Powering Up Britain

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 30 March.

“For much of the past 50 years, since the oil crises of the 1970s, we have taken cheap, plentiful energy for granted. Indeed, one of the catalysts for Britain’s economic transformation over that period has been affordable, abundant energy powering our homes, infrastructure, businesses and industry. Yet today, this cornerstone of our prosperity is under threat. Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine and decades of overreliance on imported fossil fuels have combined to push up energy prices. Even though we have very little exposure to Russian gas, we have suffered the consequences of volatile international energy markets. That is why the Government have stepped in this winter to pay around half of the typical household energy bill, and I am pleased to say that that support was extended in the Chancellor’s recent Budget.

The much bigger challenge long term is to bolster our energy resilience as a nation, so that a tyrant like Putin can never again hit the pockets of every family and business in Britain. We must diversify, decarbonise and domesticate our energy supplies to secure the cheap, clean power that Britain needs to prosper in the future. That is why last month the Prime Minister created the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to give these two closely entwined objectives—energy security and net zero—the full and dedicated attention within government that they clearly merit. It was a statement of intent to put energy security among the Government’s top priorities. By doing so, we will bring wholesale electricity prices down to among the cheapest in Europe by 2035, drastically reduce carbon emissions and deliver the long-term boost that our economy needs, using Britain’s unique talents and assets to drive the energy transition.

Following the department’s launch just 50 days ago, I am pleased to announce how the Government will be powering up Britain, including through our energy security plan, which sets out the steps we are taking to become more energy independent by powering Britain from Britain, and through our net-zero growth plan, which builds on the measures laid out in the net-zero strategy to keep us on track to achieve our carbon budgets. That plan meets our statutory obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008 to respond to the Climate Change Committee’s annual progress report from 2022 and sets out a package of proposals and policies that will enable carbon budgets to be met, to ensure that Britain remains the leader among the fastest decarbonising nations in the world.

Before starting on the announcements, I thank my right honourable friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for his excellent work in this area, investigating how to deliver net zero in a way that is both pro-growth and pro-business. In January, he submitted his detailed report and recommendations to the Government. I can confirm that we are partly or fully acting on 23 recommendations of the independent review of net zero report’s 25 recommendations for 2025. On behalf of the whole House, I thank my right honourable friend again for his work.

Let me start on the announcements, if I may. As part of powering up Britain, the Government are launching Great British Nuclear, to put clean nuclear power at the heart of Britain’s energy security and spearhead a busy programme of new nuclear projects, starting with a competitive ‘down selection’ this year to choose the best small modular reactor technologies. We are launching the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme, providing up to £160 million to kick-start funding in port infrastructure so that we can move forward with that exciting new technology, and we are publishing plans for investing in carbon capture and storage, a key area for cleaning up energy and one in which Britain can lead the world.

To drive our hydrogen ambitions, we are announcing a shortlist and funding for the first round of electrolytic hydrogen allocation, with a second round to come, and setting out our longer-term hydrogen plans. We are providing an extra £1 billion for energy efficiency upgrades through the new great British insulation scheme, and we are investing to speed up the market for heat pump installation to decarbonise home heating and leverage up to £300 million of overall funding, including private funding.

This country is already ahead of the game when it comes to decarbonising its economy. We are a global leader in offshore wind power and currently have the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm project, named after a town in my constituency: Hornsea 2. We also have the second, third and fourth largest offshore wind farm projects, but the measures we are unveiling today will accelerate our transition, rolling out existing technologies and bringing transformative new technologies to market.

We are truly on the verge of a new industrial revolution, but just like the first Industrial Revolution, investment will be key to our success, delivering not just energy security and ambitious reductions in carbon but the jobs, exports and productivity gains of the future. With that in mind, we are publishing today a new green finance strategy, which sets out a range of measures to mobilise private investment in net zero. That will support the UK in maintaining its position as a world-leading centre for green finance, and it sets us on a pathway to becoming the world’s first net-zero-aligned financial centre.

It is imperative that we do not just focus on reducing emissions at home. The UK will work with international partners through the green transition to share the benefits of an improved environment that is good for business, because all economies need to take decisive steps to reduce their emissions. Indeed, increased investment in net-zero technologies globally will unlock innovation and drive costs down, as well as create opportunities for green UK exports—in carbon capture and hydrogen, for example.

As such, today we are publishing two additional documents. The first is the 2030 strategic framework for international climate and nature action, which outlines our vision to halve global emissions, halt and reverse nature loss, and build resilience to climate impacts this decade. The second is the international climate finance strategy, which details our commitment to £11.6 billion of international climate finance up to 2025-26, after we pledged to double it. Both reinforce our climate leadership during what is a critical decade for delivery, showing that Britain is credible and committed to meeting its promises.

It is no exaggeration to say that Britain’s prospects as a nation, our ability to compete as an economy, and our capacity to decarbonise and tackle climate change all depend on energy security. Now, with a dedicated department to deliver that vital objective, we will not only wean ourselves off fossil fuel imports but deliver cheaper, cleaner energy from domestic renewables and nuclear, protecting British households from turbulent international energy markets and creating hundreds of thousands of green jobs to level up Britain in the process. Making Britain an energy-secure, net-zero nation is one of the greatest opportunities of our time. Today, we have shown how we will grasp that opportunity for the benefit of everyone in this country for generations to come.”

My Lords, the papers published before the Easter Recess represent, as my friend Ed Miliband said in the other place, a Groundhog Day of reannouncements, reheated policy and no new investment. The Government continue to fail to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and the need for urgent action rather than baby steps. The biggest indictment is an admission that the policies announced do not deliver the promises made at COP 26 to meet the UK’s 2030 climate target.

