YouSaid · the spoken record
Nick Timothy
On the record 2024–2026
hansard
This is everything the corpus holds for Nick Timothy. It is not everything they have said on the record.
Every line below is reproduced as it was said and credited to the record it came from, and links to that record wherever it can be linked. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections
“Thank you, Ms Jardine, for calling me to speak and also for giving me my full name, Nicholas—I think the last time that was done was when I was six years old and in trouble with my mother. I applaud the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) for securing this very important debate. I think we can all agree that this is an important issue not only for our constituents, but for every community across the country. As we have just heard, the time it takes for an ambulance to reach people in need of urgent medical care can make all the difference in saving lives. We have a responsibility to engage constructively across party lines to find solutions that work. Since the pandemic hit, we have all seen the challenges faced by our local health services, and ambulances are no exception.”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This week, I received a copy of the national priority infrastructure Bill from the “Looking for Growth” campaign. The campaign’s proposals rightly highlight the complexity in our energy and planning systems. We urgently need more nuclear power and data centres to drive forward the artificial intelligence and robotics revolution here in Britain, but with the highest industrial energy prices in Europe, we risk falling behind. Can we have a debate about how planning can best be reformed to provide reliable, affordable and abundant energy?”
House of Commons6 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are lots of reasons why the Government might sometimes provide public support towards outcomes that are not necessarily the most narrowly efficient, but promote a wider social or local economic good, but they must always guarantee value for money for the families who ultimately foot the bill. Renewals obligation subsidies have fallen short of that standard. Originally introduced in 2002 by the last Labour Government, and closed to new entrants in 2017 by the last Conservative Government, the renewals obligation remains a significant drain on the public finances, providing a fixed rate of financial support through 20-year-long contracts.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) said about the cost of energy in rural areas, which is very often overlooked. I will not join the commentary from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about the predecessor of the hon. Member for South West Norfolk. I did plenty of that in The Daily Telegraph before I was a Member of Parliament. It is pleasing that Suffolk and East Anglia are so well represented today. We must always be very careful when considering how public money is spent, especially when it comes to subsidies.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Dr Murrison—I shan’t promote you any further than that just yet. I am pleased to respond to this important debate on the renewables obligation certificate scheme. Although the scheme was closed in 2017, its costs remain with us and are a reminder of how difficult it can be to unwind long Government contracts. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy), on securing this debate, which I believe is his first in Westminster Hall. I am sure he will get to debate more glamorous issues than chicken litter in the future. Like South West Norfolk, my constituency of West Suffolk has chicken farmers grappling with many of the issues raised by Members, including avian flu, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned. I echo what the hon.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the points made by NESO was that energy bills would fall due to the expiration of the renewables obligation and feed-in tariff contracts, but those contracts will expire regardless of the speed of decarbonisation, so it is misleading to include that as a benefit of the Government’s deeply flawed clean energy plan. We will see costs increase significantly elsewhere, thanks to Government policies. The renewables obligation and feed-in tariff schemes should be a warning. The Government are consulting on substantial changes to the next round of contracts for difference, which replace the previous subsidy schemes. They include easing eligibility criteria for fixed-bottom offshore wind, as well as extending the lifetime of contracts subsidising renewables from 15 years to 20 years.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Introduced in April 2010, feed-in tariffs were made available for schemes with capacity for 5 MW or less as an alternative for smaller projects, such as rooftop solar panels. Closed to new entrants in 2019, the scheme still sustains 20-year-long contracts, and £1.84 billion of feed-in tariff payments were made last year. Far from saving money, renewables subsidies have come with significant long-term costs. The phasing out of the renewables obligation and feed-in tariffs is being used by the Government in their efforts to hoodwink the public on the true costs of their net zero policies. The National Energy System Operator’s 2030 report made several highly questionable assumptions about how the Government’s goal of decarbonising the grid will cut energy bills.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will turn to contracts for difference in a moment. We may discuss them in this debate, or perhaps in other fora, but it is important that we are honest with ourselves about the full costs of some of the renewable technologies upon which we have come to depend. With the hidden costs that apply to wind farms, I do not think that we have been quite so honest. That is not a party political point but something that has been true across the party divide. In 2023-24 the scheme cost £7.6 billion, and it will remain high, at £6.9 billion in 2028-29, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. That proves how dangerous it can be to lock in subsidy schemes under lengthy contracts, with the cost passed on to people’s energy bills. That is not the only zombie renewables subsidy scheme.