March 2026 Newsletter
Read below my March 2026 Newsletter, which was sent on 31 March 2026. You can sign up for future editions by clicking here.
Hello and welcome back to another edition of my newsletter. With the Easter break soon upon us, I will be very happy to spend some extended time in the constituency. I will try to post videos on what I get up to, so keep an eye on my social media pages for that, which you can follow to by clicking the links below.
With our endless clickbait content culture, it is hard to find the space to speak candidly and in detail about the issues facing the country. Politicians, like everyone else – fast food companies, influencers backed by advertising agencies, journalists – all compete for your attention on the internet to push their own agendas and sell whatever they are selling.
I hope there is still space for some honest reflection. So, if you are setting aside some time to read this newsletter – thank you.
In this edition, I share some thoughts on the main issue of the past weeks.
Lessons from the Third Gulf War
The assault on Iran heaped further downwards pressure on living standards in the UK nearly as soon as the first missiles were fired.
Naturally, this has taken up most of the political conversation in Westminster since then. It is this topic I want to discuss in detail here: how this new war of choice in the Middle East – what some are already calling the Third Gulf War – will affect our energy bills, and what the government is doing to mitigate this; the debate it has raised about Net Zero; and my thoughts on the government’s response to the war itself.
Heating oil support announced
After the shocks caused by Covid and the war in Ukraine, it will not be news to the reader that global economic turmoil has a big impact on our prosperity here in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr.
The first such impact is the skyrocketing cost of heating oil. I saw some statistics recently that showed 55% of the population of Powys is off the main energy grid. Now, Montgomeryshire makes up just under half of Powys’s size, and the more urban parts of the constituency in Wrexham are relatively well connected, but I can at the very least assume a large minority of constituents are reliant on heating oil.
This is not covered by the Energy Price Cap. As such, the Labour Rural Research Group, which brings together rural Labour MPs like myself to lobby the government on issues affecting rural communities, moved quickly. It set up a survey for those using heating oil to feed into the government response, and within a week, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero had announced a support package worth £53 million. I went into the Chamber to ask the Minister for Energy Consumers for more information, on who specifically would qualify as a “vulnerable heating oil customer”, and how support will work for constituents who may not need to fill up now but will in the near to medium term. You can read more about this on my website, by clicking here.
Keeping your energy bills down
The cost of fossil fuels here are set by global prices, so with traffic through the Gulf all but closed (trapping about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquified natural gas supply), there are simply fewer energy resources available to the world economy.
Suppliers to the UK market are better positioned than many. Poorer countries do not have our ability, as a richer country, to outbid for supplies. The Philippines, for example, announced an energy emergency on Tuesday (25 March), warning the country had enough fuel supply to only last 45 days. The UK is not in this position.
As the wholesale cost goes up globally, the government is considering wider support to keep energy bills down for consumers here. While the full extent of the impact is yet to be seen, we must prepare for the worst-case scenario: a protracted war and sustained increases in energy bills.
The Chancellor has suggested that any forthcoming support will not be wasted on the richest households, after research showed that the Conservative’s 2022 Energy Price Guarantee gave, proportionally, the most money to the top 10% (because they consume the most energy).
I wholeheartedly support this. The greatest amount of support should go to the most exposed – those without the resources to absorb increased bills without making major sacrifices elsewhere.
At the same time, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will be given a new framework to tackle any private profiteering. This could mean fines for companies charging consumers more than advertised. The CMA is monitoring for any evidence of this.
Sovereign energy for a safer future
Thanks to the UK’s relatively rapid shift to renewables by global standards, 45% of our energy needs came from clean power in the 12 months to January 2026. Electricity generation specifically is even cleaner, at over 50%.
We are far less exposed to fossil fuel shocks than we once were, although I appreciate many sectors (like transport, agriculture, and not least motorists) are and will continue to be reliant on them.
The answer, however, is not to give up on that and start exploring for more oil.
I guarantee you: the Tories and Reform will not make the argument for new North Sea drilling to be a state-run enterprise for the benefit of British consumers. Say new British oil and gas would come rapidly online (already a tenuous claim, and it should be compared to the massive investment constantly pouring into renewables – £40bn of private investment in clean energy was announced between July 2024 and June 2025).
Private companies would simply sell that energy on the international market, as would be their right, since we do not have a state-owned energy provider. It is no coincidence that countries that do have one, such as France (EDF – 100% state-owned) tend to have lower bills. British consumers are paying the French billions a year while over there, energy bills are far lower. That is the cost of having one of the most privatised economies in the world, yes, and also the cost of underinvestment in nuclear energy, which the government is also taking action on.
