Ed Davey
MP for Kingston and Surbiton · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s opening remarks, not least about the 25th anniversary of the horrific terror attacks of 9/11. I welcome the Government finally banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements, something Keir Starmer should have done a long time ago.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. Britain should be the safest country in the world to have a baby. We will keep raising this issue until it is the safest.”
“No mother should have to give birth in such circumstances. Does the Prime Minister agree that Musgrove Park cannot wait until 2033 for work to start on a new maternity unit? Will he offer a meeting to local MPs, so we can move it forward? And will he make fixing the maternity scandal across our country a top priority of his Government?”
“I hope at that summit the Prime Minister will negotiate a good deal for our country, our economy and our defence, and that means rejoining the single market. North Devon’s maternity unit has been closed for three weeks due to staff shortages, so women now have to travel for up to two hours to give birth.”
“The Prime Minister said yesterday that Brexit ushered in “a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration.” —[ Official Report , 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 27.] He is right. Our economy is stuck in this mess thanks to the Conservatives—and the leader of Reform UK—and their terrible Brexit deal.”
“There are so many more problems in our political system: too much power in the hands of social media barons who interfere in our politics and crypto billionaires who use donations to buy influence; and too little power in the hands of our people.”
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“It is interesting that not a single Labour Member has got up to congratulate the Government on leading in Europe and securing an historic deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the EU, which is Europeanising Britain’s Climate Change Act 2008. It is absolutely pathetic that they are not prepared to show that they support the Government on this historic deal. As Secretary of State, I introduced into the Energy Bill—now the Energy Act 2013—the power to bring in power sector decarbonisation, and we will do it. The Liberal Democrats will support that policy at the election, and I hope that Labour will too.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, because it dealt with one of the big issues we were working on in the negotiations for the 2030 deal. I worked well with my Spanish and Portuguese colleagues, because one of the biggest blocks on renewable electricity flowing through the single energy market in Europe is on the Iberian peninsula because of France’s unwillingness to have investment in interconnections. The European Council’s conclusions were very positive on this, and we will continue to support the case for greater interconnections, both in the Iberian peninsula and, particularly, in central and eastern Europe and the Baltics.”
“It is difficult to find any relevance in the hon. Gentleman’s question to the 2030 deal. Like him, I did not always agree with the late noble Lady, but I have to say to him that he is very backward looking in his approach to energy policy.”
“Despite the energy price freezes this year, which were delivered by competition, not regulation, energy bills remain a huge concern for many people this winter. That is why the Government have delivered a £50 cut in the average energy bill by reducing our own policy costs, why we have introduced the warm home discount, to take £140 directly off energy bills this winter for 2 million households on low incomes, and why we have permanently trebled cold weather payments, to provide £25 for every week of a cold spell.”
“First, may I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done on fuel poverty? It is something that is very close to my heart. We have done a huge amount in this Government. We will shortly be publishing the first fuel poverty strategy in over a decade. With regard to switching, we are seeing huge progress. I challenged the large energy companies to halve switching times by the end of this year, and that is on track. Indeed, some of the smaller companies will achieve that by the end of the year. Ofgem is currently consulting on an idea I have pushed for 24-hour switching, linked to smart meters, and we expect a decision next year.”
“I share some of the hon. Lady’s concern about that. Sustained falls in wholesale energy costs should be passed on to consumers. While we have seen some fixed-price tariffs come down, standard tariffs in the main have not, which is why I supported the regulator’s warning to suppliers this summer. When the Leader of the Opposition was doing my job, wholesale electricity prices fell by 62.5%, and what did he do? He called a summit.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, because that is something I have been pushing for strongly. We have had a consultation, which has now concluded, and we are analysing the responses, which have been very positive about our proposals for minimum energy standards in the private rented sector. We will update the House in due course.”
“We have looked at this very carefully, taking on the programme started by the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman will understand that the smart metering equipment technical specifications—SMETS 1 for the first generation of smart meters and now SMETS 2—set a minimum floor for standards, but of course we are seeing energy companies, through the competition we put into the implementation, actually compete on improving the technology, so there is room for innovation over and above the standards that have been set.”
“My right hon. Friend has been a huge champion of park home owners over a number of years, and I pay tribute to her for the work she has done. Partly due to the contribution she has made, we are looking at this issue in some huge depth. I hope to be able to report to the House before Christmas or early in the new year on the ideas that we have to tackle those issues.”
