Andrew Bowie
MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine · Conservative · United Kingdom
“However, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” publication today states that the Government’s projected oil and gas receipts for the next year, which are now expected to raise £5.1 billion for the Treasury, include: “production from currently producing fields (including Jackdaw), and the NSTA’s estimate of p…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for granting this point of order. I am seeking some clarity because both this week and last week, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero indicated that no decision had been taken on whether they were going to grant approval to the Rosebank oilfiel…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, Mr Speaker—at last, after two and a half years, this Government have found it within themselves to do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives. We have arrived at this destination far later than we should have. Jackdaw was first approved by us in 2022.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Government are serious about a new, pragmatic approach and serious about British jobs and British businesses, that surely means the forthcoming energy independence Bill will not contain measures to ban any new licences in the North sea—a purely ideological but unfathomable decision.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yet today, the workers in our oil and gas industry are to be thankful that after two and a half years of uncertainty, this Government—kicking and screaming—have finally done the right thing. I have no doubt that there will be more kicking and screaming from some of their Back Benchers today.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had oil downturns before, when global prices fell and jobs were lost in the UK. When it happened under our watch, we stepped up: we maximised recovery, cut taxes and turned the North sea into the most investable basin in the world.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Likewise, in relation to Northern Ireland, article 5(3) may be quite complicated to administer. What work has the Minister undertaken with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure a properly joined-up system across these islands? Although there has not been a formal consultation on the changes made by this draft order, will she update the Committee on whether she has consulted informally? Is she working with the Scottish Government on an information campaign to ensure that those affected are aware of the changes? Finally, it is possible that the Scottish and UK rates could diverge over time, with one becoming higher or lower than the other. Has the Minister assessed what this would mean for broader eligibility for UK Government benefits or, indeed, for people living on either side of the border?”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the answer is no, the answer must be no. I have some practical questions for the Minister about the implementation. Social Security Scotland and the Department for Work and Pensions will need a very sophisticated operating system to ensure that the provisions of this draft order become a reality. Is the Minister confident that the systems are in place to accurately determine who is in scope and to avoid the duplication that this SI seeks to avoid? Given the cost and delays to Social Security Scotland—the IT systems have already cost more than £220 million—does the Minister have any indication of the cost of ensuring that the system is able to cope? On the other side of the coin, will the system be sufficiently agile to ensure that complex situations do not result in people being denied the payments to which they are entitled?”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Just as many Labour members believed in 1997 that devolution would kill nationalism stone dead, too many UK politicians of all parties—my own included—believe that giving ever more to the Scottish Government will appease the SNP’s desire to break away. Far too often, far too little thought has been given to the impact of devolution on the specific policies or functions on which people rely. Is the complex, expensive, duplicative and bureaucratic quagmire of Social Security Scotland after the 2016 Act really to the benefit of those in receipt of benefits? We must ensure that we do not have devolution for devolution’s sake. What must be decided is whether the devolution of a certain power or powers to the Scottish Parliament will or will not have a beneficial impact on the lives of the people and businesses of Scotland.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have created additional barriers, burdens and borders where there were none before, and we have added no benefit whatsoever for those receiving benefit payments either north or south of the border. It has cost more than £650 million to establish Social Security Scotland, which is years late, has resulted in duplication and has added cost and complexity to the process. The Smith commission, the Scotland Act 2016 and Social Security Scotland were all established, convened, reported and legislated for before any of us on this Committee were elected to this place. They are now a fact, but a lesson must be learned by the Labour Government.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The explanatory notes set out plainly that we are also legislating to ensure that those receiving Scottish adult disability living allowance retain access to the same treatment as those on disability living allowance: “while Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance operates in a broadly similar way to Disability Living Allowance, it should interact with reserved social security benefits in the same way as Disability Living Allowance.” Of course, it should. But that statement never needed to be made, that explanation was not required and this legislation was not needed before the creation of an entirely separate operation to deliver what is, in effect, the exact same benefit.