Speeches by Downie.

“Just to pick up on your point about cost, would there be any cost impact of building less offshore and importing more at peak need?”

“Can we be confident that the savings from reducing the structural inefficiencies in how we trade electricity with the EU will actually pass through to British consumers? Kat, I would be happy if you could start off.”

“There needs to be some incentive. Finally, given our costs are much higher than most of our trading partners, are other countries doing something better than us in this regard? Are there any lessons we can learn particularly?”

“Does that come back to your earlier point about the weather being the same, the conditions being the same, and you are going to see similar conditions regardless?”

“You do not see a risk that, for that reason, increased use or reliance on interconnectors would dissuade from domestic energy production?”

“How do we do that? Perhaps a better question is: what is the role of Government in doing that? Do we need to find a way for businesses to organise and ask Government? As you say, that is the largest group we need to get to. How do we get them? They want to do this, if they see a benefit. Is it Government support? Where…”

“Do you know of any other examples where particularly commercial and industrial businesses have managed to keep their electricity costs down in this way?”

“What argument came from Treasury? I am assuming it was Treasury.”

“Is it something that is more useful in an emergency or an unexpected event, rather than something that would be considered part of a programme?”

“Thank you. I will keep it short and to the point; I am still out of breath. How can the Government balance flexibility through interconnectors and develop new sources of supply-side flexibility? I will give that to Kat.”

“I want to move on to talk about interconnectors and their role in supply-side flexibility, but I am not even going to start the question because the bell is about to go—[Interruption.]”

“Again, it is the Treasury’s measurement of what constitutes public good versus business investment: “This should be a business cost, therefore you are on your own,” or, “This is a public good, and you should”—”

“I want to move on to talk about interconnectors and their role in supply-side flexibility, but I am not even going to start the question because the bell is about to go—[Interruption.]”

“So it was not high enough up its list of priorities. Was there not enough pressure from businesses to say they wanted it?”

“You have alluded to my next question, which is, what is the risk of not doing this, beyond the jobs? How does that impact on businesses? What is the cost of not taking this kind of action and not making that available?”

“There needs to be some incentive. Finally, given our costs are much higher than most of our trading partners, are other countries doing something better than us in this regard? Are there any lessons we can learn particularly?”

“By what percentage would costs be reduced? Is it in the order of single digits, double digits—where are we?”

“Do you know of any other examples where particularly commercial and industrial businesses have managed to keep their electricity costs down in this way?”

“Having asked you to not generalise massively, generalise massively, please.”

“Again, it is the Treasury’s measurement of what constitutes public good versus business investment: “This should be a business cost, therefore you are on your own,” or, “This is a public good, and you should”—”