“As the Minister of State said to the departmental Select Committee, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member, the Government believe that we should look at this issue. However, let us be clear: if we were to socialise the costs across the UK, other people would be paying more, so it is not quite as simple as he suggests.”
“In addition to the measures that I described in response to the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), we have already taken action, but intend to take yet more action, to help off-gas grid customers. We support the Buy Oil Early campaign to encourage people to stock up at good times for price and quick delivery. As my hon. Friend knows, because he attended it, this week we held the fourth ministerial round table on heating oil and liquified petroleum gas to bring together the industry, consumer groups and MPs to discuss these issues. Our amendments to the ECO—energy companies obligation—affordable warmth scheme provide stronger incentives for energy suppliers to install energy efficiency measures in off-gas grid homes.”
“That is a very important point that the ministerial round table discussed in some detail. The issue is not just price but resilience of supply of heating oil over the winter months, particularly when there is bad weather. That is one of the reasons why we have the Buy Oil Early campaign. My hon. Friend is right: we need to work with the industry to make sure that customers who are off the gas grid and could be vulnerable are registered.”
“No. In fact, the Government have reformed ECO to address that issue. As I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would know, analysis of our ECO reforms, particularly in relation to the affordable warmth scheme to tackle the issue of the fuel poor in off-gas grid areas, shows that we expect to see a 30% delivery of affordable warmth measures in off-gas grid areas compared with just 2% previously.”
“As my hon. Friend knows, I have been engaging with a large number of my EU counterparts over the past two years on these issues. By engaging in Europe—by building relationships and trust over a period—I believe that a UK Minister is better placed to win arguments in the EU that are in British interests. That is what we have done over carbon and renewable targets, so now we have more ambitious carbon targets than many thought possible. We have an EU-wide renewables target, not a rigid member-state-based target, so European countries can cut carbon emissions using the lowest-cost technologies for them while still providing a strong signal to Europe’s renewables industry.”
“I probably will not answer the last part of that question, because the Foreign and Commonwealth Office might want to have a word with me. On the first part of my hon. Friend’s question, Austria has reportedly been considering taking the European Commission to court, to judicially review its state aid decision. We are confident that that decision was taken in a robust way and we were very supportive of it.”
“A number of final investment decisions were taken around 2007, before the 2020 agreement, and they are now resulting in some coal power stations coming online. Since then, however, almost all of the proposals for new coal power stations in Germany have been turned down. My right hon. Friend is right to say that there is an effect, but in the long term I am clear, from talking to German Ministers, that they will get their carbon emissions on a downward trajectory.”
“In addition to the average £50 off bills, the £140 warm home discount, and the trebling of cold weather payments that I set out in answer to the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), I point the hon. Gentleman to the big energy saving network we have established with the voluntary sector to help the most vulnerable get better energy deals. I also recommend to him the collective switching movement that I boosted when becoming Secretary of State, with the £5 million cheaper energy together fund. The Sun newspaper is now partnering with the Big Deal to help its readers come together to save money, and MoneySavingExpert.com launched its collective energy switching scheme this week.”
“The hon. Gentleman has not noticed that in the competitive energy market that we have helped deliver, the large energy companies are announcing price freezes that have been delivered by competition, not regulation. Moreover, a lot of smaller independent suppliers that have come into the market are offering good deals that people can switch to and save literally hundreds of pounds. I hope he will recommend those to his constituents.”
“Fuel poverty increased massively under the previous Government and it is falling under this Government because of a range of measures that we are taking. We are about to publish—either this year or early next year—the first fuel poverty strategy in a decade. I think we have been very active, and I am totally committed to helping people in fuel poverty.”
“Fuel poverty increased under the previous Government under both their measures. We changed the measure of fuel poverty after an independent review because the previous Government measured fuel poverty so inaccurately that the Queen was deemed to be in fuel poverty. We thought that needed to change. Under the right hon. Lady’s approach, a lot of the money she would have spent would have been wasted—it would not have gone to people in need. Under our more accurate approach, we are ensuring that the money goes to the right people. She should know not only that more than 50% of the ECO goes to those in fuel poverty, but that because we have protected the affordable warmth part of the ECO for fuel poverty until 2017, even more people will be taken out of fuel poverty.”