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With hindsight, I wonder whether this was a positive move for Scotland and, indeed, the UK. Broadly speaking, this is a sensible and technical statutory instrument that has our support. Clearly, those who are entitled to Scottish adult disability living allowance should not also be entitled to the UK Government’s disability living allowance, attendance allowance or personal independence payment. The fact we have to take the time and effort to legislate to make sure that is the case is plainly absurd.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On income tax, for example, although I passionately believe that it is not in the interests of the Scottish people, businesses or the wider economy to have more tax bands and higher tax rates than the rest of the UK, it is an eminently sensible and, indeed, Conservative belief that those responsible for spending public money should also be responsible for raising it. I just wish that Scotland would blaze a trail by being the lowest taxed part of the United Kingdom—I think of the investment and the economic benefits that would be reaped. We are gathered here this afternoon to discuss the devolution of certain elements of social security, and thereby the increased complexity of how these benefits are delivered to the people of Scotland and how they interact with other benefits and other delivery bodies across the UK.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Ms Hobhouse—today’s SI has a pithy title. I am grateful to the Minister for her remarks. Today should serve as a salutary lesson for the new Government about the law of unintended consequences. In 2014, following the referendum on separation, the Smith commission was convened by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, resulting in a host of recommendations to increase the power and responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. One of the powers devolved through that process was the ability to deliver elements of social security in Scotland. The devolution of certain powers by the Scotland Act 2016 was eminently sensible.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will she confirm by how much she expects levies to increase over the next five years? Will she commission a full system cost analysis of what the 2030 target will do to people’s energy bills? Will she confirm by how much bills will rise before we see the £300 off, which we were all promised?”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Labour party was not honest about its promise during the election to cut bills by £300, it was not honest about its plan to take the winter fuel payment away from millions of pensioners living in poverty, and now it is not being honest with the British people about what its plans will do to our energy bills. If we have learned anything over the past few years, it is that the cost of energy is absolutely critical to any modern economy. We cannot go on following ideology over evidence and putting political targets ahead of what will cut the cost of energy in this country. However, this Government are in denial, which is why they scrapped the full system cost analysis commissioned when the Conservatives were in office. Will the Minister say when proposals for a debt relief scheme will be published?”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Their obsession with going further and faster than any country in the world to meet their own self-imposed 2030 target is going to increase people’s bills even further. The renewables industry has warned that their rush to build record renewables in the next five years will push up prices and “consumers will lose out”. The Government’s rush to build twice as much grid in the next five years as was built in the last decade will increase the network costs on people’s bills. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that the environmental levies will increase to £14 billion in 2030, largely driven by the hidden cost of renewables, all of which will end up on people’s energy bills.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He called for an urgent freeze on energy bills and cited a lack of leadership. Now that he is in government, the only thing he is able to freeze is vulnerable pensioners by taking away their winter fuel allowance with no notice. Does the Minister think that shows leadership? I know that my constituents, and presumably hers too, will be concerned about their bills rising, concerned about inflation creeping back up—hitting 3% in January, despite the hard work done last year to bring it under control—and angry that Labour’s promise to cut bills by £300 is being broken. The worst part of all of this is that this Government, led by ideological zealotry from the Secretary of State, are doubling down.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. Today, the Government have announced an expansion of the warm home discount, with a change to the criteria that will see more low-income households receive a £150 payment to heat their homes, but for many this payment will be immediately eaten up by the increase in the energy price cap. We must be clear that the best protection for vulnerable households is to prioritise cheap energy. The announcement today is, frankly, a sticking-plaster approach to rising energy bills. This Government fail to grasp the core issue: energy costs in this country are far too high for businesses, industry and, of course, bill payers. When the energy price cap rose in 2022, the now Secretary of State called it a “national emergency”.”
