Speeches by Cross.

“Does the Minister accept that the Law Officers’ convention does not extend to questions of recusal or conflicts of interest, and that the House and the British people have the right to have questions on those matters answered transparently?”

“I thank the Minister for her statement, in which she confirmed that the 39 suspended companies are suspended from providing new solid wall insulation under the scheme. Are they also suspended from providing other sorts of insulation, such as external, loft and cavity wall insulation?”

“In the light of the uncertainty in the OBR’s report; the fact that the policy will hit elderly farmers the hardest and put food security at risk; and the fact that rural communities will suffer the most, given the impact on tenants and young farmers, and the wider agricultural sector, does the Minister really still bel…”

“From your point of view, Scotland and the UK are quite aligned at the moment. Are there places where they are diverging, or does it seem like we are working together?”

“Yes, of course, but in terms of how the country works as a whole, everything has to be seen very much together. That comes into more of it. A lot of the energy policy is quite disconnected at the moment. This whole thing together has to be seen as a holistic thing, because, as a country, as households, as businesses, w…”

“Yes.”

“The energy mix today.”

“Sorry, can I just jump in? We will look at skills later. It is not necessarily skills; that is a very important part of it that I am very interested in, but it is about the investment, where the investment is going and whether we are putting the investment that is coming in into the right place at the same time. You me…”

“Investment is one thing, but investment comes and then there are deliveries afterwards. There is a gap in the middle. If we are investing in green technology, it is great, but these projects do not come online quickly. In the meantime we risk losing other investment, skills, supply chains and all the things that are ac…”

“Thank you all for coming. Investment is clearly going to be key to driving this forward, but it is about investment and delivery. Those two things have to line up if we are going to make sure that skills and energy security are secured as well. As nice as it may be for all our energy to come from clean sources, if peop…”

“Thank you all for coming. I will keep the first question relatively brief. It is to do with the ambition and feasibility of the two Government schemes for looking at the transition of the energy sector. In your answer, could you refer to the NESO report as well, and your take on how it plays into and sits beside the tw…”

“Looking at the feasibility in terms of timescales, I assume we are looking at 2030 as an immediate timescale for decarbonising grid, and then obviously the 2050 longer stop. How feasible do they feel relative to the current plans?”

“I welcome the Government’s efforts in bringing us up to speed today, but also in imposing the import ban. I recognise that the ban applies to products from Germany, but does it capture products that may originate there but for which the point of import is outside Germany? What steps are the Government taking to proacti…”

“The Chancellor referred in her statement to safeguarding national security, which I welcome, but this must include energy security. Yet her changes to the energy profits levy, removing investment allowances and not permitting new licences at a time when we are still reliant on oil and gas, not only undermines our energ…”

“I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing forward this debate, which is so important. Just this morning, I was at the meeting on food security, speaking to poultry farmers there, and they said that they are already taking decisions not to invest in new buildings, directly because they are now thinking of how they need …”

“At the Oxford farming conference, the Secretary of State suggested that farms should diversify to be more profitable, but diversification has become a lot less incentivised because that all gets wrapped up into the BPR, as well as the APR. Does that not completely negate the Secretary of State’s argument for diversific…”

“Last week was the coldest week of the winter. Also last week, 41.9% of our energy mix was gas and just about 25% was wind. We have heard about issues with gas storage, and the Government are penalising the oil and gas sector by extending the windfall tax, not allowing new licences, and removing investment allowances. I…”

“Next has said that it will increase prices by 1%, directly because of the increases to national insurance contributions, and has warned of slowing growth. With business confidence plummeting, gilts at a 26-year high and growth stagnating, do the Government still maintain that they have an iron grip on public finances, …”

“To follow up really briefly, how do you monitor or measure levels of either actual or, more likely, perceived impartiality? Is that all internal? Is there some external? How do you display this to the public? If we are to tackle perceived levels of impartiality, that needs to be the message that is coming across as wel…”

“What was it at its peak?”