Speeches by Shanks.

“We committed to that target and it was in the clean power action plan. It is an ambition that we have. The local power plan will not break down exactly that 8 GW target, because we do not want to focus purely on gigawatts. We want to focus on the individual projects. Our ambition is that we will meet that through a com…”

“Emma might want to come in on some of those points, but let me take it head on. I am accountable for this to Parliament. On the question of who is responsible for it, we have set up Great British Energy as a publicly owned energy company to be our energy champion and for the public to own a share in it. It will drive f…”

“There are two examples that stick in my mind. One of my first visits was to the Isle of Eigg, which is a remarkable example because it is not connected to the grid at all. As a community, they have been able to have hydro, wind, solar and batteries working together to power the whole island, not just helping the househ…”

“There are two examples that stick in my mind. One of my first visits was to the Isle of Eigg, which is a remarkable example because it is not connected to the grid at all. As a community, they have been able to have hydro, wind, solar and batteries working together to power the whole island, not just helping the househ…”

“I cannot give you examples of what is in a plan that has not been published yet.”

“Our clean power action plan is to decarbonise the power system, so it is not going to be our position that, post 2030, we should see unabated gas. That is very clear from us, but there is a need for us to provide capacity for the data centres that we want to bring to this country, for hugely important economic growth r…”

“That is the vision we really have. Solar panels on the rooftop of the school are great. I have visited a number of them. They reduce the bills of the school. The money goes straight back into schools and they spend it on all the things we want schools spending money on, but you can see a school as a real hub for commun…”

“We committed to that target and it was in the clean power action plan. It is an ambition that we have. The local power plan will not break down exactly that 8 GW target, because we do not want to focus purely on gigawatts. We want to focus on the individual projects. Our ambition is that we will meet that through a com…”

“We said in our manifesto when we were elected as a Government that we wanted to significantly change the ownership of energy in this country. That remains absolutely our ambition. It has not changed. This plan is around how we take the initial steps to get to these projects going from, at the moment, a very low startin…”

“I do not want to parse my words in terms of what the project might look like, but if a local council was to support a community to deliver a project, but it was owned by the community, I would call that a community-owned project. If we are talking about a local council putting solar panels on leisure centres and connec…”

“Ambition or target—I do not know. You can call me back if I am fortunate enough to be here in 2030 and ask me that question again.”

“It is an aspiration and a goal.”

“The way that we have sought to deliver the clean power mission is partly how my Department is driving everything, which is to say that, in the past, Government have set out an objective, then gone away and let others just deliver it in the background, and hoped that the outcome would be achieved at some point. The clea…”

“Just to give you an example, a few months ago, I was at a conference in Glasgow, where Community Energy Scotland was referencing some of the data in Scotland where community energy is not defined in a clear enough way. The number of projects that are, in fact, owned by landowners, not by communities, is really quite si…”

“Inevitably, it is largely from our European neighbours, which have been doing this for a very long time. I had a fantastic visit to Denmark to visit, I think, one of the first community-owned offshore wind farms, Middelgrunden, which was excellent. We learned from that that ambition should not be micro-scale generation…”

“I will say a few things, and then Emma might want to come in on the KPIs point. The local power plan sets out the narrative on why we are doing this and the case for it. It will also have a whole series of actions that have very clear outcomes to them. We will then be judged on how we have achieved those outcomes. They…”

“I do not know quite how to take that.”

“There are two separate things to that. You and I will both have constituents who come to our surgeries every week who talk about their pay packet not reaching to the end of the month. When people feel a little less pressure on that and do not fear a letter coming through the door because it might be a bill that they ca…”

“Yes, and not just the Department. Right across Government, the absolute priority from the Prime Minister to everyone is what we are doing to address the cost of living and particularly electricity prices. That is important for individual consumers, but it is also important for business and industry that we tackle that.…”

“Seasons make a difference in the price cap. If you take—”