Speeches by Downie.

“You would envisage that being paid through bills rather than general taxation, which has been a theme we have talked about a lot this afternoon.”

“What options is the Department exploring for where the costs of those very large-scale projects—beneficial though they are—might be borne?”

“I was in Edinburgh.”

“Picking up on some of what Polly was talking about, what impact on bills can we expect from carbon capture storage, long-duration energy storage or hydrogen projects in the future?”

“Is one of your options to maintain the price cap at a level? If prices look to be extending far higher after this monitoring period, would “whatever support is needed” mean holding that down? I understand your point about assurance, but people want to know what kind of support, and in what areas, they can expect the Go…”

“On my other question, when you say, “whatever support is needed”, what are you looking to achieve? What is the aim of a Government saying that they will do whatever is needed?”

“Finally, relating to that, we are now in a context where we are seeing price rises and energy debt become a problem for all of our constituents. Prices grew by around 9% in 2025 alone. In your introduction you talked about the Government providing whatever support is needed. The Chair tried to press you a little bit on…”

“Given the complexity of the system, is it not about trying to explain to the public how it works in a better way?”

“We have heard evidence that change in the electricity system moves at a glacial pace. We have a system that, probably, none of us likes and that none of us thinks works very well, that is not effective and that we are trying to change, but we are not entirely sure how to do that without watching the big block of Jenga …”

“Thank you. Let us move on to talk about where profit currently lies in the energy system more generally—which has come up with a number of witnesses. Who currently benefits from the complexity of the system in energy and the way that the market is set up? Where does the profit lie?”

“NESO’s suggestion was that around £2 billion a year would be an acceptable curtailment cost.”

“At that earlier session I asked the witnesses from NESO what they felt was an acceptable level of curtailment costs. Do you have an acceptable or expected level that you think they should be at in the future?”

“You were hanging an awful lot on the curtailment costs dropping wildly in the future.”

“Minister, just to go back very briefly to when you were talking about curtailment and constraint costs, a couple of weeks back we had evidence from NESO representatives. They did not believe that curtailment costs would ever actually drop; they saw them as part of a natural cycle. You talk about the role of those costs…”

“I thank the Minister for his statement and for the very quick action taken by this Government. He mentioned his hope that the Scottish Government will act as quickly as this Government have to pass on these savings to people who use heating oil. Will he ensure that we get more than just hope, as we want an assurance th…”

“Following on from the question by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), what discussions is the Foreign Secretary having in the Gulf on the future viability of convoys, and on other actions? Can the Minister assure me and the House that plans will be put in place for such convoys, when it is saf…”

“What do you mean by expensive? I know it is difficult, but it is important that we have some definition; otherwise, the risk is people will say it is too expensive. They will put a larger cost on it.”

“When Joanne and Sam mentioned the need for more public education, do we need to make sure that we are being open in the beginning about how much this costs? If so, what window or bracket should we be saying? For example, this will cost you X and save you X—certainly the first part, maybe the second part is a bit harder…”

“Finally, as I alluded to in the last session, is there any evidence that scrapping the boiler upgrade scheme could see money saved on energy bills, as we have seen proposed this week?”

“This might be one for Louise, but anyone else can chip in. Do you think the Government are right that up-front costs of heat pumps will fall in the future as this expands? Have they got that right? If not, how do we make sure that the costs come down faster?”