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Dave Doogan's Speeches In Parliament Related to Climate

We've found 40 Parliamentary debates in which Dave Doogan has spoken about climate-related matters.

Here are the relevant sections of their speeches.

• 19 May 2026: Energy Security

  I would never accuse the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, of being a rank, rotten revisionist, but the problem is that in the last 10 years of his Government, oil and gas jobs in north-east Scotland went down by 100,000, and just in the two years that he was a Minister, including in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, they went down a further 10%. Why is he now manifesting as some sort of caped crusader for oil and gas workers? It is difficult for many of us in north-east Scotland to believe.

  [Source]

• 18 Mar 2026: Fuel Duty

  15:09

  The other thing that really irritates me about this Government is the way that they talk about the just transition. They say, “We will be using fossil fuels for another 50 years, and we will be producing them in the United Kingdom”, as though they hold all the levers. Let me explain something to Members on the Government Front Bench: if they continue to apply Labour’s atrophying interventions in the North sea oil and gas sector, the industry, which is global—I do not know whether that is news to Ministers—will go somewhere where it can make a living and a profit and does not have some sort of nefarious Government taxing it out of existence.

  [Source]

• 14 Jan 2026: Economic Growth

  The SNP delivered yet another ambitious budget for Scotland yesterday. It saw almost £1 billion for rates relief, £5 billion for energy and climate change and a 10% uplift for Scotland’s colleges. [ Interruption. ] The SNP has delivered 10.5% growth since 2007, compared with the UK’s 5.1%. The question is not about what the UK Government will do for Scotland’s economy, but what they will do to stop damaging it. [ Interruption. ]

  [Source]

• 14 Jan 2026: Oil Refining Sector

  The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way again. He is setting out a seriously curious sequence of events for a well-intentioned Government relative to a vital industry. Is he concerned, as I am, that this is more about the beliefs of the Secretary of State than the industrial imperatives of these islands? The Government are failing in their pursuit of decarbonisation, but they are succeeding in deindustrialisation.

  [Source]

• 6 Jan 2026: Energy Transition

  12:18

  Refined hydrocarbon fuels are excluded from the Government’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, meaning that although UK refineries face emissions trading scheme costs of £50 per tonne, overseas fuel producers do not. That is clearly incomprehensibly damaging in economic terms and is self-evidently counterproductive when it comes to climate goals. In terms of energy security, it is pure madness. Refining at Grangemouth and Prax Lindsey are two early casualties of Labour’s failure to understand basic economics. Will the Government now act to protect the four remaining refineries in GB, or will Labour continue with its policy of deindustrialisation dressed up as decarbonisation?

  [Source]

• 16 Dec 2025: Finance (No. 2) Bill

  17:49

  The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my next paragraph. The energy profits levy should be coming to an end, but it has been extended by this Labour Government until 2030. That has caused 100 job losses from Harbour Energy, and it is causing 1,000 job losses every month, according to Offshore Energies UK. We are in this situation because the Prime Minister lacks the mettle to get rid of the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. That is one job getting protected in Whitehall, but it is costing 1,000 jobs a month in Scotland. That is the Labour way, and it always will be.

  [Source]

• 18 Nov 2025: ExxonMobil: Mossmorran

  For the hard of thinking, those policies are: the carbon tax, at £20 million for Mossmorran alone; the cost of UK energy, which Labour cannot fix; the supply of ethane feedstock from the North sea; the energy profits levy, which this Government backs; the Government signalling an artificially accelerated decline in the North sea; and, of course, the national insurance raid on employers, taxing every job across the United Kingdom. This is industrial illiteracy and regulatory incompetence writ large. What does the Minister say to that?

  [Source]

• 3 Mar 2025: Finance Bill

  I will crack on with new clause 2, as it relates to the Government’s catastrophic management of the fiscal regime for Scotland’s oil and gas. In December, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund touched €1.7 trillion, but Scotland is no wealthier now in real terms than we were when North sea oil and gas was discovered in the 1970s. More than £400 billion has flowed from Scottish waters to the Treasury over the years, with very little coming back the other way. Rather than reverse that trend, the Labour party has chosen to accelerate it with an increase in the energy profits levy. The windfall tax was supposed to apply to the extraordinarily high profits from the high global oil price that preceded its introduction, but that level has long since gone. Through its changes to the EPL, the Labour party jeopardises investment and, in doing so, the future of our skilled offshore energy workforce and our ability to hit net zero.

  Analysis from Offshore Energies UK shows that the increase to and extension of the EPL risk costing the economy £13 billion, which will in turn cost up to 35,000 jobs. The analysis also shows a reduction in viable capital investment offshore from £14.1 billion to £2.3 billion in the period 2025 to 2029 as a result of the changes that the Government are planning in the EPL. That loss of economic value impacts not only on the core sector itself but on the domestic onshore supply companies, many of which are in my constituency, and many of which will have a role to play in the just transition. That reflects a political choice by the Labour party to deprioritise investment in the decarbonisation agenda. Rather than allow a more valuable decarbonisation relief as the solitary positive by-product of its tax hike, Labour has ensured that there can be absolutely no silver lining to this policy cloud.

  The simple truth is that the UK cannot meet the net zero targets or create green growth if the Labour party’s policies hack away at both investment and the domestic workforce that we need to deliver the energy transition. It is clear that the Labour party is abandoning Scotland’s existing energy sector, and putting at risk the just transition in the process. With those changes to the EPL, Labour will have created a worst-of-all-worlds scenario whereby it starves industry of investment, sacrifices the jobs that we need to deliver net zero, puts at risk our energy security, will not bring down energy bills, and harms the economy of Scotland, while failing to invest the money required to truly deliver the benefits that we all need to see from the just transition.