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would never suggest that the hon. Lady has tracked everything that I have written through my career, but I have been making these arguments for a number of years. The Leader of the Opposition has made the point that one of the things our party did not get right in government was setting ambitious goals on things such as energy policy without having a clear enough plan to deliver them. My concern, and the concern of the Conservative Front Benchers, is that this Government are making not only a similar mistake but a graver mistake because of the speed and unilateralism of their energy policies. [ Interruption. ] I can see the hon. Lady smiling, and I hope that is in approval of what I said.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need complete clarity, so that the mistakes of the renewables obligation are not repeated. Failure to do so will leave us poorer and exposed to risk and instability in the world.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister guarantee that Britain will continue to have a lower carbon price than Europe, and can she still guarantee that energy bills will be £300 lower by the end of this Parliament, as her party promised in opposition? There are so many questions left unanswered, and so far only silence from the Energy Secretary. That is not because the Government do not understand the scale of the challenge they have set themselves. The Energy Secretary understands it all too well, but he will not admit publicly what his ideological attachment to net zero and his net zero policies mean for us all: nothing less than a revolution in how we live our lives, and the massive expansion of public spending for a system of energy that is less reliable and more expensive in generating power.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No Government have ever rejected a carbon budget, and the Energy Secretary has so far refused to come to the House to make a statement on the publication of that budget, so perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government intend to accept the carbon budget in full. The Climate Change Committee believes that we will need a sixfold increase in offshore wind power, a doubling of onshore wind power and a fivefold increase in solar panels by 2040. To accelerate the growth of renewables at such a pace would require a huge increase in public subsidy. How do the Government intend to address these climate and energy goals? Can the Government rule out increasing public subsidy under contracts for difference of any kind to reach these goals? By how much will public spending have to rise as a result? By how much will bills have to rise?”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By NESO’s own admission, “Unprecedented volumes of clean energy infrastructure projects are needed to meet the Government’s energy ambitions.” As long as policy races ahead of technology, costs will inevitably increase for taxpayers and consumers, and that is before we even consider the consequences of the Climate Change Committee’s seventh carbon budget. The committee has recommended a limit on the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions of 535 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which represents an 87% reduction by 2040 compared with 1990 levels. That is an ambitious goal, but it is one that the committee’s own data shows will come at a net cost of £319 billion over the next 15 years. If we are to debate this, the Government should be honest and open about that fact.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On the question of security, the Government are in such a rush with offshore wind farms that they are sourcing the turbines from China, and there are big questions about whether the technology in the turbines will continue to be controlled by the Chinese. We are having a debate right now about security and the threats presented by Russia; we could equally be talking about the same kinds of threats from China, and how our dependence on technologies produced by China and energy that is generated using those technologies leaves us exposed to Chinese influence.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is absolutely our position that the Energy Secretary is trying to move too quickly. The plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030 is deemed by many experts to be unrealistic. It is predicated on a report produced by NESO, which itself says that the plan will lead to higher bills, and on calculations based on the carbon price increasing to £147 per tonne. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether the Government’s policy is to ensure that Britain’s carbon price should remain lower than the European carbon price for the duration of this Parliament, because the Secretary of State has so far refused to say that.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Therefore, can she guarantee that we will have a lower carbon price than the rest of Europe by the end of this Parliament?”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course we talk to business all the time. I talk to businesses in my constituency and we have been talking to businesses and organisations representing the more energy-intensive manufacturing businesses in this country. They are clear that energy costs have been too high, partly because of issues such as high carbon prices. They are very concerned about the prospect of the carbon price rising under this Government. The hon. Lady talked about global fossil fuel markets—I have heard the Energy Secretary say that a lot when he has referred to global gas markets. There is no single global gas market in the way he describes. Prices for fossil fuels are so much higher in Europe than America, which is much more dependent on fossil fuels than we are, because of policy choices.”