House of Commons25 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If such assurances are not forthcoming, will she revisit this decision and put a halt to the madness of allowing the People’s Republic of China to have such a significant stake in our energy system?”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the current international climate, it is unthinkable to disregard the security implications of this decision. Can the Minister confirm that the Government have scrapped the GIGA—green industries growth accelerator —scheme that we launched to build British supply chains in energy technologies? What discussions has she had with the Ministry of Defence about its concerns over our ability to ensure the security of our energy system? What safeguards will be in place to prevent Chinese maintenance ships accessing the turbines for repairs? What guarantees has she had, if any, from our defence and security agencies that this investment will pose no threat to our national security?”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can she explain how using wind turbines made by Mingyang reduces our reliance on foreign states? Just last week I, along with many MPs in the Minister’s party, was briefed by the Royal Navy on the vulnerability of our subsea communications and energy infrastructure. We have seen a pervasive rise in sabotage attacks on subsea cables in the Baltic, affecting our Scandinavian allies. If Chinese-manufactured turbines are installed, security experts have warned that sensors could spy on British seas, defence submarine programmes and the layout of our energy infrastructure. We would be reliant on Chinese equipment and software, and on Chinese suppliers for updates and maintenance, handing Beijing significant opportunity for interference.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The indication that Mingyang will get the green light from the Treasury to supply wind turbine technology to the Green Volt wind farm in the North sea is concerning. Indeed, alarm bells have been sounded by officials in the Minister’s Department and in the Ministry of Defence. This green revolution will come with a “made in China” label. The Government, in collusion with the Scottish National party in Holyrood, are determined to see Chinese companies reap the economic reward. The Minister’s party says again and again that the transition to renewable energy will reduce our reliance on hostile regimes. Chinese-controlled technology embedded in our critical energy infrastructure is evidently a threat to our security. Can the Minister assure us that she is taking this threat seriously?”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the ruling on the Rosebank and Jackdaw oilfields as unlawful.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Government back growth and back British workers when the decision reaches his Department, and who does he think will win this argument outright: the Secretary of State or the Chancellor of the Exchequer?”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister appreciate that the self-harm inflicted on the North sea is damaging investment in other offshore renewables industries, too? That could be wrecking our path forward. The Government are utterly confused. The Chancellor and the Secretary of State are completely out of touch with the public, obviously, but apparently also with each other. It is no surprise that the Secretary of State is prepared to sacrifice growth and investment in energy security for his ideological obsession, so may I ask the Minister for clarity? This is a very important point. Will the Department treat the applications, if they are resubmitted, as existing applications or new applications, given that it has a ban on all new licences moving forward?”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Department seems to ignore the fact that we will simply rely on more imports instead. If those imports are liquified natural gas, they will come with four times the production emissions, and if we import from Norway, we will be shipping in gas from underneath the very same North sea. Sacrificing our domestic industry, only to rely on foreign imports and compound global carbon emissions, is utter madness for our economy and for the climate. It makes a mockery of our prospects for growth, and it will cost the Treasury £12 billion in lost revenue. To put that figure into perspective, it is equivalent to eight and a half years’ worth of winter fuel payments. Last week the developer of Rosebank, Equinor, announced that it is slashing its offshore wind investment.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In August, this Government withdrew lawyers from the case defending the legal challenge to the issuing of licences for Rosebank and Jackdaw in the North sea. Given this Government’s decision to revoke any defence, the Court’s quashing of approval was all but inevitable. It is deeply disappointing and yet unsurprising that this Government, driven by their zealotry, are happy to put billions of pounds of investment, and thousands of jobs, at risk just because something does not align with Just Stop Oil’s vision of the future. It demonstrates that this Government are not willing to stand up for businesses or workers. The Labour party seems to misunderstand this simple point: if we shut down our oil and gas industry, we will not use any less oil and gas—even the Climate Change Committee knows that.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister confirm whether his Department has produced any analysis of what a system without BECCS would cost? Will he rule out keeping this racket going indefinitely, with people’s energy bills rising to pay for BECCS? Will the Government set a date for the burning of the last tree in a British biomass power station? This Government have been promising us clean, cheap, home-grown energy, but burning trees at Drax is not clean or cheap, and the trees are certainly not home-grown. If the widespread burning of forests is part of the solution to climate change, we have to ask ourselves if that is the problem we are trying to solve.