  [Source]

  17:55

  Analysis from OEUK shows that the oil and gas sector’s total tax yield will peak in 2026 under Labour’s increase in the EPL before declining, compared with the previous scenario, in which Treasury receipts continued to increase over the period. The analysis shows that while the expected tax take from UK oil and gas producers would increase in the very short term, ultimately it will result in a £12 billion net loss to tax receipts compared with the current regime. If the Labour party does not care about the jobs that the policy will cost, the harm it will do to the just transition or the damage to the economy of Scotland, surely Labour can accept that a tax increase that actually reduces the amount of tax received is, at best, counterproductive. That is why the SNP will support new clause 2 if it is pressed to a Division.

  [Source]

• 12 Feb 2025: Energy Infrastructure: Chinese Companies

  The Minister is all over the place on this. In her opening remarks, she said that the United Kingdom has a world-leading renewable energy industry. If we did, we would not be having this discussion about foreign imported infrastructure. Notwithstanding the Tories’ total failure over 14 years to invest in the industrial base for renewable energy manufacturing across the United Kingdom, what is the Government’s strategy to get in front of this, not just in manufacturing but in resource supply, enterprise resource planning and intellectual property? What is the big shift that the Government have planned? I just hear jibber-jabber.

  [Source]

• 7 Jan 2025: Budget: Scotland

  14:48

  The hon. Member for Livingston also talked about energy. He should go up to the north-east of Scotland to talk about energy: we are six months into this Government and there is no evidence whatever of GB Energy making any impact in Scotland. The last time I checked, it had one employee and was based in Manchester. The hon. Member also talked about the investment that would be realised. Somehow, the Acorn project in Scotland —the most deliverable carbon capture, usage and storage project across GB—is still not being funded by the Labour Government, despite their funding a further two CCUS projects in England, in addition to the two already there. Sadly, it is England 4, Scotland 0—it is like a football match.

  [Source]

• 10 Dec 2024: Finance Bill

  15:13

  The cumulative effect of clauses 15 to 18 will sound the death knell for Scotland’s hydrocarbon production in advance, crucially, of the transition—economically illiterate, fiscally incompetent and with industrial suicide as the result. A windfall tax is supposed to be a tax on extraordinary profits, yet the extraordinarily high global oil and gas prices that preceded the introduction of the tax have long since abated. Through these changes, the Labour party jeopardises investment in Scotland’s offshore energies and risks the future of our skilled workforce and our ability to hit net zero while employing those workers. Analysis from Offshore Energies UK shows that the increase and extension of the EPL risks costing the economy £13 billion and putting 35,000 jobs at risk.

  The analysis from OEUK also shows a collapse in viable capital investment offshore under these changes from £14.1 billion to £2.3 billion in the period ’25-29. It is increasingly apparent that the Government do not really understand how investment horizons work offshore. They are not on a month-to-month basis; they take years to work up. This loss of economic value impacts on not only the core sector, but domestic supply chain companies, many of whom exist in my constituency, which have an essential role to play in the just transition.

  Changes to the EPL will hinder the just transition. The Government argue that the reduction in the rate of the decarbonisation investment allowance to 66% will maintain the overall cumulative value of relief for investment expenditure following the rate increase, reflecting the fact that this relief will increase in value against a higher levy rate. However, the policy still reflects a political choice by Labour to deprioritise investment in decarbonisation. Rather than allowing more valuable decarbonisation relief as the solitary positive by-product of its tax hike, Labour has striven to ensure that there is absolutely no silver lining to this fiscal attack cloud on Scotland’s energy industry.

  [Source]

  15:13

  The simple truth is that the UK state cannot meet net zero or create green growth if Labour’s policies to hack away at investment in both the domestic workforce and the sector are allowed to progress. It is clear that the Labour party is abandoning Scotland’s existing energy sector, and putting at risk the just transition into the bargain. With these changes to the EPL, Labour will be creating the worst of all worlds: it will starve industry of investment, sacrifice the jobs of those who can deliver net zero, threaten energy security, keep energy bills high and harm the economy of Scotland, while at the very same time failing to invest the money required to truly deliver against a green transition.

  [Source]

• 27 Nov 2024: Finance Bill

  16:57

  Thereafter, though, we get into serious difficulty. I will start with the Bill’s clauses 15 to 18, a further and final attack on North sea oil and gas, Scotland’s natural endowment. The UK has drawn hundreds of billions of pounds from the North sea over the course of my lifetime, the past 50 years. It is almost as though the UK is addicted to it—so much so that it is going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The Government are hiking taxes, eroding allowances and driving investment from the North sea, including precisely the businesses that we need to drive the just transition to net zero in the places where we need them. What other state would attack one of its own industries in this way? It beggars belief. It will come home to roost in spades, and it will not shift the dial one bit towards the net zero future that we are trying to get to. The oil and gas that is being displaced from the Scottish sector by this Government’s ineptitude will be replaced by oil and gas from other jurisdictions, where the tax will be paid and where, doubtless, human rights are very much worse.

