I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Prime Minister, who is attending the G7 summit in Evian.
May I first pay tribute to two giants of the Labour party. Roy Hattersley was a formidable deputy leader who never stopped fighting for a more equal and fair society. We also remember our beloved colleague Jo Cox and honour her memory in working to bring our communities together, celebrating the decency and compassion that defines this country. I also want to remember the 72 lives lost at Grenfell tower. The legacy of that appalling tragedy must be a safe, secure home for everyone in this country.
Finally, let me congratulate Scotland on their first win at the men’s world cup in 36 years—that, Mr Speaker, is what happens when your captain signs for Spurs. I wish England the best of luck for their first match this evening.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
I associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks and pay tribute to Jo Cox. I also wish the England men’s team all the best tonight—may they follow the winning example of the Lionesses and the Scotland men’s team.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that our town and local centres, particularly our independent small businesses, are the lifeblood of our economy, and will he confirm that this Labour Government will do what it takes to unlock the potential of our local economies? One such example would be supporting the campaign by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) to restore the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry, which was cut by the Conservatives.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her campaign to restore the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry. I agree that town centres are the heart of our communities, and we are determined to help them to thrive. Our high streets strategy, backed by more than £300 million of investment, will build on our work to rejuvenate high streets across the country. We are also putting power into the hands of local communities through our flagship Pride in Place programme, which includes £1.5 million for Gravesham. Her local council can make use of the integrated transport funding for local priorities, including ferry services, and I know that Ministers will be happy to help.
On behalf of the Conservatives, I extend our condolences to the families of Jo Cox and Roy Hattersley. I know how much pain we on the Conservatives Benches felt when we lost Sir David Amess, and so we share Labour’s pain today. I also pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the Grenfell tower fire. I would also like to congratulate Scotland on their stunning win and wish England the very best of luck for tonight.
It is a great privilege to be standing at the Dispatch Box across from one of the few survivors of Labour’s original Cabinet who has not resigned on principle or been sacked in disgrace—I feel honoured. Will the right hon. Gentleman start by telling me this: why are the Labour Government happy for Britain to get its oil and gas from Russia or Qatar but not from Aberdeen?
I welcome the shadow Energy Secretary to the Dispatch Box. It is always good to hear from someone who was at the heart of the Treasury during the biggest fall in living standards on record, who was the Children’s Minister in the Government who plunged hundreds of thousands of children into poverty, and who was the Energy Secretary who showed an unwavering commitment to the cause of net zero, even though she has now forgotten that.
The right hon. Lady should not believe everything she reads in the papers. The Prime Minister and the Energy Secretary have been discussing cutting bills by over £100. Our warm homes plan is lifting millions of families out of fuel poverty, and we are securing enough energy projects to power 23 million homes. The right hon. Lady was the Energy Secretary who left our country exposed to global fossil fuel markets. We are delivering clean energy security.
Bills came down by £500 under me. They have gone up £300 under these guys.
This is nonsense. Labour is banning new oil and gas licences in the North sea, and the guys over there in the SNP are no better, because this is the same policy that the SNP championed for years. It is pointless virtue signalling, and it is destroying well-paid jobs. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House how many jobs have been lost in Aberdeen since Labour came to power?
I remember when the right hon. Lady championed net zero as Energy Secretary. She said in 2023:
“We cannot prosper… Nor can our children flourish if we don’t decarbonise energy”.
The Tories used to believe this three years ago. The right hon. Lady has forgotten that, because the Tories are desperately chasing Reform and we know it.
Over 700 jobs were lost in the last 10 years that the Tories were in power, and production fell 75% over the last 25 years. We have secured over £900 billion of investment to support more jobs by taking control with renewables, and over 100,000 jobs in Scotland are supported by clean power. We are building on that, led by Great British Energy, which is headquartered in Aberdeen.
Let me help the Deputy Prime Minister out. One thousand people are losing their jobs every month in places like Aberdeen South because of Labour’s policies. The Government say that those oil and gas workers can get new green jobs, but what they do not say is that those salaries pay half as much. Can he tell the House how he would feel if the Government forced him to take a 50% pay cut?
The right hon. Lady used to be an investment banker, and she has got her facts wrong. Oil and gas are coming out of the North sea 24/7. In the first three months of this year, 52 million barrels of oil came out, and the equivalent of 44 million barrels of gas came out. We are not turning off the taps. This will be part of a mixed economy that will support existing oil and gas fields throughout their lifespan, making changes to exploit neighbouring fields. We do want to create more jobs, which is why we will continue to invest in renewables. She knew this three years ago. She has changed her mind because she is chasing Reform.
