Sammy Wilson MP: Climate-Related Speeches In Parliament

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Sammy Wilson's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 51 Parliamentary debates in which Sammy Wilson has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 5 Sep 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  As part of the Government’s net zero strategy, car manufacturers are expected to produce 22% of their cars as electric vehicles and face a £15,000 penalty for every car by which they fall short of that. The target is expected to be missed by 100,000 cars this year because of consumer resistance. The effect on the car industry is that producers are restricting supplies of petrol cars to retailers, and some are threatening to pull out of the UK market altogether. In the light of consumer resistance, will the Secretary of State look again at the target set, since consumers are clearly not going to be forced to purchase cars they do not want, and producers will be forced to try to get rid of cars they cannot sell?

  [Source]

• 5 Sep 2024: Great British Energy Bill

  15:20

  We already know, as it has been pointed out, that, according to Ofgem, two thirds of people’s electricity costs in the first quarter of this year were as a result of non-fuel costs. They included the cost of the infrastructure, the environmental policies, and the administration and the operating costs of the grid. Extending the grid, which we will have to do, will incur further costs and put up the price of electricity. That is why the Minister could not guarantee that the £300 saving will be delivered. He knows that the massive costs of changing our system will be borne by the electricity consumer. Whether we regard net zero as good or bad, let us not hide from the fact that it will cost people right across society. It will lead to industry facing higher costs, and consumers facing higher costs and greater fuel poverty.

  [Source]

• 17 Jul 2024: Debate on the Address

  19:21

  The second issue I will mention is the Government’s commitment to economic growth. In any country, economic growth depends upon cheap energy, and I am fearful that some of the policies that have already been implemented, and the promises made in the King’s Speech, will make it difficult to achieve economic growth. In the previous Parliament we lamented, almost on a monthly basis, the loss of energy-intensive industries. It did not matter whether it was Port Talbot, Corby or Grangemouth. Representatives from all over the United Kingdom saw the impact on their local communities, with thousands of jobs being lost because of energy policies and the costs of implementing net zero. If we are aiming for economic growth, we cannot allow the obsession with net zero to stand in the way of jobs in this country.

  I notice that in the commitment to net zero in the King’s Speech, we are told that we will get lower energy bills over time. Initially, of course, we will have higher energy bills. We want to remove the infrastructure that we have in place and put totally new infrastructure in place—windmills, new lines and all the other infrastructure that is required to bring energy from places where we do not currently produce it to where we need it. We need to strengthen the grid, because we are going to use more electricity. All of that costs, and it will put up consumers’ bills. At the same time, of course, we will make ourselves more dependent on the country that supplies all the vital metals required for that. We do not even gain any environmental benefits.

  The right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) talked about the impact on his community. In my constituency, I see the Antrim hills being stripped of peat, 3 metres deep, to build wind farms. That is supposed to be environmental improvement. I look forward, over the period of this Government, to examining just what they do on this issue. We need to make sure that we do not have contradictory policies, whereby we aim for net zero but dip our hands into people’s pockets to pay for it.

  [Source]

• 6 Mar 2024: Budget Resolutions

  16:26

  Having heard some of the speeches from Conservative Members, I suspect that, although they have given some welcome to this Budget, there is a great deal of disquiet about it. I am sure they were all hoping that the Chancellor would come out with a Conservative Budget that gave them a banner under which they could march towards a general election. Instead, we have what can only be described as an “Old Mother Hubbard” Budget. Although the Chancellor would have loved to have thrown bones to the electorate—nice juicy bones that they could bite on—so they would be happy to vote Conservative at the next election, in effect, the cupboard is bare. The cupboard is bare not because of the mismanagement of previous Governments, but because of the mismanagement of this Government, who have been in power for 14 years, from costly lockdowns that were badly thought out and whose economic consequences were never considered, to the ongoing billions being spent on net zero in the belief that, somehow or other, we can alter the world’s climate, to the failure to take up the opportunities of Brexit and the staggering tax burden under which the economy is now stumbling and failing to grow. All that is the result of decisions that were made by the Government, and this Budget is a manifestation of the consequences of that.

  [Source]

• 20 Feb 2024: Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

  17:00

  I find some of the arguments made today very strange. Passionate speeches have been made against this Bill on the basis that—let me paraphrase the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead)—it does not do anything that is not already being done. He went further and said that even though that is the case, civil servants must have “held their noses” when writing the Bill. If it does not do anything that is not already being done, why on earth is there such passionate opposition to it? [ Interruption. ] A Member asks from a sedentary position about the climate emergency. Apparently, one of the arguments against the Bill is that it will provide only another three days’ worth of oil and gas. We are hardly going to push up world temperatures if another three days’ worth of oil and gas is drilled out of the North sea, but we will ensure years of jobs for people currently working in the gas industry, guarantee years of finance for much-needed public services in this country, and guarantee that we do not have to import from other countries.

  My second concern, which has been alluded to by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), is that because we have established legally binding targets for net zero in legislation, the benefits that might come from this Bill will not be realised because they will get stuck in the courts. I have said this to the Minster before, and I say it again: legally binding targets leave the Government open to legal challenges on every piece of sensible legislation that they try to bring through this House, whether it be to alleviate the burden placed on people by their heating bills by changing the policy on heat pumps, or to reduce the impact on travel costs by not having mandatory targets for electric vehicles; I could go through a whole list of policies. This is something that we will have to revisit.

  [Source]

• 22 Jan 2024: Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

  19:43

  I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced this Bill, even though it may well be a belated acceptance that some policies they had been following in pursuit of net zero had to be revised. We know that because of the energy security issues and the dramatic rise in the cost of energy in response to the fall in supply resulting from the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed in Russia, as well as the impact on the supply chain after covid, the supply of energy, especially oil and gas, to an economy that still depends heavily on those kinds of sources is very important. Let us not pretend that we are on the verge of not having to use oil and gas any longer, because 75% of our energy comes from oil and gas, and 5% comes from renewables. Even those who want us to rush headlong towards net zero, such as those in the Climate Change Committee, accept that we are still going to have to use fossil fuels well into the next decade and for decades after. Therefore, it is important that we examine how we generate those resources.

