Today the government proudly announced the “success” of the sixth allocation round (AR6) of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. I have already talked a little here about what CfDs involve, and Paul Homewood has dissected the nonsense that is AR6 here so I don’t propose to talk much about AR6. Instead my focus is on what passed for a debate about it in the House of Commons today. So soon after the event, the record in Hansard is still preliminary (or, as it puts it, “This debate is sourced from the uncorrected (rolling) version of Hansard and is subject to correction” , but I think we can trust it enough to get the gist.

It started at 1.46pm with Ed Miliband, the oxymoronic Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, standing to make a self-congratulatory statement. From the beginning, he sets out his dubious stall:

It is less than two months since the Government came into office with a mandate to fix the foundations and make Britain a clean energy superpower.

I have already expressed my reservations about such a claim, given that many Labour voters were voting to get the Tories out rather than enthusiastically supporting Mr Miliband’s dream (or nightmare, depending on your point of view); that just over one in three of those voting supported Labour; and that less than one in five of the electorate voted Labour. And while I’m grumbling, when did renewable energy get to be “clean”? That’s two dubious claims already, and he has barely got started. How many can he pack in? Well, there’s this:

The last Government left this country exposed to international fossil fuel markets. As a result, every household and business paid the price in the worst cost of living and energy bills crisis in memory; because of Britain’s particular exposure, families and businesses in our country were hit harder than others.

And this:

The only way to provide this country with the energy security that the British people deserve is through home-grown clean energy that we control. [my emphasis].

Having said that, he got this right:

Last year’s contracts for difference auction, under the previous Government, was a fiasco. No offshore wind projects were awarded, which was a disaster for the industry…[my emphasis again].

Then he continues by demonstrating that he doesn’t understand that increasing (by almost 60%) the price offered, in AR6,to the renewables sector for the electricty it is to supply, to a level above the current market price will increase the price of electricity, not reduce it:

I made the decision to expand the budget for this year’s auction by 50% to maximise the amount of home-grown clean power we could secure while delivering value for the British people…

He preens over obtaining contracts for 9.6 GW of new capacity, by referring to nearly 10 GW of clean, home-grown power which he claimed is “enough to power the equivalent of 11 million homes”. I’m not sure what the equivalent of a home is, but you do the maths, given that the renewables in question are likely to operate at an average of anything between 15% and 35% of capacity, and given that Ofgem says “We estimate the typical household in England, Scotland and Wales uses 2,700 kWh of electricity and 11,500 kWh of gas in a year.”

After claiming that solar power “is one of the cheapest and most readily deployable energy sources at our disposal” and crowing about new solar and onshore wind secured in AR6, he then goes on to boast about securing some of the most expensive forms of energy known to man:

Floating offshore wind offers a huge opportunity in every part of Britain. The last auction secured no floating offshore wind. On coming to office, I was presented with a budget that risked repeating the mistakes of the past, so I took the decision to more than double the budget that covers this cutting-edge technology. I can report to the House that today’s auction has secured a 400 MW floating offshore wind project, more than 10 times bigger than the previous biggest floating offshore wind farm in Britain.

Apparently he’s pleased with himself about that. At this point Richard Tice intervened to point out that this was “[a]t double the price”. To which the blithe response was:

At a lower price. This floating offshore wind farm alone is double the size of all of Europe’s installed floating offshore wind capacity. In addition, on tidal, where Britain has huge leadership opportunities, we have secured six new tidal stream projects at the lowest ever price.

Well, the table attached to the final results of AR6 as released by his department tells us that the 2027/8-2028/9 administrative strike price for floating offshore wind is £176 per MWh and for tidal is £261. This, apparently, is a good thing.

A little further on we get this:

I can also report to the House that across the whole auction all these results were secured at prices well below the maximum price limit—prices that demonstrate that wind and solar are the cheapest sources of power to build and operate in our country. For the House’s benefit, that means a clearing price for offshore wind that is five to seven times lower than electricity prices driven by gas at the peak of the energy crisis.

