15:05 Andrew Bowie (Conservative)

(c) ensuring that communities surrounding wind farms have a statutory right to benefit from local renewable energy development.”

New clause 6— Net zero power supply—

“(1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the aggregate amount of net emissions of carbon dioxide and net emissions of each of the other targeted greenhouse gases associated with the supply of power in the UK in 2035 is zero.

(2) The Secretary of State must by regulations provide for the means of calculation of net emissions of carbon dioxide and of each of the other targeted greenhouse gases for the purposes of subsection (1).

(3) The means of calculation provided for in regulations under subsection (2) must be consistent with the means of calculation of the net UK carbon account for the purposes of section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008.

(4) For the purposes of this section a “targeted greenhouse gas” has the same meaning as given in section 24 of the Climate Change Act 2008.”

This new clause is intended to provide for the UK’s power supply to be net zero by 2035.

(d) define “low carbon electricity” in such a way that it includes renewable generation technology and may include other technology with extremely low carbon dioxide emissions,

New clause 12— Prohibition on flaring and venting and enhanced measures to reduce fugitive methane emissions—

(b) require monthly leak detection and repair inspections to reduce fugitive methane emissions,

(c) require a measurement, reporting and verification process to quantify methane emissions, and

(2) The Secretary of State must, in developing the Warmer Homes and Businesses Action Plan, consult the Climate Change Committee and its sub-committee on adaptation.”

New clause 19 —Decarbonisation of capacity market—

(b) the supply of renewable energy, and

This new clause is a probing amendment to explore the potential of decarbonising the capacity market.

(b) the impact of improving all homes to the highest possible Energy Performance Contract rating on energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions.”

“(1) Within three months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament a report setting out the financial, policy and other support that the Secretary of State plans to make available to widen the ownership of low carbon and renewable energy schemes and increase the number of such schemes owned, or part owned, by community organisations.

(ii) the Urban Renewable Energy Fund, and

New clause 25 —Investment protection agreements and climate change targets—

(ii) an assessment of the risks they pose to the Secretary of State fulfilling duties in this Act with regard to the achievement of targets set by the Climate Change Act 2008.”

(b) advancement of the UK’s climate change commitments, including—

(i) the target for 2050 set out in section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008, and

(c) facilitation of a just transition for oil and gas workers and communities.

(f) relevant industry representatives of petroleum and renewable energy businesses supporting the transition away from fossil fuels, and

(5) Relevant climate and environmental organisations and representatives under subsection (4(e)) must include the Climate Change Committee.”

This new clause would amend the Petroleum Act 1998 to remove the principal objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum and replace it with a new principal objective to deliver a managed and orderly phase down of UK petroleum, advance the UK’s climate targets, and support a just transition for oil and gas workers.

This new clause probes the potential of decarbonising the capacity market.

(2) In preparing the Energy Demand Reduction Delivery Plan under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult the Climate Change Committee.

(a) a quantitative assessment on the role of energy demand reduction in meeting the United Kingdom's carbon budgets and the 2050 net zero target;

in line with the UK’s carbon budgets and the 2050 net zero target; and

(5) The Climate Change Committee must evaluate, monitor and report annually on the implementation of the Energy Demand Reduction Delivery Plan.”

New clause 35 —Energy decarbonisation for homes: local authority funding—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the date on which this Act is passed, carry out and publish an assessment of the benefits of providing long-term predictable funding to local authorities for the purpose of energy decarbonisation for homes in their local authority area.

(2) The assessment under subsection (1) must include an assessment of the likely impact of decarbonisation funding on—

(4) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide that any nationally significant infrastructure project of over 50mw unable to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that its goods, or materials in the goods, were not mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part by forced labour must be recommended for rejection by the Planning Inspectorate upon the submission of the Inspection to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

(c) a whole energy market analysis to establish and quantify the potential contribution of tidal range power to the decarbonisation of the United Kingdom’s energy system with particular reference to the value of predictable, flexible energy generation near centres of increasing demand and the potential of operational tidal range projects to bypass major grid barrier issues and enable a stable, operable, and secure decarbonised energy grid;

(d) define “low carbon electricity” in such a way that it includes renewable generation technology and may include other technology with extremely low carbon dioxide emissions,

New clause 59 —Decarbonised electricity supply by 2030—

“(1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the supply of electricity in the UK is decarbonised by 2030.

This new clause is intended to provide for the UK’s electricity supply to be decarbonised by 2030.

(2) The Secretary of State must, in developing the Warmer Homes and Businesses Action Plan, consult the Climate Change Committee and its sub-committee on adaptation.”

This amendment allows persons with a CO2 storage licence from the North Sea Transition Authority to operate a geological storage site for CO2 disposal, as per current legislation in the Energy Act 2010.

