There can be little doubt that Boris Johnson became Leader of the Conservative party and went on to win a substantial General election victory to get Brexit done. He replaced Theresa May whose civil servants negotiated the UK into a very weak position creating a Brexit that looked like membership without the seat around the table. She left office owing to the Parliamentary pressures. The Opposition worked with Remain forces inside government to create a Brexit in name only leading to enough Conservative MPs wanting her to resign  to uphold the result of the referendum.

Two years on from his victory at the polls, and one year on from getting the UK out of the EU formally, the Brexit voting public wants him to use the freedoms the UK has now regained to make us a more prosperous, independent, well respected country with global reach and more domestic activity. Many people are pleased the UK did use its freedom to stay out of the EU vaccine policy, leading to the early development and deployment of a successful UK vaccine. We want more examples of how we can do better for ourselves and the wider world by nurturing talent and trusting policy makers and inventers at home.

My advice to the Prime Minister is to rebuild lost voting support by enjoying some Brexit wins. This should begin with energy policy. We should detach from more and more dependence on energy short Europe, linking our fortunes to a continent that relies on Russian gas and too many windfarms. The UK needs to extract more of our own gas and oil pending the investment in reliable renewable power , perhaps through pump storage and hydro, perhaps through green hydrogen from windfarms when they are working.

It should continue with banning large supertrawlers from the continent and rebuilding a UK fishing industry with proper regard for our fish stocks. It should include growing more of our own food with suitable support for farmers. It should entail remodelling VAT, taking it off green products and energy. He needs urgently to reassert control, unilaterally if necessary ,over GB/NI trade.

He will lose his core supporters and more of his Brexit voters if he does not return to this unfinished agenda.

In the last twenty four hours I have had around 50 emails hostile to the PM over the culture in Downing Street. Some of these came from longstanding opponents of the PM, but some from new voices.  I have also had strong  complaints about the lack of support for UK  farmers to grow food and the licencing of foreign supertrawlers to plunder UK waters. In previous days the main preoccupation was the domestic energy shortage and prices.

I consulted the Executive of the local Conservative party this morning. The overwhelming view was to await the Report on what happened in Downing Street , who attended which gatherings and whether any of them broke the guidance or law at the time. There was widespread disapproval of senior civil servants holding drinks events during lockdown and a wish to see appropriate disciplinary action taken where the facts justified it.

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of (a) the implications for his policies of rising UK import dependence in energy and (b) the potential to expand domestic production. (96751)

Tabled on: 04 January 2022

Answer:
Greg Hands:

Great Britain benefits from highly diverse sources of energy. The Government plans to increase energy production from a variety of sources, including nuclear and hydrogen will ensure that dependency on foreign fossil fuels is decreased. Around half of Great Britain’s annual gas supply is already met by domestic production, and Great Britain’s electricity mix includes significant sources of domestic generation.

The Government is taking steps to support investment in new sources of electricity generation, including 40 GW of offshore wind by 2030, a first of a kind power plant enabled with Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage technology, and new nuclear projects. The Net Zero Strategy also sets out the Government’s ambition to decrease Great Britain’s reliance on natural gas, such as by blending hydrogen into the gas grid.

The answer was submitted on 14 Jan 2022 at 15:01.

This answer is most disappointing. It states that we will rely on future nuclear and hydrogen based power. Nuclear power will decline this decade, with  no new station not currently in build possible before the 2030s. All but one of our current nuclear stations will close this decade. There is no large scale hydrogen currently available and that too will take time to build up, with current plans not large. Hydrogen will need to be green hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, as it is not a primary energy source.

The phrase “around half of GB’s natural gas is already met by domestic production” implies it is on the rise, whereas we have gone from national self sufficiency to under one half so far this century. UK policy has been to restrict new UK gas extraction and to manage a planned decline in UK output. That is still the official policy though Ministers have started talking about adding to current gas fields.

The chilling phrase that electricity includes “significant sources of domestic generation” shows officials are keen to press on with making us more dependent on imported power. Last century we used to plan to be self sufficient with a  margin of excess capacity to take care of shut downs of major power stations and surges in demand. We should revive that policy.

