14:02 Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)

“institute the Green Jobs Taskforce with a long-term remit and regulatory capacity to co-ordinate planning for decarbonising our economy.”

The primary mechanism to drive investment in nuclear is either the regulated asset base model or a guaranteed price for electricity with a strike price at almost double that of real renewable energy, linked to CPI for 35 years. There are loan guarantees to transfer project risk, including that of cost overruns, to the Government and then the taxpayer. There is a waste disposal service for spent fuel and other waste. The price of those contracts is set according to the Government’s methodology, but if the prices go above a cap, they too will be passed on to the Government and the taxpayer.

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14:36 Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)

I go back to the fuel duty issue, because I know the right hon. Lady has been concerned about climate change, at least in the past. The freeze in the fuel duty has meant that emissions have gone up by 5%, while the Treasury has lost out on billions in funding. If she really wants to help hard-pressed drivers and others, why not look at a wealth tax, for example? A wealth tax on the 1% richest people could raise up to £70 billion. She could then help not only those drivers, but public transport and the public sector people who are out on strike right now. They are out on the streets wanting more funding, so why is she not doing that?

I agree with the hon. Lady that decarbonisation is vital, but where we part company is that I think people have to live in the meantime, and some of the ideas she puts forward are utterly unworkable and impractical.

The Chancellor is also absolutely right to focus on R&D and science. He gave very impressive statistics on the UK’s performance in a globally competitive environment. Certainly, our progress is strong. When I was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I met amazing businesses in space technology and cutting-edge life sciences, as well as in nuclear. I visited the brilliant fusion project at Culham, and worked with the Rolls-Royce-led consortium in small modular reactors. I absolutely applaud the Chancellor’s commitment to nuclear, as well as to carbon capture, usage and storage. The big challenge of our age is keeping the lights on, keeping the cost of bills down and decarbonising. We cannot do any one of those things on their own; we have to keep that energy trilemma in balance. That is the critical challenge of our age.

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14:51 John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)

The final point that I can fit in is that the Government need to look at this issue on a sector-by-sector basis. The energy sector is capital intensive. It is one of the areas where we could get a lot of big investment quite quickly with a lot of very well-paid jobs. We could improve our national energy security, cut the import bill and gain an awful lot of future tax revenue, because we tax energy at a much higher rate than other things. However, because we now have this incredibly complicated system with price controls on domestic energy, windfall taxes and carbon taxes—as well as subsidies to the industry itself because we realised the difficulties that those high tax rates were creating—we are causing complications. More importantly, we are putting off many big potential investors who would otherwise get more oil and gas out of our reserves, produce more deliverable renewable power and help to expand the grid, which will need to happen if we are going to carry on with those developments.

If we take heavy industry—ceramics, steel and so forth, which are big energy users—I think we have the highest carbon taxes of any major country. We have some of the highest energy prices on top of those very high carbon taxes, which means that we are not competitive in areas such as steel and ceramics. The Government then have to provide taxpayers’ money to those businesses, giving back some of the tax revenues in the form of subsidies, but that is often too little, too late, and we end up losing capacity. As such, I say to the Government, “Stop this subsidy, windfall tax, high-tax model. It is not working for the businesses, it is not working for our country, and it is not raising additional revenue to spend on other things.”

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15:24 Seema Malhotra (Labour)

We know that it is the Government working in partnership with industry that will help British businesses to thrive, grow and invest if we are ever to achieve any of our goals, whether they are making all parts of the country better off or getting on track for net zero. The investment that businesses undertake to develop products and services, increase productivity, and create jobs is the most crucial ingredient.

There has not been nearly enough of such policies. Last September, over 200 leading businesses and financial institutions wrote to the then Prime Minister, saying that they were committed to protecting and restoring nature and delivering a net zero economy in support of the UK’s targets, with delivery mechanisms strengthened across the whole of Government. However, the steps announced today are yet again a poor imitation of where Labour has been, and it has taken the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to say:

When I recently asked the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, what programmes were available for SMEs looking to transition to net zero, he cited the boiler upgrade programme. However, the scheme’s own impact assessment says that the impact of the scheme for small businesses is “negligible”. The latest data released from the scheme shows that 0.4% of all installations in the scheme have been for SMEs. So the evidence is clear: the Government are simply not serious about helping SMEs transition to net zero or about supporting them at all.

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15:38 Rushanara Ali (Labour)

Labour will deliver green growth and support 400,000 jobs in green businesses. We will retain workers with skills in a green economy in every corner of the UK. There will be genuine levelling up. We will rebuild business with a national investment bank that will support the drive for a net zero economy. I could say much more, but I am limited in time. We have a plan for growth and for a high-skilled, high-wage economy. The Conservatives have had 13 years in government—13 years of austerity, the destruction of vital public services and the destruction of our economy. Added to that, the previous Prime Minister but one negotiated a poor Brexit deal that has led to reduced GDP. That is costing £100 billion in lost output and £40 million less in revenue to the Treasury every year.

