Speeches by Shanks.

“The Government are committed to strengthening collective bargaining and trade union recognition. The Employment Rights Bill and the plan to make work pay will modernise rights and improve conditions. The Office for Clean Energy Jobs engages unions to ensure that renewable energy jobs support economic growth, the net ze…”

“My hon. Friend makes a point that others have raised. We are looking in granular detail at how the system works to ensure that the regulatory landscape allows such opportunities to be taken. I am very happy to meet him to discuss this further. We are taking a detailed look at every single aspect of the system, so that …”

“Our clean power 2030 action plan sets out our pathway to delivering clean power. To support that plan, we recently launched the solar road map, which confirms plans to increase domestic solar installations through the future homes standard and warm homes plan.”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. These regulations were laid before the House on 3 June 2025, and they make technical improvements and changes to the capacity market scheme—th…”

“I will not detain the Committee for long, but I should put on record that the shadow Minister was on the judging panel for the aforesaid awards. I am not quite sure what that says for either of us, frankly, but I thank him for whatever role he played in trying to prevent me from getting the award. It clearly did not wo…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg, for my first petitions debate, which are a great innovation in parliamentary procedure. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier), I thank everyone who signed the petition. I do not think that I have been in a Westminster Hall de…”

“I suspect that if we go through all the words that have ever been spoken inside and outside this place, we might find two words that go side by side quite often. In answer to the hon. Lady, no, I do not think that that is the case at all. She makes a persuasive argument, but in my view it is not the argument that appli…”

“It goes back to what I said earlier. I take the hon. Lady’s point, and I take seriously the number of people who engaged with the petition. I also reflect on the number of organisations and activities across the country that rely on sponsorship. I do not think that we should discount that so easily, because we have inc…”

“Our manifesto commitment came about because of our analysis in opposition of what the future of the North Sea looks like. We did not just put something in the manifesto without doing the work and why we are doing it. It was a deliberate decision to do that, based on the knowledge that is publicly available about the na…”

“It is an important question, and I am very happy to say that getting to this point in our renewable power has been a collective effort. In fact, I think the consensus across most of the mainstream political parties has been critical to getting to this point, including the Scottish Government and the previous Government…”

“The Labour party made a commitment that we would fully fund Great British Energy with £8.3 billion, and that has happened. I know not everyone in this Committee supported the creation of Great British Energy, but I think it is an incredibly important part of how we build investment in the future. It is also about sayin…”

“First, on Aberdeen, Great British Energy had to pass through Parliament, and it did that a few months ago. We cannot just click our fingers and set things up. There is a process; it takes time. We have done that remarkably quickly, and it is now ramping up its employment in Aberdeen. We have a board that is fully in pl…”

“It will own projects that will generate electricity, yes. It will, by default, be a generator. It is an exciting opportunity. It has to start somewhere. I take issue with this idea, particularly from people who did not support it at all, that we should not do it because it is too small at the moment. People opposed its…”

“I do not have specific field information before me, I am afraid, but I can write to you on that specific question.”

“The fundamental is that it does not come out of the ground in the North Sea and into Britain for free. It is paid for, as an internationally traded commodity. Whether it comes out west of Shetland or somewhere else in the world and is shipped here, it is traded on the international market. We do not have a nationalised…”

“I will start my answer by saying that tax policy is a matter for the Chancellor, and it is important for me to put that on the record. It is important to put the EPL into the context of what it was designed to do by the previous Government. When we were in opposition, we supported the principle that if an industry make…”

“I genuinely do not think it was. Of course it was introduced by the previous Government, but we supported the principle of a windfall tax, particularly at that moment in time, given consumers’ bills were increasing so significantly. I do not think that was the premise of it. A range of factors come into play in why bus…”

“I think it is for Harbour Energy to take account of its decision, but I would reiterate the point that I think there are a number of factors at play here. There are long-term decisions that companies make around the future of where they see their business in the North Sea. They are looking at the same data that we are …”

“I am not going to make any comment on those applications. What we have announced is a process, where we came into Government with the decision that had been made by the previous Government. The Supreme Court’s ruling in that judgment was that it had to take account of the scope 3 emissions, the end-use emissions. We qu…”

“I have had no correspondence with any of the developers. I would say it is very likely, but that is not from any direct insight I have. It is just an assumption.”