Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Fuel Duty.
Andrew Murrison (Conservative)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s policy fails on its own terms, because they say they want to subscribe to net zero and make us much greener in how we approach our energy consumption, yet we know that importing liquefied natural gas from countries such as the US has a carbon cost that is a multiple of extracting the stuff in this country within our own territorial sea? If the Government are serious about net zero, they would therefore be pumping LNG from the North sea, not importing it from the US.
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12:49 Richard Holden (Conservative)
My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point, and he makes it clearly. He is in agreement with the Climate Change Committee, which says that we will have to be using oil and gas well in to the second half of this century. Why on earth should we not drill our own at lower cost and bring in those jobs and taxation, while getting the environmental benefits of doing it on our own doorstep under British regulations? It would not be extracted in other countries with lower regulations and lower environmental standards. The best environmental standards in the world exist in our North sea.
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12:49 Louie French (Conservative)
Part of this debate is about sustainability and net zero. Colleagues have already made a number of interventions on that, and I understand the shadow Secretary of State’s position. Does he agree that while we are focusing on the hike in fuel duty, the Government are also increasing the charges on electric vehicle drivers? Both sets of drivers are being hammered by this Government, who have not thought through the consequences of their policy.
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13:07 Richard Holden (Conservative)
This is very similar to the Government’s pathetic intransigence when it comes to the zero emission vehicle mandate. They remain entirely aloof, soldiering on, whatever the cost is to British companies, British workers and British taxpayers. This is just like the electric car mandate, with its impact on industry. The unions—Labour’s own paymasters, for crying out loud—the Financial Times , and even the renewables sector: everyone knows that we must have a change in the electric vehicle mandate. Everyone on the Opposition side of the House also backs driving ahead with North sea oil and gas exploration, but what do the Labour Government do? They just bury their heads in the sand and turn to taxation instead in order to pay for their policies.
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13:09 Torsten Bell (Labour)
Our position is to deliver a stable transition. That was the position of the Conservative party. It is the party that introduced the energy profits levy. [ Interruption. ] I will answer the question. Gas and energy from the North sea will be part of the energy transition in the UK for some decades to come, as several Members have mentioned. That is why the Chancellor met the industry in recent days, and why we are setting out proposals to allow tiebacks that will help us get gas out of the ground in the near future. Longer-term changes will take significantly longer, but none of what I have heard from Conservative Members is an excuse for rejecting the tens of billions of pounds of renewable energy investment that is important for delivering domestic energy security for this country.
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Torsten Bell (Labour)
As I have said, oil and gas will be with us for some time. [ Interruption. ] Let me finish. That is why the Chancellor met the sector. [ Interruption. ] I hear all the chuntering from Opposition Members, but I did not hear as much chuntering when we saw a 70% fall in jobs in the North sea on their watch. [ Interruption. ] That is the truth of what you delivered. Now, on top of that, you are trying to double down. The Conservative party is doubling down on opposing investment in renewable energy, threatening those jobs. The Labour party believes in domestic energy security delivered by a range of sources, including the nuclear that the Conservatives failed to invest in.
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13:29 Torsten Bell (Labour)
As the Chancellor said following her call with G7 Finance Ministers last week, we are supporting a co-ordinated release of oil reserves. That has helped to some degree to stabilise international oil markets. We have also asked the Competition and Markets Authority to remain vigilant on price developments for essentials such as road oil and heating oil. On Friday, the Chancellor and the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary met petrol retailers to make it clear that the Government will not tolerate anyone exploiting the current situation to make excess profits.
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Harriet Cross (Conservative)
Refining is a vital part of the production of petrol and diesel for our vehicles. The UK has a very good record on refining, as we are net exporters of petrol from our refineries, but in the last two years alone, two refineries—a third of the UK’s refineries—have been lost, and our capacity is going down. That is not least because of the carbon tax, which has nearly doubled under this Government. It has made refining in the UK more difficult, putting industries under pressure and ensuring that the de-industrialisation of the UK under this Labour Government continues.
