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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“Global gas prices were 50% higher in the five years to 2011 than in the previous five years, and they have continued to rise. Sustained higher world oil and gas prices have taken some by surprise because, in the past, prices have fallen when the developed world has experienced recession and low growth. But today, probably for the first time in modern history, the fast-growing economies of China, India, Brazil and other parts of the emerging world are all demanding oil and gas. So world oil and gas prices have remained stubbornly high, and are likely to remain high.”
“I am grateful to the Opposition for this opportunity to set out the many things the Government are doing this winter, and in the winters to come, to help people to keep their energy bills as low as possible and to keep their houses warm. I am under no illusion about how hard it is out there this winter. Times are tough, many people’s incomes are not going up, and the cost of necessities such as food is rising. I understand that higher energy prices are hitting some people hard, so let me make it very clear that rising energy bills are one of my greatest concerns. We need to set the story straight on why energy bills have been rising. They have been driven remorselessly up by wholesale fossil fuel prices, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) admitted.”
“The coalition has a plan to tackle ever-rising energy bills. When the Labour Government were in power, they talked big but did very little. They did not effectively target help on those who needed it most, they did not establish a new market in home energy efficiency and they did not reform the electricity market. We are doing those things. We are acting, whereas they just talked.”
“My hon. Friend is not quite explaining the situation fully. There is an awful lot of coal being burnt in this country and elsewhere, because of its low price, but that has not changed the picture because of the high price of gas. Britain cannot control the global market. We cannot drive down international wholesale prices, but we must still do everything we can to help the people and businesses facing those rising global prices, especially the most vulnerable and those in fuel poverty—and, despite what the right hon. Member for Don Valley said, we are doing that. Government policy is designed specifically to drive a wedge between global energy prices and energy bills, now and in the future. It is designed to enable us to cushion and insulate people from the hikes in global fossil fuel prices as best we can.”
“Two things surprise me about the hon. Lady’s question. First, she seems to know the details of the ongoing negotiations between EDF and the Government. I pay tribute to her if she knows them, but I have to tell her that her figures are completely wrong. Secondly, I would have thought that, given the real threat of catastrophic climate change, low-carbon energy would have changed a number of people’s views on nuclear power, if we can make it cost effective without public subsidy, in line with the Government’s policy.”
“My hon. Friend tempts me down a particular road, but it does not relate to the motion, so for reasons of time I am happy to get back to what I want to say.”
“We are ensuring through the Energy Bill that our country and future generations are not hit by future volatile fossil fuel prices, as we are being hit by major reforms for a more competitive, more diverse market of suppliers and energy sources. Let me deal with each of those areas in turn”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he is an authority in the House on this issue. It was not just the green deal or nuclear or other things that Labour failed to do when in government; it failed to get investment into the energy system in the UK, and we are having to make up the backlog. We are helping people now, in the short term, by intervening directly—getting extra money into the pockets of those who need it to pay their bills and looking after those who are struggling most—through the warm home discount. We are helping people now and in the medium term by helping everyone to be able to help themselves to cut their bills by saving energy through the green deal.”
“When the coalition came to office, cold weather payments were at £8.50 a week and had only temporarily been raised to £25. As cold weather payments target the most vulnerable when they need it the most, the coalition decided, despite the tough financial situation, to keep cold weather payments at £25 a week and to make that permanent, investing an extra £50 million a year. About 4.2 million people are currently eligible—older people on pension credit, disabled adults, families with children under five on an income-related benefit. They can now be sure that—year in, year out—if the temperature drops dramatically, they will get help with energy bills. We should be proud of that.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am coming on to talk about that right now. Looking at the actions we are taking, it is clear that we are helping the poorest and most vulnerable with targeted extra money to help with winter bills. We need to make sure that those who feel the cold most sharply and those who can least afford to pay can put on the heating in the knowledge they will receive extra help to pay for it. For many pensioners, winter fuel payments make a valuable contribution to paying their energy bills. That is why we have protected winter fuel payments in line with the budget set out by Labour. Last year, we made over 12 million payments to over 9 million households at a cost of around £2.6 billion. We are doing more for the poorest pensioners and for many other vulnerable households through cold weather payments.”
