Green Energy

I believe that renewable energies are the future. Unfortunately, I am concerned that here in the UK, the Government is falling well short of the action we need.

Last year, the Climate Change Committee set out that the Government was failing in its implementation of climate policies and that its strategy would not deliver net zero emissions. Indeed, the High Court ruled that the net zero strategy was in breach of the Climate Change Act. Yet, when the Government delivered another energy relaunch on 30 March this year, its update was most notable for what it left out: there was no removal of the ban on onshore wind, no new money to insulate homes, no net zero mandate for the energy regulator and no proper response to the US Inflation Reduction Act that is accelerating investment in the green industries of the future in the rest of the world. Furthermore, the Government continues to double down on fossil fuels, with new exploration in the North Sea.

Continuing with this approach, in my view, risks continuing with higher energy bills, energy insecurity, lost jobs and climate delay. I therefore believe we need urgent action to put climate at the heart of the agenda for a fairer, greener future. I support calls for a green prosperity plan to ramp up investment to reach £28 billion per year for tackling climate change, growing the green economy and creating good, green secure local jobs across the country. This would include delivering zero-carbon power by 2030, insulating 19 million homes and establishing a national wealth fund to invest in green industries like hydrogen, giga-factories, green steel and renewable energy manufacturing.

We need rapid action when it comes to retrofitting housing. That is why I support a Warm Homes Plan that would reduce energy demand by insulating 19 million homes across the country over the next decade. I have long supported calls for such action – if the Government had acted on them, we could have already insulated two million of the coldest homes by this winter, saving households large amounts on their energy bills.

I also agree that we need to accelerate the deployment of cheap, homegrown renewables to reduce bills in the longer term. I therefore support plans to deliver a fossil fuel-free electricity system by 2030, including by quadrupling offshore wind, more than tripling solar power and more than doubling our onshore wind capacity, as well as establishing a publicly owned clean energy company to make Britain an energy independent superpower. This would save UK households hundreds of pounds per household every year until 2030.

More widely, with so many people still wondering how they are going to make ends meet while faced with their energy bills, I believe it is simply wrong to continue to leave on the table billions of pounds from oil and gas companies that could be used to provide greater support to households. Yet the Government has done just this when it comes to the windfall tax. It has refused to backdate the tax to January 2022, failed to set it at the same level as other countries and provided oil and gas producers with a multi-billion-pound break from the tax.

The government needs to take seriously this responsibility, and importantly, provide local authorities with the funding necessary to make these changes. I can assure you that I will continue to push for bold action to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.