  The Bill is also an acceptance by the Government—or there should now be an acceptance—that as we have pursued the net zero agenda we have been putting people’s jobs at risk. We have seen that just in the past week, with 3,000 jobs going in south Wales. Most of the energy-intensive industries in this country have been decimated. We proudly beat our chests and say, “We have reduced our carbon emissions,” but if we are honest with ourselves, we will see that all we have done is steal jobs from this country and move production for vital materials overseas, to a place where environmental and work standards, and standards on pollution, are far lower than ours in this country. So I welcome the fact that the Government are belatedly looking again at some of the policies they were pursuing.

  The second reason is that we have 200,000 jobs in the sector across the United Kingdom, including, strangely enough, 90,000 jobs in Scotland, which the SNP appears to be quite happy to sacrifice. We have sacrificed jobs in many energy-intensive industries already. Are we now going to sacrifice these often well-paid jobs and say that there will be a just transition? Many times in this House I have heard the argument that, “Oh, all these people who are employed in the oil and gas industry will go into renewables.” Well, let us look that.

  The idea that we would suddenly have all these people employed in the manufacture, installation and maintenance of solar panels and windmills, EV battery factories all over the place, and graduates employed in finance and everything else for the offshore industry has not happened. The just transition is not going to occur. Why would we transition when there is still a resource to be exploited by the people who have the skills to do that, and for the benefit of the country?

  The third argument I wish to make in favour of the Bill is its necessity. Some 84% of our domestic heating is currently provided by gas, with 5% from oil; some 97% of our travel is driven by fossil fuels; and some 40% of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels. That will continue into the future. Quite frankly, I doubt whether the arguments we have heard about us having to be a global leader in getting to net zero ring true with ordinary people who want to heat their houses efficiently, cheaply and securely; drive their cars; get on buses, trains and aeroplanes, or however they decide to travel; or ensure that electricity can be supplied.

  Cheap energy is the grounds of economic growth. I can understand why people do not follow our lead and do their own thing. The idea that because we pass the Bill the whole world will say, “Oh, this is terrible. Britain is no longer committed to net zero and we are now going to do our own thing.” They are doing their own thing anyway. The question many people in the United Kingdom have is what their Government are doing to maintain their standard of living—the idea of global leadership is not at the forefront of their thinking.

  Secondly, as hon. Members have argued, if we are going to exploit the oil we have and benefit from it, then it is better to keep it in our own country and ensure that it is used in our own country. Some 88% of the gas we extract is used in the UK because we have the network for it to feed into, so it can be used and sold in the UK. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) raised the issue of Grangemouth, which is not the only example of the fact that we do not invest in facilities for refining oil in the United Kingdom. Why not? Because oil refining is an oil-intensive industry, so given all the carbon taxes and the barriers put in the way of carbon-intensive industries, no investment is taking place, or has taken place for decades. So what do we do? We extract it and send it elsewhere. We bring it back, most often, but would it not be of benefit to ensure that it stays in the United Kingdom because we have the facilities for processing it here?

  Unfortunately, that is the battle that we face. There are those in this House who are wedded to an ideology and will drive it through regardless of the impact that it has on our constituents. How many crocodile tears have been cried by Members in this House when they see people lose their jobs in energy-intensive industries and then, in the next breath, say that the Government are not going hard enough to reach net zero? There is a divide between those who are driven by this ideology and the ordinary people in the country who live with the consequences of it. If this Bill is at least a start in trying to redress that imbalance then I welcome it.

  [Source]

• 16 Jan 2024: Oral Answers to Questions

  I welcome the fact that, belatedly, the Government have accepted that, despite their net-zero policies, the oil and gas industry is important for the future in the United Kingdom. Does the Minister recognise that to benefit from the oil and gas in the North sea that will be released by the new licensing regime, we need to have refinery capacity? There has been little, if any, investment in refinery capacity, because of the uncertainty of the future and the carbon taxes placed on it. When will the Minister address that issue to ensure that we get the full benefit of the oil and gas that we extract from our shores?

  [Source]

• 28 Nov 2023: Oral Answers to Questions

  This year, receipts from the emissions trading scheme will reach a new peak of £6.2 billion. The effects of attacks on energy-intensive industries are felt by workers in the aluminium and steel industries, and this week by workers at Grangemouth, where one of our few remaining oil refineries is going to close. Despite what the Minister said earlier, is it not a fact that, rather than helping energy-intensive industries, net zero policies are destroying them and sending them overseas?

  [Source]

• 22 Nov 2023: Autumn Statement Resolutions

  17:27

  I would point out, however, that despite all these tax cuts, there are tax increases coming down the way for businesses. On green taxes, the Government have made much of wanting to try to reduce the cost of their net zero policies. The OBR forecasts suggest that environmental taxes are going to soar to £20 billion, that emissions trading taxes will go up by 50% in the next year and that environmental levies will be up 100% by 2026. That is a burden on businesses, and of course the planning policies that are being introduced are simply to allow for the expensive roll-out of the grid due to net zero policies.

  [Source]

• 7 Nov 2023: Debate on the Address

  17:01

  May I first, on behalf of the Democratic Unionist party, congratulate the King on his first King’s Speech and the way in which he delivered it? Our gratitude also goes to his mother, who for so long served our nation. I also congratulate the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address. However, when the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill) was being praised by some Members on the Opposition Front Bench, I must say that I wondered how they married up their commitment to net zero with the right hon. Gentleman’s pride in having three coal-guzzling steam engines and what that does to the carbon footprint in Yorkshire. Nevertheless, I am glad that some of the mad ideas—that we should change our lifestyles because of the threat from carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere—have not put him off.

  I am pleased that the Government have made a commitment to grant licences; the only thing I will say, given that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) is in her place, is this. The one threat that I see to the ability to deliver on that pledge is that those who oppose it have been handed a sledgehammer, which they will be able to use in judicial reviews and court cases, and so on, because we still have a commitment in legislation to reach net zero by 2050. We have seen it already. Every time an infrastructure project is proposed that requires the use of oil and gas, it is challenged in the courts on the basis that to allow it will detract from the ability to meet our target of net zero by 2050.