“Since the previous Energy and Climate Change oral questions, we have made significant progress for consumers, with all the large energy firms confirming they will have met my target to cut switching times in half at the end of the year, and with the good news this week that some independent energy retailers such as First Utility have committed to halving switching times this year. I can confirm to the House that the EU has agreed ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets following two years of negotiations in which the UK played a leading role. Thanks to the Government’s long-term, medium-term and short-term plans, our energy security remains rated the best in the European Union and among the best in the world.”
“I would be delighted to meet my right hon. Friend. One design issue in the green deal was ensuring strong consumer protection. I do not know whether his constituent went to the green deal ombudsman, but I am sure we can look at those issues in our meeting.”
“As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, Her Majesty’s Treasury is looking at the tax issues for the North sea and the UK continental shelf. It will report in due course, but he will know that the Wood review, which I commissioned last year, is pressing ahead with legislation. I can today announce the appointment of the future chief executive of the Oil and Gas Authority: a Mr Andy Samuel.”
“Of course we are looking at all issues around future devolution of energy policy following the referendum and the commitments made by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. On fracking, it is often not understood that the Scottish Government, the equivalent of the Environment Agency in Scotland and local planning authorities in Scotland already have a huge role to play in the development of fracking in Scotland.”
“I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has been a champion for both the climate cause internationally and solar. He is aware that solar offers the prospect, as indeed do other renewables, of a subsidy-free energy future. The cost of solar has plummeted in recent years and experts suggest that it will continue to fall. That is very exciting and he has been right to champion it. The Government also champion it.”
“There are two main sources of funds and I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the full detailed analysis. Yes, money is coming from the developer, but moneys are also coming from business rates relief too. Business rates are being kept in the local area.”
“This Government have done more than any other to enable that to happen: we have worked with industry to increase the community benefits on offer through the community energy strategy—Britain’s first ever—that I published in January; and we have set up several taskforces, one of which, the shared ownership taskforce, is reporting today and will enable the co-ownership of new energy by local communities. I therefore refer the hon. Gentleman to all the work we have been doing.”
“As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said today, we believe that oil and petrol companies need to look at passing on these cost reductions, and we need to ensure proper competition in the market.”
“I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, both in thanking my officials, who are extremely hard working and talented people, and on the future of low-carbon energy on Anglesey. He has been a real champion of those sorts of projects and the Horizon project for the new nuclear power plant there.”
“It is a little more complicated than sometimes the headlines show, because there is an effort-sharing decision that is being worked on. Some countries will take more of an effort share in reducing their carbon emissions than the 40% average and others that will take less, but I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend about that.”
“Obviously I cannot comment on the individual planning decision, but I can comment on the general issue. This Government have introduced very tough sustainability criteria applying to biomass and they are a legal requirement.”
“Members on both sides of the House to cleave to the consensus we have achieved. That is the best way to keep energy bills down, to keep the lights on and to keep our pledges to our children to tackle climate change.”
“The Energy Act 2013 enjoyed the same level of cross-party consensus that the Climate Change Act 2008 enjoyed. That is crucial for the long-term investment decisions that energy infrastructure needs. Of course, differences between the parties remain. There is an anti-competitive approach towards the energy market in parts of the Labour party; an anti-renewables, anti-wind tendency in parts of the Conservative party; and all parties have members with a history of opposition to nuclear power. However, it is imperative that those tendencies are resisted, particularly in the run-up to the general election. Short-term populism is the most dangerous enemy that energy and climate change policy has. After the hard-won gains for the UK’s energy and climate change policy of these past four years, I urge right hon. and hon.”
“The Government have delivered on our commitments under the Climate Change Act 2008, but to deliver on climate change more broadly, we also need international action, so in September, I published the Government’s strategy for achieving a legally binding global climate change deal in 2015. With the successful agreement last month on the EU’s 2030 energy and climate change framework, which was based on the UK’s proposed blueprint, Europe is now well placed to lead on the world stage and secure the global deal that is so crucial for future generations. Despite political differences, energy policy has enjoyed a high degree of cross-party consensus over the past decade or so. I am pleased that that remains the case today on the vast majority of our policies.”
