With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will respond to what has been a very wide-ranging and—until that last speech—a mostly positive debate. I thank all those who have contributed and have brought us their ideas and their huge experience, not just in relation to the green energy transition but in relation to everything from the care system and child poverty to vital matters of public discourse such as what we should put on our chips. That was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan), and, for the record, what she said was absolutely right.
I want to say something about the maiden speeches that we have heard today, because it has been genuinely incredible to sit on the Front Bench and listen to them all. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said a moment ago that they had given her quite a lot to reflect on. I have 20-odd pages of notes here on those wonderful maiden speeches, but I have only 10 minutes in which to sum up. It was not so long ago that I gave my own maiden speech—less than a year ago, in fact—and the same trepidation that I had when I stood up then is with me now. I have to say, on reflection, that I am glad I was the only person giving a maiden speech, after a by-election, because this field of maiden speeches was just a little too good: they were fantastic. The House often comes in for criticism for no longer being the place where we take the moral course or talk about the high values of public service, but in every single one of those maiden speeches, from every part of the House, we heard the real dedication of Members to their communities and the passion with which they want to fight for those communities. I think that this Parliament, the Parliament of 2024, will do a huge amount to change people’s lives.
I will turn now to the substance of the debate, but I will come back to some of the maiden speeches if I have time. In her opening remarks, the shadow Secretary of State said that the Conservative party can be proud of its climate record, and in so many ways, if we were to go back years, she would probably be right. But the rhetoric that we are now hearing from this Conservative party is a million miles from that David Cameron conservativism that said we should take the environment seriously. Language in this matter is important. It matters that we talk truthfully when we speak about the opportunities and risks. It matters, too, that we do not conflate issues when there are no grounds for doing so.
I wish to pick out just a few things from the debate today. The shadow Secretary of State and a number of Members raised the issue of bills. Having sat and listened to those contributions, I do wonder where some Members have been for the past few years. There can scarcely be a Member in this House who does not know of the thousands of people up and down this country struggling in fuel poverty, and the millions who are still facing higher bills.
The reason that we are on this journey is not because of some sort of ideological commitment to net zero, but because we know that it is the only way to deliver the energy security that we need to reduce our dependence on volatile gas prices and to deliver the cheaper energy that we know will bring down bills. The commitment that we made throughout the election has not changed in the slightest. We will bring down people’s bills in the long term to avoid those shocks that have cost people so much in their household bills.
In what I thought was a great speech, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed out that this cannot be about growth versus green, which is really important. The two go hand in hand. It is a key part of both our economic strategy and our environmental strategy that we move forward. She also made the point about co-ordinating across Government, which is also important. It is why the Prime Minister himself is chairing these mission boards, so that we can bring together all Departments of State and internal and external voices to drive forward the change that is needed across Government.
On the oil and gas transition, the hon. Members for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) and for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), who are perhaps not surprisingly on the same side in criticising this Government, made a number of points about the North Sea, which are important and which I take on board very seriously. None the less, the suggestion that the North sea is going to close overnight is nonsense and it has to stop being peddled by Members across the House, because it creates unnecessary uncertainty. There will be decades of work in the oil and gas industry in the North sea, whether or not we issue new licences. And, as has been mentioned, the skills, the experience and the infrastructure that is vital for a net zero transition are important. That is why we need to start the just transition now. It is why we should have started it years ago, frankly. We cannot simply bury our heads in the sand and hope that the economic reality of the future will be the same as the past. The North sea is declining as an oil and gas basin. We need to tackle what the future of that looks like now.
On the issue of scaremongering, the various contributions that have touched on solar could mark a really worrying change in the discourse that we are going to have in this House if we carry on the way that we are. The genuine questions about planning are important, and it is right that Members of Parliament are robust—indeed I would be myself as a constituency MP—in the defence of their constituents on these issues. None the less, there is such a thing as nationally important infrastructure, which is important for the whole country. Saying that there is going to be food insecurity because of these solar projects is incredibly dangerous language from the Opposition.
Indeed, the National Farmers Union, responding to some of that scaremongering, said that solar farms do not in any way present a risk to the UK’s food security. Solar farms make up less than 1% of the land use in this country. Even if we reach the target that we want to get to, they will still make up a tiny amount of our land use, and they are an important part of our energy infrastructure.