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Ed Miliband
We hold 100 passages that may be Ed Miliband’s. We do not publish them until we can confirm who spoke. See the correction.
On the record 2009–2026
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“This is what the head of Energy UK, which represents gas, nuclear and renewable generators, said of renewables this morning: “We need to invest in new power generation, and this is the cheapest form.” I know that some people want to pull the wool over our eyes on this, but they can only do so by comparing the cost of building and operating new renewables with the cost of operating but not building new gas. Here is the reality: faced with years of under-investment in our energy system under the previous Government, and with power demand set to increase by at least 50% by 2035 and to more than double by 2050, there is no alternative to building new energy infrastructure in this country.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, on cost, the results show that offshore wind is cheaper to build and operate than new gas. Today we publish updated estimates of the levelised cost of electricity, the standard industry metric, which includes the cost of building and operating new gas-fired power stations—the same metric as was published under the last Energy Secretary. These estimates show that the cost of building and operating a new gas-fired power station is £147 per megawatt-hour. By contrast, I can inform the House that the average price for fixed offshore wind in today’s auction was £90.91 per megawatt-hour. In other words, it is 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas, but do not take my word for it.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Fossil fuel shocks have caused half of the UK’s recessions since 1970. Last year, wholesale gas prices spiked by 15% in a single week after global instability in the middle east. We must also never forget the impact of Russia invading Ukraine; family finances, business finances and the public finances were wrecked as a result of our being left exposed to fossil fuels. This exposure leaves us incredibly vulnerable as a country, and we do not have a moment to waste in ending it. That is why our mission is so important. Our record-breaking results show that our approach to building things again in this country is working. We are more secure in our energy system today than we were yesterday thanks to these results, and we look forward to building on this momentum as we look ahead to AR8, which we are on track to open later this year.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is the most successful offshore wind auction in British history and the most successful ever to be carried out anywhere in Europe. That is what it means to deliver on the promise we made to the British people. Against the backdrop of the global headwinds facing the industry, this is a huge vote of confidence in Britain’s drive for energy sovereignty and abundance. Let me explain why these results are so important for the country. First, they are a major step forward for our clean energy mission. Alongside our work driving ahead on onshore wind, solar, batteries and nuclear, they put us firmly on track to take back control of our energy and deliver clean power by 2030. We have only to look at events around the world to see that we live in increasingly unstable and uncertain times.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are winning fixed offshore wind projects in every part of Great Britain: Dogger Bank South off the coast of Yorkshire and Vanguard off the coast of East Anglia, two of the largest offshore wind farms in the world; Berwick Bank in the North sea, the first new Scottish project since 2022; and Awel y Môr, the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade. On floating wind, the emerging technology of the future, we have successful projects in Wales and Scotland—the Erebus project in the Celtic sea and Pentland in Scotland—backed by pioneering investment from Great British Energy and the National Wealth Fund. Taken together, that is a record-breaking amount of offshore wind capacity procured in a single auction.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today, we publish the results of our latest offshore wind auction and with it we prove those doubters and naysayers wrong. Let me set out the results to the House. On coming to office, we inherited the fiasco of the fifth allocation round—a failure of the Conservatives’ making that trashed the crown jewels of our energy system—in which not a single offshore wind project was secured. That is their legacy; that is the legacy of the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). Our last auction round, allocation round 6, got the industry on its feet again. Today it roars back stronger than ever. We have secured 8.4 GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of more than 12 million homes.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With permission, I would like to make a statement about the seventh contracts for difference allocation round and the results for offshore wind. Eighteen months ago, the Government set out on our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. That was a mission rooted in a simple argument: if we want to take back control of our energy from the petrostates and dictators, if we want to bring down bills for good and if we want to create a new generation of secure, well-paid jobs, the right choice is to get off the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets, which caused the worst cost of living crisis in memory. For a year and a half, that mission has faced determined opposition from a well-funded band of doomsters and defeatists.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She is making a massive gamble on fossil fuels, which is exactly what the Conservatives did when they were in office, and we know where that led: the worst cost of living crisis in memory, leaving us at the mercy of petrostates and dictators, and leaving the British people to pay the price. We were elected with an historic mandate to end the Conservatives’ record of failure, and that is what we are doing. We are ending the sell-out of our energy security, cutting bills, creating hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs and protecting future generations. Let me sum it up: the right hon. Lady failed, and we are delivering.