The argument for favouring new oil and gas over further investment in renewables simply does not, on inspection, make much sense. That is all before you even consider, for a second, climate change. Putting aside our moral duty to avoid torching the planet for the thousands of species which live on it, transitioning to a zero-carbon economy will save us billions in the long term. This month, the Climate Change Committee found that reaching net zero by 2050 would cost about the same as the energy shock after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 did.
Simply, the problem that the Iran War has brought to the fore is this: we find ourselves in another fossil fuel crisis; some people are arguing that the answer to being in a fossil fuel crisis is to produce more of our own fossil fuels. At best, that is regrettably short-sighted. At worst, it is cowardly, trapping us into dependency on foreign dictators and absolutist monarchies for our energy. That is why I voted against new oil and gas in the North Sea last week.
We do not only have the opportunity to build an independent, renewable, and reliable energy network, insulated from the economic convulsions unleashed at whim by warmongers across the seas. We are already making that opportunity a reality. And we must stay the course.
The wider consequences of the war for Britain
To close on this topic, I want to move on to talking about the wider picture for Britain’s place in the world.
I had an email from a constituent earlier this month, concerned that the government wasn’t doing enough to protect the US-UK “Special Relationship”. Before I knew it, I had written a small essay back to them, which I put on my website. I will keep my thoughts briefer here.
Firstly, I do not believe the UK has walked away from the “Special Relationship”. The US has done that itself, as part of its wider betrayal of European security. Their tariffs have harmed our economy. Their threats to Greenland, the sovereign territory of our mutual ally, has undermined transatlantic trust. The Venezuelan abduction further undermined the crucial principle of not intervening in the politics of other countries, and their war on Iran has unleashed global economic chaos and led to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Secondly, this constituent was right in that we are massively dependent on the US for more things than you can mention in one breath. The list is long and sobering. I am alive to the scale of the challenge we face in trying to build our own capacities, hopefully alongside European allies.
Thirdly, I am of the opinion that this is not, in itself, a reason against trying. Trump has made the situation infinitely worse than it needed to be, but US Presidents have been warning about disengagement from Europe for most of this century. We should take heed and build bridges with Europe, our nearest and largest trading partner, not to mention the top export market for Welsh farmers.
Finally, I believe we should have no part in yet another American war of choice. The US is struggling to force Iran to open the Straits of Hormuz; Iran currently has little incentive to do so. If all the might of the US Navy cannot do that, then frankly, neither can we.
Nor should we, for two reasons. One, the likelihood of extensive casualties being suffered is far too high. Two, with Trump threatening to bomb civilian energy and water infrastructure – a categorical war crime, the price of which would be paid by ordinary people in Iran and in turn in the Gulf – we would be complicit in gross violations of international law. The US killed some 170 people, mostly young girls, in one airstrike on a primary school on only the first day of the war. We should have no part in that.
Further British involvement will only tar this government with the brush of another failed intervention in the Middle East – and all for a would-be despot who has mocked the very British troops who gave the ultimate sacrifice fighting in the last ones. No thank you: this is not our war.
Prime Minister’s Questions
I was selected for a PMQ earlier this month. As regular readers will know, legislating new workplace protections for employees was my flagship policy on the doors during the election campaign. I am immensely proud of voting the Employment Rights Act into law.
Ordinary workers deserve these rights, they really matter to people’s lives, so I don’t apologise for banging the drum on it.
Unfortunately, Reform wants to rip up those protections, which I think is disgraceful, so I asked the Prime Minister if he agreed. This is what I asked:
I spent 20 years as a secondary school teacher in Wales. We worked hard.
Labour has given them the biggest upgrade of rights in a generation, rights that millions of us fought hard to win.
But the hon. Member for Clacton [Nigel Farage] wants to chuck it all in the bin.
Does the Prime Minister stand by these rights and agree that only a vote for Labour in May will enshrine these fundamental workers’ rights?
This was his response:
Mr Speaker, I’m very proud of our Employment Rights Act. It delivers strong rights and protections, including for all our brilliant school staff.
And Reform – he’s right – would rip up those protections. They have nothing to offer but grievance and division.
And Mr Speaker, they have no judgement because just like the Leader of the Opposition [Kemi Badenoch], the Member for Clacton said we should do all we can to support the US strikes, and he said “I make that perfectly, perfectly clear.”
It was “perfectly, perfectly clear” he got it completely wrong, and “perfectly, perfectly clear” that he’s now desperately trying to U-turn. Absolutely no judgement. Not fit to be Prime Minister.