PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Offshore Wind - 14 January 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

With permission, I would like to make a statement about the seventh contracts for difference allocation round and the results for offshore wind. Eighteen months ago, the Government set out on our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. That was a mission rooted in a simple argument: if we want to take back control of our energy from the petrostates and dictators, if we want to bring down bills for good and if we want to create a new generation of secure, well-paid jobs, the right choice is to get off the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets, which caused the worst cost of living crisis in memory. For a year and a half, that mission has faced determined opposition from a well-funded band of doomsters and defeatists. Today, we publish the results of our latest offshore wind auction and with it we prove those doubters and naysayers wrong. Let me set out the results to the House.

On coming to office, we inherited the fiasco of the fifth allocation round—a failure of the Conservatives’ making that trashed the crown jewels of our energy system—in which not a single offshore wind project was secured. That is their legacy; that is the legacy of the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho).

Our last auction round, allocation round 6, got the industry on its feet again. Today it roars back stronger than ever. We have secured 8.4 GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of more than 12 million homes. There are winning fixed offshore wind projects in every part of Great Britain: Dogger Bank South off the coast of Yorkshire and Vanguard off the coast of East Anglia, two of the largest offshore wind farms in the world; Berwick Bank in the North sea, the first new Scottish project since 2022; and Awel y Môr, the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade. On floating wind, the emerging technology of the future, we have successful projects in Wales and Scotland—the Erebus project in the Celtic sea and Pentland in Scotland—backed by pioneering investment from Great British Energy and the National Wealth Fund.

Taken together, that is a record-breaking amount of offshore wind capacity procured in a single auction. It is the most successful offshore wind auction in British history and the most successful ever to be carried out anywhere in Europe. That is what it means to deliver on the promise we made to the British people. Against the backdrop of the global headwinds facing the industry, this is a huge vote of confidence in Britain’s drive for energy sovereignty and abundance.

Let me explain why these results are so important for the country. First, they are a major step forward for our clean energy mission. Alongside our work driving ahead on onshore wind, solar, batteries and nuclear, they put us firmly on track to take back control of our energy and deliver clean power by 2030. We have only to look at events around the world to see that we live in increasingly unstable and uncertain times. Fossil fuel shocks have caused half of the UK’s recessions since 1970. Last year, wholesale gas prices spiked by 15% in a single week after global instability in the middle east. We must also never forget the impact of Russia invading Ukraine; family finances, business finances and the public finances were wrecked as a result of our being left exposed to fossil fuels. This exposure leaves us incredibly vulnerable as a country, and we do not have a moment to waste in ending it. That is why our mission is so important.

Our record-breaking results show that our approach to building things again in this country is working. We are more secure in our energy system today than we were yesterday thanks to these results, and we look forward to building on this momentum as we look ahead to AR8, which we are on track to open later this year.

Secondly, on cost, the results show that offshore wind is cheaper to build and operate than new gas. Today we publish updated estimates of the levelised cost of electricity, the standard industry metric, which includes the cost of building and operating new gas-fired power stations—the same metric as was published under the last Energy Secretary. These estimates show that the cost of building and operating a new gas-fired power station is £147 per megawatt-hour. By contrast, I can inform the House that the average price for fixed offshore wind in today’s auction was £90.91 per megawatt-hour. In other words, it is 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas, but do not take my word for it. This is what the head of Energy UK, which represents gas, nuclear and renewable generators, said of renewables this morning:

“We need to invest in new power generation, and this is the cheapest form.”

I know that some people want to pull the wool over our eyes on this, but they can only do so by comparing the cost of building and operating new renewables with the cost of operating but not building new gas.

