Speeches by Onn.

“Do we have the selection criteria yet?”

“Do you know when it will be developed by?”

“Have you thought about the split that you envisage happening?”

“I do not think that you can have three things working in tandem.”

“It really does not fit with what we have just been talking about, so I am sorry. I am going to take you back to the definition of community projects. I am wondering how clarity will be served on what the whole of Government agree is community energy, if there end up being two definitions, one in the national planning f…”

“Is your 8 GW or 1,000 projects target, ambition or aspiration going to be formed of local and community energy?”

“Do we have the selection criteria yet?”

“Level of detail is a very good lead-on to my question. We have been wrestling with the definitions of local energy and community energy. It has been suggested that we need to have that bottomed out. We have a definition of community energy in the national planning framework. It says, “Community-led development. A devel…”

“It is very easy, though, isn’t it, to say, “It’s a local community project”? It just hasn’t happened, and not without all of our best endeavours.”

“I wanted to make reference to my entry in the register of interests as a director of a community energy scheme.”

“Helen, community energy groups and projects are diverse, to say the least. How do you pick winners as GBE? What are the key criteria?”

“So you are not prescribing anything. You are not going to say, “It is a 70:30 split. We think local is going to deliver much higher capacity than community, so we will put the bulk of our support or expectation behind that”.”

“Does my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries not think that the marine spatial prioritisation programme, which was introduced last summer, will do exactly the job he is hoping to see delivered?”

“It is welcome that the Government agreed with the Select Committee that we should be more ambitious about smart meter roll-out, so that household customers can get the best tariffs for them. We also heard evidence that there was a lack of consumer confidence in smart meters. Does the Chair of the Select Committee think…”

“I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this debate and for restoring it to the main Chamber, as we have been asking for many years. I congratulate the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee—the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who co-chairs with me the…”

“If the 40p that you just mentioned is not on consumer bills, is the immediate alternative in general taxation?”

“That is because these are not real savings; they are projected savings of what could have been if it had been worse and we did not have the flexibility.”

“Ultimately the Government have said, “We are going to bring down consumer bills.” But when we are discussing this with consumers, we have to say, “Oh well, it could have been an awful lot worse.””

“Lawrence, I am interested in the written evidence submitted by the Energy Networks Association. In the subheadings, it says, “How flexibility has helped deliver savings, including reduced customer bills”. It refers to consumers saving £500 million between 2023 and 2024 by using energy more flexibly. We also had some ev…”

“Citizens Advice submitted evidence that energy networks have made excess profits of £3.9 billion since 2021. Is there any element of that figure that could go into reducing bills for individuals? Or do you dispute the figure?”