  [Source]

• 20 Jun 2023: Oral Answers to Questions

  Quite rightly, this Question Time has been dominated by questions about inflation and the cost of living. One policy that has not been mentioned is the Government’s net zero policy and the inflationary costs included in it, from green levies of £12 billion to the cost of strengthening the infrastructure and the favourable treatment given to renewable energy firms. While the Minister may condemn the Labour party for its £29 billion green policy spending plan, what is the cost of the Government’s net zero policies to consumers? Are they not picking their pockets dry?

  [Source]

• 5 Jun 2023: Reaching Net Zero: Local Government Role

  18:30

  In Northern Ireland, the local government elections have recently finished. For the past four or five weeks, I have been knocking on people’s doors and speaking to them about local government issues. Only one person mentioned net zero to me, and she objected to the stance I took against some of the lunatic decisions made by my local council in putting wind farms on some of the most beautiful upland areas of East Antrim, where they are visible from all around. One of the most iconic landmarks in the area, Slemish mountain—it is where St Patrick is supposed to have sat, surveying that part of North Antrim and then going out to evangelise—is now blighted by what can only be described as mechanical triffids, which have blotted the landscape. They are not good for the environment: at one wind farm, 3 metres of peat was taken off the mountain to put into roads and the foundations, disturbing the wildlife and habitat, providing mincing machines for birds in the future, and destroying the environment, probably releasing tonnes of carbon in the process.

  That was the only person who mentioned net zero: most people were concerned about zero rate increases, zero tolerance of antisocial behaviour and zero tolerance of people being allowed to dump rubbish across the area.

  I knock on a lot of doors all the time—not just at local elections—and although not many people mention net zero in that language, they do mention their energy bills. I wager that the right hon. Gentleman did hear from people who talked about their energy bills. Does he agree that urgent climate action is a good thing not only to protect the planet, but to make people’s homes warmer and to reduce their energy bills?

  In answer to the hon. Lady’s point, of course there are other ways and actions. One does not have to believe that net zero should be a target by 2050, or whatever the year happens to be, to see that it makes sense not to waste energy in people’s houses. It makes sense to build houses that are energy-efficient. No one is disputing that. The issue I am raising is that local authorities are pressed for money. I listen to all the issues raised about local authorities in debates in the House, and time and again I hear about social care provision and its inadequacy, education provision, policing, and special needs education. Given the range of concerns in the House, the question is whether local government’s priority should be seeking more grants to achieve net zero—to provide more facilities and projects that aim towards that—or the more pressing and immediate needs that people experience day to day.

  No, I do not, and nor does the evidence, which shows that the number of people who have died in extreme climate events has declined; it has fallen quite significantly during the past century. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not claim that the suggestion made by the hon. Lady is correct.

  Although many Members say they want this—indeed, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) used to talk about how he wanted Britain to be the leading country in the world in reducing carbon emissions and for it to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy—the rest of the world, sadly, is not following. That is significant, and this perhaps puts it into context: in the first quarter of this year, China’s increase in carbon emissions—not its total, but its increase in the first quarter of this year—is equal to the total yearly carbon emissions produced by the United Kingdom. When we put the fight against climate change and reaching net zero in that context, we have to ask ourselves, and I think many of our constituents will ask: why impose additional costs on us? Why interfere in the decisions that we make about how we travel, where we travel and the cost of that travel, as well as about the cost of our energy and everything else, when quite clearly those in the rest of the world, and for very good reasons, do not?

  [Source]

• 28 Feb 2023: Emissions Trading Schemes: Carbon Leakage Protection

  Since it was set up in 2020, the result of the UK emissions trading scheme has been that the cost of carbon allowances has consistently been much higher than in the EU and other competitive countries, partly due to the fact that the net zero policy has led to a reduction in those allowances. That has led to heavy industries such as steel, aluminium and oil refining going abroad, with a loss of jobs and strategic industries. Given the impact that this is having, will the Minister commit first to rejecting the 50% reduction in allowances planned for 2024, and secondly to reforming the cost containment mechanism to make it easier to intervene in future?

  [Source]

• 18 Jan 2023: Electric Vehicle Battery Production

  than a robust economic case. Is the Minister concerned that the company mentioned ballooning energy costs? BMW is moving its production of the Mini to China because it can get cheap energy there. How many more jobs will be sacrificed on the altar of a high energy cost net zero policy?

  [Source]

• 6 Dec 2022: Sustainable Energy Generation: Burning Trees

  10:13

  I apologise for being about 30 seconds late to the debate. There are a number of reasons why I am interested in the topic. First, the cost of the renewable energy initiative in Northern Ireland was £25 million, yet it led to the collapse of the Executive, no Government for three years and a public inquiry that, in the end, did not come up with any negative recommendations. Yet here we are discussing the initiative as it applies in England—burning wood pellets at a subsidy of £1 billion per year. I ask myself why, if it led to the collapse of Government in Northern Ireland, a public inquiry and a long period of no Government, are we not jumping up and down at the cost of a £1 billion per year subsidy for an RHI scheme?

  Secondly, I am keen on protecting the environment yet, as we have heard from speaker after speaker today, we have here a form of renewable energy that destroys the environment. It destroys woodland and the habitat of the animals, birds and flora that rely on that woodland. When we look back at a number of the renewable schemes that we have today, we will ask ourselves why we did not see their environmental impact. I know it is not the subject of our debate today, but if we look at the environmental damage done, for example, to provide windmills in Scotland, some 13 million trees have been torn down already to provide the sites and peatlands have been dug up and huge concrete bases and roads have been put in those upland areas, destroying many of the drainage systems there. In my own constituency, I noticed 3 metres of peat being taken off a hillside at a time when curlew and other birds will be nesting in those hillsides. Many people genuinely believe that we have to go down the road of having renewable energy, but, very often, the focus on it simply being renewable means that we ignore the environmental consequences of such energy provision.

