Speeches by Miliband.

“Well, that is definitely something that we are embarked upon and I covered it earlier. These are difficult questions. On the issue of electricity prices, I think the potential, both for business and for families, of clean power by 2030 is giving some certainty to business and others—giving that security that frankly th…”

“As I said at the outset, an important thing to underline and talk about is that I think there is broad consensus for this and support for the clean energy transition, partly because people recognise the scale of the threat, but also because people recognise the reality of our exposure to fossil fuels. That is what all …”

“Yes, frankly, I am. I said at the opening—no problem about you not being here for it—that I am old enough to remember when David Cameron was the Conservative party leader in opposition. His slogan was—I remarked on this to him when I saw him a few months ago—“Vote blue, go green”. I think that healthy competition on cl…”

“We share the spirit of ambition behind that goal. I want to put that on the record. If I can be diplomatic about this, it is perhaps easier for Governments to say, “Here is our number for 2050,” without really having a plan to get there. That is what slightly concerns me about some of what the last Government said. I t…”

“Let me say something by way of opening on nuclear, and then come to your questions. I want to put on record that we see nuclear as an important part of the electricity mix going forward. When I was Secretary of State last time, I wanted to drive forward nuclear. We published a list of sites. I think it is important, an…”

“Into scare quotes, as they say. Do you want to add anything, Jeremy?”

“I am also an unusual person to be accused of allowing the oil and gas industry to continue business as usual. That is something that has never been said to me before.”

“I think both have a role. Take Net Zero Teesside and the project there. We are confident that it will play a role in helping us to deliver 2030 clean power in a decarbonised way. We could be saying, “Let’s just have unabated gas,” but that would not be fulfilling our climate commitments. It is the right thing to do. I …”

“Also, you could say to the cement industry, “Well there is no future for you in a decarbonised world,” but I do not think we should say that. We should say, “There is going to be a future for you in a decarbonised world.” How is the cement industry—to give one example among many that I could give—going to decarbonise w…”

“It depends how you look at this. In some sense, the oil and gas industry is paying for some of this through taxation. If you think about the windfall tax that we have put in place, some of this is coming through taxation. It is also the case, honestly, that with any first-of-a-kind technology—any new technology—if you …”

“I said the Committee has taken a keen interest in this. Can I say that I very much enjoyed working with you in the last Parliament when you were the Liberal Democrat spokesperson? It is good to work together again. It is important to take this head-on. All the experts tell us that without CCUS we are simply not going t…”

“Let me deal with that directly. The British people choose the Government here and the American people choose the American President. It is important for our country, whoever the President is, to work with them and find common ground. No doubt there will be areas of disagreement with the incoming President Trump. He wil…”

“I know you had Fintan Slye before you. I think the NESO report reached an important conclusion, which is that even though there are significant costs to building a clean power system—and this is the central insight of our work—the cheaper wholesale costs you get from a clean power system mean there is scope for lower b…”

“It is interesting that you ask this question. We have a tendency to think that the future is going to look like the past. I think that batteries, long-duration storage and consumer-led flexibility will play a much bigger role in the energy system than maybe some people anticipate. There is real potential in these areas…”

“Why don’t we write to you with a more detailed answer on that issue?”

“The first thing to say is that long-duration storage has an important role to play in our mission. It enables the electricity system to store wind and solar power when it is plentiful and when it is most needed. It is also important to say that no long-duration storage capacity has been built in a number of decades. Th…”

“Overall, what I pick up from the sector—this is not meant to sound complacent or self-congratulatory—is that they want a sense of direction and we are giving them a sense of direction. Going back to the conversation we had earlier, setting out the ranges of different technologies that we want builds confidence. Consent…”

“That is not the way we are thinking about the role of GB Energy at the moment. We have the capacity market to provide the dispatchable power that we need and GB Energy—maybe we will come on to this—has lots of other priorities. For the present time, we think the capacity market with privately owned gas-fired power stat…”

“I think it goes to the overall picture of bills and so on. I have read some of the testimony on this in the evidence to you. The key thing about this is that, as we said in our manifesto, a clean power system—this is the definition of the CCC and others—always has a strategic reserve of gas on the system. The key quest…”

“Let me go to the bigger picture and then I will come to your question, because if I am frank with you, Chair, I think there has been quite a lot of nonsense talked about last week and quite a lot of scaremongering. I do want to deal with it directly. First, I want to quote the NESO. They said at no point were electrici…”