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is very interesting that even when we take off carbon pricing, gas is still more expensive, on the figures we published today. Her sums simply do not add up. What is really rich is that the right hon. Lady asked about constraint payments. Why do we have constraint payments? [ Interruption. ] I am answering the question. We have constraint payments because the Conservatives failed to build the grid when she was the Secretary of State. Get this, Madam Deputy Speaker: now she comes along, complains about constraint payments, and opposes every piece of energy infrastructure that we try to build in order to bring down the constraint payments. It is extraordinary. Here is the right hon. Lady’s big problem.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That was a lot, as they say. Let me deal with what the right hon. Lady said point by point. First, we will take no lectures from her on energy bills. She presided over the worst cost of living crisis in history, and not once have we heard a word of apology. This Government are taking £150 of costs off bills. How are we doing that? By raising taxes on the wealthy. She opposes every one of the measures that we are taking. Secondly, I know this is painful for the right hon. Lady, but I am using the same metric that she endorsed in November 2023, when she was Energy Secretary. She published the document, and she knows the truth about that metric: offshore renewables today are 40% cheaper to build and operate than new gas. However much she tries to struggle or flail around, those are the facts, I am afraid. She asks about carbon pricing.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People can have incredibly short memories in this House, particularly the Opposition. We are only five years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We know—”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that gas is falling, but she is just making a gamble. At the time of the greatest geopolitical instability in a generation, she is gambling on stability. I am not going to make that gamble. We will have home-grown clean power, and we are going to take back control.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Good lines. Let me deal with that question briefly, following your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, AR8 is important, and we absolutely want to stick to the timetable—the hon. Gentleman is right—and we are rebuilding confidence in the industry. Secondly, we continue to look at proposals from him and others on doing everything we can to cut the cost of electricity, which he is right about. His broader point is also right. This is about how we make the right long-term decisions for the country, and I am grateful for his support.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is right—bandwagon-jumping is basically the Conservatives’ policy, and they have jumped on the anti-net zero bandwagon. She makes serious and important points about the future. Indeed, she is a brilliant champion for this industry and for her area, because there are huge opportunities for Grimsby as a result of this auction. She will know that RWE was particularly successful in the auction, and we look forward to working with her and RWE to ensure that we deliver for her constituents.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, I do not agree. The hon. Gentleman, in all seriousness, should look at the need to build new energy generation in this country—we are going to have a 50% rise in electricity demand by 2035, and we have to build something. If he wants to build a whole fleet of new gas-fired power stations, he can decide to do that, but the figures we have published today show the costs of that, and those power stations would be more expensive to build and operate than the offshore wind that we have announced today.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why the clean industry bonus is so important. We will be announcing more about this tomorrow, because it is going to lever in massive amounts of private investment, including in supply chains.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I just disagree with the hon. Lady. She is making a massive gamble on the future—she is gambling that gas prices will fall. We are giving this country the assurance that we can have clean, home-grown power and lower bills for good.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend speaks very well on these issues, and she is absolutely right to ask that question. The great thing about the clean industry bonus is that for the first time we are rewarding manufacturers for investing in Britain. It is going to leverage in multiple amounts more private investment compared with public investment, and I believe it can be of massive benefit to our coastal communities.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is an incredibly important point, and the great thing about clean power 2030 is that it will mean gas sets the price much less of the time. With contracts for difference, the reduction in prices feeds through to bills.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. Battery storage and long-duration storage, for example, are things that we are working on as a Department, as is Ofgem—they are crucial parts of the jigsaw.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is about an innovative technology. The hon. Member is right that it is expensive at the moment, but the experience we had with offshore wind, onshore wind and solar was that by investing in it at the front end, we then lowered the price through deployment, and that is what has meant it is a cheaper technology. We are supporting floating wind, and we think that is the right thing to do. It is a crucial next frontier when it comes to the offshore wind industry.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have a long-standing promise, which I will fulfil— [ Interruption. ] Everyone seems to know about that promise to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency to see what GE Vernova is doing. She makes an important point about ensuring that procurement, in which I know GE Vernova has a particular interest, should as much as possible be from the UK. My Department is working on that through not just the clean industry bonus, but many other things that we are doing.