Draft Electricity Capacity Mechanism (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Parliament approved technical changes to Britain's electricity capacity market on 15 January 2025, passing the Draft Electricity Capacity Mechanism (Amendment) Regulations 2024 by 418 votes to 78. The regulations remove a requirement inherited from EU rules that had subjected the capacity market scheme to a 10-year approval process, allowing the scheme to continue operating outside the EU regulatory framework. The capacity market, introduced in 2014, is the government's main tool for ensuring enough electricity is available to meet peak demand. It does this by paying generators, storage operators and other providers to guarantee their capacity will be available when needed. Removing the EU-derived 10-year approval requirement allows the scheme to function more flexibly under the post-Brexit regulatory settlement, with no substantive change to how the market itself operates in practice. The vote divided largely along government and opposition lines. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and most smaller parties voted in favour. Sixty-four Conservatives, six Reform UK members and five Democratic Unionist Party MPs voted against. Notably, the Conservative shadow minister, Andrew Bowie, explicitly declined to oppose the measure in debate, describing it as sensible; the Conservative no votes therefore reflect a party split between the front bench position and backbench opposition. No substantive arguments against the regulations were made in the committee debate.