  That is another of the ironies in this debate that is being ignored. We ignore the fact that we are taking a forest from one country and bringing it over to burn it in our country, and we are paying the cost of that. I will conclude at this point, but I hope that today generates a wider debate on the whole use of renewable energy.

  [Source]

• 21 Nov 2022: Autumn Statement Resolutions

  18:41

  First, may I say at the outset that I do not fall into the group who blame the Government for all of the problems that we face? We must recognise the impact of the covid period on supply chains not just in our country but across the world. Whether the lockdown was advisable, I was one of the few in the House who believed that it was not, that it was prolonged for far too long and that it would have an economic and health impact, and it did. Of course, there is also the war in Ukraine and the cynical use of energy that we have become dependent on. Again, the policy of pursuing net zero, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, not producing our own and so on, has come back to bite us. We were also slow in identifying the inflationary tendencies in the economy, so we did not take the appropriate monetary policies at the right time. Once the Americans decided that they were going to tackle inflation through higher interest rates, it was inevitable that we would find ourselves in the same situation.

  [Source]

• 25 Oct 2022: Rare Minerals and Metals

  The Government’s plan for net zero by 2050 is unplanned and uncosted. On top of that, we now have the difficulty of finding the metals that are needed for batteries, magnets and the required systems, because China controls 60% of earth metals. Only this week, a Finnish Government report indicated that there is not enough lithium in the world for the batteries that are required for motor cars and battery storage. How will the Government deliver on that unrealistic target?

  [Source]

• 16 Nov 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  Does the Secretary of State at least accept that immediate environmental damage is being caused by the pursuit of renewable energy, with 13 million trees cut down in Scotland for wind farms, forests devastated across the world to produce ethanol for petrol, and Drax power station importing millions of tonnes of wood from America each year? Does he not accept that in an attempt to control the world’s climate, we are actually damaging the environment right now?

  [Source]

• 2 Nov 2021: Oral Answers to Questions

  Given the commitments that the Prime Minister is making at the climate circus in Glasgow this week, how can the Chancellor possibly say that the public finances will be managed effectively when the huge costs of net zero are not even published by the Treasury, let alone known by the public? We are already seeing taxes increasing to pay for the huge infrastructure changes that reaching net zero is going to entail.

  [Source]

• 11 May 2021: Debate on the Address

  19:29

  The second thing that I want to discuss is the commitment that the Government have made to setting “binding environmental targets”. I know that, ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, the Government are engaging in international virtue signalling, but there is no point in setting such targets unless they spell out what the impact will be on the people. I noted that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said in her speech today, “We can reduce CO 2 emissions and still have economic growth; we have done that.” The truth of the matter is, of course, that we have reduced CO 2 emissions by divesting ourselves of many of our heavy and energy-intensive industries, such as steel, aluminium and many others. It is not that the CO 2 emissions have ceased; we have simply moved them to another country.

  If we are going to set targets to reduce CO 2 emissions, the Government must spell out how they are going to do that. Does more renewable energy mean that we add to the £12 billion a year that electricity consumers pay in their electricity bills for renewable energy subsidies? Does it mean greater restrictions on people’s ability to fly because we make flying—one of the big producers of CO 2 —more expensive? What impact will that have on people’s ability to go on their annual holiday? Does it mean we insist that people have more expensive ways of heating their houses? It is estimated to cost £20,000 to invest in heat pumps and so on to make a house energy-efficient. Are consumers going to pay that? The Committee on Climate Change says we will have to eat less dairy products and meat. Are we even going to tell people what their diet should be? If we are going to set these targets, then the Government have got to be honest. They cannot simply set a target and not spell out how it will impact on people’s choices and freedom, and what we would regard, in a free society, as the ways in which people can make those choices.

  The Prime Minister said that he wants to put rocket fuel into the economy after the pandemic. I hope that it is rocket fuel and not a damp squib. My fear relates to issues about the Union. If the Government do not deal properly with the levelling-up programme and the divisive impact of the Northern Ireland protocol, as well as the impact that that has on Scottish nationalism, then he will not achieve that objective. If we continue to pursue these high-level climate change CO 2 -reducing targets, are we going to find more and more that people’s personal choices are affected, that fuel poverty increases as energy bills go up, and that we chase away energy-intensive industries and lose jobs? If we are going to move in that direction, I believe we do not have a Government who are free market, free choice and pro-Union, but a Government who act against all those fundamental principles of the Conservative party. That is why I want to see, and why I believe it is important that we see, the detail of the Queen’s Speech.

  [Source]

• 19 Apr 2021: Finance (No. 2) Bill

  20:15

  New clause 21 seeks a report on the impact of the super deduction on progress towards the Government’s climate emissions targets and capital investment in each of the next five years. It is important that we understand properly not just the impact that the super deduction is expected to have but the impact it actually has, because it is one of the most significant spending measures in the Budget and a very significant giveaway to big business.

  [Source]

• 15 Dec 2020: United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

  14:30

  Baroness Bennett highlighted that much leadership on climate change has actually originated from the devolved Governments. Lord Hope explained that his amendments seek to ensure that the UK Government’s commitment to market access principles do not undermine the UK Government’s commitment on the common frameworks. On policy divergence, he warns:

  [Source]

• 11 Mar 2020: Budget Resolutions

  16:38

  Having said that, this Government will still be dipping into the pockets of the people of the United Kingdom to the tune of £18 billion next year in various green taxes. The carbon tax that the Chancellor proposes to impose on gas will impact severely on energy bills. We still produce a lot of our energy, and people still have to heat their homes using gas. That carbon tax will substantially increase those people’s bills, especially when one remembers that 20% of electricity bills at present are taken up with various green levies and green costs. On top of that, some of the bill is made up of infrastructure costs, which are incurred only because of the move towards more wind energy and so on. The tax on gas will have an impact on many people, especially in places such as Northern Ireland, where we rely heavily on gas for electricity generation.

