Speeches by Hatton.

“I would like to start with looking at the area of non‑compliance with regard to sustainability criteria. It would be useful for me if you could start by telling us what you think the overall level of non‑compliance is within the sector.”

“I think that it was last year that Drax agreed to pay a £25 million fine because of inaccurate data. It would be quite helpful for me to understand in a bit more detail how we do not come back in a few years’ time as a Committee and I come with a fresh fine that is been paid by Drax. You will no doubt be aware of the r…”

“If I could take a slight step back, this Committee is rightly spending a lot of time discussing Government or taxpayer support for Drax. It would be quite interesting to perhaps get a bit of an understanding from you all today about why the Government have not been more proactive in providing similar support for the sm…”

“Collectively, is it a significant part?”

“We have already touched on Drax in some detail. For me personally, what assurances can you give this Committee, given that there was a case of non-compliance and yet it has still received significant financial support? How can you ensure that that is not going to be something that happens again in the future?”

“Do you think that funding is directly proportionate to how much energy is produced, considering that often these smaller-level biomass operators are actually a lot greener and more sustainable and have a much better track record than Drax does?”

“To touch partly on what has already been mentioned, but also to move on, it would be really helpful for me to understand what exactly DESNZ is doing at the moment to support the smaller-scale biomass facilities when it comes to carbon capture and storage, both those that do have a direct pipeline connection and those t…”

“Moving on slightly, how confident are you that the Department is intervening at the appropriate points to make sure that biomass does not have a detrimental impact on the environment? I appreciate that you commented on the support that is coming in from 2027. It would be useful for me and for the Committee to get a bro…”

“There is one last thing I would like to have a bit more understanding on. We have talked a bit about the work of the Climate Change Committee and what it has said, in terms of the role of carbon capture and what it should be doing to ensure that this is a greener technology. Can you offer reassurance to the Committee a…”

“To move the conversation on a little, I would like to go back to Drax and get a better understanding of what detailed work the Department has done in terms of the full-on environmental impact of continuing to support Drax from 2027 until 2031.”

“One thing that the NAO Report picked out was that it certainly looks as if—and there are a number of stories in the press that confirm this—different parts of Government and different Departments interact quite separately with individual suppliers of digital services and do not often take a cross-Government view. They …”

“One thing that I have found quite striking from listening to contributions today, but also from reading the Report, is about whether we can have confidence that the way the Government work with big tech is essentially a very fair one. I take very seriously and understand what the Report has said, and I am sure that you…”

“Finally, where do we go next with this? This Report was published some time ago, but what is the thinking—your own and that of Government—on how we have a much better and more cohesive relationship between commercial and digital or other parts of a Department to get the best value for money for the taxpayer and the rig…”

“Andrew, you said that perhaps there is a problem within a Government Department where the digital and commercial teams are not always co‑operating or fully integrated in their approach to dealing with suppliers. I would like to know whether you accept that view, which you were starting to build on earlier, that actuall…”

“Do you share my concern that, because there is not a single voice, particularly perhaps for smaller procurement contracts that are less than £1 billion, Government do not speak with a single voice? You have lots of different Government Departments or public bodies that are going to these suppliers, via their commercial…”

“That is my slight concern. Sometimes things are done from the centre, from the Cabinet Office: that is where the guidance and instruction is given when it comes to procurement, but it is fundamentally something that Departments actually embark on, whether it is the commercial team or the digital team. With that in mind…”

“In your opinion, is there now a clear sense of who the buck stops with when it comes to digital procurement?”

“What I found quite striking on reading through the NAO Report was that when it comes to procurement and digital commercial activity, it feels as if it sits in a lot of different places and a number of different organisations. Also, within Departments, it sits in a lot of different places. With that in mind, do you shar…”

“What is quite concerning is that there are sometimes Government Departments going into these negotiations around acquiring cloud services or whatever with companies such as Amazon, where they are being outgunned. There are certain Departments where there is not the digital expertise and experience needed, the guidance …”

“Are those experts always being deployed effectively, bearing in mind the example that I gave earlier?”