Speeches by Coutinho.

“I appreciate the Minister’s graciousness in understanding our concern for industry. His priority is decarbonisation, but I am sure he will understand the very real risk that it is not the case that the UK is decarbonising, because those industries are not remaining in the UK and cutting their emissions; instead, UK bus…”

“Originally, the choice was between coal and gas, but there is no coal in the system anymore; there is only gas. Even in the Minister’s clean power plans, gas is the dispatchable power in the system—there is no other choice; nothing else will keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Eve…”

“It is absolutely extraordinary that the hon. Member does not accept that a higher price of carbon imposed on the production of goods in this country will raise costs. The cost of the carbon tax now accounts for—rather than pointing to the document, it is worth him listening to what I have to say—£100, or 12%, of someon…”

“I will make some progress, unless the hon. Member has an answer on energy bills.”

“I think what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that the impact assessment makes it clear that consumers will face higher costs. The question I am putting to him is what that will mean for people’s energy bills. I suspect that is something that his constituents would be concerned about. Given that he does not have an answ…”

“If I am wrong and the Labour party has an assessment for what the order will do to energy bills, perhaps the hon. Member can give us the numbers. I suspect that he will not be able to, but I will happily let him try.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I am sure that Members will have been hanging on to the Minister’s every word, but they may not have made it through the dense forest of governmentitis, so let me be very clear: the measures in the instrument, which will be imposed from 2027, will reduce t…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. What the Secretary of State has done today has given a massive boost to the profits of multimillion-pound energy companies, but will be paid for by consumers through their bills. What do the prices show us? First, wind power is not getting cheaper as pr…”

“Gas is falling!”

“The rumours are that the Secretary of State is pitching himself to be the next Chancellor. He did not rule out taxes on people heating their homes for this Parliament, he is shutting down the North sea, there is a disastrous EU energy deal and a secret deal with China, the industry is fleeing in its droves and energy b…”

“It is freezing cold outside, and people are worried about their energy bills, yet on top of all the other costs the Secretary of State has lumped on to people’s bills, it is reported that he is about to tax people with gas boilers to pay for people having heat pumps. Can he definitively rule this out for the rest of th…”

“Happy new year, Mr Speaker. This is just nonsense on stilts from the Secretary of State, and we know this because the biggest AI company in the world has said that it will need gas power to succeed in Britain. If a company wants to build its own gas plant here, at no cost to the British taxpayer, the warped green ideol…”

“Jennifer Melle, a black nurse with a faultless record, was racially abused by a convicted paedophile for correctly referring to his biological sex in a medical context. She was called the N-word multiple times in her workplace, yet she was the one who was punished by her NHS trust and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.…”

“I appreciate the Secretary of State’s willingness to meet Jennifer. Does the Secretary of State believe that an eight-year-old child with autism can consent to a medical pathway that will leave them infertile and without sexual function for the rest of their life? If not, will she personally tell the Health Secretary t…”

“We have a fundamental difference in belief. Labour Members believe the best way out of poverty is welfare; I think the best way is jobs and growth, but the Government are killing those things. The problem with the Labour party, as we can see from its policies, is that it clearly thinks the only answer to the cost of li…”

“Let me make this point to the hon. Gentleman. The average person on benefits in work is working 20 hours, sometimes less. Why should a family with kids who are not well off and are working 40, 50 or 60 hours a week be worse off than a family on benefits working far fewer hours? I quit a job in the City to go to work fo…”

“We can exchange quotes, but the hon. Gentleman might want to—[Interruption.] Let me respond. He can go and check the quotes of the most respected energy economist in the country, Sir Dieter Helm, who says that the Government’s plan is locking people into higher bills for longer. One of the fundamental problems we have …”

“Let us talk about that £150. If someone has a gas boiler, the figure is £130. I remind the Secretary of State that that is almost everybody in the country. Oh yes, and if they pay tax, the amount has not come off—it has just been moved from their energy bill to their tax bill. Most importantly, that amount does not eve…”

“I will come to what Martin Lewis says about the hon. Gentleman’s party’s policies in a second. Labour promised £300 off energy bills, but bills have gone up by £200 instead. Going by his own election promise, the Secretary of State owes the public a £500 cut. Why have those bills gone up? It is because of the costs int…”

“My right hon. Friend is right, and here is the problem: this Budget might have made the Back Benchers happy, but it is not the Budget that they promised at the election. Let me help them. To start with inflation, we left Labour with inflation back under control at 2%. That took difficult decisions, which needless to sa…”