This amendment would exclude from the requirement to have an economic licence, all forms of transportation where competitive markets are more likely to develop than monopolies e.g. shipping, rail or road. It would also enable investment in private spur connections to the regulated CO2 network.

Carbon dioxide transport by ship is almost certain to be a part of the Scottish Cluster and subsequent phases of other CCUS clusters and this amendment makes explicit that transportation by ship or other means would be included in the financial assistance available under clause 103.

The United Kingdom already has a great story to tell on reducing our carbon emissions. We have reduced our emissions faster than any other G7 nation. We were the first European nation to legislate for net zero. We have the first oil and gas basin dedicated to going net zero and the first, second, third and fourth-largest offshore wind farms in the world operating and generating power off the coast of Great Britain right now. We have eliminated our reliance on coal. We have grown to more than 40% of energy being generated by renewables. We have announced further investment in carbon capture, usage and storage, and we are pressing ahead with Great British Nuclear, which I launched two months ago with an exciting programme for small modular reactors. We are on track to deliver 24 GW of nuclear power on the grid by 2025.

It is true that some time has passed since the Bill was introduced in July last year. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), was but a boy when this Bill was introduced last year. A huge amount of constructive dialogue and dedicated work has taken place during that time. I thank all the Secretaries of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Ministers and the Prime Ministers who have been involved since the Bill was introduced.

On infrastructure of national scale, in order to keep people on side, is it not also vital that such projects are in the right place—unlike the Sunnica development near my constituency—so that those of us who care about the agenda can support it wholeheartedly and ensure that the Conservative values that the Minister talks about are rightly behind the green energy revolution?

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15:15 Andrew Bowie (Conservative)

As the recent biomass strategy made clear, such fuels will have a critical role to play in decarbonising our economy. We recognise that they have the potential to play an important role in decarbonising heat, especially as not all off-grid properties will be suitable for electrification. We will explore the potential of these fuels for heat by issuing a consultation within 12 months. We want to take the powers now to support the use of these fuels in heat in the future, should they be needed. That is why we tabled Government new clause 63, taking powers to impose obligations on heating fuel suppliers to increase the supply of renewable liquid heating fuels.

Once again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I was just about to answer his original question: I can confirm that officials from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in London have been in discussion with Northern Ireland officials, who are broadly content with the Government’s approach on this issue. However, conversations will continue with Northern Ireland officials on what we can do to support renewable liquid heating fuels in Northern Ireland. Once again, as on the other issues I have specified, I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman and colleagues from across Northern Ireland to discuss how this Government can ensure that the support delivered in Great Britain can be replicated in Northern Ireland.

I would like to turn briefly to community energy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) for his continued engagement on the Bill, particularly his championing of community energy, alongside many others in this House. The Government recognise that community energy projects can have real benefits for the communities in which they are based, and are keen to ensure that they deliver value for money for consumers. That is why we have launched a new £10 million community energy fund, which expands on the success of the previous rural community energy fund, to enable both rural and urban communities across England to access grant funding to develop local renewable energy projects for investment.

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15:30 Angus Brendan MacNeil (Cardiff North) (Lab)

Yes, I can confirm that I will raise that issue with Ofgem at my next meeting, and at the next available opportunity I have to meet the Chairman of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, I will certainly have an answer for him on that question.

This is the biggest piece of energy legislation ever passed by the British Parliament. We are driving forward with schemes to help insulate houses, drive down bills, and deliver cleaner and more secure energy, and all we can get from the Opposition is criticism. We have ramped up our renewable energy production to over 40%. We have eliminated coal. We are developing new nuclear, which the Opposition failed to do over 13 years in government. Rather than carping from the sidelines, it would be useful if Opposition Back Benchers got on board, supported the Bill and supported our great British companies developing the technology to take this country forward, creating the new jobs, ensuring security of supply and driving towards net zero, which means we will leave this country and the planet in a better place for the next generation, instead of trying to score political points at the expense of this Government who are seeking to deliver for the British people. As such, I am immensely proud of the Bill. It was strong before and it is even stronger now. It is, as I have just said, the single biggest piece of energy legislation ever to be brought before the House.

What is this Bill about? As the Minister has said, it is essentially about the decarbonisation of the energy system and making that system fit for net zero. It is, overwhelmingly, a Bill that enables that decarbonisation to take place, and it has been described in a number of instances as a “green plumbing” Bill, which I think is not a bad description. It provides the necessary mechanisms and the details of how we will reach our targets in a variety of areas, as the Minister said: on hydrogen, on carbon capture and storage, on licensing, on the introduction of an independent system operator—which is very important to good construction—on low-carbon heat schemes, on district heating, on energy-saving appliances, and on fusion power. It also makes a number of regulation changes in relation to civil nuclear decommissioning and oil and gas management. It is, moreover, a Bill that the Opposition have welcomed, both for its extent and for its “green plumbing” activities. We were supportive of its measures in Committee, while also tabling amendments that we thought would strengthen its approach. Indeed, the Government have inserted some of them in the Bill, with very slight changes, and we welcome that as well.