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister confirm that Drax will not be allowed to burn wood from primary forests during any of its generation—not just that which is subsidised? What work is being done to ensure that the new sustainability criteria are actually enforceable? On sustainability reporting, will the Minister confirm that the Department has received the KPMG report that the Prime Minister said he would look at? Will a copy be placed in the Library? The Minister’s statement has left the door wide open for the introduction of power BECCS after the transition arrangements end in 2031. That proposal to fit first-of-a-kind technology solely for the purpose of meeting our carbon budgets would cost the bill payer up to £40 billion—£1.7 billion a year. That is unacceptable.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has his Department carried out its own independent analysis, separate from that published by Drax this morning, to determine what the increased strike price will cost the British people and how that compares to supporting extra gas power in the capacity market? We welcome the strengthened sustainability criteria, as investigations by Ofgem and the BBC’s “Panorama” have revealed serious questions to be answered by Drax about the import of wood from untouched primary forests in British Columbia. But as the BBC journalist Joe Crowley, who reported on these issues for “Panorama”, stated this morning, more clarity is needed on whether wood from primary forests will be classed as unsustainable under this new regime.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ministers know that burning wood at Drax produces four times the emissions of our last coal power plant, which in turn produces around twice the carbon emissions of gas. We could get that gas from the non-subsidised fields in the North sea, if this Government were not in such an ideological rush to shut down our domestic energy industry. On cost, the new agreement that the Minister has signed us up to comes with a genuinely eyewatering strike price of £160 per MWh in today’s money. That is higher than Drax’s existing agreement of £138 per MWh. In fact, Baringa’s analysis that Drax put out this morning shows that bill payers will still be paying over £450 million a year in subsidies to burn trees. If the analysis behind the Minister’s promise to cut bills by £300 is anything to go by, we should not rely on him too much.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those decisions result in an extortionate level of subsidy, deliver a bad deal for British taxpayers and bill payers, and make the climate worse. We have started a reset on net zero, and we will not shy away from arguing for a more pragmatic approach that prioritises cheap, stable and reliable energy. Turning to the details of the statement, naturally we welcome a more limited role for Drax biomass in our power system, but more biomass subsidies are needed only in the short term, because this Government are embarking on a reckless experiment to have a grid based entirely on intermittent renewables at the expense of flexible and reliable baseload power. Drax’s role could be filled with more gas power plants, which are cheaper and cleaner than burning trees shipped in from Canada.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now the Secretary of State has sent the hon. Gentleman to the House this afternoon to defend the farce of chopping down trees in forests in Canada, converting them into pellets, shipping them across the Atlantic on diesel-chugging ships and burning them in a power station in North Yorkshire, all in the name of net zero. The Conservative party is under new management, and that means confronting hard truths, so let us get one thing straight from the outset: Drax’s biomass plant is neither clean, nor cheap. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) has said, burning wood from the other side of the Atlantic—releasing more carbon dioxide in the process—and labelling it renewable is a product of a carbon budget system that forces politicians to make perverse decisions.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I also apologise, as I am sure that the House is a little fed up hearing the Minister and me this afternoon. I thank the Minister for advance sight of this statement. In the past few weeks it has been difficult not to feel at least a little sorry for Ministers in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. First, their Secretary of State was forced out of hiding to defend a third runway at Heathrow—something that he once said that we could not do because it would make us look “completely ridiculous”. Cornwall Insight has stated that Ministers will miss their clean power target by a country mile, and I think it was clear during the urgent question that they are getting ready to be overruled by the Prime Minister on approval of the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields—something that we on the Opposition Benches would welcome.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It seeks to amend the timeframe for the Electricity Settlements Company’s determinations, bringing those adjustment decisions in line with the timeframe for penalty charges. It also seeks to use multi-year agreements to provide certainty, incentivising a greater range of technologies to participate. On that basis, and also because it was the previous Government who began this work, I do not wish to oppose the draft instrument. I shall not stand in the way of business today, as the draft instrument seeks to make only minor adjustments to the capacity market. However, as before, I do wish to put on record the Opposition’s apprehensions regarding an increasingly intermittent energy system, shored up by increasingly expensive capacity market payments. As I said, however, we support these moves today. Question put and agreed to.