Speeches by Shanks.

“We have deliberately not divided it by parts of the UK because, as I said earlier, we want this investment to be driven by the merits of individual projects. We obviously also want to make sure that we are keeping an eye on the question of whether every part of the UK is benefiting from it. This is not an all-or-nothin…”

“We set up Great British Energy with two principles. First, we believe in 21st-century public ownership. We look around Europe at other countries with publicly owned energy companies that have built a huge amount of the projects we see in the UK, and we think it is right and proper that the UK should have an equivalent …”

“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 …”

“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.”

“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…”

“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 was going to come to the trading of statistics later in my speech, but let me do it now, because there is a fundamental point around the disingenuous trading of statistics on land use. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) made a valiant effort at trying to correct that, but let me give Members s…”

“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing it, particularly because I unfortunately missed his Adjournment debate, which I heard was one of the most enthusiastic Adjournment debates we have ever had on this topic. I was delighted to hea…”

“I will not be able to go into the detail of everyone’s points, but the hon. Member is wrong about the land use framework. Perhaps he should read it again, because it details quite clearly the different land uses across the country. There is always tension about land use—of course there is. That has been true throughout…”

“I will not be drawn on golf course membership, because I do not know how many of my constituents are members of golf courses; I can imagine how many Conservative Members are. I come back to the point about land use, because we absolutely recognise the importance of having a framework for how we use land across the coun…”

“I will come on to that point.”

“I am not going to give way to the hon. Lady again because I want to come to floating solar, which the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne eloquently made the case for. I completely agree that it is a hugely exciting technology that we should be expanding, and I also agree that there are none of the trade-offs that t…”

“It is the best argument for coming up with a plan, which we have now done, and then getting on with delivering it for what the transition in the North sea looks like. If we had done that 15 or 20 years ago, we would not have seen tens of thousands of workers lose their job without an alternative job to go to. Oil and g…”

“The tax income we have received for 60 years from North sea oil has funded public services for a long time. I am not going to suggest that the revenue is not hugely important. It is. The question that we have been answering about what the future of the North sea looks like is: how do we manage what is a super-mature ba…”

“It is a timely question. I was at Hunterston B, the nuclear power station in Ayrshire, last week, which has just been handed back to the Government for decommissioning, because we are taking a different approach to how we will decommission our nuclear assets to be as efficient, cost-efficient and fast as possible, but …”

“I have been working with the Treasury and with the Exchequer Secretary, who joined me for the last roundtable I had with industry a few weeks ago. We are aware of the need to move quickly. I would recognise the point that, at this moment in particular, we should underscore how important the four remaining refineries th…”

“Good evening. It is good to be with you again, Chair, on this really important subject. On refineries, I brought all of them together for the first time in 13 years to have conversations about what the future of the refining sector would look like. We are working on a future of fuel strategy. A consultation has gone ou…”

“I did not see the evidence earlier, but I know that, previously, the industry has confirmed that there would not be a penny off bills due to further extraction in the North sea.”

“The first thing to say is that the Chancellor outlined yesterday, and repeated the message that the Prime Minister gave at the Liaison Committee, that the Government are working day and night at the moment on what support for billpayers might look like. As I said last time I gave evidence, there is an observation perio…”

“Everything that we want to do is to make sure it is fair. Fairness has to be looked at in the round, so fair in terms of the support that might need to be provided, but fair in terms of who, ultimately, pays for it as well and what that means for the future of the country’s finances. We are looking at all of these opti…”