Speeches by Miliband.

“The decision by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to take an average £150 of costs off people’s energy bills from April is a reflection of this Government’s commitment to tackling the cost of living crisis. It will make a difference to families across the country and is estimated to reduce by over 1 million the numbe…”

“The Government inherited a legacy of huge under-investment in the grid, which piled up constraint costs and created a chaotic system for grid connection, which left crucial projects facing decade-long delays. We are tackling this with a programme of investment and reform, include sweeping changes to the grid connection…”

“I really enjoyed my visit to Kensa—I would recommend that all Members go—which is a really innovative company that is leading in heat pump manufacture. As my hon. Friend knows, we will shortly be publishing our warm homes plan, which will be really important in driving forward heat pump uptake and helping companies suc…”

“The hon. Lady makes an important point, which is that we need to make sure we take advantage of co-operating with our European neighbours. One way we can do that is the internal electricity market, and we will be negotiating on that basis. We will obviously look at the costs and benefits for the UK, but anything we can…”

“I am glad that you are asking this question, because this is really important and we recognise the urgency of taking action on these issues. I think it is right to explain some of the background to the Committee. I was grateful to you for saying that you wanted to raise this issue. There is an interaction here—it conce…”

“We need to align our actions so that—”

“Is this about forest risk commodities?”

“Sure, and we are looking at the implications of their legislation and any action that we take, but we are really determined to take action on these issues. We recognise their importance; we just need to do so in a way that works.”

“For 20 years.”

“I cannot resist just briefly addressing your first point, but I will come on to your second point.”

“Yes, briefly. On your first point, Sammy, with the greatest respect, I think it would be a total dereliction of duty if we walked away from this engagement, because we would be betraying future generations. If we say, “We’ll just let climate change take its course,” that will be an absolute disaster. It is true that th…”

“I am very wary of going toe to toe with you on these quite complicated questions, Chair, given your background. I will try to extract what you are saying as much as possible. Forgive me if this is simplistic, but the way I think about this is that the TFFF is essentially a mechanism whereby concessional finance from th…”

“Let me say something quickly about the mechanism. The mechanism has now been agreed, we think it will be a good way to share best practice from different countries, and the just transition is incredibly important. We have just unveiled our North sea future plan, and it has a big emphasis on the importance of the just t…”

“I do not really see it that way. I will just give you an example to bring this issue to life. I was proud to go and announce that the Rolls-Royce SMR would be at Wylfa in north Wales, and I was with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. There are 3,000 construction jobs as a result of that, but there are many thousand…”

“You are going to see reductions in bills for the most energy-intensive businesses. But let me go to your wider question, because it is important. The second point I would make is that the best thing we can do to help businesses with their energy costs is to drive towards clean power, because that is the way in which we…”

“Let me just finish—”

“As you will have heard me say to your Committee on previous occasions, I totally recognise that the way the levies and so on have been set up offsets quite a lot of the greater efficiency of electricity. I have always said that if we can find distributionally fair ways to do this, we want to do more to close that gap. …”

“What you see from the carbon budget and growth delivery plan, which Ryan oversaw, is a cross-Government process where, whether it is DFT, DEFRA or others, they are absolutely engaged in this. Whether it was Steve Reed or, now, Emma Reynolds at DEFRA, or Heidi Alexander at Transport, there is absolute engagement and rec…”

“Not at all, and I am not sure what the evidence is for that being people’s understanding. Let me say one other thing and then come to your question. On the public understanding point, the reason that I made the statement in the summer, which will be an annual statement, about the state of climate and nature was precise…”

“There are two things I would say to you about what we have done. We have extended help with energy bills to 7,000 businesses through the British industrial competitiveness scheme. This is a really important announcement as part of our industrial strategy. I think it was approximately a few hundred under the last Govern…”