Speeches by Kyle.

“No. We want our entire energy costs to come down.”

“Do not forget that, earlier in this year, ahead of the Iran war situation, we had started to lower bills by up to £150 by shifting some of the burdens of regulatory and other costs.”

“No, I am trying my absolute best not to deflect on any of these and to be really honest about what it is like doing my job. Of course, if I could lower energy costs for every manufacturing business, I would do it in a heartbeat.”

“You can see that it is as highly targeted as it can be. When it comes to steel, of course, we have gone through a period of disinvestment in defence and now we are going into a period of high-intensity investment in defence. These are foundational industries that evolve over decades in order to build the relationships …”

“Procurements have cycles, so a lot of the procurement contracts that we will have as a Department would have been procured by the previous Government. These contracts are three to five years, very often.”

“Your amazing question illustrates just how knotty and complicated steel is in this country. You can imagine how much of my time, and thought time and weekend time, is spent trying to find a way through all of these because of the interactions of the different forces. To answer the question very directly, the steel Bill…”

“I will answer the question this way. With the new Prime Minister, there are things that we can do that will be highly growth orientated and that will deliver the fairness across our economy that both he and I aspire to. Those are the sorts of conversations that I will be having. Ultimately, we live with finite resource…”

“My Department is working as closely as we possibly can on the DIP. The DIP is still, in places, quite high-level. We are making sure we go down into the detail. We will align assets that benefit British businesses as much as we can. It has been my steadfast determination—I have been involved in some of the conversation…”

“In fairness to DESNZ and the Secretary of State, we work closely together on these issues. There are some areas where, because of the nature of our respective briefs, we will have to resolve some differences, but very often we work in a highly collaborative way. The Secretary of State of DESNZ and DESNZ itself do not g…”

“I am not able to talk about processes that may or may not be under way within Government at the moment. You will understand that collective responsibility requires me to keep my mouth shut until something is out the door. What I can tell you is that, as you know, I have undertaken an extensive period of listening to th…”

“I appreciate it.”

“That is why we consulted so extensively on this. We have undertaken a hugely detailed consultation with business. When I came into this job 10 or 11 months ago, in the first few days I was announcing the consultation for BICS and encouraging businesses to take part. That consultation has been highly extensive. In the c…”

“I hear you. After you took the evidence before, I went into a hairdressers in Hove to try to get their view on it from a local perspective. I hear you.”

“This is the consultation on single status.”

“You have seen that we are having to target and prioritise. You will know, because of the conversations we have had and from the scrutiny that you provided our schemes, that we are targeting the sectors that have the highest growth potential, but also those that have a highest usage of energy as part of their overall co…”

“You mean the regulations.”

“As I have said, it is not about being risk-averse with people’s individual safety in the workplace. Let me give you an example. Take Wayve, the autonomous vehicle company. It is a British company. It is world-leading. It went from zero to creating just under 2,000 jobs in a few short years. It is now valued at £11 bill…”

“I will continue this another time.”

“I have heard that kind of story as well. Total credit to our automotive sector because it has shared with me, in confidence, raw commercial data so I can make my own judgment about these issues. That is the degree to which I have been throwing myself into this issue.”

“There has been analysis. We need to wait until we get the consultation and we can have this debate then.”