Which is an extraordinary exercise in cherry-picking. Today the price of gas sits at 88.8p per therm, against a peak of 702.95p per therm for the briefest of periods in August 2022. That the high price of two years ago briefly drove high electricity prices is true, but today’s price is less than one-seventh of that brief high, so a claim that offshore wind’s clearing price is five to seven times lower than those high electricity prices is meaningless. Especially when the clearing price doesn’t take into account the extremely significant system costs associated with dealing with such remote and unpredictable forms of electricity generation.

He concludes with this worrying piece of nonsense:

This is a Government in a hurry to deliver our mission: energy security, lower bills, good jobs and tackling the climate crisis.

There was so much rubbish and twisted logic in that statement that it represents an open goal for the Opposition. Did the Tories score a goal? No, they blasted high and wide. Here’s Mark Garnier (Shadow Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero):

I would like to put on record that Members on the Opposition Benches welcome the success of the contracts for difference allocation round 6. The Secretary of State is right to be proud of that achievement by the Government. It is to be celebrated that we, as a country, are creating an extra 131 clean energy projects that include 5 GW of offshore wind farms and 3 MW of floating wind.

It gets worse:

The previous Secretary of State recognised the problems of AR5 and the price set for offshore wind—a price that was set before a round of inflation that made the CFD strike price cap too low for the producers. By the way, this was not just a UK problem; it affected other projects for offshore wind around the world. Increasing the strike price by around 60% to the current AR6 price of £73 has been crucial to securing the current success. Of course, in addition, the previous Government had many other successes. In 2010, just 7% of our energy needs were supplied by renewables. Today it is nearly 50%. This has come from many initiatives, not least bringing in the contracts for difference auctions in 2014 and making the auction process an annual event—an initiative that was learnt from AR5 problems.

Does he, I wonder, understand the difference between electricity and energy? For I have to point out that renewables don’t provide anything like 50% of the UK’s energy needs. I should point out also that according to National Grid ESO in 2023 renewables provided just 36.1% of the UK’s electricity needs (wind 29.4%; solar 4.9% and hydro 1.8%), and even if one adds in dubious biomass as a “renewable” source of electricity, it still gets us to just 41.1%, which I would suggest is considerably less than “nearly 50%”. By the way, we also imported 10.7% of our electricity via the interconnectors in 2023. So much for energy security.

The rest is carping around the edges – why is the Secretary of State spending so much on Great British Energy? Why is he cutting back on gas which we need to guarantee base load? But mostly it’s a celebration of our fantastic new Secretary of State:

It would not be fair to ignore the contribution by the new Secretary of State. As he said, he has increased the pot for this year’s auction by 50%. While that is welcome—frankly, who would not welcome more renewable energy…We recognise the importance of investing in renewables to deliver clean energy, and the 9.6 GW announced today is a brilliant step in the right direction…

The Opposition response ended with a whimper:

In conclusion, the Opposition welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has built on our successes in boosting renewable energy. However, we hold serious concerns about what this round will mean for Britain’s green spaces and whether, given the increased cost of AR6, his commitment remains to cut bills by £300.

Which enabled Mr Miliband to repeat some of his most objectionable claims:

He draws attention to the fact that energy bills are rising from 1 October. He is right about that, and that is deeply regrettable. Why is that happening? Because we are exposed to international gas markets. This is about power that we do not control. Every solar panel that we do not put up, every onshore wind turbine that we do not erect, and every piece of grid that we do not build leaves us more exposed. The Conservative party is in a dilemma on this, because it is facing both ways, but it has to face up to that fact. Of course we will have a proper and orderly transition in the North sea, keeping existing fields open for their lifetime and having a just transition for the workforce, but the idea that the Conservative party and some of its erstwhile friends are clinging to—that fossil fuels will get us out of this—is completely belied by all the facts and the crisis that we went through.

So it’s down to the third largest party in the House of Commons (the Liberal Democrats) to instill some common sense into the debate and to provide meaningful opposition. Er, no. Here’s Wera Hobhouse:

We Liberal Democrats very much welcome the results of this round. It is a significant improvement on last year, when the previous Conservative Government completely failed, with zero bids from the onshore wind developers.