  [Source]

• 26 Nov 2024: COP29

  We learned three things from the statement. The first is that the climate finance will come from the existing UK aid budget. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that the increase in the UK aid budget will be greater than the amount that has gone on climate finance, so that we can be confident that we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul in the developed world? Do the important agreements on deforestation mean that the UK will stop spending almost £11 billion on subsidies to burn trees in England to generate electricity—is that one of the important elements that he talked about on deforestation? He claimed in his statement that GB Energy is set up. Can he tell us where we can go and see it? [ Laughter. ]

  [Source]

• 29 Oct 2024: Great British Energy Bill

  The Liberal Democrats have a well-worded and noble ambition on community energy, and the SNP would have been pleased to support it. One of the things missing from GB Energy is a statutory responsibility to develop and accelerate community energy at pace in a measured fashion. Referring back to my opening remarks, I am supportive of the Bill’s outline ambitions, but I am worried about the lack of detail. The more we discuss and debate the Bill, the more I am concerned that GB Energy will end up doing lots of things that nobody particularly needed it to do, because they were all done by a department within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

  [Source]

  He can indeed. The hon. Member may think he is being terribly smart—he is a self-professed expert in the energy market—but he will know how difficult it is for someone to penetrate the UK energy market unless they happen to be a large plc or a multinational. When the Scottish Government took forward that noble ambition, they found precisely the same barriers to entry as community energy companies and trusts. If the hon. Member wants to get excited about that situation, I suggest he takes it up with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

  [Source]

• 7 Oct 2024: Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage

  18:48

  The Secretary of State says he is absolutely committed to the Acorn project. Well, the way to show that would be to fund it, because yet again the UK Government have failed to announce funding for carbon capture utilisation and storage projects in Scotland. This is a disaster economically, industrially and environmentally. I am sure he will agree that without Acorn, the UK cannot meet its net zero targets and will miss them by some margin. The last Tory Government failed to back this project in Scotland for years, and despite offering change, Labour has done exactly the same thing, following the same path with broadly the same budget and prioritising less developed, less substantial and less deliverable projects in England while offering the Scottish cluster no funding at all to date. People in Scotland remember well how eager the Treasury and the Westminster Government were to get their hands on revenues from North sea oil and gas. When will we see that returned with investment from Westminster into the north-east of Scotland to support the Acorn project?

  [Source]

• 5 Sep 2024: Great British Energy Bill

  14:50

  The Government must accept that the messaging around GB Energy was muddled at the very least during the election. It was almost as though it was rushed through as a manifesto headline, rather than resulting from the strategic development of careful, thought-out, optimised planning, but there we are. We understand that there will be limited co-production from the company, no retail arm and no public sector comparator role. It will be a provider that does not do much provision and a decider that does not make any decisions. Talk about net zero—there is zero detail in the Bill to give us an indication of what will actually happen on the ground. It was going to sell energy to the public, and then it was not. It was going to generate energy. Then it was not, and now it will again. I think we are still in that space.

  On a substantive note about the lack of detail in the Bill, it is a great pity that the Government want us to believe that clean energy means energy produced from sources other than fossil fuels. It is hard to imagine a more one-dimensional analysis and qualification than that. It is narrow and incoherent, and out of step with the science and the public. It does not really matter where or what carbon is locked into. If you burn it to release carbon dioxide in the process of making energy, then you are a carbon emitter contributing to the climate crisis. It is as simple as that. We should not be hostage to a technology where hundreds of millions of pounds in Government subsidies are used to create millions of tonnes of CO2 a year.

  [Source]

  14:57

  I hesitate to thank the right hon. Member for his intervention— [ Laughter. ] I will need to fact check his 13 million figure—I will get back to him on that. But let us be really clear—I will touch on onshore wind in a minute—that once those trees are burned in a former coal-fired power station, the only products are CO2 and electricity, but where trees have been cleared to create onshore wind in Scotland, there is a lifetime of renewable, clean cheap energy coming out the other side, so it is a false comparator if ever I saw one. Do the Government believe that waste to energy is also clean energy? That does not seem to be what GB Energy should pursue, and I am not certain there is much support for that in the country.

  Community energy is essential to how we make our journey to net zero, but like much else there is scant detail on that. If the Government had properly consulted the community energy sector—they can probably still do that—they would know that access to consumers is one of the principal drawbacks to developing these schemes. It is disappointing that no lateral thinking is being applied on how to connect the will to create community energy with the market. Ofgem has created an environment where one can deliver an extraordinary example of community electricity generation, but trying to connect with consumers is almost impossible. GB Energy, if it is nothing else—and it does appear to be not much else—could have been part of the gig economy. It could have been the Uber of retail energy. We could have bought community energy and passed it on to the consumer base, but that is not going to happen.

  [Source]

• 25 Jul 2024: Business of the House

  The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is trumpeting that 76% of the electorate are right behind GB Energy, and why would they not be? Why would they not want a state-owned energy company such as Ørsted, Vattenfall or Equinor delivering for people across these islands? But it is not that, is it? It is a cynical, snake oil exercise to gift-wrap a Department that already exists, and it will not deliver energy across these islands at all. Can we have a debate in Government time about why GB Energy is nothing short of smoke and mirrors?

  [Source]

• 21 May 2024: Social Housing: Energy Efficiency

  The Scottish Government are working at pace to replace polluting heating systems and improve energy efficiency in Scotland’s building stock, with £1.8 billion being invested in this parliamentary Session towards heat and energy efficiency measures and £600 million towards new affordable housing. With the Climate Change Committee stating that the Scottish Government’s heat in buildings Bill could become the template for the UK, helping Scotland to decarbonise faster than anywhere else in the UK, would the Minister like to visit the Scottish Government in Edinburgh? I can arrange that for her, so that she can see climate leadership in action.

  [Source]

• 2 May 2024: National Grid: Pylons

  13:30

  The ESO has been guilty of gross complacency in anticipating that when delivering this level of civil engineering across sensitive parts of this island—we are talking purely about GB, rather than UK—people locally will say, “That’s okay. I don’t mind pylons. Just throw them up wherever you like and we will all get on with it.” That is not acceptable or legitimate, and that is distinct from the ambition to decarbonise our electricity system and the ambitions of net zero.