Here is the reality: faced with years of under-investment in our energy system under the previous Government, and with power demand set to increase by at least 50% by 2035 and to more than double by 2050, there is no alternative to building new energy infrastructure in this country. We can choose to stop building renewables and just build new gas plants, as the Conservatives want to, but it is clear that offshore wind remains significantly cheaper to build and operate. Credible, independent research confirms that the renewables that we have already built are bearing down on wholesale electricity costs, having reduced wholesale prices by a quarter in 2024. Our mission is right: clean power is the route to bringing down energy bills for good.

Thirdly, today’s auction cements the offshore wind industry’s position as a jobs and growth engine for Britain. It is at the heart of our industrial strategy. These projects will unlock £22 billion in private investment and support at least 7,000 good jobs across the country, from the Scottish highlands to the Suffolk coast. Members across the House know that so many people in our country ask where the good jobs of the future, for themselves and their children, will come from. Clean energy is central to the answer. The previous Government failed to act to ensure that offshore wind generated jobs and supply chains in this country. By contrast, we will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that turbines, foundations and cables are made and built in Britain, creating good, well-paid jobs with strong trade unions. That is why this auction, for the first time, included a clean industry bonus to reward investment in ports and factories in the areas that need it most.

I can inform the House that in this auction, the industry has responded with ambition. The clean industry bonus will crowd in billions of pounds of private investment and support thousands of jobs in supply chains across the country. We look forward to setting out the full results in due course, as we drive forward on the 100,000 offshore wind jobs that our mission will support by 2030.

Let me close by saying that Britain faces a choice over the coming years. We can seize the opportunities of clean, home-grown energy to cut bills and create jobs, or we can double down on our exposure to fossil fuels. In calling for us to cancel this auction, our opponents made their choice: they are setting their face against cheaper, clean, home-grown power, against 7,000 jobs supported today and thousands more to come, against taking back control of our energy sovereignty, and against action on the climate crisis to protect our children and grandchildren. This Government have made our choice: we choose energy security, lower bills, good jobs and the climate. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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 promised. These are the highest prices that we have seen in a decade. Today’s strike prices, in a like-for-like comparison, are much higher than last year’s prices. If we use the Secretary of State’s own figures on the worth of the contract extension—he extended it to 20 years—the prices are 24% more expensive than last year’s. That is an enormous year-on-year increase, which is much higher than inflation.

Can the Secretary of State explain why building a wind farm has suddenly got so much more expensive? Well, I can. It is because by setting himself completely unrealistic targets, he advertised to multimillion-pound wind developers that he would be buying whatever they were selling, no matter the cost. He flexed all the rules, he extended their contracts, and he gave the wind developers everything they wanted, and they repaid him with the most expensive prices for wind power that we have seen in a decade.

The Secretary of State wants us to celebrate the fact that he bought a bumper round—in his own words, the “biggest in history”. Let us take his key argument on levelised cost of electricity. If he had looked at or replied to any of the letters that I have sent him, he would know that I did not agree with using a LCOE to compare wind power and gas power. He will know that I started—[Interruption.] He might want to listen to this; he might learn something. He will know that I started a full systems cost, which he cancelled, even though I urged him to continue it. That is because the full cost of these contracts to the consumer is £95 in today’s money, plus inflation and the extra costs that come with wind, such as turning off the turbines when it is too windy, having a back-up gas plant when it is not windy enough, and connecting the turbines to the grid. He has underplayed the true cost of wind in people’s bills. By the way, it is not just me saying that this is how we should look at cost; wind developers say the same. Sir Dieter Helm and senior economists say that we should look at the full systems cost.

When the Secretary of State talks about the comparison with a new gas power plant, he is wilfully ignoring the fact that he needs to build new gas plants anyway. What does he think will power the country on wintry days when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow? Even his own plans acknowledge that it is gas power. In his plans, he will build the same amount of gas plants anyway, but he will just run them 4% of the time. Would anyone here buy a house that they use 4% of the time? Well, I guess out of all of us, it is probably the Secretary of State who would.

