I agree entirely, and I echo the calls from my Scottish National party Westminster leader, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), who wants to see the £400 support package reintroduced. The idea that the pressure on household budgets from energy prices has somehow gone away is for the birds.
Energy security is not some abstract area of Government policy, nor is the purchase of energy a discretionary one for homes and businesses in our constituencies. Failing to legislate and plan strategically in this area, as Westminster has done in perpetuity, is the very reason people are facing the choice between heating and eating. It is the same reason that businesses across these islands have closed their doors due to energy costs. The exorbitant cost of energy in the UK is a function of supply-side constraint, and this Government have compounded that through incompetence, inaction, lack of ambition, penny-wise, pound-foolish misadventure and their obsession with nuclear.
Just imagine how much more perilous the situation for energy consumers in England would be if they never had Scotland’s energy powerhouse to shore up this Government’s incompetence and spaffing money on nuclear left, right and centre. This Bill was an opportunity to make up lost ground and catch up with functioning unions—the United States and the European Union—but as usual, the dysfunctional United Kingdom gets it wrong again, and it is ordinary taxpayers and bill payers who will pick up the pieces and pay the cost. There is one reason why households in energy-rich Scotland are facing fuel poverty and haemorrhaging household budgets on energy costs, and it is sitting in this Chamber: the UK Government.