  We already have a 275 kV line coming down the Strath. We have a prospect under the ESO’s holistic network design of an additional 400 kV pylon line coming down the Strath. We now learn that under the TCSNP, which is nothing to do with my party—apparently it is a strategic network plan, but it is not very strategic, if you ask me—there is an additional 400 kV line to come down the Strath. It is not realistic or fair to think that people will say, “Oh well, that’s okay. We accept that three towering lines of pylons must come down one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland.” It is not fair to constituents across GB who are similarly affected, and it is not fair to our collective ambition to decarbonise our energy system. Undoubtedly, because of the complacency of the ESO—goodness knows what Ofgem was doing throughout all this—there will be planning appeals, delays and public inquiries. Where does that leave our ambitions for net zero?

  Mrs Latham, I have no shortage of respect and admiration for the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), but I am very disappointed that there is no Minister from the Department present to hear this debate. I trust—in fact, I am sure—that we will get a sturdy and robust response from the Minister here today, but it is a pity it was not one from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

  [Source]

• 16 Apr 2024: Topical Questions

  12:23

  We learned last year that no fewer than 200 Department for Energy Security and Net Zero jobs were going to transfer from London to Aberdeen. That was championed by no less than the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack) and the Minister responsible for nuclear and renewables, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). It now transpires that only 35 jobs will transfer to Aberdeen. For context, that is 0.37% of the DESNZ workforce. Is the Secretary of State content for that derisory transfer of jobs from her Department to Aberdeen? Presumably she will not be, so what is she going to do about it to give the north-east of Scotland a better deal?

  [Source]

• 13 Mar 2024: Gas-fired Power Stations

  12:49

  What a cluster—it is unbelievable that we are in this situation. In the Secretary of State’s letter to Members today, she said that the Government are taking steps to make sure the lights stay on. That is the legacy of 14 years of the Conservatives in charge of energy. Uncomfortably, I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg). This is a significant departure, and one we should be alarmed about. Where is the Government’s precious nuclear baseload now? Where is the exemplar of CCUS working at the necessary scale, from which the Government are taking inspiration? Would it not have been an elegant solution to have unabated gas winding down at the same time as battery storage and long-duration pump storage was winding up? We cannot have that, because the Government have dragged their feet on both things. What does the Minister say to people who are having infrastructure for transmission put throughout their communities and are being told to suck it up because that is what we need to get gas out the system, when the same Government are now building gas-fired power stations?

  [Source]

• 20 Feb 2024: Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

  13:49

  The SNP also wishes to ensure that, henceforth, 100% of tax revenues from oil and gas are invested in the just transition. A “just transition” test would have to be met for any given relevant year, under which the NSTA would issue new licences only if it assesses that: they will support the delivery of the North sea transition deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of 10% by 2025, 25% by 2027 and 50% by 2030 against a 2018 baseline, in order to meet the sector’s aim of a net zero basin by 2050; and the Secretary of State has provided funding to support the development of the renewable energy sector in areas of the UK that are economically dependent on the oil and gas sector, equivalent to tax revenues collected from UK oil and gas production. That amendment means that new licences cannot be issued unless it can be shown that the licence will meet the North sea transition deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and unless the UK Government are funding the renewables sector in oil and gas dependent areas to at least the value of oil and gas revenues.

  [Source]

  13:52

  That is a just ambition for a just transition. The billions of pounds still to be yielded from oil and gas revenue must not be wasted on doomed capital infrastructure projects, such as HS2, or used to fund exorbitant false economies, such as nuclear power stations in England. It is a moral and economic imperative that revenue be used to accelerate a genuine just transition, to protect jobs.

  [Source]

  13:57

  I note that Members on the Government Benches have desisted from repeating the nonsense that energy bills will be lowered if we grant unlimited licences—and not before time. What will lower bills is ensuring that the renewable energy we generate can find its way to consumers without needing to be turned off because the grid cannot cope after 14 years of non-investment by the Tories. New grid infrastructure will lower bills by dialling gas out of the system. Government Members talk about the relentless need for more and more gas, as if that does not speak to a flaky ambition on a just transition; it exposes it and lays it bare. We will dial gas out of the system by having a network that can connect Scotland’s renewable energy to the market where that is required, and we will do so with proper investment in sub-sea lines, rather than by scarring Scotland with 80-metre pylons. It is a pity that the UK Government would not invest the billions that they are ploughing into nuclear into environmentally optimal grid improvements, instead of defaulting to pylons and overhead lines.

  The Bill is part of an ill-fated Tory miscalculation on making a just transition a wedge issue. We know that, because the Bill is a non-existent solution to a non-existent problem. Some 27 new licences were granted in 2023, and a licensing round has been held by the North Sea Transition Authority every year and a half since 2016. If the Bill is the answer, then I am not certain what the question is. It undermines the independence of the NSTA by forcing it to hold new oil licensing rounds every year, whereas currently the NSTA undertakes licensing rounds when it deems that they are required. It is a challenge so unwelcome that the NSTA board unanimously agreed that this legislation and the annual licensing rounds were unnecessary. This is what happens when the energy sector, so vital to a broad-based, developed economy like Scotland’s, is subject to remote control.

  [Source]

  15:28

  I am disappointed in the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid)—I thought more of him—misquoting Humza Yousaf, who said that he would rather Aberdeen was not the oil and gas capital of Europe but the renewable energy capital of the world. That promises vastly more economic opportunity for workers in Scotland. Government Members had better start dealing with that.

  [Source]

  15:28

  The Bill is completely lacking in merit. It seeks to solve a problem that does not exist. The North Sea Transition Authority can issue licences, and it has been doing so. This is a Potemkin argument; a specious debate about the issuance or otherwise of licences. When this Bill passes, which it will given the arithmetic in this House, it will change not one jot the ability to issue licences or otherwise. What it seeks to do is put on a pedestal and create conflict in what was previously broad consensus about the need for a just transition to combat a climate emergency.

