Claire Coutinho: Miliband has signed a secret energy deal with China. Why won’t he let us see it?

Claire Coutinho is the MP for East Surrey and Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Last year, Ed Miliband went to Beijing to strike an energy deal with China on behalf of the British taxpayer. The Government say the deal will ‘enhance cooperation on renewables and grid modernisation’.

‘Enhance cooperation’ how, exactly? We don’t know. Because unlike the energy deals I signed with Korea, Germany, and Ireland when I was Energy Secretary – or indeed the agreements Ed Miliband has struck with other countries – the details of this China deal remain hidden from the public.

It is the Conservatives who have been chasing down the details on this dodgy deal for many months, just like we did on Peter Mandelson and the Government’s disastrous Chagos deal. However, Ed has taken evasion to a whole new art form. When I asked him why he would not publish the deal in the House this week, he called the question a ‘wacky conspiracy theory.’ When the ever-forensic Bradley Thomas questioned him the next day during a Select Committee, he dodged the question over 17 times. Hardly the look of a Government which has recently committed to transparency, is it?

In fact, in response to a Freedom of Information request, Miliband’s Department has used the exact same line that Keir Starmer tried to use to keep the Mandelson documents under lock and key. After months of questions, they retreated behind an opaque plea for diplomacy, arguing that publishing the deal would ‘prejudice relations’ with Beijing.

Let that sink in. Ed Miliband’s own department thinks that if the British public sees his secret energy deal with the Chinese Communist Party, then it might damage his relationship with China.

This is an incredibly serious issue. Just last week Norway’s security services joined the chorus of intelligence warnings about the West’s reliance on Chinese renewable technology. Undocumented ‘kill-switches’ were found in solar farm equipment in the United States. The Five Eyes security alliance has publicly warned about Chinese state-sponsored hackers seeking to “destroy” Western energy systems in the event of conflict.

Worse still, when it comes to solar panels, critical minerals or batteries, there is one global dominant player: China. Last year’s trade wars showed us that China was more than willing to use its vice-like hold on the world’s critical mineral supplies as a bargaining tool.

As Ed shuts down the North Sea, plugs up our gas wells, and ships in ever more solar panels, he likes to say that every wind turbine and solar panel gives us energy security. But if Ed’s plan to make Britain’s energy system completely reliant on Chinese components is successful, what will we do in the event of a conflict? As the former Head of MI6 rightly said, when it comes to national security, Labour’s energy plans are “completely crazy”.

There are wider concerns too. We Conservatives forced Labour to stop Great British Energy from buying slave-made solar panels. No such promise has been made for the Government’s recent £15 billion Warm Homes Plan. Conservative peer Lord Moynihan asked why this was last week, and once again he received no answer from the Labour front bench.

What is Ed Miliband hiding? Did his secret energy deal include commitments not to raise concerns about plans to import solar panels made by Chinese slaves? Did it involve promises to maintain our dependence on Chinese supply chains? Did Ed promise to share data about our power grid that could be exploited to cause blackouts? We simply do not know, because Ed Miliband will not tell us.

This is in fact a pattern of behaviour across the Labour Government and by this Secretary of State. Ed Miliband is embarking on the most radical change in energy policy in half a century, yet he ducks questioning in the Commons, hides behind meaningless soundbites on the media, and has never, ever, published a forecast of what his radical plans will do to people’s energy bills.

When I was Energy Secretary, I ordered a true costing of renewables, because I believe our priority as a country should be to make our electricity cheap. I demanded that every policy be brought to me with a Bills Test, a clear explanation of what the impact will be on people’s energy bills. Ed has cancelled that work. He doesn’t want to know the truth, because his plans are not based on fact, but quasi-religious fervour.

He said this week that the Labour Party should stand up to the powerful. But he should remember that he is the one with power, and he treats scrutiny as if it is a joke.

He signed a secret energy deal with China on the public’s behalf. If he truly believed it was in the public’s interest, he should publish it and let them see for themselves.