On emissions targets, despite saying that they are building on their COP 26 presidency, the Government cannot say whether they will meet the targets set in Glasgow. Meeting these targets is crucial if we are to prevent catastrophic climate change, so can the Minister now confirm that the Government will ensure that the UK will meet the NDC emissions targets that they committed to at COP 26?

The UK’s businesses operate at a disadvantage because of the Government’s delay in responding to the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. Why are the Government delaying their response, thereby putting us behind in the international race for green jobs? Without clear support from the Government, British businesses are struggling to transition to a low- carbon economy.

The Government’s ban on onshore wind is preventing the UK cutting bills and providing energy security. Polls show that British people support onshore wind by a ratio of 20:1. The ban is costing hard-pressed families approximately £160 a year on their energy bills and leaves the UK dependent on expensive gas imports. Can the Minister say when they will get a grip and end the ban on onshore wind?

The Government’s track record on energy efficiency is appalling, leaving uninsulated households with bills £1,000 higher than those of properly insulated homes. Labour’s warm homes plan aims to bring down bills for 19 million homes and to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Why will the Government not support it?

My Lords, I do not in any way disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, but I have tried to be positive about these reports; a whole suite of reports has come out with this. I spent a little more time on the report entitled Powering up Britain: Energy Security Plan, which I thought may be the document that would get more to the heart of this. I also found the 2030 Strategic Framework for International Climate and Nature Action particularly interesting. These are a long read but have a list of really good stuff. They mention areas that we have debated here such as gas storage, grid connections, carbon capture, energy efficiency and demand management. A few are missing, but it is a very impressive list of subjects that this House has considered during the passage of the Energy Bill, whose Third Reading we await next week. It is a great list, but it is five years too late—something like that.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. Small modular reactors are listed in the energy security plan. When do we expect them to come online? Going back to something we discussed on the Energy Bill, the energy security plan mentions the core responsibility of the future systems operator, or ISOP as we know it. When is it actually going to be established so that it can get on with its work? Those I have spoken to in National Grid ESO are really champing at the bit, because they need to get on with it, as this report says, but it is still not there because of the slowness of the Energy Bill through Parliament.

On Sizewell C, which the report mentions, what lessons have we learned from Hinkley C? There are all sorts of lessons to be learned from budget increases and other issues relating to the building of that. On planning, I am pleased to say that it talks about trying to reduce planning periods, but in the debate on the levelling-up Bill yesterday we discussed how the planning system is core to delivering net zero. In fact, as both the Climate Change Committee and the Chris Skidmore report asked, are the Government going to embed net zero properly into the planning system? As the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, asked, will we really meet not just the COP 26 obligations but the fourth carbon budget, whose period just started, let alone the fifth? I do not believe that these plans really do that.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lennie and Lord Teverson, for their comments. I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, slightly more than I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, because he was slightly more positive, but I thank them both for their comments anyway.

For too long this country has taken cheap, plentiful energy for granted. If the war in Ukraine has shown us anything, it is our decades-long overreliance on fossil fuels. Of course, we have all seen their record prices, but the Government have stepped in to help: we have been paying around half of a typical household’s energy bills this winter, and that support has been extended. Our longer-term challenge now is to bolster our energy resilience as a nation so that never again can we be held hostage by tyrants such as Putin, putting his hand into the pockets of every family and business in this country.

This plan is about setting out a clear path and why we have to diversify our sources of supply. We have to decarbonise them and we have to move toward greater energy independence to secure the cheap, clean energy that Britain needs to prosper in the future. We are making considerable progress along that path, but we all know that we have to do a lot more.

I will move to the specific questions I was asked. The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, asked me about onshore wind. I have a funny feeling that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is going to ask me a similar question, so let me try to pre-empt her. We have included onshore wind in our latest world-leading contracts for difference scheme. We are currently consulting on amending the National Planning Policy Framework so that local authorities can better respond to communities when they wish to host offshore wind infrastructure. A government response will be issued in due course.

The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, also mentioned the US Inflation Reduction Act. Of course, we are well aware of the action taken by international partners to accelerate their own uptake of green technologies. They are getting to the party a bit late, but I am pleased to see that they are finally going in the same direction. We continue to engage with them on this. Although the Act is significant, the race for green tech started decades ago here in the UK, with the rest of the world now playing catch-up, adopting many of the same mechanisms, such as contracts for difference, that we came up with seven or eight years ago.

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. The Minister presaged a question about onshore wind, which was one of the things left out of the Powering Up Britain document. He half-answered the question in anticipation, but he said that the consultation results will come “in due course”. Could I tempt him to be a little more specific than that, because we have been making progress very slowly on this issue? It feels rather like a can being kicked down the road and a wasted opportunity.

This document contains aspirations, intentions and objectives that are widely supported around the House. The concerns are about the pace, scale, impetus and coherence of delivery. I want to talk particularly about the issues that we debated in your Lordships’ House on Monday, when amendments to the Energy Bill were passed. None of those amendments in any way ran counter to the objectives set out by the Government. In ending emissions from coal, in making sure that we have a comprehensive energy efficiency policy, in building and encouraging community energy schemes, and in giving Ofgem, the regulator of this sector, a responsibility for implementing net zero, none of them was revolutionary or counter to government policy. All will help with this issue of scale, pace and delivery. My plea to the Minister is that he and colleagues think very carefully, after Third Reading in this House and before the Bill goes to another place, about whether those amendments could assist, rather than in any way impede, the Government in what they are trying to do.