However, in my view the Bill is incomplete and unsatisfactory, given its ambition as a green decarbonisation Bill, in that it fails to complete the three tests, or tasks, that are necessary to provide the clarity and consistency that would ensure that the policy will deliver what is claimed. Those tests are these. First, what are the targets for a policy, and how firm are they? Secondly, what are the technical means whereby the proposed targets can be actioned? Thirdly, what is the plan, both financially and procedurally, to make the targets real and not just hot-air aspirations? It is essential to the process of energy decarbonisation for all three of those tests to be in the Bill as we proceed against very tight timescales and immense challenges of implementation.

I agree that those three tests for decarbonisation make a lot of sense, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that as well as targets for some of the good stuff, we need to see the Government stop doing the bad stuff? In this case, the bad stuff is more and more new licences for oil and gas in the North sea. Would Labour support my amendment, which would see an end to the MER rule on maximising the economic recovery of petroleum and replace it with a just transition to a greener economy? As long as we have a statutory duty to maximise the economic recovery of oil and gas, it does not matter how many targets we have on renewables, because we will not meet the targets that we need to meet.

It is not for me to defend how the Government have managed their arrangements as far as the costs of these measures are concerned, but I would say more generally that we have to cast this Bill in terms of how much it would cost us as consumers and others if we did not do these things over the next period. We need to consider the cost to people’s bills, people’s lives and people’s welfare if we simply stood aside and ignored doing the things that are necessary for decarbonisation. I can honestly say that in the longer term the overall cost of doing these things would be far more on the saving side for customers and the general public than the issues that are before us at the moment.

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15:45 Angus Brendan MacNeil (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

Having discussed those other amendments, I will now draw attention to Labour’s amendments. I hope the House will understand why we have drafted them in this way and how that relates to the tests I mentioned. On our new clause 53, the Government say they support community and local energy. Indeed, as the Minister said, the Government have put a modest amount of funding into supporting community energy but, as the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), who is not in her place now, said, we still do not have an understanding of how community energy can actually work. We think community energy will be an important part of the decarbonisation process. It is not one of the large, shiny things upon which money will be lavished in large amounts but, in aggregate, it will have a huge impact on decarbonising energy in this country.

The Government still have not introduced arrangements that will enable local power producers to trade locally and get the proper value of their trade, which is vital to the success and certainty of these projects. Labour wants to support local energy projects practically, particularly through the “valley of death” period where the pockets of community energy are usually shallower than needed for all the planning permissions to run their course. With support from Great British Energy and local authorities, we propose that £400 million a year will eventually support the important role of community and local energy in decarbonising power.

New clause 57 deals with onshore wind. Three minutes before the Bill came to the Floor of the House, a written statement on onshore wind was made by the Minister. I have had a chance to read it quickly and it seems to me as though it still treats onshore wind as a special case and not as an ordinary case of a local infrastructure project, which should receive no better and no worse consideration than any other such project. Onshore wind is essential to the decarbonisation of our energy system, but we have just let it collapse over a considerable period by, in effect, banning it. The Government are taking grandmother’s footsteps back from the ban, but this is still not good enough.

First, onshore wind is the cheapest form of power available. Secondly, it can be available for community and local energy, in the way described earlier. Thirdly, through CfDs, it can systemically provide a cheaper power environment for the population as a whole. It is a disgrace that only two turbines have been commissioned in this country since February 2022. It is a golden opportunity for decarbonisation that we are missing completely.

addresses another area in which the Government have set out their aspirations. The Minister has said that the Government are making progress on their aspirations to retrofit homes, as set out in their national energy plans and the White Paper, “Powering our net zero future”. Those aspirations include having all homes at an EPC band C standard by 2035 and all private rented properties at band B by 2030. However, nowhere are there any plans about how we are actually going to do that or how homes that are among the worst insulated in Europe can be lifted to the levels needed by 2035. The Government are stuck with aspirations but no plan.

Our new clause puts a plan in place. It puts those aspirations into legislation and requires a Government plan to bring them about, which would be another enormous win for decarbonisation. People’s energy bills will fall, fuel poverty will be tackled and gas supply in retrofitted properties will reduce by perhaps 25%. It would be a win all round.

New clause 59 is very important. We want to see the decarbonisation of our energy, power and electricity systems by 2030. The Government’s ambition at the moment is mostly to decarbonise the power system by 2035, but, again, they have no plan as to how that will actually happen. They have given no indication as to what steps they will take to achieve this, and they are certainly beginning to fail in the implementation of carbon budgets. Bringing forward the decarbonisation of the power system would greatly enhance that and allow us to meet our targets. Labour wants to see the complete decarbonisation of the system by 2030. That does involve massive uplifts in the rate of progress—for example, in offshore wind by five, in solar by three, and in onshore by two—and, indeed, the development of other renewables. In that regard, I recommend that hon. Members have a look at new clause 51.

