No, I will not.
Let us talk about how we can get an energy system that is fit for purpose. Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the grid, where the delays that have been allowed to build up are a disgrace. For all of the Conservative party’s boasts, this is what Keith Anderson of Scottish Power says about the delays to the grid:
“The wind farms that are coming online today were approved when Gordon Brown was in power—that’s a long time ago and we need to be much faster to move beyond this crisis”.
The new independent system operator is a step forward, but there are questions remaining about whether it goes far enough in its powers, remit and independence.
What the energy system sorely lacks at the moment—this goes to the question that the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) asked the Secretary of State—is a guiding mind. It is about not simply balancing the system day to day and hoping that the market provides—this is the purpose of the regulator—but planning for the future of the system as we transition. This is the point: at the moment, that planning role is a job for everyone—the Energy Department, Ofgem and the network companies—but the ultimate responsibility of nobody. That needs to change with the ISOP so that we auction offshore wind in the right places, we plan and build the grid in the right places and on the right timescale, and we have the right amount of power in the system in the years ahead. For us, that is the purpose of ISOP, and during the Bill’s passage we will test out whether its proposals for ISOP adequately meet that vision.
If the regime is to work—I concur with the interventions on the Secretary of State—we need a price regulator in Ofgem that supports and never stands in the way of change. I hope that the Secretary of State’s failure to say that he would oppose such an amendment is a good
sign, but obviously Ofgem should have a formal net zero duty. I think that was recommended by the net zero tsar, the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), and it was rightly inserted by the House of Lords. However—this is boring but very important—we also need to sort out the issues of planning.
The National Infrastructure Commission recently produced an important report about the delays to planning. It said that, in part, that was the fault of Government, who have not updated their energy national policy statements for a decade. It also said that there should be a statutory duty on the Government to review them every five years, and we agree. Here is the other thing that is important: all relevant regulators, including the Planning Inspectorate, should have a net zero duty, because otherwise we will find the system being slowed down and gummed up. Of course, the views of local people are important and must be taken into account, but we must also make progress.
The Bill could achieve those things to speed up the planning process. However, even if we get all the forms of low-carbon power that we need—I think that we should have all of them—and we sort out the grid and planning, there is an obvious question that the Secretary of State did not address. Even if we get all of those renewables and indeed nuclear, the price of electricity is currently tied to the prevailing price of gas. We do need reform of that system. Labour first called for that in January last year, and I say to the Secretary of State that we will be talking about that in the Bill Committee. We believe that there should be a commitment in the Bill to a timetable for that delinking; otherwise, we will get more drift and delay and we will not reap the benefits of the move to zero-carbon power.
On the one hand, we need the drive to zero-carbon power, but we also need a decisive shift away from the high-carbon expensive path—again, that was raised earlier—and unfortunately the Bill does not attempt to make that shift; it is business as usual on fossil fuels.
On coal, the Secretary of State rather dismissed the intervention of the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). Yes, there has been a good record on coal in the last decade. [Interruption.] He says “Thank you”, and he wants to chunter away, but opening a new coalmine drives a coach and horses through that record. [Interruption.] He says that it does not. We cannot go around the world, as did the former President of COP, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), telling everybody that they have to power past coal, and then say, “But not us,” because that totally undermines our moral authority. Here is the thing: the steel industry in Britain says it will not use the coking coal, it will not provide the long-term jobs that Cumbria needs and it sends utterly the wrong message on climate. That is why their lordships inserted a provision to ban new coalmines. Labour supports that amendment.
Labour will also table an amendment to ban dangerous, expensive, unpopular fracking. I know that Conservative Members want to say the Truss period was a bad dream—Bobby Ewing in the shower and all that. [Interruption.] I am showing my age, that is true. I am a big “Dallas” fan, actually. Labour will table an amendment on fracking.
We also believe—this is an important point—that the Bill should remove the 2015 duty to extract every last drop, the so-called maximum economic recovery, from
the North sea. I can do no better than to quote the net zero tsar, the right hon. Member for Kingswood, praised by the Secretary of State, who did a very serious piece of work—Government Front Benchers are nodding. What he said could not be clearer:
“developing new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°… There is no such thing as a new net zero oilfield.”
Those are not my words, or those of the Liberal Democrats or any other party in this place. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State starts chuntering, but he should talk to his own net zero tsar, who did a brilliant report that he himself praised.
Let me just explain, for the benefit of right hon. and hon. Members, why that is the right position. That approach will have no impact on bringing down bills. How do we know that? Because every previous Energy Minister has said that. Gas and oil are traded on an inter—[Interruption.] Just pipe down for a minute. The price is set on the international market and 80% of our oil is exported. It drives a coach and horses through any possibility of keeping global warming to 1.5°, according to hundreds of leading scientists and the right hon. Member for Kingswood.
Here is the other thing, which is a new part of this. We now know how much the Government are having to shell out to the oil and gas industry to persuade it to make this investment, because it is in the detail of the Budget Red Book: over £11 billion. The current Prime Minister, the previous Chancellor, introduced a windfall tax, but then he introduced an absolutely massive super-deduction—not available now to any other industry, including renewables—of over £11 billion. Massive, massive cost to the taxpayer, no impact on bills, the oil from Rosebank exported, and driving a coach and horses through our climate commitments—no wonder the net zero tsar concluded that it is the wrong policy for Britain. It is. Government Members can carry on pretending that business as usual is consistent with the science and consistent with what we go around the world saying, but it is not and the net zero tsar has rightly said so. Labour will seek to improve the Bill so that it delivers on the zero-carbon sprint we need.
Next, I want to turn to the second part of my remarks —I will try to speed up, Mr Deputy Speaker—on what the Bill can do to ensure the fairness of the transition. We know that the fairness of the transition is essential if we are to take the public with us, and we know there are huge opportunities. I want to come back to the issue of energy efficiency, because Government Members go on and on about their great record on energy efficiency. Here are the facts. In 2010, there were 1.6 million energy efficiency upgrades. In 2022, there were 160,000 equivalent measures. In other words, there were 10 times more when the last Labour Government left office than there are now.
We know why that has happened. The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), has done many important and learned reports on this question. Massive cuts were imposed on energy efficiency schemes when David Cameron said, “cut the green crap” and the investment has not recovered. That is why the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development says it will take almost 200 years
at the current rate to get all homes up to EPC C—200 years. That is not just bad for the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who intervened earlier, and the constituents of many others in this House; it also means we import more gas and use more gas supplies. The estimates are that we could cut gas demand by 20% if we got all homes up to EPC C.