Mr Toby Perkins

Energy Security

The shadow Secretary of State said that for energy independence we need our own oil and gas, rather than investing in renewables. She will know that her Government paid £44 billion to subsidise our energy during the time of the Ukraine price spike. Will she tell us by how much our bills were reduced as a result of having our own oil and gas when the Ukraine crisis happened?

Energy Security

rose—

Energy Security

The shadow Secretary of State did not take my second intervention when I attempted to get an answer from her. We know that Conservative Members propose to get rid of the energy profits levy, costing the Government about £12 billion, and they want to get rid of VAT, costing about £5 billion or £6 billion. We know they have a plan for oil or gas that might be here in four or 10 years, although it is owned by somebody else, and they believe they will use that collection of policies to reduce people

Energy Security

His Majesty’s Gracious Speech set out a legislative programme for the Government, including plans to build our national security, our economic security and our energy security. I welcome this agenda, which is consistent with the manifesto on which my hon. Friends and I were elected. I urge all members of the Government to exhibit a relentless urgency, and a focus on delivery of that programme, to ensure that the ambition is matched by its impact. We were elected in 2024 on a mandate for change—f

High Speed 2 Reset

My Chesterfield constituents at one time hoped that they might be beneficiaries of HS2. That feels like many years ago. I share the Secretary of State’s fury about the incompetence that has got us to this stage. We would not have supported a programme like this, had we known that the line would go only to Birmingham. The line should be going to Manchester and Leeds, at the very least; any serious country that had high-speed rail would agree. I am glad that the Secretary of State has laid out how

Debate on the Address

The right hon. Lady says that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is a symptom of the problem, but does she agree that she and he have something in common? She very loosely agreed that we should race with America into war in Iran, then just a week later she thought, “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.” Does that not prove why she and he are totally unsuitable for speaking from the Government side of the House?

Synthetic Chemicals

I am very pleased to present the Environmental Audit Committee’s ninth report of this Parliament, on addressing the risks from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as forever chemicals. The inquiry was launched last year, at a time when the acronym PFAS might have been familiar only to a few experts. One year on, there has been an ITV and ENDS Report documentary about PFAS, the first ever Government PFAS action plan, and much more public awareness and scrutiny of PFAS pollut

Synthetic Chemicals

I absolutely agree. We know that the firefighting industry is very much affected. In comparison to some industries, it has clearly made significant progress in finding alternatives to PFAS, but it has been a major polluter over the years. We also recognise, of course, that being able to put out fires is incredibly important. Firefighting is the kind of essential use where we would understand that there could be derogations, but when PFAS are being used in cosmetics and so on, I wonder whether we

Synthetic Chemicals

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I thank him for his engagement with us on behalf of his constituents and an important employer in his constituency. We do not want the message coming from this report to panic communities. We do not want to create the sense that Bentham or anywhere else is a community that is blighted and that no one should want to live there. At the same time, we want to recognise where these pollution contamination events have taken place. People need to be confident that

Synthetic Chemicals

We look forward to working with the Minister. We will do everything we can to provide her with the support that she might need within the Department to get this issue taken as seriously as it should be. We recognise that there will always be people who push back. There are important reasons why we need to tread carefully, such as to support UK manufacturing, but we also need to recognise that this is a serious public health issue. We welcome the work she is doing and thank her for it.

Synthetic Chemicals

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In fact, his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), is a member of our Committee. He made the point strongly that because we have divergence from the EU in this area, it potentially causes major problems for the agricultural sector in Northern Ireland. Effectively, it will have different rules from the Republic, which creates a major issue. The Committee debated the impact on Northern Ireland at considerable length. It is an

Synthetic Chemicals

I absolutely believe that the Government need to be ambitious on this issue. We welcome the fact that we now have a PFAS plan, which we did not have previously, and we want to be right behind the Minister in ensuring that DEFRA is as ambitious as it can be. Water companies contributed to our inquiry—they were quite glad to be in the unusual position of not being battered over the head for polluting, since in this case, they are the victims of pollution. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right tha

Topical Questions

T6. I welcome what my right hon. Friends have been doing on public procurement. On car hire services, it is expected that around 20% of fleet industry vehicles will be electric, but less than 1% of Government purchases have been for electric vehicle hire. I know that the Government take this issue seriously, so will the Minister lay out what the Government are doing to ensure that they hire more electric vehicles?