Labour puzzled by ‘meaningless announcement’ on gas

There is “no disagreement” between Labour and the government over the need for new gas fired power stations, the shadow energy minister has said, suggesting that ministers have been seeking to “conjure a culture war” out of the issue.

Announcing the latest stage of the review of electricity market arrangements (REMA) on Tuesday, the government stressed its commitment to new unabated gas fired plants to plug the looming security of supply gap as the grid becomes ever more dependent on intermittent wind and solar generation.

In a snap parliamentary debate on the REMA, shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead said he was a “little puzzled” by the announcement, given that the Committee on Climate Change and “all credible energy experts” have said a small residual of unabated gas plant is needed over the medium term and is consistent with a fully decarbonised power system.

“No one disputes that, and it is barely worth an announcement. We should extend the lives of existing plants to meet that need,” Whitehead said.

“If new-build plants are needed in the short term to replace some of those retiring gas-fired power stations, there is no disagreement, provided they are capable of converting to hydrogen or carbon capture, as the government say they must be.

“That is an uncontroversial position and analysis, and hardly something worth making a huge fuss about.”

He asked energy minister Graham Stuart whether the government’s stated commitment to new unabated gas plants is either a “meaningless announcement” or an “attempt to conjure a culture war out of climate and energy policy, with announcements with no substance or value that show that the government have no serious plan for energy in our country.”

Responding on behalf of the government, Stuart said the “biggest risk” to the decarbonisation of the UK’s grid are Labour’s plans to set up Great British Energy, which he described as a “state-run quango” that “will wreck the renewables growth that we have seen”.

Backbench Conservative MP Sir Jacob Rees-Moog, who was secretary of state for business and energy in Liz Truss’ short-lived 2022 government, called for net zero to be postponed “indefinitely” in order to secure cheaper electricity.

The government’s REMA announcement also:

• Outlined a prospective five-year timeline for implementing zonal pricing
• Laid out plans for an optimised Capacity Market and revamped CfDs
• Forecast the link between gas and power prices will rapidly diminish