If we left energy policy to the Opposition we would be closing down our oil and gas fields more quickly, refusing to get more out of the ground, and urging the construction of more windfarms. This requires a big increase in the grid which will take years to plan, agree and build. Meanwhile we would be even more dependent on imports. We would be in more danger of rationing or interruptions to supply. Prices would rise to provide sufficient incentive  to put in the extra  wind and solar capacity.

These parties have energy policies based on the imperative of getting to net zero. They never seem to worry about security of supply or affordability. These two aims should be more central to energy policy.

The government has now accepted that  getting more of our own oil and gas out makes sense. It did with some persuasion keep open a couple of coal stations for longer which has been helpful in the last two years.

We still do not have good ways of storing renewable power when it is available for times when there is no wind and sun. It may be possible to do this with battery stores and or making green hydrogen. Until that happens we need more back up power. As government and Opposition press  on with wanting  more things to run on electricity  we need more reliable power, it would be good to put extra gas fired stations in to meet need.

There is no point in urging more people to switch cars and heating  systems to electricity if there is insufficient renewable power on a reliable basis and insufficient grid space to carry the power from a distant offshore wind farm to a customer. There needs to be greater clarity about costs and charges and more consideration of affordability. The UK is suffering from too little domestic output at too high a price.

I was critical of OBR accounting for  inflation linked linked government debt. They said the  extra repayment costs on index linked bonds  from higher inflation  were like monthly cash payments though the government does not send the bondholders cash each time prices go up. .  Now I can enjoy the reverse process where the accounting system to correct the figures going forward will record big drops in the costs of government interest payments as inflation falls away. In the year to November 2023 the OBR charged the government accounts  £50bn with inflation top ups to bonds that do not become liable until the bonds are due for repayment. This year beginning with December 2023 with inflation down from 10% to 4% the debt interest figure will tumble. It went below zero in December for the inflation adjustments.

It looks as if on their accounting system government interest charges and spending will benefit from a fall of more than  £30bn in the year ahead, assuming inflation now falls from 4% to 2% as forecast by the Bank of England. Tax revenues are predictably disappointing a bit compared to OBR forecasts as the higher rates and frozen thresholds bite. The Treasury/OBR model still attributes too much revenue growth with tax rises and fails to credit tax rate cuts with more revenue yet this often happens with the main capital and income taxes.

We need a growth strategy which must include tax cuts. We now know there will be more than £30 bn extra headroom as the interest payments plunge. The government should cut energy taxes as a priority. Getting inflation down more quickly would mean even  bigger falls in debt interest and curb inflationary increases in public spending across all the budgets. Cuts in taxes on small business and the self employed will boost output and competition. Income tax should also be brought down by taking more people out of the higher tax brackets they are being dragged into.

Please find below the links to a recent report published by FACTS4EU on Mass Immigration which I have contributed to.

Facts4EU Report: https://facts4eu.org/news/2024_jan_mass_immigration

Facts4EU Twitter: https://x.com/Facts4euOrg/status/1749691717849137158?s=20

Facts4EU Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Facts4EU/posts/pfbid0vQ4Ar1ofCcUAz7cZ4nqetZyALgBYvs9fiNiHWckhi2JgXPaztTBzaxJP45YR8ngRl

John Redwood (Wok, Con):

I want to see far less imported LNG. Can the Minister give us some good news on what we might be able to achieve in getting more gas out, and will he ensure that many blocks—not just one—are put up for a licence round to get rid of that LNG?

Graham Stuart (Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero):

The estimate from the North Sea Transition Authority is that a billion of barrels of oil equivalent, including gas, would be lost if we did not have new licences. That is lost tax revenue for this country, on top of the 200,000 jobs and lower emissions—[Interruption.] So far, I have not mentioned the tens of billions of pounds of tax. [Interruption.] It is not surprising, given how comprehensively easy it is to destroy the Labour party’s arguments, that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North keeps up his constant chuntering. He cannot win the argument while he is on his feet, so he sits there and tries interrupting those who can. If we do not have new licensing, which is Labour’s policy, we will see emissions go up in the short term; 200,000 jobs undermined; tens of billions in tax not brought into the public Exchequer; and—for those who care about dealing with the climate emergency—we will lose the very engineering skills and talent that we need to retain in this country in order to make the transition.

The government yesterday secured passage of its Bill to encourage more oil and gas from the North Sea to its next Commons stage.

It was an important policy change when the government  announced it did wish more oil and gas to be produced from known fields, and wanted the quango in charge of the North Sea to license more blocs for exploration. It makes no sense to run down our oil and gas fields faster than we need do claiming that helps reduce CO 2 when the country then imports LNG instead. Such gas creates four times as much CO 2 as home gas down a pipe, given the large amounts of energy needed to compress it, transport and to switch it back into gas to go down pipe system from the seaport.

Some query whether it needs a new Act of Parliament to achieve this. Why not just instruct the North Sea Transition Authority and win a vote in the Commons if the Opposition objects? Some wonder why the requirement to hold an annual licence round is set out with a minimum of one bloc, when of course they will need to offer many blocs to an active industry. It would also help if the Treasury would review energy taxation which is higher in the UK than in many competitor countries. Far from helping our Treasury that policy drives both energy production and energy using industries away from the UK.

The UK needs to take energy security much more seriously and needs to do all it can to extract more home gas all the time people and businesses have gas boilers for their main source of heat. Using the road to net zero as an excuse to make us more import dependent on energy which entails more world CO 2 is a very bad policy favoured by the Labour, Lib Dem and SNP parties. That policy means all those well paid oil and gas jobs are in another country. it means the bulk of the taxes levied on producing oil and gas are paid to a foreign Treasury. It means the UK is made beholden to more overseas energy interests.

I read and hear in various places that Kemi Badenoch is out to woo the right. I know she has been very loyal to Rishi Sunak. Contrary to some briefings she sent no message of support to the sponsors and supporters of the amendments to the Rwanda Bill . The sponsors in their discussions with No 10 and the Home Office did not report back on any interventions from the Business department to help them amend the draft. She has kept out of the difficult issues preventing GB to Northern Ireland trade.

The  relevant groups on the so called right that would  like to help her in her important job as Business secretary include the Growth Group, the European Research Group, the NTB and the Net Zero realism group.  These Groups were very disappointed when she abandoned the Jacob Rees Mogg Retained EU Laws Bill, which was designed to remove and amend bad or needless inherited EU laws.

We have offered to work with her and the other Business Ministers on a programme of better and less regulation. We have been pressing the need for more and cheaper UK  produced energy. The EU carbon emissions and interconnectors framework for more imported power are particular concerns. It is leading to much industry closing down in the UK making us more dependent on imports. We await a response on how the UK can retain a basic new steel making capability. We are worried that current regulations  to force Electric vehicles will lead to too rapid a decline in car industry based in the UK and to more Chinese imports.

See Facts4EU. Excellent graphs and analysis today showing strength of jobs since the referendum, contrary to gloomy official forecasts.

https://facts4eu.org/news/2024_jan_brexit_is_working

I am an unpaid fellow of an Oxford College and a former part time Professor at another University. I come  to the debate on students from a position of sympathy, wishing to see a strong UK independent university sector. I am pleased we host several of the world’s best universities.

I am no supporter of the model which creates a large number of places for overseas students which leads to a major expansion of students staying here after graduating taking low skill jobs and seeking to convert their degree course into a permit to live and work in the UK  thereafter. Nor do I think it a good idea to encourage a lot of older postgraduate students to  come with their families adding to the pressures on public services and housing. It is a thoroughly bad idea to let good postgraduate students from authoritarian and hostile countries get places  in cutting edge research that could be useful for weapons manufacture, electronic  surveillance, new materials, and other dangerous technologies as they will  return to their homes to apply what they have learned in ways which might harm others.

The government is taking action to restrict university action in each of these three categories. Selling courses to overseas students mainly sells to the rich from abroad as these courses are expensive. Charities and the overseas aid budget can provide money for low and no income  students from poor countries to come  to gain necessary skills and to return to apply them to help their own  country.

UK universities at their best are hosts to the best of world academic talent capable of world class research. Inviting in some overseas students to pay  high fees helps with their finances. If they invite in too many without ensuring they return home  after their course they add to housing and public service stress. Some of these universities imply there is no other way of covering costs other than a big rise in foreign students. They need to develop other ways of paying for university. Too many foreign students changes the ethos  and culture of the institution and limits places for UK students where we want a better educated and skilled workforce.

The Endowment model of leading US and  UK universities is a good one. Many ex alumni who succeed are happy to offer money during their lives and or on death to build endowment funds . These provide an excellent addition to student fees. There can be profits from spin out investments from university research. There is also plenty of scope given the many weeks each year when universities do not teach students to use their buildings and personnel to earn conference and adult training money.When I was years ago a full time academic I taught at summer schools as well,

Whitehall thinks the answer to every lobby from business over shortage of employees is to grant permission to bring in more people under a Temporary Skills shortage designation. For years we have had these temporary shortages of care workers, farmers, medics and others. We have also watched as many more categories have been added. It is high time we remedied more of the shortages ourselves. Temporary should mean temporary.

The cheap imported labour model has several major drawbacks

1. It keeps wages down, making it less likely for the lower paid jobs that UK residents will want to do them
2. It deters investment in productivity enhancing machinery and computing power, reinforcing a low productivity low wage outcome
3. It imposes large extra costs on taxpayers to meet the bills for top up benefits, subsidised housing and a range of public service provision for the new comers.
4. When it comes to public services it brings more demand as well as some labour supply to meet demand for services. You need then to invite in more health workers to take care of the other workers you have added to the population.
5. Keeping more UK residents out of work is costly for the state.

The government did show how you can cure an acute shortage in the way it tackled the shortage of drivers created by the big move to on line shopping over covid, and by the UK’s net zero model of importing more and more things to cut the UK national CO 2 output.  The government did put in  a lot more capacity to train and licence more people as  truck drivers, and allowed the market to put wages up. There was also necessary discussion of improving facilities for longer distance drivers so they can get a meal and decent rest facilities en route.

Sector by sector where currently the government is granting thousands of permits for imported labour it needs to have better defined and more urgently implemented strategies for attracting and training people already settled here. I have been urging these, and urging the DWP Secretary of State to roll out his promising plans more rapidly than the civil service is currently allowing. Get on with it.