Speeches by Shanks.

“Let me just say right now, knowing that it is on the record, that I am accountable for this. Ed Miliband, as the Secretary of State, has taken it incredibly seriously. We, as Ministers, are responsible.”

“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.”

“In terms of the ingredients, if you like, for what is going to make this plan work, without revealing anything that is in the plan, because these things are all what came out of the consultation and what you will have heard in evidence from everyone, it is a combination. First, the regulatory system needs to make it mu…”

“We will say more on the plan, but we are not fixing a scheme.”

“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…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) on securing the debate. Although I disagree with some of what he said, the tone of his remarks is welcome. I will respond to some of his points, but given the time I will not be able to respond to them all. On a general point, I appreciate that many…”

“I will come to that point in just a moment. Part of the wider work we are seeking to do across Government is to plan where infrastructure is built holistically and strategically. For example, the land-use work that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is doing is about looking at the whole United King…”

“I was delighted to meet my hon. Friend recently to talk about this exciting project in York and the wider developments that go alongside it. We see huge potential from geothermal. As she rightly says, how we structure these projects is important if we are to take them forward as quickly as possible. My noble Friend Lor…”

“The hon. Gentleman is right: we should have many, many more solar panels on rooftops. We agree with him on that. I met the UK Warehousing Association recently to look at some of the technical difficulties around ownership and insurance. We want to do whatever we can to unlock the potential, because we have rooftops acr…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need a mix of technologies to achieve our clean power targets, and rooftops are an obvious place to use. I think there is broad consensus about how much we can use rooftops, even from those who disagree with other measures. GBE has invested to bring down bills for public instituti…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for engaging with me over the weekend on this issue. I am genuinely sorry that there are still so many customers who are not connected. The engineers are doing a fantastic job, but as she rightly says, the challenge is that they cannot reconnect until households are present to disconnect. That is …”

“We are genuinely excited about any new technologies that come forward, so we are very interested in innovation like that. We need a real mix of technologies to achieve our target, so I am very happy to find out more about that. I am just trying to work out whether I can somehow get a visit to space to see these project…”

“Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, and to colleagues across the House. I have temporarily lost hearing in one of my ears so if I am shouting or do not hear every detail of the questions, I apologise in advance. This Government are determined to strengthen our energy security by moving away from volatile fossil fuels an…”

“It is a hugely important question. In an increasingly uncertain world, our energy security becomes more and more important, and that is why we are determined not only that we build a clean power system to tackle the most existential crisis that the planet faces—the climate crisis—but that we have home-grown power here …”

“Typically, my hon. Friend is right on these points, and yes, it is one of my new year’s resolutions—and I suspect one of my ministerial colleagues’ resolutions as well—for us to redouble our efforts to make the case for this. Just this morning I was reading about yet another study that shows that we underestimate the l…”

“Well, I say a happy new year to the hon. Gentleman, as we see his sunny disposition back in this House again! First, we committed in the Budget to looking at the CBAM inclusion and are working to make that happen. Secondly, of course I have been working with all the refineries to make sure that they are as sustainable …”

“My hon. Friend raises a hugely important point. The future of the grid is going to be absolutely critical not only to how we get clean power to homes and businesses across the country to bring down bills, but to how we deliver the economic growth the country needs. That is why we have taken two key actions, the first o…”

“First, on a positive note in the new year, I believe the hon. Gentleman had some good news over Christmas—I congratulate him on it. He is quite wrong, though, on his question. I should set out, as I did in my oral statement on the Lindsey oil refinery, that this was an insolvency process and it was therefore for the of…”

“That is an important question on two fronts. My hon. Friend rightly mentioned that the transition away from fossil fuels is hugely important for our energy security and for future generations. We in this place have a huge responsibility to safeguard the future of our planet for the generations still to come. His second…”

“We have been really clear that the energy profits levy comes to an end in 2030. We have also put in place what the future of that scheme looks like to provide certainty for the long-term future. Of course, the energy profits levy was introduced by the hon. Lady’s party in government. We have been really clear that the …”