Here is the problem: the Secretary of State is having to build more and more capacity, lots of which will sit idle most of the time, which means higher costs for a less productive energy system. These are all costs that the Secretary of State is choosing to ignore, but even if we use the figures that he is quoting today, which underplay the cost of wind, the truth is there. If we take out the carbon tax that he is choosing to impose, the cost of a gas power plant running fully is roughly a third cheaper than offshore wind. That is written in black and white on page 33 of the report, if hon. Members would like to check. He is hoping that Labour Members will not read what he has published today, but I hope that they do, because it should be facts, not ideology, that drive the decisions that we make for our energy system.

People out there are at breaking point. They get up every day, they go to work, and everything they earn is being eaten up by Labour’s taxes and their bills. Last time we spoke across the Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State tried to tell me that people’s energy bills are going down, not up. Nobody out there believes him. Energy bills have gone up five times under him because of his policies, and now he is celebrating this botched wind auction that has seen him sign up to the highest prices for wind power for a decade—prices close to 20% higher than the cost of electricity.

The question is: how on earth can the Secretary of State bring bills down with these higher prices? That is what people were promised. This will be the private finance initiative of the energy system, and it will be in place long after he has gone from this place. I warned him that if he set himself completely unrealistic targets, the wind developers would have him over a barrel, and that is what has happened. He talks about fossil fuel spikes, but he does not talk about the ongoing de-industrialisation of this country because of uncompetitive electricity prices—prices that he is locking us into for two decades.

I have three simple questions for the Secretary of State. Will he finally publish a full systems cost of clean power 2030? Will he confirm that he will still need to build gas power plants for dispatchable power? If that is not his policy, what will keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine? Does he have a forecast for the constraint payments, and how much does he expect to pay wind developers to turn off when it is too windy?

That was a lot, as they say. Let me deal with what the right hon. Lady said point by point. First, we will take no lectures from her on energy bills. She presided over the worst cost of living crisis in history, and not once have we heard a word of apology. This Government are taking £150 of costs off bills. How are we doing that? By raising taxes on the wealthy. She opposes every one of the measures that we are taking.

Secondly, I know this is painful for the right hon. Lady, but I am using the same metric that she endorsed in November 2023, when she was Energy Secretary. She published the document, and she knows the truth about that metric: offshore renewables today are 40% cheaper to build and operate than new gas. However much she tries to struggle or flail around, those are the facts, I am afraid. She asks about carbon pricing. It is very interesting that even when we take off carbon pricing, gas is still more expensive, on the figures we published today. Her sums simply do not add up.

What is really rich is that the right hon. Lady asked about constraint payments. Why do we have constraint payments? [Interruption.] I am answering the question. We have constraint payments because the Conservatives failed to build the grid when she was the Secretary of State. Get this, Madam Deputy Speaker: now she comes along, complains about constraint payments, and opposes every piece of energy infrastructure that we try to build in order to bring down the constraint payments. It is extraordinary. Here is the right hon. Lady’s big problem. She is making a massive gamble on fossil fuels, which is exactly what the Conservatives did when they were in office, and we know where that led: the worst cost of living crisis in memory, leaving us at the mercy of petrostates and dictators, and leaving the British people to pay the price.

We were elected with an historic mandate to end the Conservatives’ record of failure, and that is what we are doing. We are ending the sell-out of our energy security, cutting bills, creating hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs and protecting future generations. Let me sum it up: the right hon. Lady failed, and we are delivering.

Before I call the first Back-Bench Member, may I remind Members that we have an important debate on Ukraine later this afternoon? We will look to finish this statement at about 4 pm, which leaves us with around 30 minutes. Please keep questions and answers short.

The Energy Secretary deserves enormous congratulations on moving from the “botched” auction round 5, to use the words of the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), to the record success of auction round 7. The strike price will see no increase in consumer bills—indeed, Aurora says that it is likely to see a reduction in bills—and it is 40% cheaper. The Secretary of State set out in great detail how this will be cheaper than gas. Does he agree that demonstrates once and for all that renewable energy is good for bills?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People can have incredibly short memories in this House, particularly the Opposition. We are only five years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We know—

Gas is falling!