“I will come on to the energy efficiency part of our measures; at the moment, I am showing how we are using money very effectively to help people with their bills.”
“The Opposition do not normally mention that because it is clear evidence that we are doing everything we can to tackle fuel poverty, despite the financial situation we inherited. Even before cold weather payments can be claimed, a poor pensioner over 80 is guaranteed to receive £430 of help with their energy bill. Under Labour, a vulnerable household was not guaranteed anything, but with the coalition’s warm home discount, they can get £130 off for sure. That is real help.”
“I want to make a bit more progress. In addition to the winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments, the coalition brought in the warm home discount—a legal obligation on the energy companies that we introduced for direct cuts to the energy bills of the most vulnerable. The Opposition rarely mention this, although to be fair to the right hon. Member for Don Valley she mentioned it today. She will know that so far this winter, more than 1 million low-income pensioners have already received the warm home discount to help keep them warm—and, with them, almost a million other vulnerable households with mandatory rebates worth £288 million this year alone, automatically cutting the bills of the most vulnerable by £130 a year.”
“First, cold weather payments are related to the weather, which the coalition Government do not control, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley was at least good enough to acknowledge. I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s figures are wrong. Under Labour, £300 of winter fuel payments went to all pensioners, but through the warm home discount we guarantee £130 off their bills from the energy companies, so that amounts to £430 off for elderly pensioners. That did not happen under Labour.”
“The single most effective means of bringing bills down for people, including for the most vulnerable, is to help people waste less energy. Energy efficiency is about using less energy to provide the same warmth, or more. That means lower bills and lower carbon emissions.”
“As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Department for Work and Pensions administers that benefit, and I am sure that he has made that request to the Secretary of State for that Department. My Department has been encouraging people in many parts of the country who are off grid to buy early, because they can get much better deals than if they leave it until later. Although the extra payments are welcome to those who get them, they are not received by everybody. They do not address the fundamental problem of homes and appliances that waste energy and money. Britain’s draughty homes account for a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Millions of homes do not have full double glazing. More than half do not have enough insulation or an efficient condensing boiler. Most do not even have proper heating controls.”
“Lady implied, because we want to do all that we can to address fuel poverty, and we have worked hard to ensure that the money is spent on tackling it, organising a local authority competition for cash from a special fuel poverty fund. I told the House yesterday that about £30 million was being provided for local authorities across the country to spend on local energy efficiency projects for low-income and vulnerable households. There will be no waste. As it comes to the end of its life, Warm Front is being recycled, and what is replacing it is infinitely better. Opposition Members seem to think that Warm Front was a fantastic scheme, but people had to apply for it, whereas under affordable warmth the energy companies will have to go out and find people in order to help them. I should have expected Opposition Members to support that.”
“From 28 January, all households will be eligible for it. They will be able to make energy-saving improvements that will be paid for, over time, through their energy bills and the savings that they make. This is an affordable way of retrofitting millions of homes, making them cheaper to heat and lowering carbon emissions at the same time. The right hon. Member for Don Valley rightly wanted to talk about Warm Front and the details of its budget. I shall deal with that now, although she herself admitted that there will problems with Warm Front. As she said, we have spent £38.4 million of the £100 million budget, and £15.5 is committed. We expect to spend about £70 million by the end of the year. We will not return the remaining £30 million to the Treasury, as the right hon.”
“Warm Front will be closing, as announced more than two years ago, but applications will continue to be accepted up to 19 January, and the work will be followed through, for all who apply up to 19 January. I have set out to the House today in a written statement how that transition will work. Even before 19 January, we brought in Warm Front’s successor—the affordable warmth scheme, which the right hon. Lady did not mention, and which is part of our new energy company obligation. Affordable warmth is up and operating, and low-income households who previously could get Warm Front can now get affordable warmth. It and the energy company obligation, which are both now in operation, will support our most ambitious policy of all—the green deal. This is a transformative moment. We shall see the full launch of the green deal this month.”
