Speeches by Downie.

“David, I just have a very quick question to you, not to test the Chair’s patience any further. Given the issues Polly raised about how much of a conflict or war we are already in, can you imagine a scenario or would it be helpful as part of that planning to have a scenario where, as you said, in certain circumstances n…”

“It is not a criticism. It is something that is really important. We need to be clear when our constituents ask us that question so we can say, credibly, that that is the case, notwithstanding the points you made earlier. That was really helpful. Thank you.”

“I absolutely accept that.”

“Which Department is that?”

“You have answered some of the questions I was about to ask, but I want to go back to something Gordon was talking about earlier when it comes to avoiding a rocket-and-feather effect. In my own patch in Dunfermline, we see that prices are already 4p to 5p a litre higher than even a few miles down the road. Would it not …”

“If the Government came to you now and said, “We will look for ways to allow you to grow production in the North sea quickly if you guarantee a UK price?”, what would you or your members likely say to that?”

“Is that co-ordinated with the Ministry of Defence and other Departments?”

“To be honest, that would be my larger concern. A large attack on one thing is easier to spot. It is much easier to assign blame, frankly, and it would have larger global consequences. Small distributed attacks may not immediately look like an attack.”

“No, just on the cost, sorry. Would increasing oil and gas now reduce the price of energy, or would you continue to sell, understandably, on the international market?”

“Does the acceleration of these things include the oil and gas price mechanism that we heard about from the earlier panel? They may not be entirely enjoying the detail, but they would like to see it happen much more quickly. Are you in discussions with Treasury about how fast that can be done?”

“I have a final question, Minister, about something I raised in the House this week, which was the study you commissioned GB Energy Nuclear to do around nuclear power in Scotland and its potential. The written answer that I got from you was that the study will conclude shortly. Can you elaborate on when that will be con…”

“Can I ask you to elaborate on some of that? The action on heating oil, for example, is very welcome. You have previously talked about how the energy price cap gives time and space to see how it plays out and where we end up through a monitoring period. What are the other areas that you currently see as priorities to do…”

“I want to develop some of the points that Lizzi has just been talking about around defence and energy security. Dan, I am aware that you just had to answer all of that. I will come back to something with you around cyber in a second, but to David and Ana in particular, given the threats that we see from both physical a…”

“It is not a criticism. It is something that is really important. We need to be clear when our constituents ask us that question so we can say, credibly, that that is the case, notwithstanding the points you made earlier. That was really helpful. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Minister, for your patience this afternoon, given that we are running late. I would like to go back to some of the points that the Chair was making at the beginning when he was talking about the energy price cap. We have heard Government use the rhetoric of “whatever it takes”, which is a phrase that you use…”

“What would you like to see that guidance say? What should the role be of Government in that? What should that guidance say and how strong would it be? How do you assess the current threat?”

“Does the acceleration of these things include the oil and gas price mechanism that we heard about from the earlier panel? They may not be entirely enjoying the detail, but they would like to see it happen much more quickly. Are you in discussions with Treasury about how fast that can be done?”

“You have answered some of the questions I was about to ask, but I want to go back to something Gordon was talking about earlier when it comes to avoiding a rocket-and-feather effect. In my own patch in Dunfermline, we see that prices are already 4p to 5p a litre higher than even a few miles down the road. Would it not …”

“That does not really help if there are two retailers that are essentially controlling the prices in an area.”

“That is disappointing. I understand why you cannot dictate to them, but maybe encouraging members to be a bit more open and forthright when they are discussing with politicians would be helpful. If I can move on to talking about North sea oil production, Elizabeth, you have covered a little bit of this already when it …”