Speeches by Miliband.

“Let me come to the specific and the general. On the specific, let us be absolutely clear about what has happened at that refinery: the workers have been deeply let down by the people who ran the refinery. I am deeply disturbed by some of what I have seen and heard, and by some of my experiences in dealing with the peop…”

“It is quite the opposite, if you think of the building of network infrastructure, which is creating tens of thousands of jobs, and the signal we are sending to investors. I meet investors all the time from all around the world. I am not trying to blow our own trumpet here, but so many of them say to me, “You are a Gove…”

“We should be judged on the justness of this transition; we are absolutely determined to have a just transition. Let’s take the North sea; 70,000 jobs have been lost in the North sea in less than a decade, because it is a declining basin. The truth is that unless you build the future in carbon capture and storage, offsh…”

“It is interesting that you should ask that question, Polly, because the industrial energy prices thing is a very serious situation. I read with interest some of the testimony your Committee had as part of your cost of energy inquiry. It is important to understand why this happened. I have a chart here: when the crisis …”

“It was, if I am allowed to use this phrase, a clown car operation, I think it is fair to say. Richard Tice wrote a letter saying he was going to rip up the contracts, and then went on the “PM” programme that afternoon to rebut his own letter—to say that he had been highly misinterpreted and that he was not going to tea…”

“The most important thing is that it happens. It is worth pausing on that for a moment. Against a very tight fiscal backdrop, the Chancellor chose to invest £13.2 billion over the Parliament in the warm homes plan, in line with our manifesto commitment. That is incredibly important. It is part of contributing to us upgr…”

“I think your inquiry is really important, and I will look forward to seeing the results of it. We have to make the case, and all of us who believe it have to make the case. Workers who are benefiting from clean energy, scientists who can tell us why we need to act, businesses that are operating in this area and ourselv…”

“We are taking action on the clean energy transition because it is the right thing to do for the country today, and it is the right thing for future generations. It is really important to say that. Nigel Farage wants to airbrush history. He wants people to forget about the fact that it was our exposure to fossil fuels t…”

“Let me answer that directly. What we have done is changed the permitted development right on the one-metre rule, as you said. That was talked about for a long time, but nothing was ever done. I think it has made a difference. Some retailers, I think, have said to you that the noise issue remains a big barrier. You have…”

“I think it is really important that we drive forward on community energy. I am also conscious that NESO has lots of demands about what it should prioritise. Our north star is delivering Clean Power 2030, which is obviously challenging—absolutely achievable, but challenging. That is the No. 1 imperative. It is worth say…”

“On the one-metre rule. I am glad we have been of service to you, Chair.”

“Shall I handle that? Jeremy is welcome to come in. I am really interested in that unmet or untriggered clause in the 2015 Act. I have been trying to get to the bottom of how it ended up in—I think the Liberal Democrats may have had something to do with it. We are looking very seriously at whether we can give expression…”

“Yes. We are looking very seriously at it.”

“It feels like when you were in your previous life, Torcuil.”

“We are determined to do that. If you have examples where you think bad practices are going on—as part of Chris Stark’s work, he has clean power commissioners including those who cover nature—we would be interested in working with you on it.”

“I do not think so. My strong view—and a big part of this is the work we have been doing on nature recovery with Steve as part of our plans—is that we can do clean energy infrastructure in a way that builds the infrastructure that we need and does so in a nature-positive way. Overall, it is important to remind people—I …”

“That is something I should take away, to give an answer that justifies the depth of the question. Overall, for years, people promised a land use framework. My colleague Steve Reed is actually delivering it, and that is very important. For years, people have talked about how we need to plan our energy system better. We …”

“To sum up, my fundamental question—and an important one for us all to ask—to anyone coming forward with proposals is, “What is the price and is it value for money?” People have raised questions about the lifespan of some of these projects. As Jeremy said, it is definitely something that we seek to take into account. I …”

“Absolutely. Communities are an essential part of delivering. I cannot say to you, “We will prioritise community energy over large-scale projects,” if those large-scale projects are essential for us to meet Clean Power 2030, but it is a really big part of our plans.”

“I don’t know; we will compare notes.”