Speeches by Shanks.

“It is important to say—and I know this might sound like I cannot give a direct answer—each application will be decided on a case-by-case basis. The problem with trying to suggest that there is a scoring system on which I can give you a clear answer is that it misses the individual nuances of applications and how they w…”

“I think this goes to the heart of the balance we will have to make. It also goes to what we said in the consultation on the future of energy in the North Sea, where that climate leadership point, a science-led approach, is important and will be taken into account. The Supreme Court has expanded the scope to the end use…”

“It is an important question. The starting point is to say that we have reset the relationship with the Scottish Government on a practical level. We are obviously always going to have political disagreements, but we want the same outcomes on certain day-to-day things. In fact, energy policy is broadly one where we agree…”

“We will publish a Government response to the consultation, which will summarise the answers. There are some specific things that will require some legislative changes. Some of that is quite technical in nature. The NSTA, for example, is still called the Oil and Gas Authority in legislation, so there will be some tidyin…”

“It is an important question. One of the topics discussed at a roundtable I recently had in Aberdeen was not about how the Government communicates their plan, but how we have workers and communities at the heart of shaping that plan. I think it is important to start from that point. The Government have a critical role h…”

“It is a good question. Some work has been done with the industry bodies looking at how we share more of those opportunities publicly. It is a challenge. We discussed this at a recent meeting of the Offshore Wind Industry Council, of which I am the vice-chair. For obvious reasons—and I understand why—newspapers are alwa…”

“I think this gets to the heart of everything I have been saying so far. We have to do both. This is not an either/or. We need to retain the skilled workforce that we have in the north-east. I visited a maintenance and decommissioning business a couple of weeks ago. It has a huge potential order book of decommissioning …”

“There is an element of the question that I cannot answer. The previous Government’s correspondence is not open to a new Government, so I am not able to access the previous Government’s papers. I will say that, on day one or week one of the job, both the Secretary of State and I were engaged in conversations about the f…”

“As I say, I do not know what conversations, if any, took place before we took office, but I do not see any impediment to Project Willow having started before we came to power. I think it probably could have. It took time to do. I think if the work had started before we came into government, we might have had the conclu…”

“I do not think it is, and I think it is quite wrong to make the comparison. The Government have stepped in to fund the official receiver to do its work as part of the insolvency process. That is not where we were with Grangemouth, so I think that is quite an inaccurate characterisation. We had to do that, because if we…”

“I think it is fair to say that we did not take any option off the table. We looked at a whole series of options, but the Government are not in the business of nationalising failing businesses. That is difficult to say, but it is the reality. A business that is losing tens of millions of pounds cannot be nationalised, w…”

“It is not something we are looking at now. The National Wealth Fund operates on the basis that it makes investments as part of crowding in private investment. The National Wealth Fund will have a role in whichever investors come forward to take advantage of that £200 million. The exact nature of that role is for the ne…”

“I think I need to be quite careful about my answer, because Unite has shared the report with the Secretary of State on a very specific basis. I do not think it has been shared more widely in Government at Unite’s express request, despite other Ministers asking to see it. I understand that other MPs have also asked to s…”

“I have not made any analysis of PetroChina’s role in the future of aviation fuel. It was part of the joint venture at Grangemouth. We have engaged with it on the basis of whether it wants to continue to invest in the site. We are ambitious for the future of sustainable aviation fuel, which is why we have a Bill on that…”

“My view is the same for any business: companies should offer the best possible terms and conditions they can, especially at a moment of redundancy. Where you have workers who have worked hard in a business, delivering economic benefit on behalf of the company, they should have the best possible terms and conditions at …”

“There is a challenge in any event where we draw a line. I understand the concerns, and they have been raised with me directly as well. There has been an impact on the contractors who worked at the Grangemouth site but were not employed by Petroineos. There will, of course, be wider cascading impacts of the Grangemouth …”

“I would reiterate the message that I have said throughout, which is that this is hugely disappointing. I do not for a second underestimate the impact that redundancy has on workers and families, or the stress that goes with that. What we have tried to do is put in place—as quickly as possible, and as large as possible—…”

“I would be willing to look at how we can encourage that. I do not think it is something we could insist on. The main aim that we have in the coming months is to get the viable projects that have come forward over the line, and to do the due diligence that is absolutely necessary to see what funding is required. Some of…”

“Yes, we have two taskforces within Government at the moment. One is looking at exactly that point around regulatory or policy changes that are necessary. We have taken forward all the points raised in the Project Willow report, and we are looking at what is possible. We are specifically looking at what might be necessa…”

“I can come back to you on what we can make public. None of it is a secret, but we can certainly see what we could share. The taskforce, jointly with the Scottish Government, is a bit ad hoc. I think we met four times in one week and not for a couple of weeks after that. This is not a five-year project; it is about what…”