The right hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that gas is falling, but she is just making a gamble. At the time of the greatest geopolitical instability in a generation, she is gambling on stability. I am not going to make that gamble. We will have home-grown clean power, and we are going to take back control.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I welcome the results of the AR7 allocation. This is about protecting working families from volatile fossil fuel prices set by foreign powers that have repeatedly used oil and gas as geopolitical weapons. Relying on Trump’s America or Putin’s Russia to keep the lights on puts us all at risk. Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy, and it is only through renewable energy that we can deliver permanently low and secure energy prices and help with the cost of living crisis, and not just today but in the long term. While procuring 8.4 GW of offshore wind puts the country on track for the Government’s 2030 clean power target, research from RenewableUK shows that is the minimum needed, leaving very little room for delays—

A very independent source!

It is a source none the less.

That places even greater importance on AR8. I hope that the Government will commit to their timetable to open AR8 by the summer and to announce the results by the end of the year. Meanwhile, there is still work to be done to bring down bills for working families and businesses, which is why I urge the Secretary of State to look at Liberal Democrat proposals to phase out the outdated renewable energy certificate scheme and replace it fully with a contracts for difference scheme.

We must also be honest about the impact of Brexit on energy bills. [Interruption.] We cannot get through this without mentioning it. Will the Government commit to accelerating negotiations to re-engage with the EU’s internal energy market to ensure access to cheap electricity when we need a guaranteed energy source and an export market for when we over-produce? [Interruption.] Despite the noise from the science-denying, fossil fuel lobbyists on my right and the Putin apologists behind me, this is good for Great Britain and the right decision for consumers, and it promises a better and cleaner future.

Good lines.

Let me deal with that question briefly, following your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, AR8 is important, and we absolutely want to stick to the timetable—the hon. Gentleman is right—and we are rebuilding confidence in the industry. Secondly, we continue to look at proposals from him and others on doing everything we can to cut the cost of electricity, which he is right about. His broader point is also right. This is about how we make the right long-term decisions for the country, and I am grateful for his support.

I am old enough to remember when a Conservative Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said that he wanted Grimsby to be the Riyadh of offshore wind. I also remember the shadow Energy Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), attending offshore wind conferences and championing the sector, so where she stands now is in direct opposition to where she was just a few years ago.

I, for one, am pleased to see the east coast offshore wind industry strengthened through today’s announcement. It will help to deliver energy independence for the UK and secure existing jobs in the sector—there are 12,000 jobs related to clean energy in Lincolnshire. How does the Secretary of State see today’s announcement benefiting growth in the supply chain and delivering new industrial investment in places such as Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes?

My hon. Friend is right—bandwagon-jumping is basically the Conservatives’ policy, and they have jumped on the anti-net zero bandwagon. She makes serious and important points about the future. Indeed, she is a brilliant champion for this industry and for her area, because there are huge opportunities for Grimsby as a result of this auction. She will know that RWE was particularly successful in the auction, and we look forward to working with her and RWE to ensure that we deliver for her constituents.

No, I do not agree. The hon. Gentleman, in all seriousness, should look at the need to build new energy generation in this country—we are going to have a 50% rise in electricity demand by 2035, and we have to build something. If he wants to build a whole fleet of new gas-fired power stations, he can decide to do that, but the figures we have published today show the costs of that, and those power stations would be more expensive to build and operate than the offshore wind that we have announced today.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. In particular, the Government are delivering for Scotland once again with more renewable energy investment. He also talked, rightly, about Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine and why they have had a direct impact on ordinary people in this country, who we must protect now and in the future. We must protect both these new projects and existing infrastructure from outside attacks, so can the Secretary of State say a little bit more about how he is ensuring that as much as possible of the technology for these excellent projects will be made in the UK, and how he will protect them, as well as existing infrastructure, from foreign actors?

