Speeches by Shanks.

“We already have a mechanism in place. The electricity generator levy is essentially a windfall tax. At points where the wholesale costs increase beyond the threshold that it sets, the money flows back to consumers. We are looking at that in the light of the current situation, and whether that still works, but we think …”

“We are obviously going to keep this under review. The Chancellor made a decision to take it off bills for three years. The RO scheme completely comes to an end in 2037, but between 2027 and 2037 a number will come off every year, so we will see a tailing off of that cost. The Chancellor made the decision in a spending …”

“To be clear, groups were set up from day one of this Government. It has been our absolute driving mission. The Prime Minister has said repeatedly—he has directed every single Minister to this cause—that our absolute No. 1 priority as a Government is to tackle the affordability crisis, and everybody has different levers…”

“We keep an open mind about the best way in which to fund the system that we need. I am acutely aware that I am not the Chancellor, so I am not going to be drawn on decisions around public spending. Clearly, we want to look in the round about the best way to deliver this. You are right to say that we have a different ap…”

“For obvious reasons, it may well be that the announcements that get the most headline-grabbing attention are around the clean power mission. That does not mean there is not a huge amount of work with dogged determination in the background. Martin has set up a number of groups to really look at individual bits of the Bi…”

“You tempt me to say that Martin McCluskey is going to have a big sexy mission on reducing bills, but it does not sound quite as impressive.”

“It is an avenue that we have to look at very carefully, because we have said that every penny in a bill should be scrutinised very carefully to understand the role that it plays in the bill and whether there is an alternative way of delivering that same policy. For example, the Chancellor took the conscious decision to…”

“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…”

“People are very welcome to introduce private Member’s Bills and a whole range of things. Often they are on topics the Government are already going to do things on—particularly from Liberal Democrats. We nevertheless welcome the enthusiasm. We do want to be ambitious in this space, but I want to be honest: we need to ma…”

“We have been having regular conversations with MHCLG. I am not going to prejudge an announcement on the future homes standard that has not been made, but we do want to see much more use of technology like this. We have already been clear about solar panels playing a really important part. We think batteries are importa…”

“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…”

“Yes, we want to look at much more. The plug-in solar was an important part of us saying that consumers should have a win in this as well. It has not been regulated in the UK before, but it now will be, so that people can have that offer. A part of the warm homes plan looks at a range of different investments and techno…”

“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. …”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”