Speeches by Cross.

“I will not skip forward a few pages of my speech now, but we will touch on that matter in the coming few minutes. As I said, the things that we have done are notable. Between 2010 and 2019, the UK Government oversaw the planting of 15 million trees, and during our time in office, the UK was home to the first, second, t…”

“I will not. I have taken a lot of interventions, and there is not a huge amount of time—I want to wrap up. The targets of the Climate Change Act are forcing the UK to make decisions through the lens of emissions, not what is best for industry, electricity costs, growth, prosperity or jobs. That is why it is right that …”

“The hon. Gentleman is obviously keen to hear from me, which is great, but as he says, I am four minutes in and have taken three interventions; I think I still have a couple of minutes to form my argument. I will first consider electricity. Our electricity is some of the cleanest in the world, but it is also some of the…”

“I do not know whether there has been a misunderstanding of the title of the debate—it is on climate change, not the costs of bills. For climate change, we are looking at emissions; if we are focusing on emissions, we are focusing on where the carbon is produced. There is less carbon intensity in our domestic oil and ga…”

“Good morning. I will touch on apprenticeships. We have already touched on a few of the parts, so I will hone in on one of the areas that you were both talking about, and that is demand. I assume the demand is there for apprenticeships by those who would take the apprenticeships on and also the businesses who are lookin…”

“What would your view be on that?”

“It is great to be able to speak today in this important debate. I am glad that this is one of the topics that the official Opposition, led by the Leader of the Opposition, have brought to the House, because fuel duty impacts everybody. It impacts every family, every household, every business, hauliers—everywhere we go,…”

“Yesterday, the Chancellor said it was great that Norway and Canada were increasing their production of oil and gas, and congratulated them doing so. And who could disagree with that—other than, seemingly, herself and the Cabinet? Does the Minister agree that, along the same lines, we should be increasing our production…”

“My right hon. Friend is making a great speech, as we always expect from him. Does he remember that, for the 2024 Budget, the Chancellor stood there and said that increasing fuel duty would be the wrong choice for working people? She said then that that was because of uncertain global events, and that the cost of living…”

“Just for clarification, my point was that that is a pay-per-mile scheme and that the pay-per-mile basis would not be extended to petrol and diesel cars. Is the charge per mile on EVs a gateway for that extending to petrol and diesel vehicles?”

“I thank my constituency neighbour—almost—for giving way. Although my constituency might not be the biggest, it is definitely the prettiest.”

“Absolutely; I think a lot of us can relate to the fact that in some constituencies people have no choice but to use their car. They will use their car and keep using it, because they have to, and if they are using their car, they need to fill it. Therefore, they need petrol and diesel at affordable prices, and increasi…”

“The Minister’s statement included what I am sure were some very sincere words. He said: “Whatever the challenges, we will always support working people; we will always fight their corner. That is why we are…doing everything we can to take back control of our energy”. I did not want to have to break this to the Governme…”

“The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and other Conservative Members have asked last week and this week about the declaration of interests. Either it exists and the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister does not want to say so, or it does not…”

“Further to the question from the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), offshore energy infrastructure needs to be protected. The strategic defence review did not specifically mention moveable assets such as platforms, floating production, storage and of…”

“When will the Government release Mandelson’s declaration of interest, and why is it not included in the documents released today?”

“For months now, we have heard the Chancellor and other Government Front Benchers saying that we will be using oil and gas for years to come. Of course we will—no matter how much they want to wish it away, we will be using oil and gas for years to come, so we must secure our supply. In her meeting this morning with G7 F…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for advanced sight of his statement. Events in the middle east this past week have shown why it is so vital that the Government do all they can to ensure that UK businesses and households have a secure, reliable supply of dispatchable energy—a supply we can rely on. Affordable energy is v…”

“T3. Although we will rightly want to refrain from discussing too many details of a live espionage case, it seems, from media reporting, that the case goes beyond foreign state interference into local corruption. Will the Government today agree to publish a list of all meetings held between Bute Energy and the Governmen…”

“China is a risk—we have so much evidence of that—yet the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has signed an energy deal with China for co-operation on batteries, offshore wind, cables and inverters. It effectively gives China access to our energy grid—that is a massive risk. Was the Security Minister con…”