“The implementation of the Wood review, which I commissioned last year to maximise economic recovery from the North sea, remains an urgent task. I am therefore delighted today to confirm that Andy Samuel has been appointed as the new chief executive of the Oil and Gas Authority I am establishing. Finally, we have achieved that turnaround in energy security and energy investment while continuing to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. I was delighted to announce in February 2014 that the UK had met its first carbon budget, covering the period 2008 to 2012. We are also on track to meet the even more demanding reductions required to meet the second and third carbon budgets. I was particularly pleased, after a cross-Government review, to confirm that our ambitious fourth carbon budget would not be changed.”
“Before I leave the subject of energy security, there is one international aspect I should raise with the House that has domestic implications, namely the response by the G7 and the EU to Russian aggression against Ukraine, and the increasing threats by Russia to use energy supplies as a weapon. It is vital that we co-operate internationally to help our allies, especially in eastern and central Europe and the Baltic, many of which are highly dependent on energy imports from Russia, but it is also vital that we remember how fortunate the UK is to have such diversity in its oil and gas supplies. We should therefore not turn our backs on the shale gas opportunity, for as we decarbonise our economy, we will still need large amounts of oil and gas in the next three decades for heating and transport.”
“We also have £2.5 billion in gas-fired power plants; more than £3.8 billion in gas transmission and distribution networks; more than £40 billion in the North sea, which is a doubling of private investment on the UK’s continental shelf since 2010; and development capital expenditure higher in 2013 than at any point in the past decade. Last year, the Government agreed key terms for the first new nuclear power station in a generation at Hinkley Point C, and the UK has Europe’s only two commercial-scale carbon capture and storage projects. We have a strong set of low-carbon electricity options. All that investment has been achieved in the face of considerable fiscal restraint, with largely private sector investment rebuilding our energy infrastructure.”
“Indeed, in the first quarter of 2014, 19% of UK electricity was provided by renewable resources. With our continued focus on renewables, from our community energy strategy to our work on tidal and marine power, that is set to rise much further. It is not only renewables that have seen massive investment. More than £16 billion has been invested in onshore and offshore electricity networks since 2010. Interconnection projects worth £1 billion have been delivered, and projects in the pipeline aim to more than double our interconnector capacity by the 2020s. Those include another link to France with a cable in the channel tunnel, and a link to Norway’s hydropower capacity with what would be the longest subsea cable in the world.”
“Indeed, in four years under this coalition, the available evidence suggests that we have surpassed the total electricity investment in the whole of the previous decade under the last Government. Average annual investment in renewable electricity has more than doubled this Parliament with 2013 being a record year. We now have more installed offshore wind capacity than the rest of the world. Onshore wind—the cheapest of the large-scale renewables—now supplies 5% of our electricity, and the good news is that we have a strong investment pipeline for more onshore wind, worth up to £5.8 billion to 2020. Solar power has had £6.4 billion of investment since 2010, and biomass and bio-energy £6.3 billion. Renewable electricity generation has more than doubled during this Parliament.”
“The first allocation round for contracts for difference is now open for bids, and the first capacity market auction will take place in December. However, those measures alone will not guarantee the UK’s longer term energy security. For the next decade, we are building a diverse lower carbon energy mix—predominantly home-grown—that ensures that we will not be over-reliant on one source, one fuel, or one import market. With the Energy Act 2013 gaining Royal Assent on 18 December last year, we now have one of the best legal and financial frameworks to support the cost-effective growth of low-carbon electricity anywhere in the world. Record investments of £45 billion in electricity generation and networks since 2010 have put us on target to meet our future low-carbon power requirements.”
“It suggested that the mid-decade period we are now coming to would be particularly challenging as power plants came offline, but as today’s annual energy statement demonstrates, we have acted to turn around that dire situation. In the short-term, our plan ensures that we will comfortably meet supply security standards this winter and next. As National Grid confirmed last week, it has new balancing measures in place that will ensure that the risk of supply disruption remains at very low levels over the next few years, and well within reliability standards. Looking further ahead at future electricity supply challenges this decade, as part of electricity market reform we are reintroducing a capacity mechanism to the UK. We have delivered all major electricity market reform milestones.”
“But we can and will do more, with policies ranging from our electricity demand reduction to our leading role in reforming Europe’s carbon market. Most importantly for consumers, however, as a result of the first annual competition assessment that I announced in last year’s annual energy statement, Ofgem has referred the gas and electricity markets to the Competition and Markets Authority. That is the right way to restore trust in our energy markets, and ensure that consumers get the best deals possible. As well as affordable energy, people want to know that power will be there when they flick the switch. Ofgem’s report on energy security in 2010, “Project Discovery”, showed the sheer scale of the problem that we were facing, with a fifth of our existing power stations set to close by the end of the decade.”