We have about 20 minutes left. Questions need to be shorter, and answers need to be just as short.

That is why the clean industry bonus is so important. We will be announcing more about this tomorrow, because it is going to lever in massive amounts of private investment, including in supply chains.

The Secretary of State mentioned the rollercoaster of prices. We obviously understand that gas prices go up and down, but they do come down. We are now stuck at the top of the rollercoaster he has talked about for 20 years. How is that going to reduce bills?

I just disagree with the hon. Lady. She is making a massive gamble on the future—she is gambling that gas prices will fall. We are giving this country the assurance that we can have clean, home-grown power and lower bills for good.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on structuring the auction to drive down the strike price and reduce consumer energy bills. It is worth reiterating that this means renewable energy will be 40% cheaper than gas. Importantly, though, this is also about creating jobs, specifically in coastal industries. Could he elaborate a little on the clean industry bonus and, in particular, how he might be able to support supply chain jobs in our coastal communities?

My hon. Friend speaks very well on these issues, and she is absolutely right to ask that question. The great thing about the clean industry bonus is that for the first time we are rewarding manufacturers for investing in Britain. It is going to leverage in multiple amounts more private investment compared with public investment, and I believe it can be of massive benefit to our coastal communities.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but it is important that my constituents can feel the effect in their pockets. Does he accept that the biggest reason why people are not benefiting from cheap renewables is that electricity prices are still set by gas most of the time, and what steps is he taking to break that link, beyond simply building more renewables?

That is an incredibly important point, and the great thing about clean power 2030 is that it will mean gas sets the price much less of the time. With contracts for difference, the reduction in prices feeds through to bills.

This is a fantastic announcement for the UK, and it is also fantastic to hear that the Secretary of State is already preparing for AR8. Can he assure the House that his Department is going to focus as much on the mid-term and long-term storage that we need to support all this growth in generation?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Battery storage and long-duration storage, for example, are things that we are working on as a Department, as is Ofgem—they are crucial parts of the jigsaw.

The Secretary of State is going to pay a floating wind farm £216 per megawatt-hour. Can he explain how that will lower fuel prices for my constituents?

This is about an innovative technology. The hon. Member is right that it is expensive at the moment, but the experience we had with offshore wind, onshore wind and solar was that by investing in it at the front end, we then lowered the price through deployment, and that is what has meant it is a cheaper technology. We are supporting floating wind, and we think that is the right thing to do. It is a crucial next frontier when it comes to the offshore wind industry.

Despite representing an entirely landlocked constituency, offshore wind matters greatly to me, as the largest employer in Stafford, GE Vernova, produces critical components for the sector. Can the Secretary of State assure me that any and all future manufacturing requirements for this sector will recognise those companies that are investing in the UK, building skills and providing good jobs? Can I again ask him to join me in Stafford?

I have a long-standing promise, which I will fulfil—[Interruption.] Everyone seems to know about that promise to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency to see what GE Vernova is doing. She makes an important point about ensuring that procurement, in which I know GE Vernova has a particular interest, should as much as possible be from the UK. My Department is working on that through not just the clean industry bonus, but many other things that we are doing.

Although the news on Berwick Bank and Pentland is hugely welcome, it risks masking serious jeopardy for Scotland’s offshore wind sector. There is great worry that today’s news represents a longer-term shift in the renewables industry from north to south, due to the unfair and disproportionate transmission charges regime. If Scotland’s offshore wind sector is to have a future, we need to see reform of transmission charges before auction round 8—will we?

Even by the standards of the UK all-comers record for SNP miserabilism, that question takes some beating. I think the hon. Member gets the award. This is a great news story for Scotland, and not just in terms of Berwick Bank but in relation to floating wind. We want to carry on with that progress in AR8.