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even by the standards of the UK all-comers record for SNP miserabilism, that question takes some beating. I think the hon. Member gets the award. This is a great news story for Scotland, and not just in terms of Berwick Bank but in relation to floating wind. We want to carry on with that progress in AR8.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate my hon. Friend, because he has been a brilliant champion of this industry, and I am so glad about today’s announcement. He is absolutely right. I want developers and all of the businesses involved to hear his message and his question loud and clear: we want to see this development built in Britain, and it is incredibly important that we work with those businesses, and we will, to ensure that it happens.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With the greatest respect, I trust our analysts in my Department more than I do the hon. Gentleman when it comes to arithmetic. As he is somebody who I think has had an interest in the past in solar panels—”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. GB Energy has invested in the Pentland project in Scotland. GB Energy is operationally independent from us, so it makes its own decisions, but it shows that combined with the CfD, GB Energy can play a nurturing role for this technology, and that is incredibly important. It is what other countries have done for a long time, and it is now starting to happen here.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We will be taking £150 off bills in April, but let me refer the hon. Gentleman to a report produced by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, which explains that having renewables on the system means that we do not pay for expensive gas whose price is much higher than the average wholesale price. According to the report, by not procuring that expensive gas we have brought down the wholesale price by at least £25 per megawatt-hour. It is an important report, and the hon. Gentleman should read it.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I assure my hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion on these issues, that we are very much engaged with Port Talbot and the port on this issue, and with Associated British Ports, because it is important that we make those investments in the port. She should watch this space.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful for the tone of the hon. Lady’s question. I will return the compliment, and thank her for her kind words about this auction round. She is entirely right about the importance of our warm homes plan and investing in energy efficiency; the plan will be coming very soon, and that is what it will do.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes. My hon. Friend, who speaks so well on these issues, is absolutely right. There are huge opportunities for Cornwall in this area of offshore wind. One thing that I have been doing with my Department is transforming it from simply an energy policy Department to an energy and industrial policy Department, because this Government believe in industrial policy.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I look forward to having conversations with my hon. Friend. I think that there are huge opportunities for Scotland, and the Government intend to maximise them.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I fear that securing time in the House is way above my pay grade. [Interruption.] I promise that it is. Let me say more generally to the right hon. Lady that I agree with her, and that we are looking at the Procurement Act 2023 and how it works. Ensuring that we procure as much of this as we can in the UK is incredibly important, and it is taken seriously throughout Government.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with my hon. Friend. I am old enough to remember Boris Johnson, and he used to trumpet the potential of this. He used to talk about it as the future and how it was going to build future jobs, but the Conservatives have abandoned all that. They are miserable pessimists about our country. As for my hon. Friend’s question, I think she is absolutely right. She will welcome the fact that NESO has undertaken the biggest overhaul of the grid we have seen in a long time, reordering the queue to ensure that we procure the power we need in the right places and that we give priority to the projects we need.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think the point about energy security is crucial because we live in an uncertain world. We need our own home-grown clean energy, and that is what we are doing.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend, with whom I have discussed this, is absolutely right. We want to do everything we can to ensure we use steel from Britain in this process. Part of this is about what we legislate for, and part of it is about the conversations we have with the developers to ensure they do that. I am setting a very clear expectation on this, and I expect developers to do everything they can to meet it.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would really like to do that. The Prime Minister and I, with the Chancellor and indeed the First Minister of Wales, had a fantastic visit to north Wales when we announced our small modular reactors there, and the excitement among the students at the college about the future we are building was so palpable to see. I must say that that is the difference between the Government and the Opposition. We are embracing that future and building that future for those young people; they, frankly, are selling those young people down the river.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We will be setting up five technical excellence colleges in clean energy, and they will be incredibly important in training young people for this clean energy future. There is a huge number of opportunities out there. Part of this is about the training, but another part is about young people getting to know about these opportunities. I was at an amazing jobs fair in the north-east—organised by Kim McGuinness, the mayor of the north-east—which brought together some of the developers with young people, and the excitement among those young people about this future was so palpable. We need to do more of that.