  The announcements on infrastructure spending are important. I welcome the expenditure on roads and infrastructure projects across the United Kingdom. The one thing that I have some concern about, though, is that the Government are proposing to spend £110 billion on infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament, but—as we have seen with the Heathrow expansion decision—these projects are under threat from the challenges we face due to commitments made in the Paris agreement and the Climate Change Act 2008. I believe that those who are determined to prevent the infrastructure developments that are necessary to make this country work will use the courts to try to stop many infrastructure projects that the Government are proposing. That is because all of those projects—roads, housebuilding, airport expansion, railways—will have some impact on CO 2 emissions, through concrete production, steelmaking, the building process and so on.

  The broad criticism that has been levelled at this Budget is that we surely needed a plan to decarbonise the transport system and it is not yet clear from today’s presentation whether we got that.

  The right hon. Gentleman has missed my point. All decarbonisation—whether we decarbonise energy, transport or what we eat—has an implication for people’s jobs, living costs and so on, and we have to ask what the country’s priority should be. Do we really want to impose the sort of burdens that those kinds of priorities put on the people of the United Kingdom? We cannot say that we want to protect jobs, to keep standards of living up and costs of living down, and to give people the freedom to go on their holidays and to eat what they want, and at the same time say, “But let’s absorb ourselves in this carbon obsession”, which affects all those things. Members cannot have it both ways. At some stage, we will need to have a discussion about where our priorities ought to lie.

  [Source]

• 25 Jun 2018: National Policy Statement: Airports

  21:20

  On the one hand, we have been told that this is going to wreck our climate change targets. For those who find that an important issue, the only answer is of course to reduce the number of passengers. However, nobody has suggested that; they have all suggested that we should have passengers flying from regional airports. Well, those passengers will still produce carbon dioxide, and they will still contribute overall. If they fly from Schiphol, they will still burn carbon to get to Schiphol and from there to wherever they are going. Either it affects climate change or it does not. In fact, the only honest person was the Member from the Green party, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who wants people to stop flying, but I do not believe that that is an alternative.

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• 24 Jan 2017: UK Decarbonisation and Carbon Capture and Storage

  15:23

  The first point of contention I want to make is that we seem uncritically to have accepted the mantra that we must decarbonise energy production. I know people say we have the Paris agreement, climate change obligations and so on, but we also need to look behind the mantra to see what the term means and has meant, and how it currently affects households, industry and business in the United Kingdom. The old Department of Energy and Climate Change estimated that to decarbonise the electricity and energy industries effectively by 2040, we needed 40,000 offshore and 20,000 onshore wind turbines and a new fleet of nuclear power stations, and that all coal and gas use would have to be subject to carbon capture and storage. That would happen at enormous cost, and we have already seen the impact on fuel poverty.

  According to the Scottish household survey, there was a 25% increase in the number of households in fuel poverty in Scotland between 2011 and 2013. In Northern Ireland, there was an increase of nearly 100%. Why? Fuel bills go up because we have decided we want to produce energy more expensively. That is the first thing we need to realise in the debate. Decarbonisation means significant costs to the economy. Of course, this is at a time when we are talking about becoming more globally competitive, and when China and India, which signed the Paris agreement, tell us that every year they will increase their CO 2 by the amount of our total CO 2 emissions.

  The Government are right not to go ahead with the second exercise until they are sure of the answers to those questions. Even more fundamentally, they must ask whether the impact of decarbonising the economy on consumers, workers, industry and investment is worth it.

  [Source]

• 13 Dec 2016: Oral Answers to Questions

  This week, a senior Ofgem executive warned that, as a result of our higher reliance on renewable energy, consumers may face the possibility of having to pay a premium to ensure that they have a reliable source of electricity to their homes and without having their lights turned off. What discussions has the Minister had with Ofgem on that, and are the Government considering the policy of relying on costly renewable energy rather than on cheaper fossil fuels?

  [Source]

• 28 Jun 2016: Finance Bill

  15:30

  While there may have been a drop from 11.7% of total receipts to 8.3%, will the hon. Gentleman accept that other new forms of taxation, such as climate change levies and other climate taxes, have been imposed on businesses and have increased total tax revenues? The cake is bigger, so the slice of corporation tax is smaller, but the total amount is larger.

  The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the climate change levy. Changes in this Finance Bill effectively make the climate change levy just another tax, because it will no longer be used by the Government as a lever to change behaviour, which is why Labour dislikes the proposal. Business tax has probably gone up a bit overall, but what has happened in the economy, which the Minister described as fundamentally strong, is that employment is up by almost 2.5 million, and we salute that as a considerable achievement.

  [Source]

• 18 May 2016: Debate on the Address

  21:23

  The second big issue that is not dealt with is energy policy. The better markets Bill will enable people, through competition, to lower their energy bills. However, the whole issue of energy costs is caused not just by the lack of competition but by the Government’s bigger policy of decarbonising energy and greater use of renewables, and the cost that that imposes on industry. I sympathise with many of the points that Labour Members have made about the decline of the steel industry and many of the other high-energy industries that have been lost in Labour heartlands, but this is partly due to an energy policy that is designed to chase those very industries out of the United Kingdom and towards places where the same policies are not in place. That is another area where I would like to see more imagination and the Government doing more.

  [Source]

• 13 Jan 2016: Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity

  17:14

  The last issue is boosting manufacturing industry. A number of contributions today have highlighted the issue of energy costs. The steel industry is only one example, and in Northern Ireland recently we have lost a lot of jobs from huge employers who cited energy costs as one of the main reasons. There appears to be a schizophrenic attitude, even from the Government. Although they are removing subsidies from the most expensive form of electricity generation, even today at Question Time the Prime Minister, while on the one hand saying it was more expensive to produce green energy, boasted about the amount of green energy in the pipeline that would be introduced in future. If that is the aim, let us be honest: we will find that we make it difficult for some kinds of manufacturers. It is significant that onshoring in the US has occurred as energy prices have come down. That is a lesson for us.

  [Source]

• 26 Oct 2015: Finance Bill

  17:15

  Let me turn to the lengthier debate we have had about reforms of vehicle excise duty. The hon. Lady raised a concern that they may damage UK car manufacturing and penalise cars built in the United Kingdom. We are not doing that. The supplement will apply to all cars worth more than £40,000, regardless of where they are manufactured, and we are supporting cars such as the Nissan Leaf, which is built in Sunderland, through zero rates for zero-emission cars. We think it is fair that more expensive cars pay more than ordinary family cars.