House of Commons5 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On Monday, the London School of Economics’ middle east centre will host the launch of a book called “Understanding Hamas”. One contributor to the book, Azzam Tamimi, has previously called for the destruction of the state of Israel. Speakers at the event deny that Hamas is a terrorist organisation and wrongly dismiss Israel as a “white, settler colonialist nation”. Will the Minister join me in saying very clearly that this is not an accurate description of Israel? There is no genocide, as I heard an hon. Member claim earlier, and Hamas is a terrorist organisation that seeks to murder Jews and has brought nothing but destruction and disaster to the people of Gaza.”
House of Commons4 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Earlier, the Prime Minister said that Russia is a menace in our waters and in our skies. That is obviously correct, so can he tell us which individual Minister has overall responsibility for the security of our offshore infrastructure, such as wind farms in the North sea? Given the vital importance of military tech and hardware, will he join me in condemning the idiotic divestment campaigns that seek to undermine our domestic defence manufacturing industries?”
House of Commons3 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is quite clear that the BBC has not shown the standards of journalistic integrity that we expect of it in the case of this documentary or through its coverage of the 7 October attacks and the war that followed. Danny Cohen, the former BBC director of television, says that the BBC is “institutionally hostile to Israel”. Can we have an inquiry into not only this incident, but the BBC’s relationship with Hamas, the independence of its reporters in Gaza from Hamas and its wider coverage of Israel? If there is evidence of BBC funds reaching a proscribed terrorist organisation, will the Secretary of State join me in saying that there should be a full criminal investigation?”
House of Commons27 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In Suffolk, we are moving towards a unitary council as part of local government reforms. I put on record my discomfort that our local elections, which were due this year, have been postponed. The danger of the reforms, however, is that power will be taken further away from local residents. I want parish and town councils to be empowered to take responsibility for problems such as speeding and road safety. Can we have a debate on how we empower towns and villages to get things done directly for local residents?”
House of Commons27 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Labour party manifesto said that by the year 2028-29, it would increase spending by £9.5 billion a year. Why, then, did the Budget increase it by £76 billion—eight times more than the Labour manifesto said?”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister might have noticed that there is a bigger gap between £9.5 billion and £76 billion than £22 billion. His answer is clearly ridiculous. We are talking about such tax rises not because of the £22 billion fictional black hole, but because of the decision to increase spending by eight times more than the Labour party promised at the election. Will he accept that or not?”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It knew all the facts at that point, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the Financial Times , but just a few months later, Labour increased spending in the Budget by £76 billion a year, eight times more than promised in the manifesto. That is the reason for Labour’s broken tax promises, the higher taxes and the extra borrowing, not the poor excuses offered by the Minister earlier.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This debate has been held against the absurd backdrop of a Chancellor of the Exchequer writing to Government colleagues and begging regulators, desperately seeking advice on how to find economic growth, while the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is deindustrialising the economy, the Home Office is welcoming fiscally negative immigration and the Department for Business and Trade is adding more than £5 billion a year in new costs to business in a single Act of Parliament. And the Government are whacking up taxes, including through the change to business property relief, because they broke their election promises as soon as they got into office. In its manifesto, Labour promised the country that by 2028-29, it would increase spending by only £9.5 billion a year.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This amounts to taxsterity —tax rises and spending cuts—to go with stagflation, or stagnation and inflation. That is Labour economics.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is a little confused. Public spending is not increasing faster than I expected; it is increasing faster than his party told the country. That is the point. The Treasury might not be what it once was, but even if we believed what the Minister said about the fictional black hole, which the Office for Budget Responsibility has disowned, £9.5 billion plus £22 billion does not reach even half of the £76 billion in extra Labour spending. I am not sure whether the Minister is listening, but he can intervene if he wants to explain himself at this point—he clearly is not. What do we get for these extra taxes? The Home Office budget is being cut by 2.7% in real terms compared with last year. The Department for Transport budget is being cut by 2.5%, and its capital budget is being cut by 3.1%. That is economic illiteracy.