Speeches by Shanks.

“It is really important, and we are doing some work at pace on that at the moment. The Government’s wider clean energy mission will delink us from gas. We have already seen a significant decrease in the amount of time that gas is setting the price in our system, which is because of the renewables that we are bringing on…”

“For consumers, it would make no difference whatever. It is important to restate that. It would not take a penny off bills, and that has been our position consistently. When I was last in this Committee, I made the point that I will make again: oil and gas is hugely important to our energy mix and to our energy security…”

“We have set the hugely ambitious target that we will have decarbonised the power system, with 95% of our electricity coming from clean sources—from renewables, from flexibility and from nuclear. It is very ambitious, but what we have sought to do is set up, first, the machinery of government to help deliver it. Secondl…”

“I have regular conversations with Ofgem. It is important that I say that transmission charging sits with Ofgem, so although I have conversations with them and we discuss what more we might be able to do in that space, it is their responsibility and I do not influence that process. We are looking at—and Ofgem is in the …”

“You raise an important point. We can get into the complexity of inframarginal rent, which I can bore the Committee with at length, but the point you make is important. That is why we supported the previous Government’s introduction of the EGL—the electricity generator levy. We are looking at the moment at the role that…”

“There is quite a lot in that which I should respond to. First, on the jobs point, you and I have engaged on that issue on a number of occasions. I would suggest that in the 20 years that have passed, there have been neighbours in your constituency who have lost their jobs without the investment in what might be the ene…”

“We remain committed to that, but it is obviously difficult. The Secretary of State has said previously that the current situation underscores why the clean power mission is so important, but it also underscores just how quickly consumer bills are affected by fossil fuel crises that happen halfway around the world and t…”

“Given what is going on in the middle east, we made a commitment to bring forward auction round 8 in July to give certainty to developers on the timeline that we would move forward on. We know of projects in the pipeline that we hope will apply to that, a number of which, for obvious reasons, are in Scotland. We have co…”

“It is a really important question. First, I should say TNUoS—transmission network use of system—charging is a matter for Ofgem. We obviously take a very serious interest in it. It does play an important role in making sure that the cost for the consumer is managed around the way we build the system—in other words, how …”

“First, even though we are in the heat of an election campaign, I should put on record that I have had a very good relationship with my counterpart in the Scottish Government, and we have worked very constructively on the clean power mission because we share the same objective, and that has been genuinely very welcome. …”

“No, it is a pragmatic realisation of what the situation actually is: that all the new licences issued in the past have made a very marginal difference to production. In any event, the time it takes from a licence being issued to actual production is between five and 10 years, so there is not any immediate response. All…”

“It is important to restate to the public that the price cap is in place now, and that it has brought down bills by 7%. That is because of conscious decisions that the Government took in the Budget to take costs off bills and to put them into general taxation. That has brought down bills. Clearly, we are now in the obse…”

“Thanks—that is a really important way to frame the question. You are right that we are playing catch-up on the grid. I make this point regularly: even if we had a Government who were not minded to deliver a clean power system, we would still have to upgrade the grid because in places it is creaking under the pressure o…”

“Yes; we will take that forward later this year. It is—I don’t want to say an experiment, but it is a pilot to see whether we can make this work. Our belief is that there absolutely should be a way to make it work, but we want to make sure that the market responds in the way that we think it will, and that consumers can…”

“First, I totally reflect the point that you make. I might be minded to suggest that there are several other reasons why there is depopulation in parts of Scotland. It is driven by decisions made by the Scottish Government on investment and other things as well; it is not entirely down to energy costs, but I am sure tha…”

“Good morning. It is good to be with the Committee. I am Michael Shanks, the Minister of State for Energy, a portfolio that covers most of the energy system—from renewables to oil and gas, the transition and Great British Energy.”

“The wind may be in your community, but the projects are paid for by everyone across Great Britain, not just by people in the highlands. I think we should be careful about going down that route. But I recognise your point. We also have schemes in place to mitigate some of this. We signed off, just a few months ago, the …”

“We have deliberately not divided it by parts of the UK because, as I said earlier, we want this investment to be driven by the merits of individual projects. We obviously also want to make sure that we are keeping an eye on the question of whether every part of the UK is benefiting from it. This is not an all-or-nothin…”

“We are obviously very aware of the timeframe for when the price cap will be announced. We are working to that deadline. I cannot go into any more detail than that. You will appreciate that a huge amount of work going on, driven by the Prime Minister himself, to make sure that every bit of focus is brought to this. Ever…”

“Community benefits!”