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those are incredibly important technologies, and we need to do more to help bring down their cost. Tidal schemes will be in the next auction pot, and we are continuing to look at how we can deploy more of them in our country.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend speaks so well on these issues and he is so right. This is about energy sovereignty and our security as a country. When the Conservatives were in government, at least under Boris Johnson, they seemed to understand that. That is why it is so regrettable. Of course, this is about the climate crisis, good jobs and lower bills, but it is also about security in an uncertain and dangerous world. The Opposition are, frankly, surrendering our security and what they are proposing is incredibly dangerous.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend speaks very knowledgeably on these issues and he is absolutely right. We changed the auction design not just to be able to see the so-called bid stack, which they could not under the previous regime, but to allow more projects in to increase competitive tension to get a better deal for the bill payer and the taxpayer. He is absolutely right: we should keep innovating for both fixed technology and other technologies to maximise value for money and deployment.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was worth waiting for. I will let the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) speculate on her own future and whether she is going to join another political party. In all seriousness, I do think it is sad. The truth is that we used to pride ourselves as a country on competing, between political parties, to succeed when it came to building our clean energy future. It is deeply regrettable. There are many sensible voices on the Conservative side who shake their heads when I talk to them about the direction their party has taken. Fundamentally, my hon. Friend is right: this is central to tackling the affordability crisis, central to tackling the climate crisis in our country, and central to giving us energy security.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The 2023 generation costs report published under the previous Government shows the levelised cost of electricity to build and operate a new gas-fired power station to be significantly higher than the cost of onshore wind, solar and offshore wind in the most recent renewables auction round. Renewables are a cheaper technology to build and operate than new gas-fired power stations.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend asks an important question. In our 2030 clean power plan, we talk precisely about the importance of low-carbon dispatchable power as a way forward. I am really proud of what is happening with our carbon capture and storage plans and Net Zero Teesside. Additionally, it will be an important part of our forthcoming hydrogen strategy, as he says.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is right. The figures that came out from NESO over Christmas show that we had extra renewable power in 2025 equivalent to powering 2 million homes; that is 2 million homes that will not be powered by imported gas. That gives us the price stability that we never had under the previous Government. The fundamental lesson at a time of geopolitical instability is that home-grown clean power is what gives us the certainty we need.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady has just done a good job of highlighting the importance of this matter, and she gets to the crucial point. The Opposition parties that reject solar, onshore wind and offshore wind are rejecting cheap, clean, home-grown power for the British people, which we on the Government Benches are in favour of.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have regular discussions with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive on a range of issues. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about nationally significant projects, it is absolutely right that communities have input into these questions. Certainly in the case of home-grown low-carbon power, we want communities to see the benefit, because by hosting infrastructure, including low-carbon infrastructure, communities are doing a service to the country.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not really understand what the question was about, but we are in favour of AI and we are working with our colleagues on AI. I have to say that I am glad the right hon. Lady rose to speak on this question, because she has been rumbled by the figures I produced; they came out when she was the Energy Secretary. She goes around saying how much more expensive renewable power is, but the figures that she produced show that renewable power is cheaper to build and operate than gas-fired power stations. She used to believe that, until she jumped on the latest passing bandwagon to suddenly be a net zero sceptic.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The decision by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to take an average £150 of costs off people’s energy bills from April is a reflection of this Government’s commitment to tackling the cost of living crisis. It will make a difference to families across the country and is estimated to reduce by over 1 million the number of people paying more than 10% of their income in energy costs.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I really enjoyed my visit to Kensa—I would recommend that all Members go—which is a really innovative company that is leading in heat pump manufacture. As my hon. Friend knows, we will shortly be publishing our warm homes plan, which will be really important in driving forward heat pump uptake and helping companies such as Kensa, because there is also a massive jobs story that is part of this.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will tell the hon. Lady. We are proud of the fact that in the Budget we raised taxes on the wealthy so that we could cut bills for millions of families across this country. I am so grateful to her for her question, because it illustrates the difference between our parties. This was not an easy thing to do; it was a decision made by this Government, because for too long this country has been run for the wealthy and powerful by the Conservative party. We are changing that and cutting bills for millions of families across Britain.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