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16:00 Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative)

I want to highlight the abject abandonment of community-owned energy projects in this Bill. It is patently obvious that any just transition to net zero is simply not possible if local communities cannot sell the energy they produce to local customers. Local energy trading provides manifold improvements, including lower prices, protections against price shocks, enhanced energy security, network redundancy and a return on investment back to communities.

The UK Government kicking this can down the road is a hammer blow to efforts to achieve a just transition, and they are doing so without even trying to disguise the fact. Worse still, they have instead provided a paltry £10 million over two years—the Minister left out the “over two years” bit—to fund feasibility studies in England. That is not seedcorn funding; it is chicken feed served up with extra disdain for Scotland and Wales, as the UK Government have steadfastly refused to apply Barnett consequential to this admittedly pitiful sum.

New nuclear is a millstone around the neck of our net zero future, consuming disproportionate costs per megawatt-hour. If we contrast nuclear with offshore wind, we see that although construction costs for nuclear continue to spiral out of control, and SMR nuclear continues not to get off the ground, the cost of offshore wind has fallen by 80% in a decade. New offshore wind projects coming online within the next two years will be paid about £45 per MWh, which is half the wholesale power price of £90 per MWh forecast until at least the end of the decade, and 60% less than the £115 per MWh of electricity from Hinkley C nuclear power plant.

Tories and Labour Members alike will cry, “This is all about baseload for when the wind does not blow”—I am surprised they have not done so already. Of course, that is correct; we do need baseload, but it does not have to be nuclear. If successive Westminster Governments had invested nearly as much rhetoric and taxpayers’ money creating a renewable energy mix as they have done for nuclear, we would be in a very different place. It would be a place where tidal flow and barrage schemes complement widespread impoundment, pump storage and run-of-river hydro schemes, together with green hydrogen production, battery storage, solar on every appropriate elevation of a domestic or commercial property, and timely delivery of carbon capture, usage and storage.

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that must be recognised and understood for the future. Before Hinkley Point was commissioned, the question was of providing 6 GW of nuclear baseload rather than just 6 GW of baseload, and of seeing whether there could be a mix of green energy, as he argues, or if it would have to be nuclear energy. By prescribing the way the Government have in the past while sticking to 2012 index-linked CfD prices, nuclear is a way to make and print money very quickly.

Contrast that with the strategic ambition of the Scottish Government, who are investing in communities by maximising the economic, supply chain and employment opportunities of onshore and offshore wind, with up to £1.4 billion of developer supply chain commitments on average across Scotland. I have seen the extraordinary investment and opportunity at Montrose port in my Angus constituency with Seagreen, but we need sustained investment to win those crucial multiplier effects and make the just transition a systemic reality for our communities.

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16:15 David Duguid (Mr Nigel Evans)

If projects do slip from allocation round 5 as a result of an unrealistic strike price, where do Ministers think the supply chain capacity, the skilled workers and the specialist vessels will go? They will not wait around here, waiting for the Department to get its sums right—they will be off to the US and the EU to access commercially cogent incentive packages such as those found in the Inflation Reduction Act or the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act. The stakes could not be higher for both net zero commitments and UK energy prices.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a small issue that makes a big difference. The energy bills support scheme, which was very harsh, ended far too soon and has caused an awful lot of problems. This has been covered by Radio 4, and people have written letters about it—I have a letter here from Stourport, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who is a member of my Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. People the length and breadth of the UK are feeling the harshness of the Government’s penny-pinching and tight deadlines, and those who live in caravan parks or on boats are being especially hammered by this. This Government should listen and make a difference. One of the big things affecting people watching this debate today is that they are not getting that £400 for the last year.

I rise to speak in support of new clause 51, tabled in my name, concerning tidal range power. In 1966, the world’s first ever tidal power station became operational on the Rance river in Brittany. More than 50 years later, the station is less than halfway through its predicted lifespan of 120 years, and is continuing to generate an annual output of approximately 600 GWh of clean energy. Since then, the station has been surpassed in scale and generating capacity by the Sihwa Lake tidal power station in South Korea. The proven success of these schemes over many decades demonstrates the enormous potential of tidal range generation as a renewable, indigenous source of net zero energy. When confronted by the existential challenge of climate collapse and the necessity of decarbonising our energy system, as well as the need to guarantee our energy security in an increasingly volatile global energy market, I believe we now need to be looking with new urgency at the role that tidal range generation has to play in the United Kingdom’s future energy mix.

