Speeches by Shanks.

“For obvious reasons, it may well be that the announcements that get the most headline-grabbing attention are around the clean power mission. That does not mean there is not a huge amount of work with dogged determination in the background. Martin has set up a number of groups to really look at individual bits of the Bi…”

“You tempt me to say that Martin McCluskey is going to have a big sexy mission on reducing bills, but it does not sound quite as impressive.”

“It is worth explaining—not to you, because I know you know this inside out—that the reason we have the marginal system is that we still have gas often as the very last unit we put on to the system. Gas is still setting the price because of that. We are trying to do everything we can to push that off, and that is why ne…”

“People are very welcome to introduce private Member’s Bills and a whole range of things. Often they are on topics the Government are already going to do things on—particularly from Liberal Democrats. We nevertheless welcome the enthusiasm. We do want to be ambitious in this space, but I want to be honest: we need to ma…”

“We have been having regular conversations with MHCLG. I am not going to prejudge an announcement on the future homes standard that has not been made, but we do want to see much more use of technology like this. We have already been clear about solar panels playing a really important part. We think batteries are importa…”

“We are looking at some of those options at the moment. It is worth saying that if we take a snapshot of the year, yes, gas is still setting the price significantly higher than other countries, but on individual days of the week that is increasingly not the case, and we do have renewables setting the price. What we need…”

“First, Chair, thank you for having me back so soon after my last appearance. That is a really important question, and I would give some reassurance on two fronts. First, despite some scaremongering stories that have surfaced in the past two weeks, the UK has very strong energy supplies from a diverse range of sources. …”

“Yes, we want to look at much more. The plug-in solar was an important part of us saying that consumers should have a win in this as well. It has not been regulated in the UK before, but it now will be, so that people can have that offer. A part of the warm homes plan looks at a range of different investments and techno…”

“Our latest estimates are that it is still setting it more than 80% of the time. It fluctuates, and over the past year we have seen gas setting the price less, but it is still far too often.”

“I am sure they are a taskforce—anyway, they are going to deliver it. This presents a huge opportunity for us, first to make the system more efficient—if we can use electricity flexibly, we help to reduce that overall constraint cost. There is also a consumer win at the heart of this. We want to see much better use of s…”

“The North sea is a hugely important asset for the United Kingdom. It is working right now to provide gas into pipes around the country. It will continue to be a very important asset for the country, but it is also a super-mature basin that has been in decline for two decades. It is playing less and less of a role in de…”

“I do not think that is for them. They are not the arbiter of this. Ofgem has worked very hard in this price control period to make sure that, yes, a regulated profit margin is allowed, but that that is as low as possible. Of course, the RIIO system is about incentives to innovate and build as fast as possible, which he…”

“It is hugely important, and why I am pleased that we published a flexibility road map. We now have a flexibility commissioner. I met the flexibility commission—I am not sure of their title, but I met the group of people who are experts in flexibility a few weeks ago.”

“I will look into the very specific forecourts that the hon. Member mentions. However, I restate what I said at the beginning, which is based on the live data that we have from forecourts around the UK: there is no shortage of fuel in the UK. That is really important to say and is backed up by the evidence that we have …”

“I absolutely enjoy it, and I appreciate all the questions. I will endeavour to be there.”

“In principle, yes, but I will have to look at my diary, because I am afraid that I am the last person who should comment on whether I am available at 4 pm next Wednesday.”

“Because we committed to two things in our manifesto—and people often remember the first part, but not the second. The first was no new licences to explore new fields and the second was that we would manage existing fields for their lifespan. Tiebacks are a way to make those existing fields economically viable for as lo…”

“We keep under constant review all the security of our infrastructure. That is not a one-off process when someone enters the market; it is a regular process. We are confident in the security of the infrastructure across the UK at the moment—that is a constant process—but we also recognise that it is important when anyon…”

“The big opportunity from what we are seeking to do is to get the industrial benefit that goes with it. To give you one example, the clean industry bonus that we launched alongside auction round 7 took £200 million of public investment and brought in more than £3 billion of private investment in supply chains. There is …”

“They are not quite comparable. Tesco gets to choose exactly where it builds and for what purpose. The network companies build what is necessary across the country. We have a regulated system, which is monopoly companies running the transmission owners. You would have to ask others, perhaps in this Committee or in the H…”