  In the tone and tenor of the debate today, Government Members in particular have shown a desire to weaponise that. We just heard from the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who said in his summing up that only the Conservatives are standing up—absolute and utter nonsense, although if I was working in oil and gas, I would not want to rely too heavily on Labour, if its £28 billion plan is anything to go by. It could have included measures to offset the rapacious appetite for more and more licences to drill for every drop of oil and gas within the North sea basin and receipt every available ha’penny of tax into His Majesty’s Treasury. It could have done those things, and chucked a little bit over the wall to say, “But we’re going to put 5%, 10% or 15% of all those revenues directly into the just transition.” That would not have been brilliant, but it would have been something. But no—there is not a thing in this legislation to offset the appetite for further and further investment.

  Government Members have spoken at length about the need to ensure that we do not develop a gap between that which we demand and that which we can supply—it has already passed; the UK can no longer sustain its own demand. We have to import oil and gas from elsewhere. But that is a myopic obsession with the supply side. There is not nearly enough being done by the Government after 14 years to mitigate the demand side. Supply is a function of demand; the be supply requirements are such as a result of that which is being demanded. If there had been a truly ambitious programme at any stage over the past 14 years to insulate houses, get people into electric vehicles and introduce further decarbonisation of our economies and lifestyles, we would not have the demand that we have now. The potential gap between that which can supplied domestically and that which has to be imported would inevitably be less in a zero-sum game. However, we do not have any of that.

  [Source]

  16:47

  The SNP’s amendment proposed an elegant solution to invest the additional receipts from oil and gas extraction in the North sea basin directly into the renewable transition, protecting people from higher bills, insulating their homes and getting them out of their petrol and diesel cars and into electric cars. As we saw in the Prime Minister’s rolling back on heat pumps and electric vehicles—a further weaponisation of the climate emergency—that is not on the agenda of this fag end Tory Government. They are trying to scrabble around looking for votes, but that does not work. They have achieved tremendous damage with that approach and judging by recent by-election results they have gained zero political capital. On the mess that is evident before us— [ Interruption. ] —while I get heckled by the hon. Member for Moray, I and my SNP colleagues urge Members to decline the Bill a Third Reading.

  [Source]

• 22 Jan 2024: Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

  17:12

  The Scottish National party declines to give this Bill a Second Reading— [ Interruption. ] Would the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), like to intervene already? I would be happy to take it. This Bill is as unnecessary—much like the chuntering from a sedentary position—as it is unwelcome. The Prime Minister, no less, claimed that these measures would reduce energy bills, but of course that is untrue, and the Secretary of State was well advised to distance herself from that fantasy. It is claimed that the Bill will assist with the UK’s energy security, but of course it will do no such thing, given the combined effects of an international energy market and the vagaries of the UK’s refining capacity, which is increasingly and substantially incompatible with oil extracted from the North sea basin. The Government seek to gaslight us with claims that there are strict tests to be met in order to issue any new licences, when in fact these Potemkin tests will inevitably be met for each and every licence application in the future, should the Bill pass.

  Fourteen years of Tory mismanagement of our energy security have seen barely sufficient investment going into renewable generation to meet the demands of the climate emergency, and practically no investment going into the network to transmit this new energy. That means consumers are denied access to large swathes of cheap, green, renewable energy because of a lack of grid capacity. Renewable energy, once switched off, to compensate for a 1960s network, is substituted by gas. I appreciate that the Government are improving and investing in capital infrastructure, but it is 14 years too late.

  What we need from the Government is a bold plan to further accelerate the electrification from renewables of our domestic energy market. What we are presented with is a backward-looking cash grab for Scotland’s hydrocarbons, which comes at the cost of a just transition. Scotland will lose out by having our energy policy dictated by a remote, luddite Westminster Government who are relentlessly focused on the rear-view mirror, rather than on the future and job security.

  [Source]

  17:20

  The premise of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is that by delaying things, and maximising oil and gas production, we somehow maintain this link. We could just as easily deliver the same thing by accelerating the delivery of renewable energy and the infrastructure to transmit it to where it is needed. That would have the added benefit of introducing lower bills for consumers and industry, and making sure that we are not reliant on petrostates from far away with questionable regimes. I am looking through the right end of the telescope, whereas the hon. Gentleman and his Government are looking through the wrong end.

  In short, the Tories could not give a flying fig for any worker on these islands—as long as their share price remains healthy, to hang with the rest of us. If the question is “How do we protect and transition oil and gas jobs into renewable energy production?”, the answer is definitely not to overstimulate unlimited offshore petroleum licensing. According to industry data, 441,000 jobs were supported by the oil and gas sector in 2013, but that number has already fallen to 215,000—so we are talking about 200,000 fewer jobs in 2022. The Government have issued approximately 400 new drilling licences, in five separate licensing rounds, in that period. The claim that there is a direct and proportionate relationship between the amount of licences issued and the amount of jobs sustained is entirely spurious.

  [Source]

  What is important is the understanding that we will be reliant on oil and gas. This Government are creating a false dichotomy between having unlimited new licences and having an oil and gas sector in Scottish waters and within the UK; the two things are not related in the fashion that they are setting out. The hon. Gentleman should be asking why the UK Government will not match the Scottish Government’s ambition for the just transition and our half a billion-pounds of investment, but I will get on to that in a second.

  [Source]

  17:24

  Where is the guaranteed ringfencing of revenues from North sea oil and gas production to develop more renewable energy and accelerate the just transition? Accelerating the just transition—not unduly sustaining legacy energy production—will make the difference and deliver real jobs with sustainability, in terms of both the carbon outputs and how those jobs will last into the future. Where is that support?

