SHADOW Science Secretary Julia Lopez has said that the Chancellor should “put Ed Miliband back in his box” and look to North Sea oil and gas to secure the country’s energy needs as prices soar.
She told GB News: “It’s really worrying. I think one of the challenges for the government is the fact that the public finances are not in a good state.
“They inherited inflation at 2% it’s now at 3% because of some of the decisions they’ve made on tax and National Insurance in particular, and now we’re in quite a weak position to be able to deal with this.
“It’s one of the things that wasn’t commented on as much as the tax cuts in the Liz Truss budget, but what she did was intervene with a very large energy package to try and keep people’s bills as low as possible. And I’m just not sure that the government is in the position to be able to do that without spooking the markets entirely.
“They should be understanding is a moment of real urgency and looking at what we can do on energy supply, particularly in the North Sea. The Chancellor didn’t use the Spring Statement last week to make any intervention those sorts of things.
“I think as she we approach her [Mais] lecture, I think it’s next week, we hope that she will actually recognise the seriousness of the situation, put Ed Miliband back in his box on some of his policies, and start looking at what we can do in the North Sea to get energy flowing again.”
She added: “Energy bills, there’s very large and chunky green levies on a lot of those bills. So the Chancellor would do well to start looking at some of those levies, but also get moving on North Sea oil and gas and start increasing the energy that’s flowing.
“Ed Miliband cancelled all the licenses. We’re now having to be very reliant on LNG from the Gulf. And that’s obviously going to be a severely problematic situation when Qatar cannot get its own refinery, its own energy moving.
“We put forward a cheap power plan that would have not put us into such a vulnerable position in the first place. I’m not going to start making policy up here on the spot, but Claire Coutinho has put forward a very clear policy on energy bills that challenges some of Ed Miliband’s work on green energy, and that’s what we would do. We would have put that into action immediately.”
Asked what the Chancellor could do to ease the impact of rising prices, Lopez said: “Well, there’s a fuel duty hike priced in for the autumn, I believe. And I think she has to look again at whether that is something that can actually go forward.
“People are going to be really worried. It’s not just about people’s energy bills at home. And the price cap is going to be lasting until June.
“So there is a short term bit of alleviation that the government has some time to think about, what is the right energy intervention, and similarly, with the fuel duty rise, but in the intervening period, they need to look very closely at whether these rises can go ahead and what’s in the in the bag for them.
“As I say, I would be looking at some of the green levies, but the government’s put itself in a very perilous financial situation. They’ve made us financially weaker, and that’s the problem. I’m not sure that the government is in a position to put forward very comprehensive cost of living packages.”