I asked the Deputy Prime Minister about pay cuts, which the Government should care about, because if the Mayor of Manchester gets his way, I am pretty sure that half of the Front Bench will be getting a pay cut pretty soon.
This is serious. The world is getting more dangerous, yet last week the Prime Minister asked the Energy Secretary to help fund the defence of our country and he ghosted him. Let me repeat that: the Energy Secretary refused to meet the Prime Minister on a matter of national security. Why has he not been sacked?
Stop reading the papers, is what I would say to the right hon. Lady—or certainly the right papers. When the defence investment plan is published, it will set out—[Interruption.] This is important. It will set out how every Government Department is contributing to defence, including the Energy Department. We will always put national security first. The Conservatives still do not get it. Families are worried about their bills going up because of a war in the middle east that the Leader of the Opposition said she would jump into feet first.
If everything is so hunky-dory, why did half the Defence team quit last week? The Government will not find the money to keep our country safe, so let us go through some of the things they can find money for. They can find millions of pounds to build solar farms in the Congo, and tens of millions of pounds for an experiment to dim the sun, but they are turning down £25 billion in tax revenue from the North sea to please their out-of-control Energy Secretary. Does the Deputy Prime Minister really think that any of that is more important than defending our country?
We have said that more spending on defence is our No. 1 priority in this spending review and the next spending review. The right hon. Lady wants to talk about resignations. Let us remind ourselves of the Tory Defence Secretary in the last Government—the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson)—who was sacked for breaching national security; the Tory Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who resigned over sexual harassment; and the Tory Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who admitted hollowing out the armed forces for 14 years. We have a Prime Minister securing jobs and investment at the G7, we have a Chancellor raising the minimum wage, we have an Education Secretary cutting costs for childcare, and we have an Energy Secretary cutting energy bills by over £100. We are proud of that record.
If everything is fine, why do we have a new Defence Secretary? [Interruption.] He was not here last week, was he? Let us face it: this is a Government on life support. What is their grand plan now? Let me get this straight: they want to make the job-destroying Energy Secretary Chancellor; they want to bring back the former Transport Secretary, who resigned for nicking phones; and they want to replace the Deputy Prime Minister with the former Deputy Prime Minister, who resigned for dodging taxes. Those are all pointless distractions. Here is a better idea: why do they not cut welfare, fund defence, make energy cheap and back the North sea?
It is very thin gruel. I am here, like the right hon. Lady, because I am standing in for the leader of my party. I am proud to serve the Prime Minister and proud of what the Labour Government are delivering: more rights for working people—the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation—the biggest boost to defence spending since the cold war, and lifting more children out of poverty in a single term than any British Government in history. [Interruption.] The Conservatives can make all the noise they want. They do not want to talk about the economy because it is growing, they do not want to talk about the NHS because waiting lists are falling, and they do not want to talk about immigration because they lost control of our borders and net migration is down under us by 82%. They had their chance and they blew it. We are building a stronger, fairer Britain.
I, too, wish to pay tribute to Jo Cox and her family, and to the commitment in her name that we tackle division and extremism. We saw extremism play out on the streets of Belfast last week—a pogrom where families were burned out based on the colour of their skin; health workers were stopped and asked for ID by masked thugs; and small businesses were ordered to close. Many minorities are still living in fear after a list of their addresses was circulated widely online. They deserve more than sympathy and warm words; they deserve to know that Governments are serious about confronting hatred online and offline.
The UK Government and the Northern Ireland Executive spend millions each year on programmes intended to tackle paramilitarism, but, decades after the troubles, individuals linked to loyalist paramilitaries had a role in directing and fuelling the disorder last week, including menacing a senior journalist on tape. Will the UK Government commit to reviewing how the Northern Ireland Executive are gripping—or failing to grip—paramilitarism? Will they ensure that public money never reaches individuals or groups who fuel, orchestrate or benefit from intimidation and hate?
I join the hon. Lady in utterly condemning the violence. People are right to feel sickened by the sight of people being burned out of their homes because of the colour of their skin. That is racism, and those responsible will face the full force of the law. We must never go back to 1950s Britain, where my father arrived to signs saying, “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.” We are focused on bringing people together, and that includes by providing a further £24 million to help to tackle paramilitarism and by acting to tackle those who incite hatred online; our social cohesion plan is about bringing our communities together. I am happy to work with all parties in that endeavour.