Speeches by Shanks.

“I am always happy to meet any hon. Member from either side of the House, and I do regularly, but I will certainly meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. For obvious reasons, it is difficult to comment on specific applications in the system, but I am happy to meet her. Let me finish with a general point that brings us bac…”

“I will not, because I am just about to conclude. We will work with workers and trade unions to turn this vision into reality and ensure that every part of the UK benefits from the potential of growth and jobs in hydrogen and in securing our energy system for the future. I again thank all Members for this hugely constru…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts—and to still be here as the Energy Minister. It is the only Government job that I wanted to do, which is perhaps just as well given how the reshuffle has landed, so it is genuinely a pleasure. As I have often said, these debates are a great example not only of ho…”

“My very next point was on the future of the network. It wasn’t, actually, but I will come to it now, because the hon. Gentleman made a very good point, which I meant to come back to. He is right, of course, that we need to invest in the grid—even if we were not embarking on this clean power mission, the grid is very mu…”

“A key part of my conclusion was the useful challenge that there always is from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about ensuring that we represent all parts of the United Kingdom. He was right to point out earlier that it is a beautiful part of the country to visit. I confess I have still never been to Strang…”

“In my oral statement on 30 June, I informed Parliament of the deeply disappointing news that the Prax Lindsey oil refinery had entered insolvency and that the court had appointed an official receiver to manage the situation on the site and determine the next steps. Since then, we have worked urgently to ensure the safe…”

“The Government have pushed, over the past four weeks we have been aware of this issue, to try to find a route whereby the refinery can continue as a going concern. That was obviously our No. 1 objective. The official receiver assessed the bids that were made and found that none were viable to deliver that. The Governme…”

“First, I think the hon. Gentleman is misjudging the mood of this question, which is about workers affected by redundancy. I hear nothing from him on those workers who are hearing the news this week. On his point, we assessed a number of bids for the business as a going concern. None of those bids were credible, which i…”

“I am happy to follow up on anything specific with the hon. Gentleman, but I can tell him that I get daily updates on assessments on exactly that point. Clearly, the first week of the insolvency saw some disruption to supplies leaving, but our evidence pointed to the fact that those commercial contracts were able to be …”

“I think the hon. Lady slightly misses the point. The company went into insolvency. The workers are therefore entitled only to statutory redundancy. I do not think that that is acceptable, so I have called—not nicely, but directly—for the owners of that company to do the right thing, put their hands in their pockets and…”

“I will avoid the wider political points in a week when workers are finding out about job losses, because that is obviously devastating for them. I will just say that the Government have published their industrial strategy, and this is the first time the country has had an industrial strategy in a very long time. [Inter…”

“I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the importance of recognising that the most important thing to get right is the transition of workers. I have said that in other answers. That requires us to recognise that a transition is under way, and to put in place a plan, which has not happened in the past decade, during wh…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for both those points. My understanding from the sector and from the Department is that a meeting has not happened in the past 13 years. [Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), on the Opposition Front Bench, wants to find me dates when her Government m…”

“On redundancy, because of how the company went into insolvency, the workers will be entitled to statutory redundancy. That is not acceptable, given the role that they played in delivering for the company for many years. That is why I have publicly asked the owners of the company to put their hands in their pocket and i…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions, and for meeting me to discuss the matter yesterday. I appreciate the impact that the closure will have, not just on those refinery workers who are directly impacted, but on the wider economy. We absolutely appreciate that there are ripple effects from a closure like this. O…”

“A key objective of this Government is to deliver good, well-paid trade-unionised jobs, and we have been driving that forward. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been pushing on trade union recognition, partly to ensure that terms and conditions in the clean energy industry are as good as those in, for exam…”

“I also declare that I am a member of the GMB trade union; that is recorded in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have engaged with both the Unite trade union reps who are on the site, and with day shift workers who are not represented by a trade union, to make sure that I hear from them. I met …”

“My hon. Friend is right, and it is deeply frustrating that we inherited many of these issues, which were unresolved for such a long time. These are not problems that arrived in the past 12 months. Bringing in the refinery sector for talks with Government about the challenges would have been a fairly obvious thing to do…”

“I wrote down the hon. Gentleman’s points, and then he came on to specific questions, but I will respond to the points. He rightly says that this has been devastating news for the workers. He also said something that I want to echo, and which I said to the workers when I met them last week: this decision, and what has h…”

“My hon. Friend is right. Separate from all the wider issues facing the refinery sector and the oil and gas sector generally, it is right we recognise that this week there are workers hearing some devastating news. Detailed work will be going on into how much of the site we can utilise in the future, and assessments are…”