Speeches by Edwards.

“Like many Members in this House, I welcome the Government’s industrial strategy and its focus on growth for our local communities. Across Wales, we have a number of former mining towns, which face the challenge of retraining and upskilling their local workforce. My constituency of Tamworth, a former mining town, faces …”

“3. What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact of the industrial strategy, published on 23 June 2025, on Wales.”

“I am quite interested in the situation with energy bills and the cost of energy. We have heard a lot from businesses about how expensive it is: it is usually their second biggest cost after staffing. A lot of the stories that we are hearing are also telling us about a market that seems to be broken. The question is whe…”

“The Committee has heard a lot about the issues around business energy, and we have been pursuing this as one of our lines of inquiry. One thing I have uncovered is not just that there are problems between perhaps where Ofgem is sitting and how it is regulating suppliers at that level, but also that we have brokers that…”

“That would be very helpful.”

“This is for the CMA. I am very interested in the situation that is going on in the business energy market at the moment. I think that many people feel that this is not a market that is functioning. While there is competition, the question mark would be next to whether there is real competition and how it is benefiting …”

“Do they have enough resource for this? These are complex contracts. These are not like the domestic market. They have gone from, basically, doing the domestic market to doing really complicated business contracts. Are they capable?”

“I have a question about the ombudsman. We have heard lots of stories—I have been collecting them—about issues that people have had. The ombudsman’s remit was expanded in December 2024 to cover businesses with up to 50 employees, and some other criteria. It is very difficult for businesses to feel that they get them res…”

“Coming back to energy, the recent review that was done by Ofgem, which was 80 pages long, mentioned business once, in one paragraph. From a regulatory perspective, we have a huge number of customers out there paying exorbitant amounts, with absolutely no price cap, and previously with nowhere to turn to—and we will get…”

“I am interested in the water industry and the energy industry, and how we have ended up with some quite impressive staff bonuses and packages for CEOs and others. If we take energy, for example, the big six energy companies have received £58 million in salaries, bonuses and fees. The CEO of British Gas had £4.3 million…”

“What is the response from the water industry around this point?”

“It is still happening now.”

“At present, I know that you cannot regulate brokers, and I recognise that this has been a call for a long time, but through the supplier you can regulate their use of brokers. There have been lots of cases where suppliers have not been vetting their broker partners. Those broker partners must be part of a dispute resol…”

“There is a conversation that I keep having with brokers, who have been very helpful and have given me a lot of information. I know that you do not regulate them, but there is part of the problem here. Suppliers come into this, because suppliers are supposed to work with brokers who are part of a dispute mechanism syste…”

“That was an average taken of 15 suppliers yesterday in Yorkshire.”

“If I can just come back on the deemed rates, the phrase used is that the rates should not be unduly onerous and that they should be cost-effective and published transparently. Is that happening?”

“You are monitoring them. What does “unduly onerous” mean? Is 30% or 40% higher not unduly onerous?”

“Yes, 100%, but on the deemed prices, that is all the supplier.”

“Yes. I am moonlighting here. On the Business and Trade Committee—obviously, you came to speak to us the other week, and thank you very much for that—we have heard so much about the problems of energy rates. We have gone around the country and heard that continuously, and I have had issues in my own patch, to the point …”

“Building on this landscape of a potential cyber-attack, or whatever we might want to deem it, we have heard some quite interesting information about Pool Re. Obviously, that originally started to cover terrorism from the IRA in the ‘90s, but it still exists. There is about £13 billion sat in a pot of money to cover an …”