Speeches by Shanks.

“We have said that there will be hundreds working in the office, but there will be thousands through the investments that Great British Energy makes. We will be careful to ensure that every single job is critical to delivery and plays a really important role.”

“The wind may be in your community, but the projects are paid for by everyone across Great Britain, not just by people in the highlands. I think we should be careful about going down that route. But I recognise your point. We also have schemes in place to mitigate some of this. We signed off, just a few months ago, the …”

“Yes; we will take that forward later this year. It is—I don’t want to say an experiment, but it is a pilot to see whether we can make this work. Our belief is that there absolutely should be a way to make it work, but we want to make sure that the market responds in the way that we think it will, and that consumers can…”

“They will predominantly be working on the projects that are being taken forward by developers and others, but they will be unlocked by the investment that Great British Energy makes.”

“Thanks—that is a really important way to frame the question. You are right that we are playing catch-up on the grid. I make this point regularly: even if we had a Government who were not minded to deliver a clean power system, we would still have to upgrade the grid because in places it is creaking under the pressure o…”

“Given what is going on in the middle east, we made a commitment to bring forward auction round 8 in July to give certainty to developers on the timeline that we would move forward on. We know of projects in the pipeline that we hope will apply to that, a number of which, for obvious reasons, are in Scotland. We have co…”

“I have regular conversations with Ofgem. It is important that I say that transmission charging sits with Ofgem, so although I have conversations with them and we discuss what more we might be able to do in that space, it is their responsibility and I do not influence that process. We are looking at—and Ofgem is in the …”

“It is really important, and we are doing some work at pace on that at the moment. The Government’s wider clean energy mission will delink us from gas. We have already seen a significant decrease in the amount of time that gas is setting the price in our system, which is because of the renewables that we are bringing on…”

“I am trying to find a particular number—I will write to the Committee with it—for one piece of network build from Norwich to Tilbury. There is a figure for it that I will share with the Committee—it eludes me right now—but if we are successful in building that the sheer amount of the reduction in constraints and the im…”

“We remain committed to that, but it is obviously difficult. The Secretary of State has said previously that the current situation underscores why the clean power mission is so important, but it also underscores just how quickly consumer bills are affected by fossil fuel crises that happen halfway around the world and t…”

“First, even though we are in the heat of an election campaign, I should put on record that I have had a very good relationship with my counterpart in the Scottish Government, and we have worked very constructively on the clean power mission because we share the same objective, and that has been genuinely very welcome. …”

“Good morning. It is good to be with the Committee. I am Michael Shanks, the Minister of State for Energy, a portfolio that covers most of the energy system—from renewables to oil and gas, the transition and Great British Energy.”

“It is a really important question. First, I should say TNUoS—transmission network use of system—charging is a matter for Ofgem. We obviously take a very serious interest in it. It does play an important role in making sure that the cost for the consumer is managed around the way we build the system—in other words, how …”

“It is important to restate to the public that the price cap is in place now, and that it has brought down bills by 7%. That is because of conscious decisions that the Government took in the Budget to take costs off bills and to put them into general taxation. That has brought down bills. Clearly, we are now in the obse…”

“First, I totally reflect the point that you make. I might be minded to suggest that there are several other reasons why there is depopulation in parts of Scotland. It is driven by decisions made by the Scottish Government on investment and other things as well; it is not entirely down to energy costs, but I am sure tha…”

“There is quite a lot in that which I should respond to. First, on the jobs point, you and I have engaged on that issue on a number of occasions. I would suggest that in the 20 years that have passed, there have been neighbours in your constituency who have lost their jobs without the investment in what might be the ene…”

“You are absolutely right. We have a target of, I think, 12 GW of consumer-led flex in the clean power road map, so we have real ambition in this space in terms of how much consumers can benefit from this, but it has to be driven by consumers getting a benefit. That also helps the system, so it is of mutual benefit, but…”

“I apologise if I misunderstood the Chair’s question. I heard “price” because it was related to the cost of energy, which was the preceding question. If I missed the question about supply, I apologise. I would have given a different answer, because you are right to say that 100% of North sea gas flows into the UK, so th…”

“That is a really important question. To date, we have tried to work with the Scottish Government on devolving funding to schemes that are already in place so that we are avoiding duplication. Particularly on community energy, for example, the funding has gone via CARES, the Scottish Government scheme, to projects acros…”

“I absolutely recognise that problem. I have had a number of conversations across Scotland and with Community Energy Scotland on this issue. I would say it is also an issue in other parts of the UK, although it is acute in parts of Scotland. First, that underscores the need to build the grid. Secondly, there are a numbe…”