The UK, more than any other country in the world, is uniquely positioned to harness the power of our tides. We have the second highest tidal range in the world, and half of all of Europe’s tidal energy capacity is found in Britain. Already well developed plans for tidal range projects across the west coast promise to mobilise and deliver 10 GW of net zero energy, with the potential for 10 GW of additional capacity. In Merseyside alone, the much anticipated Mersey tidal power project could generate enough energy to power 1 million homes, yet we have consistently failed to harness the awesome power of our tides.

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16:30 George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)

I rise to speak in support of new clause 35. My amendment is about funding for decarbonising homes and I hope Members across the House will agree that it is badly needed. Our homes are among the least energy-efficient in Europe and heating them accounts for 14% of all UK carbon emissions. If we do not retrofit around 29 million existing homes in the UK we will not be able to reach net zero by 2050. This is a mammoth task, so we must act now.

However, decarbonising housing is not just about tackling the climate crisis: millions of people are living in freezing homes that are expensive to heat, left at the mercy of the volatile gas market. Poor-quality housing is costing people their health and even their lives. Retrofitting homes would reduce bills, make homes safer and improve people’s quality of life. It would also create new jobs in every part of the country, helping build the green economy we so desperately need.

The Climate Change Committee has found that people accept the need to make changes to their homes, but they need well-designed policies to help them to act. The biggest barrier for many will be the up-front cost. The Government have funding to retrofit the homes of people on low incomes, and that is available through the social housing decarbonisation fund and the sustainable warmth fund, but the amount on offer just is not enough, particularly given the rising labour and material costs. In fact, last year, the number of Government-funded energy efficiency measures installed in UK homes dropped by half, year on year. It is now a shocking 97% below 2012 levels.

If the Government had not cut energy efficiency support in 2013, just imagine how many more people might have spent last winter in a comfortable home and how many fewer families would have had to choose between heating and eating. Short-sighted Tory cuts have cost us a decade in a fight we cannot afford to lose. We need long-term consistent funding and a clear road map of how the decarbonisation of housing will be achieved. Local authorities are uniquely placed to understand the needs of their area and to target schemes where they can provide the most benefits. In Nottingham, against the odds, more than 4,000 homes have been retrofitted by the city council in the past decade. Just imagine what more could be achieved by councils across the country with long-term predictable funding for decarbonising homes. The amendment is calling for the Government to undertake an assessment of the benefits of providing this funding to local authorities. I hope the House will invest in our future by supporting new clause 35.

My right hon. Friend has it exactly right. Hence I feel that when we in this place are creating criminal penalties that could put our fellow citizens in prison for 12 months for an unknown offence of the future relating to net zero, we have a duty to discuss them properly. This must be the first time we are potentially criminalising people in this country for not adhering to the new code of net zero. We should not be doing it lightly. We should be doing it carefully and with consideration. It should not be done by statutory instrument.

My right hon. Friend has put his finger exactly on the pulse. This is a substantial Bill. I say to the Minister that I hope the Government will strip out criminal penalties for not adhering to unknown net zero certification, EPCs and all the rest of it in the future for something as simple as not complying with some of these net zero regulations. This is really serious. I hope that when the Bill returns to the other end of the Palace, consideration can be given to strip out such proposals.

I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net zero proposals banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this and banning that. That is not what we do as Conservatives. We actually allow freedoms. We allow the market to decide. The Bill goes in the wrong direction.

There are some elements of the Bill to commend, not least the net zero duty on Ofgem, but overall it fails to deliver the scale of ambition we need or to set out a vision of an energy system free not just from Putin’s influence but from expensive and polluting oil and gas in their entirety. My amendments would address that failing.

New clause 29 would prohibit the approval of new oil and gas field developments and the issuing of new oil and gas exploration and production licences. I am sure that the Minister will seek to paint the new clause as somehow incredibly radical and the policy of Just Stop Oil, pretending that it would recklessly turn off the taps tomorrow. He will no doubt trot out the same tired lines about a quarter of the UK’s energy continuing to come from oil and gas in 2050. In reality, the new clause is far from radical. It would simply do what the science tells us is necessary if we are to secure a liveable future for ourselves and our children and rule out any new oil and gas licences. In doing so, it would follow the advice of experts including the Climate Change Committee, which in its latest report was clear:

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”

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16:45 Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)

Markets and investors across the world recognise that net zero is the future. Today we can only help or hinder that future, but we cannot stop it. The energy transition is an economic reality that, as legislators, we can either speed up, ensuring that the UK benefits from the economic opportunities and investments that can be ours if we so choose, or we can slow it down. To do so—to delay and hinder the transition—would merely cause the UK catastrophic economic self-harm. Investments will go elsewhere. Companies will locate elsewhere. Jobs will be created not here, but elsewhere.