The results show that the CfD programme is back on track. They demonstrate the power of industry and Government working together to identify a fixed problem, so that we can widen the level of private sector investment we bring in, which is required for a clean power system transition.

Britain’s unique geography, with its abundance of natural resources, is an asset. We must harness the wind and the world’s largest tides. It is hugely encouraging that a record-breaking amount of solar capacity has been procured. Whatever the Conservatives are saying now about their record in government, solar targets were repeatedly missed, and this round is a welcome change. Unlike the Conservative Government, who, as has been pointed out, left us at the whim of the global oil and gas market, this Government are making choices that will increase our energy independence and lower energy bills for our consumers.

Future allocation rounds, especially in the next few years, must continue to deliver increasing quantities of renewables. That can be achieved by setting ambitious budgets and bringing forward incremental reforms of the CfD regime. Can the Secretary of State assure me that this round is not just a one-off and that we will increase the pace of the CfD allocation rounds?

Oh dear. Well, maybe there’s the occasional Labour back bencher with a different take on things? Apparently not. Here’s Bill Esterson:

My right hon. Friend is correct that clean energy is by far the cheapest way to power the UK, as confirmed by industry bodies today in welcoming his announcement…

If ever there was a non-sequitur, demonstrating the scale of industry capture of Parliament, I would say that’s it.

What about the SNP? Not a chance. Dave Doogan isn’t going to offer any problems for the government:

Fair play to the new Secretary of State: 5.3 GW of offshore wind is a great achievement, especially compared with the flat zero achieved by the Tories in auction round 5.

In short, then, it’s up to Reform UK to provide the opposition, which isn’t all that easy with only five MPs. Anyway, thank you Richard Tice:

Will the Secretary of State, who is obsessed with renewable energy, actually be honest with the British people? The truth is that the offshore wind turbine bids today are some 20% above current prices. The floating offshore wind bids are some three times the current prices. His Department says that this requires subsidies of some £1.5 billion a year. That is before the extra transmission costs, before constraint payments, before compensation payments for blighting my constituents’ countryside, and before the cost of back-up when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Why will he not be honest and tell the truth: that renewable energy is more expensive, not cheaper?

To which he received a non-answer astonishingly lacking in self-awareness:

I am interested by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because his manifesto is basically higher bills and to make people poorer. We do not need to look into the crystal ball; we just need to look at the record. The truth is that the cost of living crisis—the energy bills crisis—casts a long shadow in this country. It was caused not by a dependence on renewables but by our exposure to fossil fuels. He just needs to understand this basic point: whether fossil fuels are produced in this country or internationally, they are sold on the international market, and that is why the British people paid the price and the Government forked out £94 billion. The only way to get off the rollercoaster of international gas markets and take back control is to become a clean energy superpower.

There was a brief flurry from the Tory, Sir Julian Lewis, who drew attention to the Chinese exploitation of Uyghur slave labour in the manufacture of so many solar panels and asked about a possible import ban.Happily the Uyghurs can sleep easy tonight, since Mr Miliband acknowledges that “we need to kick the tyres on this, to make sure that the proper controls are in place. My Department is very happy to have discussions with him and other interested parties on those questions.”

A few broadly supportive interventions took place before Lee Anderson for Reform brought the mutual back-slapping to an end:

This Secretary of State is living in a completely different world from my constituents, because they are not asking for this on the doorstep at all. By the way, he is quite happy to spend £11.6 billion on climate aid abroad and £8.5 billion on GB Energy, yet rob our pensioners of £300 at the same time. But I will give him the benefit of the doubt. When will my pensioners in Ashfield receive significant discounts on their fuel bills, and of how much?

To which Mr Miliband blandly responded:

I can absolutely say that this is the way to deliver lower bills for his constituents.

I assume, then, that he actually believes in this nonsense. The debate in 2029 should be a bit more interesting. I wonder if he will still believe it then? I wonder if he will remain in post for that length of time? At some point, reality must bite, but for now, the delusional congratulations will continue, as they did for the rest of what passed for a debate. What a sorry state of affairs.