Speeches by Downie.

“I want to develop some of the points that Lizzi has just been talking about around defence and energy security. Dan, I am aware that you just had to answer all of that. I will come back to something with you around cyber in a second, but to David and Ana in particular, given the threats that we see from both physical a…”

“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?”

“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…”

“Thank you, Minister, for your patience this afternoon, given that we are running late. I would like to go back to some of the points that the Chair was making at the beginning when he was talking about the energy price cap. We have heard Government use the rhetoric of “whatever it takes”, which is a phrase that you use…”

“Which Department is that?”

“Can I ask you to elaborate on some of that? The action on heating oil, for example, is very welcome. You have previously talked about how the energy price cap gives time and space to see how it plays out and where we end up through a monitoring period. What are the other areas that you currently see as priorities to do…”

“And why?”

“I want to develop some of the points that Lizzi has just been talking about around defence and energy security. Dan, I am aware that you just had to answer all of that. I will come back to something with you around cyber in a second, but to David and Ana in particular, given the threats that we see from both physical a…”

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

“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?”

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

“Does the acceleration of these things include the oil and gas price mechanism that we heard about from the earlier panel? They may not be entirely enjoying the detail, but they would like to see it happen much more quickly. Are you in discussions with Treasury about how fast that can be done?”

“And why?”

“I have a final question, Minister, about something I raised in the House this week, which was the study you commissioned GB Energy Nuclear to do around nuclear power in Scotland and its potential. The written answer that I got from you was that the study will conclude shortly. Can you elaborate on when that will be con…”

“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.”

“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…”

“I absolutely accept that.”

“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 …”