As legislators, this is the choice we face: net zero and our economic future, or not zero with increasing costs and a loss of growth that will never come this way again. For that reason, I support the Bill, which seeks to maintain progress in the energy transition. However, we can and should go further. Yes, we must expand our use of renewable and clean energy, but the reality is that the UK should commit to phasing out fossil fuels. We do not need new oil and gas fields, which will only become stranded assets far sooner than we think. We do not need new oil and gas exploration licences for fossil fuels that are not ours to keep—as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made clear—but are sold on international markets and are rapidly losing market share and demand.

The truth is that, if we are truly serious about tackling climate change and delivering a green industrial revolution in the UK, focusing our finite investments, workforce and time on the energy transition, there is no place for new oil and gas fields or new coalmines. None of my amendments can be considered radical. Legislating to prevent the opening of new companies simply maintains a commitment that the UK sought to make to the rest of the world at COP26. Legislation to remove coal-fired electricity production from the grid simply puts into law a commitment that the Government have made to the ending of coal-fired generation by the end of 2024. Legislating to leave the energy charter treaty, which penalises nations for not maintaining investments in fossil fuels, simply ensures the UK follows the rest of Europe in doing so. Legislating to ban gas flaring and venting by 2025, which is responsible for methane emissions that are 54 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, simply brings forward a commitment from 2030, and is something that Norway has had in place since 1971. And legislating to establish an independent body to advise on when to end new oil and gas licensing in the UK seeks to depoliticise an issue on which we need to find a responsible consensus that can be supported cross-party, for it is too important to seek to divide and play politics with.

There are some in this House who claim that tackling the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis is a zero-sum game; that we can only do one or the other. The amendment blows a hole right through that falsehood. The reality of the current system in use by the Government is that too many people—millions of them and growing—are falling into fuel poverty. It is a system that simply is not fit for purpose. Let us be clear. Higher energy prices are not a blip. They are here to stay. Research from Cornwall Insight shows that energy prices will remain

Up and down the UK, energy debt is soaring. Citizens Advice reports that nearly 8 million people borrowed to pay their bills in the first six months of this year. A quarter of people say that their energy bill is the cost they are most worried about. In my own city of Norwich, the rate of reporting fuel debts has increased by a staggering 300%. Yet by subsidising the unit price, the Government’s energy price guarantee disproportionately benefited well-off households and did nothing to incentivise energy demand reduction and decarbonisation.

In one fell swoop, we will have protected essential energy needs, reduced bills and incentivised a ramping up of decarbonisation of our housing sector—crucial if we are to meet our net zero commitments. I urge and implore the House to support new clause 36.

I welcome the announcement on 31 July by the Prime Minister in my constituency confirming the Acorn CCS and hydrogen project; that will mean that four CCUS clusters will be operational by the end of the decade. The Scottish cluster is particularly crucial for my constituency of Banff and Buchan, as well as the whole of Scotland, not just for the estimated 21,000 jobs the project is predicted to support but to enable the construction of a new CCS power station at Peterhead. That power station will replace the existing one, which is currently the only dispatchable thermal power station north of Leeds. It will be critical is providing stable baseload in support of intermittent renewable sources of energy, and will do so in a way that is 95% emission-free.

As the Minister will know, the UK has about a third of Europe’s entire offshore carbon dioxide storage potential undersea, roughly equal to that of all the other EU states combined. Only Norway has slightly more than the UK in the North sea. This enormous potential to offer CO2 storage services to European and other countries presents an opportunity for the UK to become a global leader in CCUS, and accelerate the global efforts to prevent CO2 emissions. How will cross-border transport and geological storage of carbon dioxide be enabled to develop in time, without having to rely on the granting of exemptions to allow private networks to develop? Can the Minister also confirm that it will be possible to facilitate transportation by ship, and any other means of transport other than pipeline, through regulation, and that that is covered adequately by clause 128(1)(a)? I see him nodding.

The UK has a responsibility to deliver an effective net zero strategy. This Energy Bill provided a chance to ensure that the Government’s own climate commitments could be met. Some parts of the Bill are welcome, but as it stands, it presents us with many missed opportunities. The Liberal Democrats fully support the establishment of the independent systems operator, and I am pleased that the Government have finally listened and given Ofgem a net zero duty. However, I am disappointed that the Government removed sensible amendments in Committee, such as the amendment to ban new coalmines, and I strongly support new clause 2.

Let me now focus on the Liberal Democrats’ new clauses 11, 12, 15, 24 and 28. The aim of new clause 28 is to ban fracking permanently. Fracked fuel is a fossil fuel; it hardens our reliance on expensive gas, and it flies in the face of our net zero commitments. The Government’s own experts have said that the seismic activity caused by hydraulic fracking is not safe. It is incomprehensible that the Government ever considered lifting the ban, and it caused huge anxiety among communities across the country. That must never happen again.

