Speeches by Young.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing this debate. My constituency is large and rural, containing the towns of Thornbury, Yate and Chipping Sodbury, as well as numerous villages and hamlets, and stretches from …”

“Families in rural communities may spend the next six weeks finding out that the Government’s “kids go free” scheme is not designed for them. In Thornbury and Yate, the Government are funding First Bus, but not the rural local bus companies, so the combined authority has had to foot the bill. I am sure that we are not t…”

“Fewer than half of the children in my constituency have seen an NHS dentist in the last two years, exacerbating health inequalities. The supervised toothbrushing programme is being evaluated for its effectiveness, but I hear uptake is low. What other measures does the Minister plan to introduce to tackle oral health in…”

“Some schools in my constituency were forced to close during the recent red alert heatwave, causing disruption and loss of learning, so could the Minister explain what discussions she has had with the Department for Education about preparing our schools for more frequent and more extreme weather events, and about improv…”

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“I think so. I used to work in software. Is it just about adding that locational data that would enable them to make those—”

“If I can come to Claire again: is your timetable for reducing the balancing mechanism threshold realistic? Do you have the systems in place? That is going to create a much more complex system of assets for you to communicate with, so do you have the systems in place to do that, at the same time as having all the extra …”

“Are these reforms going to fix that, or is this still going to be a problem?”

“Yes, lowering the threshold. Beyond bringing them on, is there anything else that needs to happen to drive the right behaviours?”

“Obviously, one aspect of the reforms is bringing more assets into the balancing mechanisms?”

“What do you think should determine the balancing mechanism threshold?”

“You are saying it is very hard to create a level playing field between the larger and smaller participants, just because of the availability of—”

“If I can re-ask the question I was trying to ask Matthew: effectively, at the moment you have a system where people are bidding into it. Is there a way that, for much smaller assets where people do not have the capacity to do that, you can effectively use a pull approach, where you have got the data available—no, I am …”

“Shall I come to Alastair, then? You are a licensed energy supplier, so you can trade in the balancing mechanism. How would lowering the threshold affect your organisation? Can you explain how you can help with the issue of smaller generators?”

“I was going to come on to that.”

“Is it going to need any further resources, or have you already done this work?”

“I am going to turn to Matthew. One aspect of the reforms is to get participants to improve self-balancing before gate closure happens. What are the behaviours in the current market that are driving those unnecessary balancing actions, and what will need to happen to stop those behaviours?”

“Surely a helpful ambition. We do not want them—”

“You said there were other behaviours, as well as—”

“Are you hearing different feedback from different types of players in the system?”