Speeches by Shanks.

“I am sure they are a taskforce—anyway, they are going to deliver it. This presents a huge opportunity for us, first to make the system more efficient—if we can use electricity flexibly, we help to reduce that overall constraint cost. There is also a consumer win at the heart of this. We want to see much better use of s…”

“It is a no, because the counterfactual, of relying on gas, as his party is so determined to do, would put up everyone’s bills significantly. We are the ones bringing down bills, and on 1 April all our constituents will see that the decisions this Government have made will reduce their bills by 7%. There are a number of…”

“It is hugely important, and why I am pleased that we published a flexibility road map. We now have a flexibility commissioner. I met the flexibility commission—I am not sure of their title, but I met the group of people who are experts in flexibility a few weeks ago.”

“I do not think that is for them. They are not the arbiter of this. Ofgem has worked very hard in this price control period to make sure that, yes, a regulated profit margin is allowed, but that that is as low as possible. Of course, the RIIO system is about incentives to innovate and build as fast as possible, which he…”

“We were right to raise the price cap. We should remind the public that the price cap has not yet come into force. It will come in on 1 April, and, because of the decisions the Government have taken, it will see bills fall by 7%. That was a conscious decision to take £150 off bills, in order to bring them down for peopl…”

“First, Chair, thank you for having me back so soon after my last appearance. That is a really important question, and I would give some reassurance on two fronts. First, despite some scaremongering stories that have surfaced in the past two weeks, the UK has very strong energy supplies from a diverse range of sources. …”

“They are not quite comparable. Tesco gets to choose exactly where it builds and for what purpose. The network companies build what is necessary across the country. We have a regulated system, which is monopoly companies running the transmission owners. You would have to ask others, perhaps in this Committee or in the H…”

“I think profits should be managed at as low a level as is possible. I would like to see as much money as possible staying in the pockets of the hard-working people of this country, or building the grid that we need for the future rather than going in profits, but I also recognise that we have a privatised system—we hav…”

“To be fair, we have said that we are on the side of consumers, which is why if we see price gouging, we will act on it. That is important right now. Also, after two weeks of seeing heating oil prices increase, we took action yesterday to provide support for the most vulnerable households across the country. It took 200…”

“We keep everything on the table. The Prime Minister has said that everything is on the table, but I am not going to be drawn on what happens at the end of a price cap that has not even started yet. The price cap kicks in on 1 April, people will be protected by that price cap regardless of what they see on their TV scre…”

“This is partly why I said in my first answer that although we appreciate that people will be worried looking at the news and thinking about where prices might go, the Government are not going to rush into working out what that looks like two weeks into this. We have a price cap coming in on 1 April that will last three…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. The draft order was laid before the House on 2 February, under the affirmative procedure. We are all acutely aware, particularly at this moment in time, th…”

“I always welcome unanimous support from the House for the Government’s energy policy, and it sounds like we will have that this afternoon, which I appreciate. I always thank the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey, for her lessons, although they often do not involve her own time in the Gove…”

“That is a well-trodden argument that, unfortunately, the facts do not bear out. The energy produced in Scotland is more than it uses, but at any given time Scotland often relies on nuclear energy; in fact, it is quite often imported from England when necessary—when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Nu…”

“Thank you, Dr Huq. There is genuinely nothing I would rather do on my birthday than answer an important Westminster Hall debate on this topic. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be here—cake to follow. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray)—that beautiful constituency on the other side of Glasgo…”

“I was going to come on to the North sea later, but let me do that now, because the hon. Lady raises important points. Yes, our domestic supply is important—particularly the gas that goes straight into the pipes around the country—and it creates jobs for thousands of people in the industry, many of whom I have got to kn…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to be in this Committee this afternoon, Sir Alec. The statutory instrument, which was laid before the House on 2 February 2026, amends regulations concerning the levies used to fund th…”

“I am grateful for all those technical questions on the statutory instrument before us. Let me turn to the more general questions that were asked. I welcome the support from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine; it is always a great pleasure when he supports things that this Governm…”

“The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point; a generation of lobbyists should look back at the history books of Shetland Islands council at the time, because it is an extraordinary story of how it seized the opportunity of what it knew then would be decades North sea oil and gas and has still benefited from it. I was a…”

“It is a pleasure to join this debate under your chairship, Mr Twigg; I know that you take a great interest in these issues. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) for securing the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was right: my hon. Friend is making a name for…”