This is a fantastic announcement for Mid and South Pembrokeshire, as it enables Wales’s first floating offshore wind farm. How will the Secretary of State work with developers to maximise their use of local supply chains, so that communities such as mine can see the real benefits in jobs and local economic growth?

I congratulate my hon. Friend, because he has been a brilliant champion of this industry, and I am so glad about today’s announcement. He is absolutely right. I want developers and all of the businesses involved to hear his message and his question loud and clear: we want to see this development built in Britain, and it is incredibly important that we work with those businesses, and we will, to ensure that it happens.

The Secretary of State has inadvertently misled the House. I have gas-fired power plant developers willing to build and operate at last year’s price of £79 per megawatt-hour. Will the Secretary of State admit that, with inflation, the bids today are some 25% higher than that £79? By the time that capacity is built, the cost will be almost 50% higher than £79 per megawatt-hour.

With the greatest respect, I trust our analysts in my Department more than I do the hon. Gentleman when it comes to arithmetic. As he is somebody who I think has had an interest in the past in solar panels—

On roofs.

Ah, so it is all right for him, but just not for anyone else. That tells us a lot.

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Celtic sea, I welcome the floating offshore wind test and demo model awarded a contract for difference in the Celtic sea. It will open up the Celtics sea to investment. There are other test and demo models in the Celtic sea. What can the Secretary of State say about the role of GB Energy to kick-start these test and demo models, as well as supply chains?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. GB Energy has invested in the Pentland project in Scotland. GB Energy is operationally independent from us, so it makes its own decisions, but it shows that combined with the CfD, GB Energy can play a nurturing role for this technology, and that is incredibly important. It is what other countries have done for a long time, and it is now starting to happen here.

The price that has been fixed today is higher than gas with the reduction of carbon tax and higher than the average for gas for all of last year. South Shropshire residents’ energy bills have been going up since the Secretary of State has been in post. Can he promise when energy bills will come down for my constituents?

We will be taking £150 off bills in April, but let me refer the hon. Gentleman to a report produced by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, which explains that having renewables on the system means that we do not pay for expensive gas whose price is much higher than the average wholesale price. According to the report, by not procuring that expensive gas we have brought down the wholesale price by at least £25 per megawatt-hour. It is an important report, and the hon. Gentleman should read it.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this huge offshore wind investment, which will bring good jobs and opportunities for businesses to south-west Wales, as well as reducing bills and increasing energy security. Will he liaise with appropriate colleagues to ensure that the necessary investment is made in the port of Port Talbot, and can he give any indication of the construction time in the Celtic sea and the proposed time for the delivery of electricity to the grid?

I assure my hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion on these issues, that we are very much engaged with Port Talbot and the port on this issue, and with Associated British Ports, because it is important that we make those investments in the port. She should watch this space.

As a former offshore wind engineer, I am delighted that the Government have secured record offshore wind capacity, and I say, genuinely, “Well done.” However, what is even cheaper than renewable energy is the energy that we do not need to use because our homes are more energy-efficient, so the Government’s scrapping of an energy efficiency programme last year without announcing what would replace it was less welcome. Can the Secretary of State assure my constituents that when the long-delayed warm homes plan does emerge, it will ensure that everyone can have a comfortable, warm, energy-efficient, affordable home?

I am grateful for the tone of the hon. Lady’s question. I will return the compliment, and thank her for her kind words about this auction round. She is entirely right about the importance of our warm homes plan and investing in energy efficiency; the plan will be coming very soon, and that is what it will do.

This news is very welcome to those of us who believe in a swift transition away from fossil fuels. Can the Secretary of State confirm that as a result of today’s auction round, supply chain jobs, including those in places such as Hayle and Falmouth in Cornwall, will remain at the top of the Government’s agenda?

Yes. My hon. Friend, who speaks so well on these issues, is absolutely right. There are huge opportunities for Cornwall in this area of offshore wind. One thing that I have been doing with my Department is transforming it from simply an energy policy Department to an energy and industrial policy Department, because this Government believe in industrial policy.

