Speeches by Miliband.

“I really do, Mike. You only need to look at some of the instability we have seen in our world, in relation to Iran, for example, in recent months, and to see the extent to which oil and gas prices responded to that, to see how vulnerable we are as a country through our reliance on fossil fuels. Whether that is the Nort…”

“I am very happy to look at how we do this. We are obviously careful about making sure we do written ministerial statements in Parliament—and, indeed, oral statements. I am happy to take this offline with the Committee. The Chair, the Clerk and I had a conversation last week about how we can furnish the Committee as wel…”

“Okay, so one nerd level down, if you like. I consider that to be a compliment, by the way. That is absolutely fine. If the Committee’s request is that when we do written ministerial statements, we provide extra detail to you, I am sure we can meet that.”

“Yeah, I knew it was coming.”

“Can I just cut in? The modellers have been hard at work—we love the modellers, particularly in our Department—so I have some useful figures for the Committee. In 2024, gas power plants set the price of electricity two thirds of the time. Our modelling suggests that, in 2030, they will set the price only one third of th…”

“That sounds too softball a question—there must be a “but” coming. I see the Committee as very valuable, and I am not saying that to butter you up. As I say, my enjoyable Sunday reading was the testimony that you had had, which was very useful.”

“Well, it is through an auction. We set an administrative strike price, but that is a ceiling, and then it is through an auction process. One of the things that I take incredibly seriously—I took it seriously with AR6, but I inherited it mid-flight, if you like, and I am taking it very seriously for AR7—is how we both m…”

“The fundamental problem we have here is our exposure to fossil fuels. I think it came through in your cost of energy inquiry, particularly on the industrial side. I think it came through, in what I said, from the Energy Intensive Users Group. The whole point of Clean Power 2030 is to get us off reliance on gas. We have…”

“Let me come to the specific and the general. On the specific, let us be absolutely clear about what has happened at that refinery: the workers have been deeply let down by the people who ran the refinery. I am deeply disturbed by some of what I have seen and heard, and by some of my experiences in dealing with the peop…”

“It is quite the opposite, if you think of the building of network infrastructure, which is creating tens of thousands of jobs, and the signal we are sending to investors. I meet investors all the time from all around the world. I am not trying to blow our own trumpet here, but so many of them say to me, “You are a Gove…”

“We should be judged on the justness of this transition; we are absolutely determined to have a just transition. Let’s take the North sea; 70,000 jobs have been lost in the North sea in less than a decade, because it is a declining basin. The truth is that unless you build the future in carbon capture and storage, offsh…”

“The most important thing is that it happens. It is worth pausing on that for a moment. Against a very tight fiscal backdrop, the Chancellor chose to invest £13.2 billion over the Parliament in the warm homes plan, in line with our manifesto commitment. That is incredibly important. It is part of contributing to us upgr…”

“It was, if I am allowed to use this phrase, a clown car operation, I think it is fair to say. Richard Tice wrote a letter saying he was going to rip up the contracts, and then went on the “PM” programme that afternoon to rebut his own letter—to say that he had been highly misinterpreted and that he was not going to tea…”

“It is interesting that you should ask that question, Polly, because the industrial energy prices thing is a very serious situation. I read with interest some of the testimony your Committee had as part of your cost of energy inquiry. It is important to understand why this happened. I have a chart here: when the crisis …”

“I think your inquiry is really important, and I will look forward to seeing the results of it. We have to make the case, and all of us who believe it have to make the case. Workers who are benefiting from clean energy, scientists who can tell us why we need to act, businesses that are operating in this area and ourselv…”

“We are taking action on the clean energy transition because it is the right thing to do for the country today, and it is the right thing for future generations. It is really important to say that. Nigel Farage wants to airbrush history. He wants people to forget about the fact that it was our exposure to fossil fuels t…”

“Let me answer that directly. What we have done is changed the permitted development right on the one-metre rule, as you said. That was talked about for a long time, but nothing was ever done. I think it has made a difference. Some retailers, I think, have said to you that the noise issue remains a big barrier. You have…”

“On the one-metre rule. I am glad we have been of service to you, Chair.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

“I think that is a really good question, Chair. Let me say a couple of things. First, I think the combination of heat pumps, potentially solar panels and potentially batteries offers a way to give people real control over when they use electricity. After all, the wider promise here is to get off the insecurity of fossil…”