13:05 The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Grant Shapps)

Those industries are booming, providing jobs and growth up and down the country. In fact, earlier this month, the country hit a truly historic moment, when our onshore and offshore wind farms provided more than half the UK’s electricity. Furthermore, the National Grid reported that on that day all our renewable energy combined provided 70% of the country’s overall electricity needs. However, we need low-carbon back-up for those days when the wind is not blowing and the sun is dimmed, which is why I have put the Energy Bill back on track. It will fire up our nascent hydrogen and carbon capture industries by providing new business models and liberating private investment. The Bill will hammer into place the high-tech solutions we need to produce our own energy.

Energy sovereignty is now within our grasp. Clean, affordable energy for households and businesses is not a pipe dream; it is a project we have now embarked upon. Building new energy networks will create jobs; producing our own renewable energy will keep bills low; and as businesses and households are relieved of the pressure of crippling bills, the economy can flourish and grow. Energy is coming home.

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13:10 Ed Miliband (Labour)

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and can I take the opportunity to welcome him to his new role? We support new nuclear, and I welcome the announcement on Sizewell. The Climate Change Committee tells us that nuclear should play a role as part of the balanced pathway to net zero. In his reply, could he tell us the timetable for Sizewell’s final investment decision and when we expect it to be up and running? I also welcome the return of the delayed Energy Bill, which should never have been paused by the Government.

We have seen five Energy Secretaries since 2019. To overcome the bills crisis we face and to tackle the climate crisis, we need ambition, consistency and going all in on the green energy sprint. I am afraid we have not had these things from this Government. All we have had is inconsistency, dithering and a Government looking over their shoulder at their own Back Benchers. The Secretary of State has a lot of work to do to convince the country that that is going to change, and if he does not, it means that this Government will land us with higher bills and more energy insecurity, and will fail to take the leadership we need in tackling the climate crisis.

Since the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned onshore, I just want to note that the energy White Paper and the net zero strategy have both said exactly the same as we have been saying this week, which is that onshore can happen where it has local consent. I do not know why this local consent principle is so difficult for him to understand. There it is: we are delivering on the renewables, on the nuclear, on the energy independence and sovereignty that this country needs, and there is nothing from the Labour party.

On wider energy policy, the Scottish carbon capture and storage cluster was the most advanced project, but it was still only classed as a reserve. Will the Government urgently review this classification, and make the Scottish CCS cluster a track 1 cluster to allow that investment to be released and for that project to go ahead? Pump storage hydro, as I have raised several times, could deliver about 3 GW of power by 2030. All that is needed is an electricity pricing mechanism—a cap and floor mechanism—so will the Government urgently review that and start these discussions?

I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. Renewable energy is nine times cheaper than gas, and onshore wind is incredibly cheap and incredibly green, so we need to be clear: the Tory ban on onshore wind has kept bills unnecessarily high, and has also undermined energy security. Is it not time that the ban was fully scrapped and the interests of people struggling with their bills were put ahead of the political interests of nimby Tory Back Benchers?

Land-based wind is a good, quick and relatively cheap way for the Government to achieve more on alternative energy and security of supply. Does my right hon. Friend therefore agree that the current partial ban on onshore wind is stifling growth, our march towards net zero, and our quest for security of supply?

The role that community renewable energy production could play is currently hampered by an unwieldy regulatory process. Will the Secretary of State bring forward amendments to the Energy Bill to empower community energy schemes to sell their power directly to local companies and customers, thereby also neatly slashing bills?

The Secretary of State will be aware of analysis from the Climate Change Committee that states that we will not get to net zero in this country without carbon capture and storage. I therefore welcome his commitment to helping to liberate private investment in carbon capture and storage and other technologies. The Scottish cluster alone is poised to have billions of dollars-worth of investment. While he is pondering the acceleration of that project, will he consider joining me on a visit to the St Fergus gas terminal in my constituency? It has not only carbon capture and storage, but blue hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel and net zero thermal power generation, and grid capacity and resilience improvements are being made in and around it.

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