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15:58 Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)

I believe that getting people into well-paid, skilled employment is the best way to combat regional inequalities, and it is key to levelling up, so measures that will not only create jobs but make it easier for people to take them up are hugely important. Further to these job-creating, job-supporting moves, I welcome the announcement of investment in carbon capture, usage and storage off our coast to the north-west and north-east. This not only signals our commitment to net zero but lays the foundation for long-term high-quality jobs and investment in the north.

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16:33 Dawn Butler (Labour)

The UK economy cannot be improved without London’s contribution. London Councils has five key priorities: housing and homelessness; health and care; supporting businesses; helping London deliver net zero; and greater devolution to local government. London’s businesses are struggling in the face of increasing labour and energy costs and sustained high inflation. Will the Chancellor commit to keeping the energy bill relief scheme under review and materially improving the discount for businesses, and will he reform the apprenticeship levy to make it easier and cheaper for employers to recruit and retain talent? As we have heard, many employers are buying equipment rather than investing in people. As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, we should reintroduce the VAT retail export scheme too, to make London and other UK destinations more competitive for overseas shoppers. That would add a net gain to the public purse.

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17:15 Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)

The energy sector is a vital part of the UK economy. From a local perspective in East Anglia, there are significant opportunities for generating prosperity and jobs, ensuring our energy security and driving forward on the road to net zero. There is enormous potential in offshore wind, nuclear at Sizewell and the oil and gas sector, through the North sea transition deal, which also paves the way for hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, on which we did get some good news earlier.

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17:38 Ruth Cadbury (Labour)

Of course, all of this stems from this Government lacking an industrial strategy and from inconsistency with other policies. Where does pausing HS2 and cutting the budget for walking and cycling sit with reducing congestion on our roads and our rail networks, net zero, and investing in jobs and manufacturing? The chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, Sir John Armitt, said that this lack of planning, especially around HS2, is impacting on the “confidence and certainty” that businesses need when making investment decisions. Whether it is housing, lab space, skills, or capacity in the energy grid, it is clear that the UK lacks the basic infrastructure we need to grow our economy. Businesses want to do the right thing; they want to invest in new and greener technology, like the industrial launderette or the retailer of green mopeds that are in my constituency. They want to grow—they want to shift to greener technology and grow their sales and their business—but they are not being given the tools to do so, and I see little, if anything, in today’s Budget to encourage them.

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17:59 Barry Gardiner (Labour)

I welcome the action taken on prepayment meters, which will make a real difference to some of the poorest families in our country. But again, what chutzpah. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), my constituency neighbour, has been urging every Chancellor since George Osborne to resolve this inequality. I welcome the action taken to allocate £20 billion—over 20 years—for carbon capture, use and storage. But again, what chutzpah. Thirteen years ago, the incoming Tory-Liberal Government inherited £4 billion already allocated to CCUS, and they cut it.

Equally, it makes no sense to be paying 100% of the cost of oil and gas companies such as BP and Shell for exploitation of new fossil fuel reserves in the North sea, which will contradict our net zero objectives. These companies are already making record profits on the backs of bill payers in the UK. I would ask the Chancellor to put a green filter on R&D tax credits.

The Chancellor had four E’s, but he missed out the most pressing E of all: the environment. The Committee on Climate Change set out that we will not achieve our net zero target without a strategic programme to reform our regulatory frameworks and market design that galvanises between £300 billion and £430 billion of investment and removes the barriers to the construction of a new renewable energy infrastructure. I am afraid this Budget simply does not measure up.

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18:27 Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)

Of course, all of this is occurring in a country that is energy rich. We are talking about probably the majority of Scots, over half the population, being in fuel poverty. Whole areas will be existing in fuel poverty, yet Scotland’s energy wealth is being used by the UK to make the rich richer. Scotland’s wealth is being extracted and our people are being left bereft. It is not just the oil and gas that I mentioned earlier—let us look at what is anticipated to come from renewable energy.

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18:33 Karin Smyth (Labour)

Overall, there is nothing in the Budget for the west and the south-west. Again, we have been completely ignored by this Government. Transport is a crucial issue for us in Bristol South. We can support tackling the climate crisis and moving towards net zero only if we have a functioning transport system, and this Government simply do not care about that. Many of my constituents rely on buses; the elderly and young people going to education need a bus service. With the end of the bus recovery grant, my constituents would like to know what on earth the Government are going to do to support them.

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18:38 Rachael Maskell (Labour)

Those are three brilliant clusters that the Government should be fighting to invest in—three brilliant projects that will not just level up my city by creating the jobs that are desperately needed in post-industrial York, but will benefit the region and the country and advance tech, science and climate mitigation around the world.

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18:46 Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)

Of course, Labour would have done better. We would have supported businesses and the economy, we would have tackled climate change, and we would have made the lives of people in our communities better. It feels that after the last Budget, things could only have got better, but rather than having some poor tribute act that is getting all the notes wrong, we need things to get better with a Labour Government. Move over and let the greats do it again. We did it in 1997, and we will do it again now.

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