Speeches by Shanks.

“I have set that out in this debate in a number of ways. We have absolutely committed that Great British Energy will not invest in any supply chains in which there is any evidence of forced labour, and the measures that we are outlining today show how we will deliver that. There is a wider question about forced labour i…”

“I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. The hon. Member for Hamble Valley has taken the right tone, which is that our forestry land is to be treasured and protected for future generations, but there is a balance to be struck—we strike it every day in relation to how much the public can access and enjoy that l…”

“Again, there is a balance to be struck: we do not want to create a fixed set of national guidelines that preclude larger scale projects that would not disrupt existing forestry. I do not want to suggest that every piece of forestry land is the same, and therefore that the guidelines should apply in the same way. None t…”

“Some?”

“I thank the hon. Lady for that point; I will come to the new clause shortly. The difficulty with that approach for transmission infrastructure is that by definition it goes through so many different communities in a linear way that it would be really difficult to divide up that funding among communities. How you define…”

“Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse. On that cheery note, it is great to be back in Committee this morning. The clause is about long-duration electricity storage, or LDES, which is an incredibly important part of an electricity system, allowing us to store cheap renewable energy when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and…”

“I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and their recognition, first and foremost, of the important role that long-duration energy storage plays in our system. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East referred to Cruachan—the hollow mountain —and I think there is barely a person in Scotland who has never bee…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which we will take onboard. It is already part of what the Health and Safety Executive and the Fire Service are looking at nationally in terms of guidelines, but the Government continue to take an interest. The hon. Gentleman is right that as the schemes expand across the co…”

“It is a very important point, and this will come through in the discussions that we will have more generally in this Committee around community consultation, but it will continue to play an important part. I think it is important to separate out any question of compensation from community benefit. This is not a compens…”

“I thank all Members for an interesting debate. Amendment 83 was tabled by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. He is ever present in these discussions, but never present—”

“The Minister for Energy made it on to this Committee; the shadow Minister for Energy could have made it on to this Committee as well, so my hon. Friend should not withdraw his criticism so hastily. Anyway, he is ever present in these discussions and we enjoy his contributions from beyond the Committee room.”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important intervention. I will turn to the substance of the amendment before I get into trouble, Mrs Hobhouse. The amendment seeks to set the level of benefit at £1,000 per year over 10 years. First, I should say I welcome the fact that across the Committee today there is support for…”

“I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but a transmission line goes through a significant number of communities in a linear way. For a wind farm, you could draw a line around it and benefit all those communities; a transmission line does not work that way, so we would be giving to a significant number of …”

“That is a question that I have asked myself many times over the past nine months. The problem is that we inherited a number of these things from the previous Government and we are working through them. I have regular meetings on the subject. It is really important that we get this right, because we need to strike the b…”

“We come to the most exciting clause in the Bill: the offshore transmission owner, or OFTO, regime. I can see everyone is on the edge of their seats. This is an incredibly important clause. It provides a competitive market for offshore electricity transmission, which is important because it helps us to achieve cost-effe…”

“The clause enables the generation of electricity from renewable sources within the public forest estate through inserting a new section into the Forestry Act 1967. Our public forests are a national asset, providing vital environmental, social and economic benefits. They also offer an opportunity to contribute to our cl…”

“I think they call that my full Sunday title, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Llinos Medi) for securing this debate and also, as I said to her in the House last week, for her passion on this issue and energy projects more generally. We have debated a number of them in this Chamber over the past few month…”

“I thank the right hon. Lady for that point. Trawsfynydd—I think that is the correct pronunciation —is potentially also an important site for future nuclear, but she is right to highlight decommissioning. I am sure the Minister for nuclear, my noble Friend Lord Hunt, will be happy to discuss this in more detail, but cle…”

“I thank my hon. Friend, not least because that is the very next part of my speech, so it is excellent timing. The history of Wylfa is important to our energy story, but so is the future. The potential of the site has long been recognised. I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn that, after several ye…”

“I will come on to the question of siting in a moment. I do not want to be drawn into the particulars of the SMR competition because Ministers are not involved in that at the moment. That process is under way, and we are moving forward with it at pace. First, our targets for clean power are really important. We have set…”