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is the Employment Rights Bill, which, as I said, will cost businesses £5 billion a year, and probably more once the Government finally get their impact assessments right—normally Governments produce an impact assessment before a Bill is published, not after it has passed through all its stages in the House of Commons. There is the Energy Secretary, who wants to increase the carbon price higher than Europe’s and, according to the National Energy System Operator report that he constantly endorses, up to as much as £147 per tonne of carbon dioxide by 2030. As industry is lining up to tell the Government, that is yet another jobs killer. There are also, of course, the changes to business property relief that we have discussed today, which will cost £1.25 billion in lost revenue and mean 125,000 jobs lost by 2030.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Based on Labour’s track record, one would always bet on tax rises rather than fiscal responsibility. The bond markets have taken a single look at the Chancellor’s fiscal plans and increased Britain’s borrowing costs, which means another Labour tax rise for all of us. Not one word in the speeches we have heard from Labour Members today recognised the cumulative damage caused by their Government’s policies. There is the national insurance jobs tax, hiking the cost of hiring staff by £900 for an employee on the average salary and costing businesses £25 billion in total. There is the business rates relief cut, from 75% to 40%, meaning that businesses will spend £2.7 billion extra a year by 2026-27.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst) has just said, they are telling us the same thing: that because of the policies of this Government, they are confronted with a choice between selling their business altogether, selling parts of their business or cutting much-needed investment. I will conclude by saying that repeating the word “growth” in press releases, ministerial speeches and tweets does not make growth magically appear. Pummelling business, as this Government are doing, is the fastest route to killing growth and our prosperity.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree. I was baffled by the speeches of Labour Members; they were lining up to say that they had been meeting local businesses that were desperate to congratulate them on the tax rises that their Government are imposing on them. That is clearly ridiculous. In my constituency of West Suffolk, I am proud to represent so many family businesses that contribute to the economy. The Hadley shipping group, owned by James Warwick, is one of the last remaining family-run shipping companies in Britain. The Claydon family has manufactured and exported world-class agricultural machinery since the 1980s. Wedge Group Galvanising in Haverhill is a leading business in hot-dip galvanising in Europe and beyond. We need those vibrant and successful family businesses to help us build again and, as my hon.”
House of Commons26 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Home Secretary quite conspicuously failed to answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) asked earlier, so I am going to have another go. Should it ever be a criminal offence for anybody to desecrate a religious text—yes or no?”
House of Commons24 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As those levies will fall heavily on consumption, they will have a particularly regressive effect, as analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Cornwall Insight has confirmed. It is therefore no wonder that Labour’s election promise to cut bills by £300 by the end of the Parliament has vanished without trace, so I challenge the Minister today to do what she has not done since polling day—repeat that promise very clearly. I suspect she will not because, unlike the Secretary of State, she knows the reality of his policies. The Government are adding complexity and contradiction to our energy system and loading extra costs on to families across the country. There is still time for Ministers to think again and put the interests of decent, hard-working people ahead of the Energy Secretary’s ideological dogma.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That will be terrible for families struggling with the cost of heating their home, but it will hurt them—and indeed all of us—in other ways. As long as policy runs faster than technology and other countries do not follow our lead on climate change, decarbonisation will inevitably mean deindustrialisation. That will mean a weaker economy with lower growth, fewer jobs, and less spending power to help those who we have been discussing today—those who need support the most. Of course, it is not just the NESO report that shows us the future consequences of the Government’s policies. The OBR says that environmental levies will reach up to £15 billion by the end of this Parliament to pay for net zero policies.