Speeches by Downie.

“If the Government came to you now and said, “We will look for ways to allow you to grow production in the North sea quickly if you guarantee a UK price?”, what would you or your members likely say to that?”

“You have answered some of the questions I was about to ask, but I want to go back to something Gordon was talking about earlier when it comes to avoiding a rocket-and-feather effect. In my own patch in Dunfermline, we see that prices are already 4p to 5p a litre higher than even a few miles down the road. Would it not …”

“That does not really help if there are two retailers that are essentially controlling the prices in an area.”

“That is disappointing. I understand why you cannot dictate to them, but maybe encouraging members to be a bit more open and forthright when they are discussing with politicians would be helpful. If I can move on to talking about North sea oil production, Elizabeth, you have covered a little bit of this already when it …”

“No, just on the cost, sorry. Would increasing oil and gas now reduce the price of energy, or would you continue to sell, understandably, on the international market?”

“It is not a criticism. It is something that is really important. We need to be clear when our constituents ask us that question so we can say, credibly, that that is the case, notwithstanding the points you made earlier. That was really helpful. Thank you.”

“David, just to move back to something you mentioned earlier, notwithstanding the comments you made about the importance of security from oil and gas, there is something I get asked by constituents a lot, and I would like to make sure I can give them a very clear answer. If we increased oil and gas extraction now, would…”

“David, I just have a very quick question to you, not to test the Chair’s patience any further. Given the issues Polly raised about how much of a conflict or war we are already in, can you imagine a scenario or would it be helpful as part of that planning to have a scenario where, as you said, in certain circumstances n…”

“Do you work with the National Cyber Security Centre as part of the exercises that you both described?”

“What more do the Government need to do to help you do that?”

“You have just picked up the next point, actually. Maybe I will ask Dan and Ana to pick that up. I am thinking about what co-operation we need to have with allies, whether it is Norway or the Netherlands, and who pays for this. Dan, you say you have done a lot of work in this area generally, but are there things you wan…”

“Where are those models?”

“What would you like to see that guidance say? What should the role be of Government in that? What should that guidance say and how strong would it be? How do you assess the current threat?”

“Which Department is that?”

“Is that co-ordinated with the Ministry of Defence and other Departments?”

“To be honest, that would be my larger concern. A large attack on one thing is easier to spot. It is much easier to assign blame, frankly, and it would have larger global consequences. Small distributed attacks may not immediately look like an attack.”

“I absolutely accept that.”

“Alan or Elizabeth, do you have anything to add? Elizabeth, maybe you want to expand on some of the points you made earlier about refineries.”

“Just on CBAM, I had a meeting this week with farmers who were similarly concerned about that. Have you had cross-industry or cross-sectoral discussions around CBAM to engage with the Treasury on that issue more broadly?”

“There are other sectors to approach. I would suggest perhaps the NFU, certainly in Scotland. Those I met yesterday raised that very briefly with me as part of a much larger conversation.”