  To the casualty of the climate from this Bill, which is an inevitable consequence of this course of action, we can add the pace of delivery for the new net zero economy opportunities in Scotland. When oil and gas opportunities go to a plateau of exhaustion in Scotland, as everyone knows they will, what will be left in the cupboard to support communities such as those in Banff and Buchan, Angus, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, and elsewhere in the north-east of Scotland? Why are the revenues from the historical exploitation of oil and gas not going into accelerating renewable opportunities and making sure that we deliver jobs for the future?

  As I said in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), the Scottish Government have invested £500 million into the green transition for Scotland— [ Interruption. ] Well, unlike anything to do with this Bill, that funding is allocated and is there to be invested. I will tell you why, Mr Deputy Speaker, this Government are nervous of that figure: because if the UK were to match Scotland’s ambition in the just transition, it would be £5 billion across the UK, but we see no such commitment, vision or climate ambition. What we see is a Tory Prime Minister who cannot effectively lead his party, let alone the UK state or an energy transition, seeking to divide people on the climate, and rolling back on climate action commitments and signals given to industry on electric vehicles and boiler replacements, while over-exploiting Scotland’s legacy hydrocarbons and dragging his feet on carbon capture, usage and storage, especially Acorn.

  The picture is revealed even for those with the largest blinkers. The hallmark of failure is stamped on this Tory Government, who will politicise anything, even the climate consensus, in a vain attempt to stem their electoral destruction. The Bill fails to outline a transition away from fossil fuels as per the agreed resolution at COP28, on which the ink is barely dry. The UK delegation signed up to that agreement in the full knowledge of this Bill’s impending passage. We all know that the UK has a questionable approach to its international obligations, but this is plain bad faith.

  Finally, the Bill does not acknowledge the climate emergency. In fact, with this Bill the Tory Government are thumbing their noses at the climate challenge that we all face together and should address together. In the Bill, the Government seek to over-capitalise on legacy energy production rather than invest in the renewable energy jobs of the future. Much of that employment and enterprise will be in demand mitigation, with thermal insulation, equipment upgrades and new technologies. As a result of the ambition that drives the Bill and the warped thinking behind it, jobs, the economy, bill payers and the climate will suffer, so I urge Members to decline to give it a Second Reading.

  [Source]

  It is a bit rich listening to a Scottish Tory MP talk about the bountiful experience of North sea oil and gas for Scotland. If we had been independent in the ’70s, we would be embarrassingly well off compared with our neighbours elsewhere in these islands. The hon. Member says that we want to throw workers in the oil and gas industry in Scotland under a bus, and that we want to see a “cliff edge” where those jobs disappear. What is his evidence for that? We are investing in a just transition. Whereas he is trying to pursue an endurance of legacy opportunities for employment, we want to turbocharge new opportunities for jobs over 150 to 200 years.

  [Source]

• 16 Jan 2024: Onshore Wind Farm Cables

  12:01

  New renewable energy generation demands new transmission infrastructure. This Government have been asleep at the wheel for 14 years, showing zero pace, ambition or grip in delivering that energy infrastructure, and that is why bills are so high. Nevertheless, we are where we are. Will the Minister confirm to the House for the record what National Grid has said: that UK Government policy is that when constructing new transmission infrastructure, overhead lines are the starting position?

  [Source]

• 28 Nov 2023: Offshore Wind: East of England

  12:18

  It comes as a great relief that the Minister is listening, certainly to my constituents and his own. There are extraordinary levels of cheap green Scottish renewable energy transmitted to large consumers in industrial bases in the south by the network. This north-south transaction should rightly be done by subsea transmission cables, negating the need for onshore pylons and their attendant visual blight, environmental degradation, loss of productive farmland, costly compulsory purchase and wayleave charges. Why are Angus and other Scottish communities now threatened with a new 400 kV pylon line, instead of transmitting that energy south using subsea methods?

  [Source]

• 9 Nov 2023: Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

  12:40

  With the same forked tongue that the Government used when they claimed that revenues could go to supporting household energy bills, they also claimed that tax revenues could go towards supporting renewable energy investment. If they meant that, they would be setting out exactly how that would happen; but they have not, because it will not happen under this Treasury or this Tory Government.

  [Source]

  12:46

  The only way to achieve long-term energy security, which goes in some way to answering the hon. Gentleman’s question, is through renewable energy produced on and offshore in the North sea and all around these islands. Scotland’s future is at the heart of this green gold rush but we are, as usual in this so-called Union, held back by London doing to Scotland, never with, and talking at us but never for us.

  Thankfully, the Scottish Government recognise the huge opportunity of community energy schemes to empower communities, solve those challenges, and reduce the need for vast infrastructure investment projects through the community and renewable energy scheme. In Scotland, the Government have provided more than £58 million. Contrast that with the £10 million from the English Government for England—it is not actually £10 million anyway, because £1 million is for administration; it is really only £9 million—and we can see which Administration are supporting community energy generation, and which are not.

  This debacle has needlessly set back wind production in auction round 5, and we need to see something very substantial in auction round 6. I assume that we will have a realistic strike price for offshore in auction round 6. I hope that it will be around 50% to 60% inflated over what was in auction round 5, in cognisance of supply chain constraints, construction price inflation, and the challenges of capital expenditure and attracting investor confidence in the UK, which of course has taken a real battering after the Prime Minister’s announcements to row back on climate emergency legislation.