“I am coming to the Warm Front scheme, because the right hon. Member for Don Valley made much of the fact that we are closing it down. Under the previous Government, the Warm Front scheme was the vehicle by which some vulnerable households were helped, but we consider the scale of the fuel poverty challenge to be much greater, and, as she has admitted, there were problems with the scheme. We are far more ambitious, because fuel poverty must be tackled and Britain has some of the oldest and, therefore, draughtiest, housing stock in Europe. If we are serious about climate change and tackling high energy bills, we should not help just those who are at risk of fuel poverty, although they should of course be a priority. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to green-proof their house and achieve lower energy bills in the process.”
“Opposition Front Benchers criticised me for not spending the money. I have just told the House that we are spending the money, and now I am being criticised again. I am afraid that sometimes one cannot win.”
“The right hon. Lady was clearly not listening when I said that we expected that amount to be spent by the end of the year. [Interruption.] It would help if the right hon. Lady listened now. She will know that uncertainties are involved in schemes such as this—even Labour could not macro-manage everything—but we expect to spend about £70 million. The right hon. Lady asked whether we had announced that the money would come from the Warm Front scheme. We did not do so, because we were not absolutely sure what we would be spending on Warm Front by the end of the year. I wanted to ensure that we were making fuel poverty a priority, and that any underspend from Warm Front or anywhere else was targeted at it. Now the right hon. Lady is criticising me—”
“I certainly think that the right hon. Lady should withdraw that. Being accused of misleading Parliament, even from a sedentary position, is serious, and I think that she will wish to withdraw that accusation.”
“When there are reports of people having to choose between heating and eating, we are rightly determined to make sure that we help the most vulnerable. I will do everything I can with my colleagues across Government, as well as working across the House and with business and consumer groups alike, to make sure that the choice between heating and eating becomes a thing of the past.”
“Today I have outlined a series of measures that will help people, both this winter and in winters to come, to keep warm at an affordable price, to save energy and to change the dynamic in the markets. While no Government can control global energy prices, we will do everything we can to limit the impact on people. Taking all our policies together, by 2020 the average household energy bill will be 7%, or £94, lower than if this Government were not pursuing our energy and climate change policies. Last year, our independent review of fuel poverty suggested that our policies are reducing fuel poverty: we are doing the right things. That is good news, but there is no room for complacency. No party in this House has a monopoly on compassion.”
“I have spoken many times about the many examples of this policy working, including examples in Belgium, the Consumers Association’s “Big Switch”, and examples involving South Lakeland district council and Cornwall Together. Yesterday, I announced the winners of “cheaper energy together”, a £5-million competition I set up last year to stimulate collective switching across the UK. I was thrilled so many councils and community groups applied. There were 114 bids, and the 31 successful bids cover 94 different local councils, so this year millions of people will have the opportunity to take part in collective switching schemes. New ideas such as collective switching are part of the answer to high energy bills and fuel poverty, but no single measure will bring bills down, keep bills down and end fuel poverty.”
“Many Members will by now know about my personal focus—some might say obsession—on collective switching, as it can help cut bills, promote competition and address fuel poverty. That is a collective solution to fuel poverty that the Labour party never thought of in 13 years. It is about encouraging people no longer to be passive consumers of energy, but to be active consumers, clubbing together to strike a better deal than they can get alone, and using the weight of thousands of voices—or whole local authority areas—to drive a harder bargain. It was not the Labour party that first pushed this idea into the political debate; it was this coalition Government and, if I dare say so, I and the Liberal Democrats in particular. This is about rekindling the spirit of co-operatives.”
“Switching has been the principal way to ensure suppliers compete for customers and to enable more suppliers into the market, but some statistics suggest the system is not working as well as it might and the majority of consumers do not seek out the best deals. Some 75% of consumers are on their supplier’s standard variable rate tariff, which tends to be more expensive. We therefore need to shake up the market. We shall do so in two ways. First, we must help the vast majority of consumers who do not shop around to get the cheapest tariff their supplier offers that is in line with their current preferences. Secondly, we need to help and encourage people to shop around for even better deals, with better and more helpful and simple information on bills.”
