Speeches by Shanks.

“Everything that we want to do is to make sure it is fair. Fairness has to be looked at in the round, so fair in terms of the support that might need to be provided, but fair in terms of who, ultimately, pays for it as well and what that means for the future of the country’s finances. We are looking at all of these opti…”

“I cannot speak specifically about the strait of Hormuz. Jonathan might be able to. I would say that, generally, on the risk register, we take account of disruption to supply chains. I do not know whether we specify down to that, but we look at different scenarios and where different fuel types might be affected by inte…”

“We absolutely should be moving as fast as possible on everything, but there is a particular case to be made for bringing more flex on faster. We announced this week that we would start a trial of being able to utilise so-called “wasted” wind—the wind that we currently pay to turn off in areas of high constraints—so tha…”

“I have to say that I take the exact opposite view. It reinforces the fact that we need to move off fossil fuels much more quickly. We remain exposed to fossil fuels for as long as we are reliant on them. I have said very clearly that the oil and gas industry has contributed an enormous amount to this country, and we sh…”

“You are right. There are consequences from what is happening in the middle east that will be felt around the world. There are probably a number of these things that will follow through over a number of weeks. We are hoping that it will de-escalate soon, and you are absolutely right to say that there will be impacts fro…”

“We are not putting a timeline on it, but the information has been received from the developers, the process has been followed by the regulator, and decisions will be made.”

“I am not sure what you mean by “emergency”.”

“We learn from those situations. Ofgem has a role in making sure the market is as resilient as possible, and looking at individual companies as part of that. Ofgem has introduced higher capital requirements on companies to demonstrate that they are more resilient than they might otherwise have been. There is a lot more …”

“The work is nearing completion. What we asked them to do was look at whether there were potential sites in Scotland, recognising that the Scottish Government and the SNP have an objection to all nuclear. It will be a look at potential sites without being a full siting assessment, because there is no prospect of them be…”

“The Chancellor is leading this work across Government, so there are a number of areas that she will be focusing on that are not in my brief. Specifically on things that we are looking at as the Energy Department, the price cap is really important, so we are doing everything we can to monitor what is happening at the mo…”

“The energy profits levy comes to an end in 2030, but the Chancellor confirmed to industry a few weeks ago that she would work with it to bring that to an end sooner, and for there to be a permanent mechanism put in place. Clearly, that work moves at a different pace at a moment, so that we do not have periods in which …”

“On CBAM first of all, I am not one for banging drums, but I have absolutely engaged with the Treasury on this, and the Treasury has engaged with the industry. There have been conversations about how this happens, and I can write to the Committee on some of the technical details that go into how CBAM works, but it is wo…”

“It is a really important question. Since I was last here, there have been meetings about that. The Minister for Energy Consumers held a meeting in the Treasury recently to talk about that exact issue and—your point is well made—to try to find ways, which might not be the perfect long-term data architecture strategy for…”

“We review these documents regularly, as you would expect, not just given the events happening at the moment. These documents are reviewed regularly. Just because it has not been updated, no one should read anything into that.”

“I would say that, first of all, the Government were taking seriously our resilience before this situation. This brings very sharp focus to a lot of the work that we were doing, and a lot of the assumptions that we have made as a country for some time, but the work was going on before that. Our national resilience and t…”

“We are absolutely not. That is not from a point of us not taking very seriously the risks that there are at the moment and managing the situation carefully, but we are monitoring it. All the data that we have is that, because we have a strong and diverse range of supplies, we are not concerned about it. It does not mea…”

“No, I do not think you should at all.”

“It is a really important framing of the question. The Prime Minister was really clear with all of his Ministers before this crisis, in fact, that the sense of fear and dread that many people have that the next letter coming through the letterbox is a bill that they cannot afford should be uppermost in every single one …”

“There is slightly more to it than that. There have been officials appointed to look at this question, and they are working through that work. It is not that the decision has been taken not to do anything. Work is going on. It will just take slightly longer than I would like. It is worth saying that the inclusion of CBA…”

“I think it has. It will have been felt on bills, but not as often as it should be.”