  [Source]

  That would depend on what we want to grow. If we want to invest substantially in renewable energy and the technologies of the future, then yes, I do. If we want to invest in Chinese expertise, French reactors and nuclear power plants, then no, I do not. It is very much horses for courses with this Government, and I wish that my constituents, and everyone else in Scotland, did not have to rely on these misguided ambitions any longer than we absolutely must.

  [Source]

  To maximise the efficiency of renewable energy generation while ensuring the lowest possible prices for consumers, we require a properly functioning energy grid, which will necessarily include long-duration energy storage. Industry has been super clear that future expansion of pumped hydro storage is achievable and affordable, and that crucially a number of projects already have planning permission, such as Cruachan in the west of Scotland. However, the UK Government’s current market mechanisms prevent the investment needed to ensure that those vital projects are delivered in a timely manner, consistent with the climate emergency and the ambition to lower consumers’ bills.

  [Source]

• 25 Oct 2023: Government Support for a Circular Economy

  Unlike here in Westminster, the Scottish Government are committed to implementing legislation to ensure a transition to a circular economy, and to support growth in green businesses while cutting waste and climate emissions. However, the UK Government continue to abuse their post-Brexit powers to prevent the Scottish Government from taking action. We saw that after the Scottish Government introduced the Circular Economy Bill to the Scottish Parliament. The Bill will give Ministers powers to set local recycling targets, which is fine; ban the disposal of unsold consumer goods; and place charges on single-use items. On that last provision, the Scottish Government went further and legislated for a deposit return scheme, which was due to go live in August ’23, until the malign last-minute intervention of the United Kingdom Government. They unilaterally halted Scotland’s ambitions until October ’25 at the earliest, and held Scotland back to keep us in line with England. A partnership of equals? I think not!

  The European Commission adopted a new circular economy plan in March 2020. Europe is marching on ahead. Thirteen countries have a deposit returns scheme. It is entirely unremarkable on the continent and Scotland would be among that number were we not shackled to this failing Westminster system. A transition to a circular economy is crucial to our fight against climate change. We must remain committed to shifting away from a disposable economy. I am struck by hon. Members talking about throwing away. Away where? It does not go anywhere. It stays with us. We must remain committed to that priority. Our society should be based on the principles of recycling and reusing, and that should be achieved through deeds, not words.

  [Source]

• 18 Oct 2023: Energy Bill [Lords]

  14:41

  Why will these Tories not follow the SNP Scottish Government’s lead in this priority? The Scottish Government’s community and renewable energy scheme promotes community energy ownership across Scotland. CARES continues to help communities engage, participate in and benefit from the transition to net zero. Since 2010, CARES has offered advice and support to more than 900 organisations and assisted in the delivery of 600 community and locally owned renewable projects throughout Scotland, offering funding in the process of £58 million. Just to clarify, that is just in Scotland, which rather puts in the shade the £10 million on offer from the English Government to English community generation—whenever that happens. CARES accelerates progress towards the Scottish Government’s target of 2 GW of renewable energy to be locally or community owned by 2030. The scheme assists in the delivery of both the Scottish Government’s energy strategy and heat in buildings strategy through the provision of loan finance, grant funding and specialist advice.

  [Source]

• 12 Sep 2023: Offshore Wind Contracts

  12:42

  The critical need for massive investment in offshore is patently obvious for bills and for the climate, yet this ambition has been thwarted by an incompetent previous Secretary of State and by the Treasury, which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Can the Minister assure us that the Department will get round the table with industry as a matter of urgency to try to repair this damage? Industry needs a strike price that reflects the not-mutually-exclusive goals of lower bills, net zero, and jobs and investment in Scotland and elsewhere. Can he confirm whether a recovery group for auction round 5 will be convened by him or the Secretary of State to try to get this catastrophe resolved? And where is she?

  [Source]

• 5 Sep 2023: Energy Bill [Lords]

  16:08

  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.

  [Source]

  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.

  [Source]

  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.

  [Source]

• 9 May 2023: Topical Questions

  The transition to net zero should be the overarching priority for all of us. With that in mind, when will the Treasury finally get its act together with the Acorn project in the north-east of Scotland and accelerate its funding to ensure that the people of the north-east of Scotland do not just have to listen to warm words about the just transition, but can get a job in the just transition?

  [Source]

• 8 Feb 2023: Engagements

  12:18

  Q2.   The UK Government’s fiscally illiterate electricity generator levy will choke off billions from future investments in the kind of renewable energy projects that my Angus constituency excels at delivering. This investment will find its way to more favourable jurisdictions, putting thousands of green jobs in Scotland and our energy transition at risk. Will the Prime Minister commit to scrapping this environmentally and economically damaging tax, or will he instead confirm that he and the latest Chancellor know the price of everything and the value of nothing?

  [Source]

• 2 Feb 2023: British Steel: Negotiations

  I have listened carefully to the Minister’s words, and she has regularly detailed the amount of public money that has gone in to support the steel industry in the United Kingdom, and said that these are commercial decisions and private discussions. I wonder though, with the renewed role for steel in the green energy transition, why the Government—I will say this, even if the Labour party will not—do not consider nationalising steel in the United Kingdom? If so much public money is going into the industry anyway and they recognise—the Minister has assured the House that they do—that steel is not just any other industry but a strategic asset for any developed economy, why does she not nationalise it?

  [Source]

• 9 Mar 2022: Russian Oil Import Ban

  14:17

  “Transition” is the key word, as the Minister has just said. We need to pivot very quickly towards renewable energy, but this is a sharp reduction in oil and gas imports, as 8% come from Russia. We welcome that measure, but insofar as that will lead to a net reduction in the availability of oil and gas, it will also lead to a net reduction in emissions, which will not be maintained. We will need to supplement that demand in the short term. What discussions does he plan to have with the Scottish Government to ensure that we can meet that need with the maximum economic benefit to oil and gas services companies?