Solar is one of the cheapest forms of energy, and again it is incomprehensible that this Government do not give it the support that it deserves. The Climate Change Committee says that UK solar power deployment is significantly behind the Government’s target of 70 GW by 2035. The smart export guarantee should incentivise households to invest in solar panels by allowing them to sell the excess electricity produced back to the grid. However, under the current system it will take householders decades to break even and this will not incentivise solar investment. Our Liberal Democrat new clause 11 aims to enhance the reward under the smart export guarantee.

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17:00 Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)

In the short time I have, may I introduce a slight note of caution? I was impressed by the almost Tiggerish performance by the Minister—he is very persuasive on this Bill—but what concerns me is what is guiding Government policy and, dare I say it, the policy of many in this House. The Climate Change Act 2008, and the further legislation in 2019 when our Government increased the cut in carbon emissions to 100% by 2050, introduced targets that in my humble opinion were not really thought through. The practical consequences have not been thought through, and they are becoming more and more evident today as we discuss these difficult issues.

We are now on our fourth carbon budget—I do not know whether people know that—running from 2023 to 2027, and the Government are being guided by that. The Climate Change Committee advises on the carbon budget, and the Government can be legally challenged once it is in place. The budget is set for five years, so the question now is: what about our democracy? In my humble opinion, we are debating these crucial issues for probably the first time. It was pushed through in 2008 and 2018, and we are now facing the consequences of those decisions. If we have to fall back on the courts to decide on the policies we make in this place, we can recall the anxiety and grief that that caused on the Brexit issue. In my view, that is completely unacceptable.

I declare an interest, as my husband is the company secretary of Sheffield Renewables, a community benefit society that funds, develops, owns and operates renewable energy systems in Sheffield.

Secondly and shockingly, the Bill fails to deliver any energy efficiency measures. There is nothing about how we will achieve the targets that have been set. The latest CCC report is clear that the Government need to rapidly scale up and accelerate energy efficiency to stand any hope of meeting legally binding decarbonisation targets. Obviously, the greenest energy is energy that is not used, and the more we can do to reduce the need for energy in poor-quality housing the better.

New clauses 33 and 35 aim to correct the current position by making it a legal requirement for the Government to produce an energy demand reduction plan and providing local authorities with funding for the decarbonisation of homes. I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) for tabling those new clauses, and I urge the Government to support them.

Finally, the Bill fails to decarbonise at speed and scale. Again, the latest CCC report could not be clearer:

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero”.

New clauses 2 and 29 would prohibit coalmines and new oil and gas respectively. New clause 30 would phase down UK petroleum, and new clause 59 would decarbonise electricity supply by 2030. They could and should have been central pillars of the Bill. They are about how we can transform our energy system and meet Labour’s ambitious plans to be a green energy superpower by 2030. However, the Government have removed many new clauses that were won in the Lords—for example, the one on banning new coalmines—and Ministers are refusing to support any such measures today. Instead, they waited until MPs went home over the summer to give the green light to hundreds of new North sea oil and gas licences, without proper scrutiny, in a damning indictment of this Government’s record on climate action. Those are not the only amendments that would help to raise the ambition in this Bill that the Government have removed.

Time is tight, but I wish to refer to my new clause 60, which calls for a specific problem to be tackled in a specific way. We all have major concerns in our constituencies, where communities do not wish to see huge electricity pylons, great big wind turbines and great big industrial sites related to energy in their area. Yet we know that we need new onshore wind, lots of solar and lots of electricity pylons. My new clause proposes to make it much easier to build the 600 km of new electricity cabling and pylons that we need by 2030 to meet our power decarbonisation targets alongside major road and rail routes. As things stand, communities understandably object to these huge pieces of kit going through their areas, and then these things get delayed and delayed. In the past eight or so years, we have built only about 30 km of new pylons but we need about 600 km by 2030. We need to get our skates on. The Government can help by making it much easier for planning—

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17:15 Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour)

We all want to cut emissions and tackle climate change, but people continue to suffer from the cost of living crisis. It is important that the cost of transitioning to lower carbon alternatives is not left to individuals to shoulder on their own.

The Government propose phasing out the use of high-carbon fossil fuel heating from the gas grid by banning the installation of new gas-fuelled boilers from 2026, and they advocate the alternative of heat pumps. While heat pumps have an important role to play in the decarbonisation of home heating, a heat pump only approach risks unfairly burdening off-grid rural homeowners with expensive installation costs. My constituents are rightly concerned at the prospect of being made to install very costly alternative heating systems that are not fit for purpose.

As has been said in the Chamber today, renewable liquid fuels, such as renewable diesel made from hydrotreated vegetable oil, offer a cheaper alternative. They can reduce net carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions from source to end user by up to 90%. At a small cost, existing off-grid boilers can be modified to run renewable liquid fuels, such as HVO, saving the homeowner the extortionate cost of a heat pump replacement.

