Speeches by Shanks.

“Not specifically, no. We expanded the warm home discount so it would reach 6 million households. That was important in order to say that low-income and vulnerable households would get £150 off their bills. Clearly, we look at the cost of that, and we have obviously expanded the scheme and will continue to look at it, b…”

“We are looking at some of those options at the moment. It is worth saying that if we take a snapshot of the year, yes, gas is still setting the price significantly higher than other countries, but on individual days of the week that is increasingly not the case, and we do have renewables setting the price. What we need…”

“We are focusing on reducing the price of energy, but we also have some of the worst homes anywhere in Europe. If we are not going to improve the quality of our housing stock now, and improve the design of future homes so that we are not having to retrofit, people are going to keep paying much more to achieve the same o…”

“Our latest estimates are that it is still setting it more than 80% of the time. It fluctuates, and over the past year we have seen gas setting the price less, but it is still far too often.”

“Again, that is a really important point. I have been contacted by a lot of people working in this space who are doing a very good job. We should be really clear: this terrible practice was not everywhere, but it was on a concerning scale. There were good people working in this space. Our expectation is that although th…”

“It is a hugely important point. Since we have been uncovering the practice—the delivery that has not been up to standard—we have obviously found more and more examples of it. It was a scheme that was not run well; the Government have accepted that and we want to make sure that the next scheme learns the lessons of that…”

“We take these things on a case-by-case basis, but there is no doubt that the warm homes plan—the £15 billion investment funded from general taxation—was seen as the fairest way, with taxation being a distributive way of raising revenue, to fund a really important upgrade of Britain’s homes. That was a decision that was…”

“I will look into the very specific forecourts that the hon. Member mentions. However, I restate what I said at the beginning, which is based on the live data that we have from forecourts around the UK: there is no shortage of fuel in the UK. That is really important to say and is backed up by the evidence that we have …”

“That is how we end up with absolutely no industry left in the country. That is what we are trying to rebuild after 14 years of it falling apart. I will turn to the specific points. First of all, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, made a good point about the strength of supply ch…”

“I think a balance is important here, but we have also invested in those renewables significantly over a period of time, so for many of those who have feed-in tariffs, they have had that revenue source for a long time. I understand that that was partly why they made those investment decisions in the first place, which i…”

“I understand the point. First of all, I have been really clear. This regulation, as it clearly sets out, comes to an end on 31 December 2028. We will come back to the Committee to update the regulations should we wish to continue the scheme. We have run AR7—it was a successful scheme. Obviously, we want to monitor what…”

“It is very likely. I think the scheme design across the board is based on the CPI—not just in the energy world—so it is very likely that that will be the future.”

“I thank the right hon. Member for his second speech in the debate.”

“I will address a few things. There were some contradictory comments from different Members of the same party: on the one hand, we should support the supply chains, but on the other, the Government should do nothing to actually build them up. I will come to that point, because—”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards and Contract Budget Notice Amendments) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and it is wonderful to see so many Scots reunited for this debate. The draft regulations …”

“Because we committed to two things in our manifesto—and people often remember the first part, but not the second. The first was no new licences to explore new fields and the second was that we would manage existing fields for their lifespan. Tiebacks are a way to make those existing fields economically viable for as lo…”

“The North sea is a hugely important asset for the United Kingdom. It is working right now to provide gas into pipes around the country. It will continue to be a very important asset for the country, but it is also a super-mature basin that has been in decline for two decades. It is playing less and less of a role in de…”

“I think it is coming to a fair position where very few people use the existing measure of inflation. It is coming to a fair balance. We consulted on a range of measures, and we think this is the fairest way to take it forward. We recognise that it will be a change for people who have those arrangements, but equally, we…”

“I think it is a really fair challenge. People often forget what an early stage the development was in when the renewables obligation scheme was set up and just how little deployment we had of those technologies. We have matured a lot in terms of the technology readiness, but also in terms of the financial instruments t…”

“I think the order of the day is to go further on a whole range of things—nothing is off the table. I am not going to hint at individual things that we are looking at, but nothing is off limits at the moment. We have said very clearly that we are in the corner of consumers, and we have to demonstrate what that means. Ta…”