As a result of the ban on new licences, we are also exporting jobs. The skilled workers in the oil and gas sector who produce our oil and gas and contribute to our fuel security will move abroad. They have the skills and are valued workers, yet other countries value them more than we do in this country. The Government’s policies show that. One thousand jobs a month are being lost, and billions in tax revenue is being lost. Billions in investment is being lost, which I know the Treasury Front-Bench team know very well following their recent meetings with the sector. The Government—either because of their own ideology or the one being imposed on them by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero—do not want to use our own natural resources. They would prefer to import, at huge financial and environmental cost and at the cost of work and jobs, in order to satisfy themselves that they are reaching a target that they imposed on themselves.
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13:58 Simon Hoare (Conservative)
My hon. Friend referred to the absurdity of the Government saying in one breath, “As we transition to a renewable, clean, green energy source, we will continue to need oil and gas in our economy, but we would prefer to buy it from a third country’s production even though we have it literally on our doorstep.” There is a lack of imagination and, as I said, fleetness of foot as the Government respond to pressures in the changing landscape. If the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury will indulge me, I invite him to consider what he would be saying about the proposals announced in the Budget to increase the main fuel duty rates if he were on the Opposition Benches or at the Opposition Dispatch Box rather than speaking for the Government.
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14:19 Joy Morrissey (Conservative)
It would be hard to have this debate without mentioning my right hon. Friend the former Member for Harlow, Robert Halfon, who led the charge on fuel duty. For years, he was the passionate voice making this point clear across the House: high fuel duty taxes are regressive because they affect working people the most. They are a brake on economic growth. We all saw the golden moment on Sunday morning when the harsh inconvenience of the facts hit the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero: that 38% of the cost of petrol is down to fuel duty, a tax entirely in the hands of the Government. This Secretary of State, who could power the entire country with hot air, seemed to get the message slowly but surely, and there is no problem to which the answer is not a faster and more ruinous race to net zero, putting ideology ahead of working families. To govern is to choose, and this Government always choose the most damaging economic pathway for families.
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Sian Berry (Green)
All these interventions represent good value for money. This month, analysis by the Climate Change Committee has reminded us that we can significantly reduce the UK’s exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets if we just think a little further into the future and get things done. The Committee estimates that the transition will cost around £4 billion a year to make our climate targets. That is the cost of one oil shock like the one we are experiencing now, but it would deliver huge benefits, including resilience, the next time this happens, and we can predict that it might.
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14:50 Sian Berry (Green)
I remind the House that every £1 invested in achieving climate targets is estimated by the Climate Change Committee to generate between £2 and £4 in wider economic benefits. These include major public health improvements and NHS savings that could reach another £130 billion by 2050. These are all excellent investments that have been resisted for years and years by people who should know better.
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15:09 Dave Doogan (SNP)
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.
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15:34 Graham Leadbitter (SNP)
The hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) made many reasonable points about the impact of the energy profits levy and the fiscal regime that governs North sea production, and about the need for us to continue to produce oil and gas for as long as is required, while still making a transition. Let me gently point out to Conservative Members that while I agree with them that the EPL needs to be changed immediately—in fact, it is beyond time for it to be changed—they have drawn away from that transition to renewables because of the pulling away from climate change targets. I know that North sea companies agree with them about the EPL, but they were utterly dismayed about that pulling away from the transition, because the oil and gas majors are the same people who are investing in renewables. We need to get that transition right to avoid the job losses that the hon. Member mentioned.
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15:58 Dan Tomlinson (Labour)
The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) made some good points about public transport. I congratulate her on getting through the speech after the very large number of interventions that she had to respond to—and she responded to them well. I point out that this Government are introducing the first rail fares freeze in 30 years and that we are investing £38 million to roll out 319 new zero emission buses across England—lots of good things.
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