, but following the debate I will raise the matter with colleagues at the Ministry of Justice, ask them to look at it and go from there. On the energy efficiency taskforce, we will come forward—I hope pretty soon, in answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion—with the terms of reference, the membership and so on. Things will then become clearer. We do not want to prejudge how the taskforce will inform policy making in order to deliver the best use of the additional £6 billion, which I am sure Members welcome, in addition to the £6.5 billion being spent on energy efficiency in this Parliament. I will make a final point and then sit down before you force me to, Sir Robert.”
“To deal with prepayment meters, which the hon. Lady raised, Ofgem has rules in place that restrict the forced fitting of prepayment meters on customers who are in debt, except as a last resort, but prepayment meters do have a role to play in helping people to ensure that they do not go into debt. There are strong rules about that, and Ofgem is engaging with, and has done a review of the performance of, suppliers in supporting vulnerable customers and seeking to ensure that those suppliers fulfil their licence requirements. In 2021, the Government published a progress report on the delivery of the EPC action plan. We aim to complete all actions by the middle of this year, following necessary amendments to legislation. That, to answer the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, is in hand.”
“The Government remain open to considering well-developed proposals for harnessing the tidal range energy in the bays and estuaries around our coastlines, including, as the hon. Gentleman said, up and down the west coast. That includes barrage schemes and other alternatives. Any such proposal would need to demonstrate strong evidence of value for money in the context of other low-carbon technologies, as well as details of its associated energy system benefits and environmental impact mitigation strategies, before the Government could take a view on its potential or on the funding models appropriate for exploration. Revised criteria for a well-developed proposal will be published in the energy national policy statement which is coming out very soon.”
“We have Europe’s foremost tidal and wave energy testing centre in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland: the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. We also have new marine energy hubs developing across the country, from Morlais on Anglesey to the Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre on the Isle of Wight in England. Thanks in large part to £175 million in innovation funding for wave and tidal power research provided by successive Governments, as of last August our waters were home to half the world’s total deployment. Thanks to the extensive support afforded by the renewables obligation mechanism, in 2018 we were able to build the largest tidal stream generating array in the world in the fast-moving waters of the Pentland firth.”
“Off the coast of my Beverley and Holderness constituency, there is the biggest wind farm in the world, joining the second, third and fourth largest windfarms in the world, with all of them generating energy from the high winds of the North sea. Of course, with Britain being Britain, the weather can change from windy and sunny to still and cloudy in seconds. Even when that happens, we can still rely on the tides, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said. Tidal energy provides an opportunity to boost the resilience and diversity of our renewable energy system. It is an area where, with a raft of brilliant developers designing and building tidal stream devices in the UK, we currently lead the world. As he rightly said, let us not blow the opportunity that that provides us.”
“If we are to accelerate away from fossil fuels, rolling out renewable energy is fundamental. That is why, in last year’s British energy security strategy, we reaffirmed our commitment to renewables. That means making the absolute most of the opportunities that our geology and geography afford us to deploy transformative technologies, as the hon. Gentleman highlighted. Of course, tidal is an element of that. Tidal stream energy is a home-grown industry with considerable promise to deliver affordable, clean, secure energy for households and businesses across the country. I could not be more proud of the fact that we are leading the world in deploying offshore wind, which is another technology.”