Speeches by Miliband.

“No, I am not giving way. At this moment, what have the official Opposition, alongside the SNP, decided to call for? They have called for the Government to dump that policy. Let us get this straight: at the precise moment that the British people struggle with the effects of the war, those parties say that the priority w…”

“I am always happy to work with the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have great respect, as are my team of Ministers.”

“No. I have set out the approach to energy security that underpins this Gracious Speech. Above all, we will learn the lessons of the fossil fuel crises of our age. We will build our energy independence, tackle the affordability crisis, deliver good jobs and investment in our communities, and make the right decisions for…”

“The hon. Lady obviously does not understand that prices are going up, including from the North sea. Let us look at the amount that the tax raises. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, even before this crisis the windfall tax was forecast to raise £5 billion by September 2027. Conservative Members—the offi…”

“I will just make a bit of progress. We say tax those profits to help the British people.”

“My hon. Friend makes his point incredibly well, and I do want to say something about renewables before I move on. At the time of the AR7 auction, the right hon. Member for East Surrey said that we should cancel that auction. As I said, that auction secured power for the equivalent of 16 million homes—[Interruption.] Pe…”

“Because if we did that, we would end up in climate disaster. That is the truth.”

“I will not give way for a minute. The shadow Secretary of State comes to the House with a plan which will not take a penny off bills, which will not give us energy security and which rejects the things she used to believe.”

“I am not going to give way. We want to ensure that those jobs are good jobs, so we will amend employment rights legislation, as part of the energy independence Bill, to enable us to bring the rights of offshore renewables workers in line with those working in oil and gas. It is by driving forward in clean energy that w…”

“I am not going to give way as I need to finish soon. The energy independence Bill will legislate to help deliver the biggest investment in home upgrades in British history through our £15 billion warm homes plan. As part of this, we will act to help private renters. This is important, because it is about how we make su…”

“I am not giving way, no. Let me quote the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), the former Prime Minister, who was the Chancellor at the time. These are not my words—this is not Red Ed; it’s Red Rishi! He said: “The oil and gas sector is making extraordinary profits, not as the result of recen…”

“No, I am not giving way. The energy profits levy has raised £12 billion since it was introduced in 2022.”

“No, I am not going to give way. These are unearned profits as a result of the war.”

“I am going to make some progress. By contrast, we stand for national security through energy security and energy independence. How we protect consumers is very important. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor showed at the Budget last year that she took decisions to raise taxes, including on the wealthiest, so that we co…”

“I am going to make some progress, and then I will give way. For nearly two years, we have been moving at speed on our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. We came to office amid a legacy of the irrational onshore wind ban; the fiasco of the allocation round 5 auction, with no offshore wind secured; and ye…”

“I am not going to give way. Don’t take my word for it. This is what the Energy Transitions Commission, which includes energy companies, says: “Any national strategy which assumes that all fossil fuel reserves must be exploited is incompatible with limiting global warming to safe levels”. The truth is that new licences …”

“The SNP has had more positions on this than the Kama Sutra, so it is genuinely hard to keep up. We have a very simple position: we want to keep existing oil and gas fields open for their lifetime. One of the things that the energy independence Bill will do is introduce transitional energy certificates—so-called tieback…”

“I am not going to give way again. This is the difference with Labour: we are learning the lessons of the fossil fuel crises we face, and we are acting.”

“My hon. Friend puts it well. There is something ironic about the fact that Reform says nationally that it wants fracking, but its representatives in Scarborough and Lancashire seem to say that they are against it. From now until the general election, we are going to be asking where Reform candidates stand: is it with t…”

“Well, we may agree on some things, but not on this. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, so let me say this. Even the most ambitious plans for solar involve less than 1% of agricultural land—something like 0.6%. I say to Conservative Members that it is somewhat irrational that in relation to nuclear, they…”