Can the Secretary of State give a clear assurance that not a single offshore wind project procured in this round will be built with technology made by Chinese slaves?

We will certainly not be doing that. We want as much as possible of this to be built in Britain.

I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. The port of Leith in my constituency is well placed to support logistics and manufacturing for Berwick Bank, which has been successful today. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss ensuring that every job possible is secured as a result of this investment?

I look forward to having conversations with my hon. Friend. I think that there are huge opportunities for Scotland, and the Government intend to maximise them.

Of course we welcome the new offshore wind projects in Wales and all the anticipated jobs, but if only we could guarantee that profits would stay in our communities and the use of local supply chains were contractually hardwired! Will the Government ensure that time is secured for a debate on the Crown Estate (Wales) Bill, so that we can discuss how the people of Wales will receive their fair share of offshore wind profits?

I fear that securing time in the House is way above my pay grade. [Interruption.] I promise that it is. Let me say more generally to the right hon. Lady that I agree with her, and that we are looking at the Procurement Act 2023 and how it works. Ensuring that we procure as much of this as we can in the UK is incredibly important, and it is taken seriously throughout Government.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this investment. We are hearing some real chutzpah from the Opposition, who seem to have forgotten that it was they who imposed the ban on onshore wind. We need to remember who is in favour of tackling the issue of green energy and bringing down bills. The other side of this, however, is getting the electricity to constituencies such as mine. What progress is being made on upgrading the grid, and what timeline has my right hon. Friend for conveying the electricity to people who need it?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am old enough to remember Boris Johnson, and he used to trumpet the potential of this. He used to talk about it as the future and how it was going to build future jobs, but the Conservatives have abandoned all that. They are miserable pessimists about our country.

As for my hon. Friend’s question, I think she is absolutely right. She will welcome the fact that NESO has undertaken the biggest overhaul of the grid we have seen in a long time, reordering the queue to ensure that we procure the power we need in the right places and that we give priority to the projects we need.

Today’s announcement of a record-breaking auction securing over 8 GW of wind power—enough electricity to power over 12 million homes—is clear evidence of this Labour Government delivering on our clean power mission, and it will help my constituents have lower bills in the future. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is good for jobs, good for growth and good for energy security?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think the point about energy security is crucial because we live in an uncertain world. We need our own home-grown clean energy, and that is what we are doing.

The Energy Secretary has talked about the clean industry bonus and supply chain opportunities. What commitment will he make that, for every tower and turbine that goes up, British steel is being used and Teesside jobs are being created?

My hon. Friend, with whom I have discussed this, is absolutely right. We want to do everything we can to ensure we use steel from Britain in this process. Part of this is about what we legislate for, and part of it is about the conversations we have with the developers to ensure they do that. I am setting a very clear expectation on this, and I expect developers to do everything they can to meet it.

I warmly welcome the not just one, but two offshore wind projects in Wales, with billions of pounds in investment and thousands of new jobs putting Wales firmly on the map as a clean energy producer. We are delighted to see Awel y Môr in north Wales, and the benefits for Clwyd North are clear—skilled, well-paid local jobs and a huge boost for local supply chains. Along with new nuclear at Wylfa, north Wales is finally getting the clean energy investment it deserves under this Labour Government. May I thank the Secretary of State for this investment in north Wales, and will he join me in meeting the apprentices at Coleg Llandrillo who are already training for these jobs of the future?

I would really like to do that. The Prime Minister and I, with the Chancellor and indeed the First Minister of Wales, had a fantastic visit to north Wales when we announced our small modular reactors there, and the excitement among the students at the college about the future we are building was so palpable to see. I must say that that is the difference between the Government and the Opposition. We are embracing that future and building that future for those young people; they, frankly, are selling those young people down the river.