  On the accusation that it is unfair that cars that are more fuel efficient pay the same as gas-guzzling vehicles, I would argue that they do not. Under the new system, the first-year rates for the highest-emitting cars will be doubled compared with the current system. Zero-emission cars will continue to pay no annual VED rate, and more expensive, bigger, higher-polluting cars will pay the standard rate supplement, so there will be incentives to buy smaller, lower-emitting cars on the second-hand market. What is unfair in the current system is that those who can afford to buy a brand-new car pay less than those who cannot do so. That point was made by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). In the new system, those who can afford an expensive car will pay more.

  [Source]

  19:00

  The short response to what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that massive subsidies deployed in other countries are being authorised by the European Commission, but we do not get them. As the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said just now, there is an increasing failure in renewable energy because it is too expensive and the subsidies are a complete disaster zone.

  One can see a bit of a pattern with what is happening with the removal at 28 days’ notice of the climate change levy exemption for electricity from renewable sources used by non-domestics—non-doms, as it were. The Liberal Democrat policy was for the percentage of taxation to come from environmental taxes to keep rising year on year, and when the Liberal Democrats first came up with that crazy idea in about 2007 I pointed out that it was a bit self-defeating. That has been formally abandoned by this Government, which is not necessarily a mistake, but in the context the issue is what has or has not replaced that policy. Support for large onshore wind is being cut, and support for photovoltaics is being ended one year early. The Government’s policy is to lessen air passenger duty, and they aim to abolish it and to expand airports. That is not good news for the environment. The policy on zero-carbon homes for 2016 is being scrapped, not just diluted. There is a massive nuclear subsidy, which we heard about last week with the visit from China. What will our nuclear industry be built on? State support from China and from France.

  The Government are contemplating huge subsidies in a panic over energy security, which of course will not guarantee energy security as it will take so long to build a new fleet, as they are pleased to call it, of nuclear power stations. Meanwhile, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North points out, we have the craziness of all this abundant coal yet quite insufficient Government-funded CCS research and development through which we could proceed to the gasification of coal as North sea gas is running out.

  The Department of Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth wrote to me on 26 August saying that the Government had committed to delivering on the national infrastructure plan published in December 2014, which contained a number of priority investments. He went on to list some of them. One is rail electrification, and we know what has happened to that—it is on pause. Another is low-carbon energy such as nuclear; we know the cost of that, which is enormous. A third is low-carbon energy such as renewables, but clause 45 is going in the wrong direction on that. Lord Bourne also cites energy efficiency measures such as smart meters, but the evidence on them is mixed, to say the least. Before Conservative Members jump up, I know that it was a Labour Government who started down that route and it struck me as a very odd thing to do at the time.

  [Source]

• 21 Jul 2015: Finance Bill

  15:09

  The other thing I wish to raise is the whole issue of taxes on energy. The reasoned amendment talks about the removal of the exemption from the climate change levy on the onshore wind. I accept the argument that the Government have given. Given that many of the companies involved are owned abroad, the tax concession given to them was not benefitting people here in the United Kingdom. We also need to bear in mind not only that there is huge opposition to many of the renewable sources, on the grounds of aesthetics and environmental impact, but that people are becoming increasingly aware of the cost of switching from cheap fossil fuels to expensive renewable energy, in terms of fuel poverty and the impact on industry.

  The renewables obligation is an obligation because the energy is more expensive. Indeed, the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s own estimation is that, by 2020, the cost of paying for expensive renewable energy, more and more of which is coming on to the grid, will be about £190 per household. At the same time, we in this House complain about fuel poverty, when one of the contributors to fuel poverty is the fact that we are orientating ourselves towards more expensive electricity generation. Only last week there were complaints about Tata Steel closing down its plant.

  Of course, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong when he talks about there being no price on carbon. We are talking about the climate change levy. That is one of the costs of carbon. There is also the cost of the European trading scheme, in which carbon is traded and carbon allowances are given, so of course there is already a cost.

  Perhaps the hon. Lady takes a different view of what is small and what is large from what I do, but the £13.6 billion of subsidies that go to renewables do not simply come from the Government. They come from households, who pay for it in their electricity bills. That is why I support the Government’s attempts to remove some of the subsidies that consumers have to pay; £13.6 billion, or £190 per household, is hardly to be regarded as a small sum. My only worry is that environmental levies such as the climate change levy and the EU carbon trading scheme will rise from £5.6 billion this year to £16.1 billion by the end of this Parliament, which will add to energy costs and have an impact on industry and on household bills.

  The right hon. Gentleman compares nuclear energy with renewable energy, but of course we have the option of gas, oil and coal. Before the hon. Member from the Green party becomes apoplectic about the impact of those energy sources, let me point out that some of the drivers in Europe who want to push us towards renewables, especially the Germans, are building coal-fired power stations because they are concerned about their industry and their economy. I welcome those aspects of the Finance Bill, and that is one reason why I will not support the reasoned amendment. I think that the Government are right and we have to redress the balance. We have to ask what is important for the UK economy and for UK consumers.

  [Source]

• 18 Jun 2014: Energy Prices

  18:37

  One issue that has not been touched on much in the debate, although the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) mentioned it, is the aspect of energy policy and prices over which the House has some control—the increasing reliance on renewable energy. I notice that the Secretary of State boasted that we are the best place in the world for onshore and offshore wind power, but his boast is paid for by our consumers. According to his Department, in 2013 electricity prices were 17% higher as a result of feed-in tariffs, carbon taxes, smart meters, additional infrastructure costs and so on. By 2020, those factors will add 33% to electricity prices. Some Members, such as the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), suggested that we should have more renewables, but more of that sort of policy will add to the cost of household bills.

  [Source]

• 4 Feb 2014: Energy Company Charges

  17:58

  Northern Ireland has one of the highest levels of energy bills, and we have certainly had the highest increases in recent years. That is the result of a range of issues, including the green energy policies of central Government that add £100 a year to energy bills. On top of that, perverse incentives lead to direct debit increases for consumers.