The wish to create 40GW of offshore wind needs to be linked to methods of storing the power when the wind blows, especially at night, to help with periods of low wind. Storage could be via production of hydrogen or battery or pump storage. Yesterday our substantial wind capacity only managed to meet 1% of our power needs, demonstrating that rated capacity is a meaningless figure to guide power availability when you can get so little when the wind does not blow – or blows too strongly so you have to shut the turbines down.

The government neds to concentrate on self sufficiency to keep the lights on and to prevent Mr Putin and an energy short Europe holding  us to ransom.

The significance of officials inviting each other to a bottle party when their rules and words told the rest of us to stay at home alone or with our immediate family is twofold. It implies they did not think  the virus was as serious as they told us it would  be, as they were willing to take risks themselves. It reinforced the view of a technocracy that lectured the rest of us but lived by different standards. Apparently officials decided what was right and asked the PM to drop by his own garden to thank the staff. He was clearly not in charge of working arrangements. Some argue he should have been .  It leads to more questions about the way advisers  used statistics and one  strand  of scientific opinion to take over government and dictate controls and interventions on a war time scale.

Ministers and the Prime Minister not only allowed them to do this, but made it all visible  by thrusting forward one group of advisers to front news conferences and to explain policy. You cannot allow government policy to be dictated  by the “science”. Ministers should of course place public safety as a central aim  of policy and should take best medical and epidemiological advice. They must however balance that with assessments of what lockdown will do to mental health, other causes of death, to jobs, incomes and livelihoods. They should also test out the official advice by hearing from other scientists. There were other views to consider on  treatments, air flows, infection control  and expanding capacity that were not welcome as part of the official narrative. There were other ways than locking us up at home of limiting spread, abating the impact and fighting the virus that we needed to do more about. My questions and comments to get these actions were often accepted by Ministers but not progressed with energy or pace.

Sorting out the question of what senior officials and maybe some Ministers and the PM did in lockdown is less important that ensuring they govern well today, though the one does reflect on the central problem of when will the government as a whole bend to the will of the people that pay for it? People would be less angry about the office arrangements if they were getting what they voted for. The government needs to reset, to show Ministers are in charge, and to demonstrate they can work productively with civil servants to deliver promises.

Many people would be happier to see a curb on the UK’s carbon dioxide output begun  by reducing immigration numbers. The more people in the country the more CO2 they will generate themselves and in meeting their needs. The same policy would allow us to keep more green areas free from new houses, a popular green policy with many. We would be happy if the government kept its promise not to raise taxes and if it wound down wasteful expenditures like the excessive CV 19 testing programme and the large costs of hotel accommodation for people claiming asylum who are not refugees.

We want the Brexit wins. Why hasn’t the government even taken VAT off green products yet? Given the passion they show for net zero it looks as if the officials are blocking  tax changes which would start to differentiate us from the EU. Why are the Freeports not up and running, and why does the draft not offer much freedom in the freeports proposed?

Of course Ministers are ultimately  to blame. They are meant to be in  charge. Too many of them seem unable to apply common sense to official advice and to reach sensible judgements that powerful advisers do not always like.

The latest case numbers for Covid suggest this latest wave is peaking. The figures also suggest thanks  to vaccines serious cases and hospital stays will be lower proportionately than previous waves. On 26 January the government review should be able to decide the remaining restrictions can be lifted. The pandemic disease can move to being endemic, something we will live with. Everyone can make their own decisions about vaccines and how much risk to run of catching it.

The government needs to refocus. At the high Prime Ministerial level we know what this government is about – getting Brexit done, levelling up, improving public services. At departmental level there is often a lack of clarity or a failure to work away at contributing to the main aims. Particularly disappointing is the 2am so many departments have gone out of their way to avoid using Brexit freedoms. So many advisers and civil servants seem to want to keep us closely aligned to the EU.

There is also a slow start to levelling  up. This should be primarily about helping people on their journeys to ownership, self employment, better training and qualifications. So where are the Freeports as centres of investment and new jobs? Why aren’t they up and running , with low taxes and friendlier conditions for setting up and expanding business? Where are the plans to help us grow more and make more of what we want?

Cabinet Ministers need to set out how their departments will shape the post pandemic world and how this contributes to growth and levelling up.