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As we mentioned when the previous amendments were introduced in November, the previous Government identified over a decade ago that, while introducing renewable energy sources into the energy mix, “The amount of gas capacity we will need to call on at times of peak demand will remain high, with potentially significant amounts of new gas generating capacity required by 2030.” As we saw in the January cold snap, a renewables-dominated system does indeed come under considerable stress. When the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine—as it often does not in the UK, especially in the winter—we experience a dearth in the supply of renewable-generated electricity. That is compounded by high demand on the coldest, darkest days. The draft instrument aims to improve security of supply and expedite investment in low-carbon technologies.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Twigg. It is a day full of energy; we cannot get enough energy—in all respects, I suppose. As we discussed just a few weeks ago with regards to the Electricity Capacity Mechanism (Amendment) Regulations 2024, the capacity market scheme was introduced in 2014 as part of electricity market reform, to ensure security of electricity supply by providing payments for reliable sources of electrical generation capacity or, in some cases, reduced demand. The capacity market is responsible for ensuring that the right incentives are in place to deliver during periods of electricity system shortage and stress.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was refreshing yesterday to have some clarity on Great British Energy’s plans, not from the Secretary of State or from Ministers—that would be asking far too much—but from the Manchester-based chairman of the Aberdeen-based company, Juergen Maier. He stated that cutting energy bills is a “very long-term project”—not £300 by the next election, then—and that the Aberdeen headquarters, if we can call it that, will employ only 200 to 300 people, far from the 1,000 initially promised, although that may come in 20 years’ time. On behalf of the tens of thousands of energy workers worried for their future, and indeed the millions watching their energy bills rise yet again, can I ask the Minister whether he agrees with the now very interim chairman?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While pensioners freeze as the Minister’s Government strip them of the winter fuel allowance, and as people are made unemployed due to his Government’s position on the North sea, can the Minister see why people across this country are quite miffed that the Government get to waste £8 billion of their money on the GB Energy white elephant?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has a right cheek to come to this Chamber and talk about protecting jobs in Aberdeenshire, when tens of thousands of energy workers are going to lose their jobs because of this Government’s decisions on the North sea. The British people were promised lower bills by the next election; now, they have been given a vague assurance that in the very long term bills might come down, and they are meant to be grateful for that. The arrogance of this Government is staggering, if not surprising. They are so driven by ideology that they will not even allow Government lawyers to defend licences issued for Rosebank and Jackdaw, and are willing to see imports of fracked gas increase as long as they go down in history as the Government who shut down the North sea.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Government’s ideological obsession with intermittent renewables at the expense of stable, clean, baseload nuclear power will, we think, be their greatest mistake. They have delayed the small modular reactor down-selection competition, and we have not heard a peep about the final investment decision on Sizewell C. However, none of that comes close to the monumental act of self-harm of deciding to throw away and bury—out of reach, underground—20 years of nuclear-grade plutonium, which could be used to drive forward a nuclear revolution in this country. How does the Secretary of State think this will play with the pro-growth, pro-nuclear MPs in his own party who are already worried about him being a drag on growth?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Alongside our global partners, we must embrace technology, build new nuclear, reduce waste and enhance efficiency to bring down bills for households, consumers and industry in a way that allows us to protect nature, conserve our landscapes and leave the climate in a better state for generations to come.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)—and he is a friend—Margaret Thatcher, who became the leader of our party 50 years ago next month, was famously the first world leader to raise the issue of climate change on the global stage. She warned the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 of the “insidious danger” that climate change posed through “the prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to earth itself.” I know that right hon. and hon. Members across the House will agree that, as in almost every other case, she was absolutely right. We have seen extreme weather patterns across the globe, indicating the severity of the challenge facing the world in the 21st century.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on bringing this private Member’s Bill before the House today. The Conservative and Unionist party has a record of which we should be incredibly proud when it comes to protecting our environment. We were the first major economy to halve our carbon emissions. We stopped the burning of coal for electricity. We built the first, second, third, fourth and fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world, which are generating power for the United Kingdom right now. And we introduced the world-leading contracts for difference process, blending the Conservative principles of competition and enterprise. As referenced by my hon.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If this private Member’s Bill contained measures to ensure a pragmatic and proportionate response to climate change, with households and bill payers at its core, and defended our British wildlife, nature and countryside, I am sure we would all support its aims and ambitions. Indeed, colleagues and friends who support it do so with the admirable, and indeed laudable, intention of seeing the United Kingdom protect the environment, and it is not that ambition with which we take umbrage. However, it is clear that we should not support the damaging measures the Bill would require. If it became law, it would damage our country, our prosperity, the lives of individuals and industries across the United Kingdom.