  [Source]

• 4 Dec 2013: Energy Bill

  16:15

  That has been estimated to be another £1 billion or so. It would be very sensible to reduce the costs on the national health and to allow that money to be refocused on paying for the required investment in tackling fuel poverty. If we can reduce the demand for energy, that could also reduce the cost of upgrading our energy infrastructure. We know already that £100 billion is being talked about to subsidise new nuclear energy in this country. We would not have to spend quite as much if we could manage down the demand for energy. There is also around £4 billion in carbon taxes that could be focused on tackling fuel poverty.

  The other benefit that would flow from my proposal is that at least 130,000 jobs would be generated. Not only would that address a massive social need, given that there are more than 1 million unemployed young people in our country, but it would be a big boost to our economy. We also have our legal obligations, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. If we are serious about delivering on those obligations, it seems pretty clear that we need to do something about managing demand in our country and not simply look at creating additional capacity. If we are to reach that decarbonisation target, we must do more to reduce the demand for energy in the first place.

  [Source]

• 18 Nov 2013: Energy Bill (Carry-Over Extension)

  20:59

  Just this week, there have been discussions in Poland about climate change policy, but the Polish Government have made it clear that they intend to keep on burning coal. As the hon. Member for Christchurch said, the targets in the Bill, for which an extension is now sought, seem to be at odds not only with what has been said by other European nations, including Poland and Germany, but with what is happening in other parts of the world. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity afforded by the extension to consider the direction of energy policy—the commitments the Government are now making to look at the cost of energy, and the Opposition’s attempts to pillory the Government over that issue—so that we do not go down such a route. There is a certain irony that the Opposition, who have been complaining the most about energy prices, support such an energy policy in debates in the House.

  [Source]

• 23 Oct 2013: Air Passenger Duty

  16:21

  There is, of course, general concern about electricity prices, the cost of air travel and a whole range of issues affecting the UK economy. The previous Government were, of course, the same on green issues as the present Government, but the zeal of UK Governments to deal with such issues is not found in other parts of the world or of Europe, and that places us at a disadvantage. We have to stop this King Canute attitude to climate change whereby the UK Government think that they can somehow use fiscal powers to affect what is happening to the climate across the world, although they are damaging our own economy at the same time.

  A label has been attached to the hon. Gentleman—quite unfairly, I am sure—to the effect that he is a climate change denier. I cannot believe for one moment that that could be true. Would he like to take the opportunity to put on record the fact that he actually believes that there is climate change?

  Only a fool would deny that there is climate change. The world’s climate has been changing ever since the world was in existence. The question is what is the cause of that climate change, and what impact might the fiscal measures introduced by the House have on it.

  On measures to address climate change, does the hon. Gentleman agree that air passenger duty has led to passenger change? Instead of flying from UK domestic airports, people are going to Schiphol, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid for their long-haul flights, which means that the UK just loses out.

  [Source]

• 10 Sep 2013: Climate Change Act

  15:14

  All reason and self-critical analysis go out of the window when people address this subject. When I was the Environment Minister in Northern Ireland, I refused to use some of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s scary propaganda and adverts, and I was censured by the Assembly. When I pointed out to the mover of the censure motion that he had driven to the Assembly that morning in a 4x4 that did about 12 miles per gallon; that his mileage claim for the previous year would have taken him twice around the globe; and that his carbon footprint was enormous, he did not seem to see any irony in the fact that I did not believe what he believed about climate change and the man-made contribution to it, or in the fact that he was moving a motion against my position.

  That is one of the problems. Even in today’s debate, we have exchanged the science, the figures and the graphs, but people still do not want to believe what they see before their eyes. I do not want to go into all the figures that have been given today, other than to say that, if the Minister talks about trends, is 150 years not a long enough trend? Yet the increase over 150 years is 0.8° C, even though masses of carbon has been put into the air. If we look at short-term trends—when the Climate Change Bill was passing through Parliament, we were told to look at the short term as well—over 10 years we have seen a 0.08° C increase, despite the fact that carbon emissions have gone up.

  I do not want to get into the premise behind the issue; I want to get into the cost behind the policy. I started looking at the Treasury’s Budget 2013. The costs were never hidden; at least we were always told that there would be costs—£18 billion a year. Let us first look at the cost to industry. If we look through the Budget book, there are a number of costs. First, there is the carbon reduction commitment, which affects service and manufacturing industries. It costs more than £1 billion a year and rising. There is the carbon price floor, which wipes out—in fact, by more than double—the impact of the reduction in corporation tax this year. Over the life of this Parliament, it will take £4.4 billion away from industry. The climate change levy will cost £1.5 million this year. Put together, miscellaneous environmental levies will cost £6.7 billion this year, and that is only the cost to industry.

  Let us look at the cost to consumers. Last week in the Chamber we debated the cost of electricity to consumers. Taking DECC’s own figures on the impact of climate change policies on business electricity bills, bills will be up by 22% this year, 46% by 2020 and 66% by 2030.

  Every time we go on our holidays, we pay for climate change. Every time we pay our council tax bills, we pay for climate change. In 2007, £102 million was set aside for climate change advisers, climate change managers, carbon reduction advisers and so on, and the situation is probably far worse now. Whether we are paying our council tax or electricity bills, or looking at jobs, the impact is quite dramatic.

  [Source]

• 4 Sep 2013: Energy Prices and Profits

  18:13

  Like the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), I want to make some comments about the element of our energy costs that is not dealt with in the motion. That part is the cost of decarbonising—as it is now called—our energy supply. Despite what people have said, it has added costs to the consumer and is going to continue to do so. We cannot be schizophrenic about this by on the one hand condemning the increase in energy prices and on the other hand supporting policies that are contributing to that.

  Let us look at the costs. Because renewable energy is so expensive, there is a compulsion to purchase electricity under the renewables obligation at much higher prices than fossil fuels. The figures have been quoted today. Offshore wind is now the favoured option. It is three and a half times more expensive than gas, and that will probably change further, especially as gas prices will come down with fracking.