“By 2020, household energy bills are estimated to be on average around £92 lower than they would have been if we had sat on our hands and done nothing. For example, three quarters of a million homes are already benefiting from lower bills, thanks to the Government’s energy efficiency policies such as the energy companies obligation and the green deal. We have also acted to help business with energy costs. Together with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, we introduced a number of measures to help limit energy costs for those electricity-intensive industries most at risk from carbon leakage. That will reduce the impact of policies on eligible industries by up to 80% in 2020.”
“uSwitch has recently talked about a new atmosphere of aggressive pricing, proving that competition is indeed hotting up. Moreover, after years of rising bills, there have been no new price rise announcements from the big six this year, reflecting the increasing competition and the efforts the Government have made to reduce policy costs. The latest review of prices and bills I am publishing today shows that this year we estimate that policy costs now account for 7% of an average household energy bill. That is down from the 2013 levels of 9% as a result of the package of measures announced in the autumn statement last year. I will place copies of the review in the Libraries of both Houses this morning. Even those lower costs are, on average, more than offset by the bill savings that our policies deliver through energy efficiency.”
“Slow switching times were also clearly a barrier to competition, so those times are being slashed in half this year, and Ofgem is consulting on its road map for moving to 24-hour switching, with a decision due by the new year. Thanks to our deregulation, there are now a dozen new suppliers taking on the big six, to give consumers more choice and competition. In the past, we had switching between the big six, driven by doorstep selling or, too often, mis-selling—switching that favoured the big six. Now we have switching that favours the consumer. Some 3.5 million people switched their electricity supplier over the past 12 months, with 1.2 million moving away from the big six to the smaller suppliers. The independents now boast more than 2 million customers and regularly top the best buy tables.”
“Despite all the pressures on energy bills, this policy and other Government measures have helped to cut the number of households in fuel poverty during this Parliament by more than 100,000 in England alone. I strongly believe, however, that we should be doing more to help people out of fuel poverty, and after this summer’s consultation we are finalising the first new fuel poverty strategy in more than a decade. We also needed to help every household and that meant reform of the energy markets to promote choice and competition. Ofgem’s retail market reforms now mean energy bills are easier to understand and tariffs are simpler, providing consumers with a greater ability to shop around.”
“There had been a decade of rises in energy costs, with consumers getting a raw deal from the big six energy suppliers in a market that had too little competition. Even on climate change, there were plenty of legal obligations to cut emissions, but little practical policy to achieve them cost-effectively. Today’s energy statement shows how we have turned that situation around. Given how fast bills had risen in the previous Parliament and how fuel poverty had increased under the previous Government, helping consumers has been a top priority, starting with those on lowest incomes. Payments to vulnerable people to help with bills have been protected and expanded under this coalition, with the addition of the warm home discount, which will mean a £140 cut in bills for 2 million households most in need.”
“Today I am publishing the Government’s annual energy statement and supporting papers alongside the annual update on electricity market reform. This fulfils the commitment set out in the coalition agreement to present an annual statement of energy policy to Parliament. This will be the last annual energy statement in this Parliament before the next general election. It sets out the significant progress the Government have made since 2010. In 2010 it was not just the country’s finances that needed immediate action. It would be fair to say that back in 2010 the UK faced an energy crisis, too. There was an historic record of underinvestment in energy infrastructure that threatened our energy security.”
“That has been the case, by the way, across the whole of Europe, because of the changes in the relative prices of coal and gas, which have affected all European countries. That is one of the reasons why we were right to put in place a carbon price floor and reform the EU emissions trading scheme, so that we can get the incentives to move from coal to gas, as part of our climate change strategy. But overall, I think I detected some consensus from the right hon. Lady.”
“I am happy to explain that later, however, because it is an important debating point. I was glad to have the right hon. Lady’s support for the 2030 deal—it was significant, as was the confirmation that we would keep to the fourth carbon budget, meaning that the Government have met their climate change objectives. She talked again about the power sector decarbonisation target and I have made it clear that the Liberal Democrats will pursue that. I also made it clear why I put in the Energy Act 2013 the power for the next Government to implement such a target. The right hon. Lady also talked about gas stations. I can confirm that fewer gas stations have been constructed during this Parliament than were previously expected.”