I welcome the investment for the Norfolk Vanguard project, which will play an enormous role after being awarded over a third of total capacity under these contracts. The Secretary of State has spoken about the benefits for jobs. Can he speak specifically about how we will ensure young people now at school and in college will benefit with apprenticeships and training in these industries?

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We will be setting up five technical excellence colleges in clean energy, and they will be incredibly important in training young people for this clean energy future. There is a huge number of opportunities out there. Part of this is about the training, but another part is about young people getting to know about these opportunities. I was at an amazing jobs fair in the north-east—organised by Kim McGuinness, the mayor of the north-east—which brought together some of the developers with young people, and the excitement among those young people about this future was so palpable. We need to do more of that.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on proving that contracts for difference for offshore wind really do work. I am particularly pleased to hear how much floating wind is in this contract. I know he is always looking to the future, so could he update the House on what his Department is doing about emerging offshore technologies such as offshore thermal, offshore wave and offshore tidal?

Those are incredibly important technologies, and we need to do more to help bring down their cost. Tidal schemes will be in the next auction pot, and we are continuing to look at how we can deploy more of them in our country.

I congratulate the Secretary of State and his team on today’s announcement, not least because it draws such a stark contrast. He has announced the largest ever offshore wind auction in history, whereas one of his predecessors came to this House to announce the largest ever Government energy subsidy to households in history—those were the words from the previous Government’s press release. That £40 billion was necessary, but it was the result of the previous Government’s failure to secure our energy supply. That cost our households thousands and taxpayers billions. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this announcement will secure our energy future and ensure that such a catastrophic failure can never happen again?

My hon. Friend speaks so well on these issues and he is so right. This is about energy sovereignty and our security as a country. When the Conservatives were in government, at least under Boris Johnson, they seemed to understand that. That is why it is so regrettable. Of course, this is about the climate crisis, good jobs and lower bills, but it is also about security in an uncertain and dangerous world. The Opposition are, frankly, surrendering our security and what they are proposing is incredibly dangerous.

I thank the Energy Secretary for the leadership he has shown with this record-breaking step forward for renewable power, which underlines our commitment to delivering the clean, secure energy our country is crying out for. It is important to note that the scale of energy secured—at a 40% lower cost than new gas—was only possible because of reforms to the auction market design. We did not tolerate the mechanisms that failed under the previous Government; we innovated to deliver better value. Will the Energy Secretary ensure that we do not rest on our laurels, but continue to innovate in auction design to ensure that we get the best possible value for money and the biggest possible capacity outcomes from future auctions, too?

My hon. Friend speaks very knowledgeably on these issues and he is absolutely right. We changed the auction design not just to be able to see the so-called bid stack, which they could not under the previous regime, but to allow more projects in to increase competitive tension to get a better deal for the bill payer and the taxpayer. He is absolutely right: we should keep innovating for both fixed technology and other technologies to maximise value for money and deployment.

I call Dr Jeevun Sandher—I hope it has been worth the wait.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Affordability is the biggest issue facing our country and climate change is the biggest issue facing our planet. That is why today’s announcement is such, such good news: wind power 40% cheaper than natural gas. Bizarrely, Reform called that lunacy. The shadow Secretary of State used to agree with us and she used to support the Climate Change Act 2008, but now she agrees with Reform. Does the Secretary of State believe that the shadow Secretary of State may be planning to join the best and the brightest of her former colleagues and become defector No. 21?

It was worth waiting for. I will let the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) speculate on her own future and whether she is going to join another political party. In all seriousness, I do think it is sad. The truth is that we used to pride ourselves as a country on competing, between political parties, to succeed when it came to building our clean energy future. It is deeply regrettable. There are many sensible voices on the Conservative side who shake their heads when I talk to them about the direction their party has taken. Fundamentally, my hon. Friend is right: this is central to tackling the affordability crisis, central to tackling the climate crisis in our country, and central to giving us energy security.

We got through that in 48 minutes, which is much faster than we hoped. Well done to everybody.