  [Source]

• 19 Jan 2022: Rebated Fuel Rules: Construction Industry

  However, at the heart of the concern is fairness. As other hon. Members have set out, the notion that operators of this type of vehicle will somehow go out within the next two to three months to purchase alternatives that will not be subject to this tax increase is for the birds. The alternatives are not there—the manufacturers do not have the technology beyond the prototype stage. This is therefore a tax grab, essentially. We need to call it what it is. What the Government should have done, and may have got a bit of respect for, was implement a well-advertised, well-indicated, well-consulted-upon, graduated reduction of the rebate on red diesel, to allow industry and manufacturers to appropriately and realistically adapt their fleets and their products to meet the climate change targets that we all agree on. There is no dispute about those; it is how we get there that, in this instance, is deeply unfair.

  [Source]

• 2 Nov 2021: COP26 and Air Pollution

  17:15

  COP26, of course, is about our climate. Air pollution is a different, although not entirely unconnected, matter. COP is about cleaning up our act, and we certainly need to clean up our act when it comes to air quality. To that point, the hon. Member for Huddersfield mentioned Drax, and I say to the Minister that Drax is anathema to anybody with a passing concern for air quality. It is an almost dystopian process, which scars the landscape of the United States on an industrial scale, poisons the people who live near the mills with particulates in the air to make the pellets, and ships them half way around the world to England to be burnt. It would be bad enough without a Government subsidy, but with one it is absurd. I would like to know if the Minister agrees with that analysis.

  To this end, the Scottish Government aim to reduce car use by 20% by 2030, taking it back to levels last seen in the 1990s. Moreover, sustainable public transport is essential for the ambition to reach net zero. That is why the Scottish Government will have phased out the majority of fossil fuel buses by 2023, and will invest £120 million in zero-emission buses. The UK Government could learn a lot from Scotland in our shared pursuits of net zero and viable green recovery plans. For example, the UK Government must stop cutting electric vehicle access schemes, such as England’s electric vehicle grants system. This has been further downgraded from £5,000 in 2011 to £4,500 in 2016; to £3,500 in 2018; to £3,000 in 2020; and now to £2,500 in 2021. This is the worst sort of swimming against the tide. Figures from electric vehicle charging website Zap-Map show that of the 21,000 public charging points in the UK, only 20% are free to use; that is 4,928 points, and 26% of these are in Scotland where around 60% are free to use. Electric vehicle drivers in Scotland benefit from almost 40 public charge points per 100,000, compared to fewer than 30 per 100,000 in England. Promoting and investing in active travel access is essential to drive down car usage. Scotland currently spends over £18 per head of population, compared with just £7 in England––more than 150% higher.

  [Source]

• 21 Sep 2021: Decarbonising Aviation

  14:49

  In this debate, I wish to shine a light on design issues, especially the twin problems of realism and pace within the design dimension, which I feel are not being properly addressed, much less owned. The UK Government talk an average game when it comes to net zero, but the investment and the road map have been pushed out almost entirely to make space for political rhetoric, much of it hyperbole. Perhaps if we put a gun on a new sustainable prototype aircraft, the UK Government would get their act together. With just a fraction of the investment lavished on the Typhoon multi-role combat aircraft, UK taxpayers could have a real global competitive advantage in renewable aviation businesses all over these islands. The absence of investment leaves industry to do what it can, which is good up to a point, because it is the industry’s engineers and scientists who will get us out of the inertia of conventional propulsion systems consuming fossil fuels and into the next generation of passenger aircraft, but they will not do it without game-changing Government investment.

  [Source]

• 8 Sep 2021: Plastic Waste

  17:07

  May I, in a conclusion that is hopefully not too confusing, speak up for plastics, as some right hon. and hon. Members have done? I do not fancy a life without plastic. I do not want to get on an aeroplane without plastic; I do not want to get ill in a world without plastic; and I really do not want to clean up after my 12-year-old Golden Retriever in a world without plastic. Plastic is not the villain here. We must minimise its use in a way that is consistent with our climate objectives, but focus on the post-consumer regime. The operative word in the plastic waste crisis is “waste”, and I urge the Government not to waste any more time.

  [Source]

• 22 Jun 2021: Welsh Rural Economy

  15:09

  I had an interesting meeting recently with a renewable energy company that has floating wind farms. It has a tremendous pilot project off the Pembrokeshire coast, and it wants to do something similar off the North sea coast, off Peterhead. The dialogue that it had with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was so slow that it represents a golden opportunity lost by the Government to open up rural and very rural parts of our economy and to meet our net zero and renewable energy targets. There is a level of disconnect. Even if the company did get the project going, like many renewable projects in mid and west Wales, the feed-in tariffs, although not so bad in Wales, are still appalling, whereas we have energy producers around London paid to connect to the grid. In Wales they will have to pay a couple of pounds per unit, and in Caithness in Scotland, very, very rural communities will have to pay £6 or £7 per unit. BEIS just holds up its hands—“It’s not us. It is Ofgem.” Such levels of disconnect from central Government in London are not acceptable. They hold our economies back.

  [Source]

• 21 Jun 2021: Grouse Shooting

  17:33

  Turning to legislation, in a whole host of ways the UK’s bureaucracy and Executive trail in the wake of Scotland’s dynamism under 14 years of SNP Government. Members can take their pick from policy areas, including net zero targets, social care reform, tuition fees, rate relief, tree planting—the list goes on, and it includes the ambition for grouse moor management. By contrast, the dead slow and stop approach by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to the challenge is unacceptable and does not benefit anybody on either side of this challenging debate.

  [Source]

See all Parliamentary Speeches Mentioning Climate