“We did not need to. Through targeted intervention to help the most vulnerable and by helping people to insulate their homes, we can help them to keep their bills down, but if we are to keep bills as low as possible in the long term, we shall need to ensure that there is a competitive market of diverse suppliers and diverse energy sources in which consumers can obtain the best possible deal. The Energy Bill, which is now before Parliament, is designed to do just that. We had a full debate on Second Reading just before Christmas, so I shall not go into the details of the Bill now, but I will say something about tariff switching, because I think that that has already been raised in the debate.”
“We estimate that an enormous £110 billion of energy infrastructure investment is needed between now and the end of the decade in low-carbon energy generation and the grid network.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. We need to pass this Energy Bill if Britain is to have a credible and ambitious energy and climate change policy. The Bill represents both a practical and a radical approach to reforming our electricity market. It is essential if we are to deliver on our three objectives for energy and climate change policy—namely, secure energy that is affordable and clean—yet I believe the Bill offers the country much more than a better energy policy. With our current economic difficulties, as we along with many other nations strive to ignite sustainable growth, this Bill offers a significant opportunity to stimulate the sort of infrastructure investment that our country desperately needs, for both the short and long term.”
“The hon. Gentleman knows that I set up a group to look at this issue, which has got together with the councils from the various islands, officials from my Department and others. We must await its work. I know he welcomed it at the time and I am sure that he, too, will await its work with patience. This is not just an energy Bill; it is a growth Bill. I believe it can lead to new jobs in every region and nation of our country. If right hon. and hon. Members vote for this Energy Bill, they will be voting to give the British economy the long-term boost it needs.”
“The right hon. Lady knows that I am very sympathetic to that argument. We will come to that argument and debate many times, not just today, but no doubt throughout the passage of the Bill.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Targets are important—they have a role to play—but we need practical measures. We need market reform. If we are to stimulate the investment in low carbon that our country needs, we need the Bill, contracts for difference and all.”
“Energy security—keeping the lights on—is a critical rationale for the Bill.”
“Indeed, Members in all parts of the House have played a role in its production, and it is a better Bill for that level of cross-party development and scrutiny. The reason why members of all parties recognise the need for a major change is easy to explain. First, about a fifth of Britain’s existing power plants are scheduled to close during this decade, which will reduce supply. Secondly, even if we are heroically successful in terms of energy efficiency and reducing energy waste, overall demand for electricity is set to rise—partly because of population growth, but also because our transport system is likely to be more electrified over the next two decades, as are our heating systems. What with supply falling and demand increasing, we would have a real energy problem if we sat back and did nothing.”
“I shall make some progress first, and then I shall take some more interventions. I pay tribute to the many people who have contributed to producing a Bill which, let’s face it, could not be described as having been rushed. Even before the pre-legislative scrutiny so ably undertaken by the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change—I thank it for its work—it was long, long in the consultation. Some have even argued that the fingerprints of the Leader of the Opposition can be found on the first designs for it, but in the event of a paternity test, I think that the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) would probably end up on the birth certificate. Its careful nurturing owes much to my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry).”
“My hon. Friend is right to mention that directive. Its aim is to clean our air, which is a good thing for a number of reasons. I support it, as do many others.”
“I want to make a little more progress, but before I do so I will give way to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), because he tried to intervene earlier.”
“I think that those aims are widely shared across the House.”
“The key challenge that prompted the Bill was the need to attract tens of billions of pounds of investment, including investment in low carbon, while keeping energy bills affordable. Given that global gas prices had almost doubled since 2007, which was already putting huge upward pressure on bills, the need to stimulate that essential energy investment as cheaply as possible became a central consideration. Whatever the many debates in which we will rightly engage today and during the Bill’s passage, let no one lose sight of the three core challenges that it was designed to meet: attracting more than £100 billion of investment, creating the world’s first ever market in low-carbon energy, and helping people and businesses around our country who were struggling in the face of rising world energy prices.”