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I could not agree more with the hon. Member; in fact, it is quite nice to hear the Liberal Democrats acknowledge that they were actually part of the Government over the last 14 years—they do not always choose to do so. As to the point about national security and energy security, that is why I am so concerned about the Labour Government’s plans for our offshore oil and gas industry. Why would we want to rely more on imports, as the Government will, should they go ahead and accelerate the decline in the North sea? However, I am sure we will continue to have that debate as we move forward.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Bill means green levies, soaring bills, the highest electricity prices in the world, boiler taxes, job losses, and rejecting our ability to produce fuel domestically, while increasing imports from abroad and generating lower tax revenues as a result, nobody will follow this path.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A world with a cleaner climate and with thriving nature and wildlife is one we all aspire to; it is the core belief of Conservativism that we should seek to leave the country and the world in a better place than that in which we found them, for both our children and our grandchildren. But I am afraid that this Bill would not do that. In government, we aspired to be a world leader in the energy sector and to embrace a new energy mix that would reduce our carbon footprint, and that is what we did. We should want to pave the way for other nations, but it should be a path that they would actually want to follow.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was actually right here on the Front Bench listening to my hon. Friend, and I agreed with a lot of what he said. However, we are here to debate the contents of the Bill and to decide whether they are something we should support, and I am afraid—to break with the consensus that has been expressed across the House this morning—that we cannot. The Bill would undermine the power of this Parliament and its democratically elected Members and would bind their hands. As the Bill suggests, the Secretary of State would be duty-bound to act as directed by an unelected body.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I have tried to explain, not just to the hon. Lady but to the House, we have not done nothing. We led the world in so many ways—halving emissions faster than any other G7 nation, building at speed some of the biggest renewable offshore wind farms in the world, which are generating power for the United Kingdom right now, and ending the use of coal for electricity production. No other country has a record that comes close to matching the United Kingdom’s. This is not a case of doing nothing; it is about doing things in a sensible way that does not impose further bills or costs on British bill payers.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. That is one reason why I am so proud of the contracts for difference scheme, which over our time in government supported emerging and developing technologies to ensure that we get the transition right to the tune of billions of pounds.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill would also establish a climate and nature assembly to direct the Secretary of State’s strategy—a body that the Secretary of State would be legally bound to follow if any of the measures it proposed had the support of 66% of its members. Those members would be unelected and unaccountable, unlike Members of this House. That is not how decisions are made in this country, and it is not how decisions should be made. Laws and decisions are taken in this country by this Parliament, and are introduced mostly by the Government, who command a majority in this House. The Government are held to account in this House by elected Members, and we in turn are held to account by our constituents. We cannot outsource our responsibilities to an unelected, unaccountable and remote institution.”
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“If the hon. Gentleman would have some patience, I am about to turn to the exact provisions that we take issue with. The Bill states that it is “to require the United Kingdom to achieve climate and nature targets” and it calls for an immediate end to exploration, extraction and—crucially—imports of fossil fuels. That would involve not only laying off hundreds of thousands of workers and undermining our energy security, but shutting down our chemicals industry and putting at risk our ability to keep the lights on. The Bill would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to publish annual targets and bind the Secretary of State to take to take “all reasonable steps” to achieve them. As we have seen, setting arbitrary legally binding targets with no plan for how to achieve them is a mistake.”
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“I did not know it was official Labour party policy to dissolve the other place in its entirety—if it is, please correct me; I would be keen to be educated in that regard—but no, that is not the case. As the hon. Member knows, the governing party in the upper House is determined by which party won the democratic election and commands a majority in this House. That system has worked, and I believe it will continue to work well for many years to come.”
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“Zero Hour, the climate campaign group behind the Bill, thinks that the UK’s carbon budgets are no longer sufficient to achieve 1.5° and that, once we include emissions from the goods we import, the UK’s total carbon footprint will exceed its share of the global carbon budget for a 67% chance of 1.5° by more than a factor of two.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