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Tough standards on aviation fuel are being enforced; heat pumps are expected to replace gas boilers; expensive and intermittent renewable technologies funded by huge and hidden subsidies are favoured; and oil and gas fields in the North sea are abandoned, left for the Norwegians to profit from what we choose to ignore. The Energy Secretary has made much of the National Energy System Operator’s report on decarbonising the grid. He says that report shows that he can do so by 2030 without increasing bills, but in fact the report does not say that—and even then, its calculations rest on a carbon price that will rise to £147 per tonne of carbon dioxide. It is no wonder that, in reply to a question I asked him last week, the Energy Secretary would not rule out having a higher carbon price in Britain than in Europe.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Indeed, the Minister who is with us today must answer this simple question: if the cuts for pensioners and the tax rises were made necessary by fiscal prudence, why did Labour promise in its manifesto to increase spending by £9.5 billion a year by 2028-29, only to actually increase it by £76 billion in its Budget? This was a choice. The challenge of fuel poverty affects people of all ages throughout the country. Rather than just creating new benefits and schemes to address the high cost of fuel, we need to resolve the root causes of energy costs more generally. Here, the Government are taking the country in a very worrying direction. The Energy Secretary promises to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and the Business Secretary wants to ban petrol and diesel cars by the same year.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us remember that during the election campaign, Labour repeatedly promised us that it would protect the winter fuel payment, but we know that the Chancellor planned the cut all along, because she had said that she wanted to do it as far back as 2014. Let us be clear: as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) said, this policy is a political choice, not an economic necessity as Ministers claim. The Office for Budget Responsibility has blown up the Government’s claim that they inherited a fiscal hole. Of the report used by Ministers to justify that claim, Richard Hughes, the OBR chairman, said that “nothing in our review was a legitimisation” of that claim.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) was certainly right to say that pension credit take-up is far too low. As the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) said, we cannot ignore the hardship caused by the Government’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment so aggressively for millions of pensioners. Of course there is a case for means-testing that payment, but the Chancellor is cutting it for not just the richest pensioners, but those on very modest incomes. If the winter fuel payment is to be means-tested, surely the proceeds should go to low-income pensioners and the cost of social care, but they do not, because we know that Labour’s spending priorities are to throw the money it is taking from pensioners to the public sector and railway unions that funded it.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Efford, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on securing this important debate. I hesitate to compete with a Yorkshireman, but it has also been very cold in Suffolk recently, and the stories that the hon. Member told of his constituents will be familiar to all of us in the Chamber today. From the hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson)—who is no longer in the Chamber—to the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), we were reminded that fuel poverty affects urban and rural constituencies alike. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) rightly talked about the reliance on heating oil in rural constituencies, and the hon.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister talks about the tough job the Chancellor faces. Does she acknowledge that the job is tough because of the Chancellor’s own choices? The Minister talks about the inheritance but, as I said in my speech, the Labour manifesto said that Labour would increase spending by £9.5 billion a year, while the Budget increased it by £76 billion a year. That is why the Chancellor faces tough decisions—they originate with her own political choices. Does the Minister acknowledge that?”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I echo the Minister’s praise for Sir David, who was a loved friend to so many, including many Members in this House. I welcome today’s statement, which is a sobering reminder of the importance of getting the Prevent programme right. The seriousness of the statement contrasts sharply with the immediate reaction and debate that followed Sir David’s murder, when there was, to be frank, a bizarre and misplaced rush to talk about issues such as online civility, rather than the clear threat that was behind the murder. Will the Minister join me in saying it is time for an end to the denialism we often see around the threat from Islamism, and, recognising what he said about the changing nature of the threat, does he agree that as the major terror threat that we face, Islamist extremism should always be Prevent’s top priority?”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We recognise their role in winding down the old schemes, but we remain vigilant about new policies that will surely make lives harder and more expensive because of the unattainable and self-harming decarbonisation goals that the Government are pursuing.”