  There are also the increased costs of distribution to link up all the diverse sources. The National Grid recently published a consultation document, “Demand Side Balancing Reserve and Supplemental Balancing Reserve”, in which it talks about linking into generators across the country which could lead to electricity being bought at 30 times the cost of that generated by gas. There is the question of all the back-up and infrastructure that will be required for when wind drops off, too. All those things need to be addressed, which means that many Members will have to tackle their prejudices on some of the issues around climate change and carbon in the atmosphere.

  [Source]

• 14 May 2012: Business and the Economy

  19:21

  That is a euphemism for expensive electricity. I think we all know that the pursuit of renewable electricity has added considerably to energy bills in the United Kingdom and put us at a competitive disadvantage. Whatever we call it, clean energy, green energy or wind power costs three and a half times more than coal or gas-fired power. If the Government are going to keep going down that route, they will suck growth back out of the economy in the pursuit of helping the renewables industry.

  [Source]

• 6 Dec 2011: The Economy

  19:05

  First, I welcome a number of things set out in the autumn statement, such as the increased money for infrastructure that will come to Northern Ireland. It will not make up for the 40% cut in capital spending announced in the Budget, but it will fill some of the gaps. Secondly, I wish the Chancellor well in his battle with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and perhaps the Prime Minister, as he takes on the green lobby and seeks to strike a balance in the economy and redress the damage that many green policies are doing to industry.

  [Source]

• 19 Oct 2011: Energy Prices

  16:23

  A second cause is lack of investment. Because of that lack of investment and because of the demand that exists, prices are bound to be fairly buoyant anyway, and there is a captive market. A third—I suspect that many people will secretly agree with this, but will not be prepared to say so openly—is the impact of the Government’s climate change policies. When we say that because we want a low-carbon economy we will charge those who use carbon-based fuels in ways that cause carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere, and when we say that we will introduce policies to stop that happening, we cannot run away from the fact that such action will have implications for people’s fuel bills throughout the United Kingdom. The facts are clear. This year, simply to deal with the renewables obligations, being forced to purchase electricity from renewable sources has added £1.8 billion to the cost of producing electricity, and by 2020 the cost will be £6 billion a year. According to the Department’s own estimates, domestic consumers will face a 33% increase in the cost of electricity and non-domestic consumers such as industry will face an increase of 43%.

  I support the motion, but it makes a rather glib reference to climate change. Many people will feel that they can agree with such sentiments, but behind them is the reality of what will happen to fuel bills: people will pay more for their energy. Denmark, not our country, has the highest costs per unit and the highest fuel bills, and Denmark produces 20% of its electricity from wind power. That is the highest proportion in Europe. The lowest costs are in France, which produces 75% of its energy from nuclear power.

  We say that we want 30% of our electricity to be generated by offshore wind by 2030, but that has implications for consumers across the United Kingdom. Regardless of our views on climate change, there ought to be some honesty in this debate. I do not know what the impact on global temperatures might be if we were to decarbonise our economy and reduce our CO 2 emissions, which account for 2% of the world’s CO 2 emissions, by 10% or 20% by 2020, but there will be a price to be paid by each of our constituents, and we ought to make that clear.

  In the longer term, we have to be realistic about green policies. I welcome the Chancellor’s remarks that we should not be pursuing policies on decarbonising the economy if they place our economy at a disadvantage compared with others across the world. While the European Union is preaching about reducing carbon emissions, the German Government have a much more realistic view. They are actually investing in 20 coal-fired power stations and in nuclear, because they want to find ways of producing cheap energy. In the long term we have to look at our investment priorities and whether we are following the correct policy. If, in the long term, we wish to invest in that way, we need to consider how we are going to deal with the consequences.

  [Source]

• 12 Oct 2011: Jobs and Growth

  16:40

  Some fiscal measures have been suggested here today. It has been suggested that we need not increase spending and reduce taxes to create extra demand. Instead, we could direct extra spending towards the activities that create the biggest multiplier effect—for instance, spending on housing and reductions in VAT, whether for extensions to houses or for the tourist industry. There are measures that do not cost a penny, such as reducing regulation. I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement that he will not stick to the carbon reduction targets. As one who voted against the Climate Change Act 2008, I am pleased to observe that some reality is now entering that debate. Why should we impose a 40% increase in energy costs on our industry when that is not being done elsewhere, with the aim of reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere and thereby somehow or other affecting the climate?

  [Source]

• 23 Mar 2011: Amendment of the Law

  14:43

  Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the whole purpose of a carbon tax is to incentivise firms to change their behaviour so that those that do change their behaviour by producing goods more sustainably will pay less carbon tax and benefit from reduced corporation tax and those that do not will pay more?

  [Source]

• 6 Apr 2010: Climate Change: Publicity

  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how much his Department has spent on advertising aimed at raising awareness of climate change among (a) all people and (b) people under the age of 18 since its establishment. ( 319424 )

  [Source]

• 17 Mar 2010: Climate Change: Publicity

  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how much his Department had spent on its advertising campaign Act on CO 2 at the latest date for which information is available. ( 319440 )

  [Source]

• 15 Mar 2010: Developing Countries: Climate Change

  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much his Department spent on assisting developing countries dealing with the effects of climate change in each of the last five years. ( 321646 )

  [Source]

• 2 Mar 2010: Climatic Research Unit

  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how much funding his Department has provided to the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in each of the last five years. ( 319423 )

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• 22 Feb 2010: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what his Department’s most recent assessment is of the accuracy of reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ( 316589 )

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• 14 Jan 2010: Climate Change: International Co-operation

  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many (a) Ministers and (b) officials of his Department attended the Copenhagen climate change conference; and at what cost to the public purse. ( 309180 )

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• 7 Jan 2010: Climate Change: International Cooperation

  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many (a) Ministers and (b) officials of his Department attended the Copenhagen climate change conference; and at what cost to the public purse. ( 309178 )

  [Source]

• 6 Jan 2010: Climatic Research Unit

  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what information the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has provided to his Department since its inception. ( 309170 )

  [Source]

See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate