Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice — House of Commons, 2022-05-11
Topic: Energy
Jamie Hume Stone (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): No debate of this nature would be complete if I did not refer to Space Hub Sutherland. It is not all bad on the Conservative Benches: we are profoundly grateful for the Government’s assistance in bringing that project to the point it is at today. It has been a great pleasure to have Mr Roy Kirk of Highlands and Islands Enterprise sitting up in the Gallery for much of this debate. He has had to go home now but, me being me, I will make sure he gets a copy of Hansard so that he can see that I have name-checked him This is my only opportunity in the next few days to speak on the Queen’s Speech, and I am going to make three general, fairly broad points. In the last few days, just about every candidate standing in the local government elections in Easter Ross in the south of my constituency used a picture of the oil rigs in the Cromarty Firth. They are a majestic sight that we all know very well indeed. If you travel further north in my constituency and look east, you will see the Beatrice offshore wind farm, which produces enough electricity to power a staggering 450,000 homes. We also have loads of onshore wind farms in my constituency, and of course there is a discussion to be had about the merits of offshore and onshore wind, as many rural Conservative Members will know This leads me to my first point, which echoes a point made by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey). My constituents live cheek by jowl with the symbols of British energy production and yet they are faced with a crippling rise in the cost of heating their homes. I hope that image brings home to the House the irony that, where I live, we produce so much energy but we have to pay through the nose for it. We should also remember that far too many of my constituents have no choice other than to use fuel oil to heat their homes. That is the nub of the problem, and I am horrified that the vulnerable and elderly have to make the invidious choice—perhaps this is a hackneyed phrase—between heating and eating. If the Government really do believe in levelling up—perhaps another hackneyed phrase—to help the most disadvantaged, and I hope they do, then solving this particular energy problem is crucial. I personally intend to pursue this in the most dogged fashion possible In terms of levelling up, the contribution made by the BBC and Channel 4 to bolstering local, independent production companies all over the UK cannot be overstated. Given Channel 4’s plans to provide 100,000 opportunities for young people starting in the media industry, to invest £2 billion in nations and regions content over the next decade and to become a truly digital-first public service broadcaster, the Government’s plans to sell it off to the private sector are, I am afraid, severely misjudged. But I take heart from the knowledge that many Conservative Members agree with that opinion. Let us think of what Channel 4 has produced: the Paralympics, "It’s a Sin", and "Derry Girls", which was made in Northern Ireland. What benefit has that been to the economy of Ulster? There was also the Black to Front project. These are all shows and features that have a British hallmark and would not have been made if Channel 4 did not have the freedom to prioritise public interest and purpose over profit Many Members will have read in The Times today the quote from Tim Bevan, who co-chairs Working Title Films. He said: "British films have always been quite difficult to get made" and that plans to privatise Channel 4 and scrap the BBC licence fee were a "travesty". He also said: "The British film industry and independent production have been supported by those two institutions…That’s our culture. We don’t want to be making American projects, we want to be making British films." He is absolutely right. English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and the work of Channel 4 and the BBC gives our country international soft power that can hardly be imagined—I have seen it for myself I will keep my contribution short and conclude on power. The Public Accounts Committee has drawn the House’s attention to the fact that the Royal Air Force will have 30 fewer combat aircraft by 2025 because of the decision to retire Typhoon early. When we think that, over the last seven years, we have spent no less than £701 million on developing new radar systems for Typhoon that will not be ready until 2030, we can see there is something desperately wrong with how we are planning to defend our country in the future. These are killer facts Members on both sides of the House have rightly said that the plans to reduce the size of the British Army are ill-conceived. Combined with the Typhoon nonsense, we can see that the United Kingdom is surely in danger of sending entirely the wrong signal to our friends and allies, particularly when the dangers we face are all too clear. Now more than ever, we must not drop our guard. I close with a reminder from the past. In the early 1980s, the Treasury imposed cuts on defence spending, one of which led to the decision to remove the Royal Navy Antarctic vessel HMS Endurance from the south Atlantic. Historians claim that that decision was part of Argentina’s reasoning that the United Kingdom was not serious about defending the Falklands, and that it was therefore worth taking the risk of invasion. The rest is history, and only an exceptionally foolish state does not learn from the past.