House of Commons11 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now we are presented with the challenge of finding our way back to recovery and a long-term path to lower energy prices. As the current Government continue down the ideological decarbonisation route, led by the Secretary of State, we will watch carefully in order to protect the families and businesses who bear the cost of unrealistic clean energy targets. Indeed, experts expect the energy price cap to rise next month. The Manchester-based— not Aberdeen-based—head of GB Energy, Juergen Maier, says it will be “a very long-term project” to reduce bills by £300, which was a promise that Ministers stopped making as soon as their election campaign ended. I note that the Minister is wiser than her boss in not repeating that promise. We support the regulations.”
House of Commons11 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under you bright and early this morning, Mr Stringer. I am pleased to respond to the draft regulations on behalf of the Opposition. Committee Members will be relieved to hear that I shall not detain them long. It was right for the previous Conservative Government to step in during the cost of living crisis to protect families and businesses from rocketing energy bills. The supply shock from the pandemic and a major land war in Europe created a unique set of circumstances. Thanks to the previous Government, we came through the storm. Now that the crisis has passed, it is reasonable to finish the work of winding down the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills discount scheme. They were always intended to be temporary measures during a time of national emergency.”
House of Commons11 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The attacks on the last Conservative Government might carry more weight if this Government were not planning to equalise our carbon price with the European carbon price, but that is by the by. Given the conduct of China over the years, measures to hold down production costs in other countries and now President Trump’s tariffs, will the Minister accept that, if international free trade was not always a myth, it certainly is dead today, and will he commit to abandoning the theories and policies that follow his logic? Comparative advantage is used as intellectual cover for outsourcing production jobs and prosperity to countries that cheat the system. So can we see some trade realism and a strategy—a real strategy—to cut industrial energy costs, keep us making virgin steel, and get us manufacturing and exporting more?”
House of Commons11 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have asked the Home Secretary this before and she has not given an answer yet: which metric should we use, and by which date, if we are to ascertain whether she has succeeded in smashing the gangs?”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That would go some way to making up for the failures of immigration policy in the recent past, and it would mean a different system, in which we think of immigration as a temporary stay, not a permanent right. It would increase the outflow of migrants as we also control the inflow, and ensure that both the law and the state are in a condition to deliver that policy. Civilisations that are unable to control their borders die, and ours is no exception. The future of immigration policy must be not just about who comes here, but about who we decide must leave.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“According to the Centre for Policy Studies, more than 2 million visas have recently been issued to immigrants who could soon get indefinite leave to remain. That gives them the right to live in Britain indefinitely, and grants them access to the NHS, social housing and benefits. Even cautious estimates suggest that the net lifetime fiscal cost to the taxpayer could reach £234 billion. That brings me to my final point: those immigrants who entered the country illegally should never be allowed to stay here, and those who came here legally on time-limited visas and have not contributed enough should be expected to leave. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is right to say that ILR should be conditional on someone’s respect for the law and their contribution to our economy.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But it is all a sham, because we know that the Government’s real policy is to rush asylum claims through, accepting the vast majority before hiding immigrants in the welfare and local authority housing budgets. A Government impact assessment last July admitted that in black and white, stating that 44,000 illegal immigrants who Ministers were choosing not to deport would be granted asylum instead. That cohort alone will cost the taxpayer up to £18 billion over their lifetimes. So opaque was the Home Office about the true costs of its policy choices that the UK Statistics Authority rebuked it, in a letter to me, for being insufficiently transparent. That should prompt an urgent question about what we are going to do with the huge numbers of low-skilled and high-cost immigrants who have come to Britain in recent years.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The idea that the state, even working with other countries, might identify, arrest and extradite the criminals involved, when it fails to prosecute elementary immigration crimes committed on British soil, seems far-fetched. Some measures are pathetically weak. For example, the Bill requires the Border Security Commander to produce a “strategic priority document”, to which partners agencies must have “regard”. Even measures that supposedly toughen policy have glaring loopholes. The new offence of “endangering another during sea crossing” excludes the parents of children on the boats from prosecution, obviously encouraging migrants to put more children on to the boats.”
House of Commons10 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