“I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He has merely convinced me more that this will be a hot topic of debate. However, I can confirm to him and the House that one of the purposes of the Bill is to decarbonise our electricity supply. That is a critical purpose. We need to move from coal to gas, from fossil fuels to low carbon. We need a more diversified energy mix, with renewables, carbon capture and storage, and new nuclear all playing their part in enhancing the security of our electricity supplies. Low-carbon energy security will help to insulate consumers from fossil fuel price spikes and will help us to meet our climate obligations, including our emissions and renewables target.”
“We shall, therefore, all await her speech with even greater anticipation, to discover whether she intends to vote against the Bill on Second Reading.”
“Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has the power to send a much stronger signal to energy investors in the UK even than setting a 2030 decarbonisation target. Almost every investment in energy is a long-term investment lasting far longer than any Parliament, and investors therefore worry about political risk. They worry about what happens if the governing party or coalition is replaced, and they therefore listen to what the Opposition say. I presume that the right hon. Lady will press her amendment to a Division. If it is defeated, however, will she and her party colleagues support the Bill on Second Reading? I am happy to give way to her if she wants to answer that question—I am afraid she has not been tempted to respond.”
“I predict that we will have many debates and exchanges about a decarbonisation target for the power sector—an issue that features prominently in the Opposition’s reasoned amendment—yet it should be noted that this Government will legislate so that the next Government can set a decarbonisation target alongside a fifth carbon budget, even though at the last election the manifesto of no party argued for such a power sector decarbonisation target. We will no doubt hear that industry would benefit from such a target, and I strongly sympathise with that argument, yet industry would be seriously damaged if we were not to take forward our wider reforms of the electricity market. The right hon.”
“They say that they want our economy to grow, they say that they support low-carbon energy, and they say that they want a better deal for consumers and business, but if they vote against the Bill, they will be opposing growth, opposing decarbonisation and opposing help for people who are struggling with high energy bills. Just a few years ago all the major parties worked together to deliver the Climate Change Act 2008. Why is a party led by the architect of that landmark Act refusing to support the practical reforms that will help to deliver its lofty objectives?”
“I reject the notion that our policy supports a dash for gas, and I absolutely reject the suggestion that the Bill is designed to do any such thing. On the contrary, it is designed to reform our electricity market. It favours not fossil fuels but low-carbon sources, and I should have thought that the hon. Lady and, indeed, all Members would support it for that reason. You will understand, Mr Deputy Speaker, why I am genuinely disappointed that the Opposition decided to withhold their full support for the Bill in their reasoned amendment.”
“The Bill’s central objective is to achieve electricity market reform, with a new investment mechanism at its core: the feed-in tariff with contracts for difference. Contracts for difference will provide long-term electricity price stability, and therefore revenue certainty, to developers and investors in technologies such as carbon capture and storage, renewables and nuclear.”
“My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. National Grid will have the job of setting the first stage of the electricity market reform delivery plan, and I will give it guidelines, as agreed with the Chancellor, on how it should set that plan. We will make it clear that it must consider power sector decarbonisation even ahead of the target that will be set in 2016. It is worth reminding the House that the renewables energy target for 2020 was set in 2008, some 12 years ahead of the target date. If we set a decarbonisation target for 2030 in 2016, that will be a full 14 years ahead of its target date. It is therefore clear that we are planning for the longer term and that we have logic on our side. It would have been great if the Opposition could say that they had argued for this before, but they did not. I am glad they are joining us now.”
“My hon. Friend has great expertise in this area, and I entirely agree with what he says. Revenue certainty will reduce investment risk, and it should therefore also reduce the cost of financing—the cost of capital. That is far more important for low-carbon technologies than for fossil fuels, because so much of the cost of renewables and nuclear is the set-up capital cost. Our electricity market reform is, essentially, shaping a new low-carbon market, in order to stimulate the energy investment Britain needs.”