Speeches by Billington.

“Current global instability, from Ukraine to Venezuela, has shown the vital importance of having domestic energy security. Does the Secretary of State agree that investing in renewables will help with both security and cost, particularly because they are cheaper to build and operate, as well as providing us with vital e…”

“19. Whether he has made an estimate of the cost of building new gas-fired power stations.”

“Does the hon. Member agree with the principle that just because he does not like something, that does not mean it should not be produced? There is a wide variety of BBC productions that we may not watch, but that does not mean that we do not think they should exist.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. London’s Freedom Pass model is the envy of older residents across England, and it has become embedded in the expectations of many that free public transport is one of the benefits of living in our capital city. However, free travel for older residents is not t…”

“I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. When talking about increasing the opportunities for young people in my constituency, I find it frustrating when people say that young people need more aspiration. I remind them that, frankly, young people need a bus service that gets them to where they can fulfil the aspirati…”

“My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. Not only do seven of the 10 most deprived areas appear to be in Blackpool, but all 10 of the top 10 are in coastal communities, as are 50% of the top 50. We who represent coastal communities do not want to indulge in any kind of deprivation bingo. Instead, we want th…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I rise to speak in this debate simply because I love Jane Austen and all her works. We commemorate her in this debate, as we did on the 250th anniversary of her birth on Tuesday. Today, there has been a statement in the House on the Government’s launch of their…”

“Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that, in the run-up to Christmas, NHS staff will be having to change their Christmas plans to cover emergency shifts as a result of this ridiculous strike, and patients will have emergency operations, and indeed scheduled operations, cancelled?”

“You do not think that is fair?”

“Yes.”

“I will be a bit of gloomster here. Things will get worse. Things will get worse in the middle of a development. You could have a CfD price you have agreed and then suddenly, dare I say it, capital costs could go exponentially, so you end up with an uneconomic development. Should there be some kind of mechanism to recov…”

“Ana, I am sure you have some views on this.”

“Your solution for reducing this is to take gas out of the system?”

“This goes back to my point about CfDs. Are we risking locking in high electricity costs which will create a disincentive for the decarbonisation that we are looking for?”

“These are the consequences of policy changes; if you change your policy, you electrify the heat and you electrify EVs you get electricity demand go up. The CCC, Mission Control, Clean Power 2030 Plan, everything accepts that fundamentally if we are going to decarbonise our system electricity demand will go up.”

“It will go up radically because we will electrify the system and particularly increase the need for electrification of heat and EVs.”

“I am just going to ask one more question because I know I am being annoying, sorry. In that circumstance is there a risk that if you are paying for the cost of investment and not the amount of energy that you use that the bill disincentivises energy efficiency?”

“Do you have a proposal for what we should do as an alternative to that outcome?”

“Adam?”

“We also know with high capital costs and so forth, and with the auction coming up, there is a risk that we end up locking in high costs for new investment—”