However, renewable liquid fuels are more expensive than their high-carbon competitor, kerosene. In order to aid swift uptake, the Energy Bill must enable the use of renewable liquid fuels, as well as introducing measures to explore reducing their cost and making them more accessible, such as a renewable liquid heating fuel obligation, mirroring what already exists in transport and aviation. That would help my constituents transition to lower-carbon alternatives and incentivise faster and wider transition, more broadly, among off-grid households. There is some consensus across the House on those measures. An effective transition to cleaner energy must ensure that rural off-grid communities, such as mine in Gower, are not left with an expensive cost burden as we transition to net zero.

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17:30 Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)

The migration to sustainable aviation fuel is vital as the world decarbonises, not only because it is an essential first step towards decarbonisation, but in the long term—not for short-haul flights, which I think will be powered by hydrogen; by the 2030s, we will start to see short-haul hydrogen planes in operation. However, there is no technological approach yet that will take us to Australia or North America using anything other than sustainable aviation fuel, so it is a vital industry for the future of this country.

One of the issues that I wanted to expand on is about some of the alternatives. We keep talking about electric vehicles moving down, but hydrogen combustion vehicles offer a real opportunity to move forward. We also talk about net zero, but this has now moved to zero-emission vehicles. That rules out hydrogen combustion, so again, we are going down a rabbit hole of just having electric vehicles, but an electric vehicle is not a zero-emission vehicle. If it was, the underground would have the cleanest air in London, and it does not, because there are a lot of particulates around it.

The Bill has an important role to play in ensuring that we meet our 2050 net zero targets, enhancing our energy security and creating new jobs, particularly in coastal communities such as the constituency I represent. In driving forward the measures in the Bill, I urge the Government to have in mind the following parameters.

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17:45 Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)

I am telling hon. Members this because the Mack family that went through that process for over a decade must have spent tens and tens of thousands of pounds, but now it has been built, public perception has changed and the complaints against it have been absolutely negligible. What that says, above all, is that people have now changed the general consensus on onshore wind. It has totally changed and, as parliamentarians, we should reflect public opinion. When the mood changes, we should change with it sometimes. People get it now: people get that that one turbine will power 700 homes in the local area. Of course, new applications must be designed to be sympathetic to the surrounding landscape, but people recognise that we need our own energy security, sustainable, clean and green forms of energy to decarbonise and an energy mix that will give us security as well.

Things have clearly changed, and I think this is a very sensible, pragmatic and low-cost way of the Government moving to give us more clean and green energy. That one single application I mentioned shows how public sentiment has changed, which is why I support the Bill today.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am just going to talk about one new clause, new clause 29, which I oppose. It seeks to prevent further licences of North sea oil and gas. The reason I oppose it is that we have a plan for the decarbonisation of our economy and it is policed, if I can put it that way, by the Committee on Climate Change. In the path to net zero by 2050, we recognise that we have a continuing need for oil and gas at least until 2035, when more than 50% of our energy needs will still come from fossil fuels, and actually up to 2050 included, because it is net zero, not absolute zero. We have to have oil and gas, so let’s get it from the most efficient and environmentally friendly source. The most environmentally friendly source is Norway, but that is not an unlimited resource; the CO 2 equivalent per barrel of oil there is about 7 kg. The additional oil and gas we use comes not from Norway but from Qatar; it is liquid natural gas and the CO 2 equivalent per barrel there is 79 kg, whereas the figure for the North sea is 21 kg—a quarter the level of environmental damage per kilogram of CO 2 equivalent. The consequence of closing down the North sea prematurely would be to increase emissions and make our carbon footprint worse. It would be the triumph of virtue signalling over the practicalities of decarbonisation.

There is the tax income. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that in 2023-24 we are going to get £10.4 billion of tax revenue from North sea oil. That pays for a lot of public goods. We should be supporting that, and we should be supporting business profitability and jobs, because that supports our communities. It also gives time for the phasing of what is described as the just transition to renewable jobs. There is an irony in that the proponents of new clause 30, led by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), talk about just transitions, but it is this longer process away from North sea oil and gas, managing decline, that provides the space for a truly just transition to new renewables employment in this country. I do not support new clause 29 as a result.

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their engagement in this debate, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), who is a real champion of the UK’s thriving CCUS industry. I thank him for his comments today. The licences issued by different authorities are designed to serve different purposes. The new requirement for an economic licence recognises the monopolistic nature of carbon dioxide pipelines and storage and is designed to protect users of the networks from anti-competitive behaviours, including monopolistic pricing. This is complementary, rather than duplicative of the existing carbon storage licensing framework. I can reassure my hon. Friend that the provision in clause 128(1)(a) is sufficiently broad to cover all methods of CO 2 transportation.

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