Speeches by Gibson.

“You are definitely preaching to the converted in this room. Something else that I want to go on to is heat networks. I have to say that this is a personal question, as I have never understood why deployment is still so fragmented and low. I lived in northern Spain where the Ascó nuclear power station, which is huge, he…”

“Would balancing the network help that?”

“If there is a delay in the gate 2 timeline, some of the contractual project milestones remain unchanged; is there an opportunity for those to slide as well, so that they were not being squeezed in the middle?”

“The skills deficit comes up in everything we discuss. We mentioned high electricity prices being a major obstacle. What specifically is driving that imbalance? What reforms on levies, tariffs and flexible markets would quickly ensure that heat pumps are no more expensive to run than gas? Cheaper would be better.”

“Is there any possibility that there is going to be an extension to contractual milestones when delays are caused by the queue, so they are not falling off the end, as it were?”

“Thank you. Let me move away from electricity. Victoria Whitehouse, you mentioned various different sectors earlier, but which industry sectors do you think are most critical for how hydrogen and CCS allocation should be determined?”

“Moving away from farmers, I want to ask a few questions about how the energy system planning and regulation might work, and a little bit about the connections you mentioned earlier. Claire Dykta, what barriers do you think NESO is facing in terms of delivering the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations for the budg…”

“I will drill down into some specific challenges. We talked earlier about industry needing certainty of policy, and you talked about the physical connections. At the end of the day, you actually have to physically connect. I know that NESO’s current work on connection reform aims to speed up delivery, especially for low…”

“I am keen to see that and really pleased about that. I just wondered about situations where there might actually be a technical error. There did not seem to be any appeal process for that.”

“I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. For underprivileged children, apprenticeships are a fantastic route into higher education. Certainly, in architecture, apprenticeships mark genuine progress in opening the door to a profession that has been closed to those from lower incomes or from under-represented backgrounds…”

“I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s congratulations to Yeovil college. The option to study while earning is crucial to reduce barriers, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is distinctly the case for architecture—an industry that historically has been run by a narrow, predominantly male, section …”

“Absolutely. Right across the built environment, careers take a long time, and therefore we need to be supporting different types of people into those careers at a later age. If we want to meet housing targets, we need planners, architects and surveyors. Otherwise, we will not meet our net zero commitments and we will n…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered level 7 apprenticeships. In the interests of transparency, I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Before entering Parliament, I taught architecture at the University of Bath and I ran an architectural practice. As my entry states, I st…”

“My specific point earlier was about some of the built environment professions being different from big engineering firms; they are not Jaguar Land Rover. A large architectural firm—even the largest ones in London—probably has no more than 50 to 60 employees. They are small businesses and, in the same way that local aut…”

“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I am a strong believer that apprenticeships are a way to make further education open to a wider group of people, particularly in rural areas. Will the Minister consider raising the eligibility age to 25, extending transition arrangements and enabling level 7 apprentices to access…”

“I am one of those geeks who measures my energy use every 15 minutes, but I know that I am strange.”

“That brings me to the very last part of the question. Of the structural barriers that were perhaps underestimated in delivering carbon budgets 4 to 6 and that need to be tackled in carbon budget 7, how should these barriers influence the policy design in the interventions?”

“It is rural transport that I am worried about.”

“We do. It was the Bristol Tramways Company. Just looking back at carbon budgets 4 and 6, what lessons can we draw about how households and businesses respond to policies aimed at cutting emissions? What kinds of approaches work to encourage low-carbon technology uptake? Where has the public engagement been weaker?”

“Professor Grubb, what can Government and industry do to support these households and businesses in adopting low-carbon technologies? We have talked about heat pumps and EV, but you are absolutely right in terms of the active travel side of it. I represent a constituency where the biggest form of deprivation is, in fact…”