Speeches by Shanks.

“Cornwall is ever present in these debates. Nevertheless, however much the shadow Minister’s teeth were gritted, I do welcome his support for the approach we are taking today. We are debating Lords amendment 2B, which, combined with the previous commitments that I have made from the Dispatch Box and that my noble Friend…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I was going to come to his substantive contribution shortly, but I will do so now. The first point he made in his speech is important, which is that there is a real danger with the piecemeal approach he mentioned. That is partly why I have resisted the idea that Great British Energy wi…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but more broadly, as I have said before, for her significant contribution in this space and for the way she has influenced me and others over the past few weeks on these important issues. I also thank others across the House, because it has been a real cross-party effort, a…”

“I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 2B in lieu.”

“I have set that out in this debate in a number of ways. We have absolutely committed that Great British Energy will not invest in any supply chains in which there is any evidence of forced labour, and the measures that we are outlining today show how we will deliver that. There is a wider question about forced labour i…”

“I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. The hon. Member for Hamble Valley has taken the right tone, which is that our forestry land is to be treasured and protected for future generations, but there is a balance to be struck—we strike it every day in relation to how much the public can access and enjoy that l…”

“Some?”

“It is a very important point, and this will come through in the discussions that we will have more generally in this Committee around community consultation, but it will continue to play an important part. I think it is important to separate out any question of compensation from community benefit. This is not a compens…”

“I thank all Members for an interesting debate. Amendment 83 was tabled by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. He is ever present in these discussions, but never present—”

“The Minister for Energy made it on to this Committee; the shadow Minister for Energy could have made it on to this Committee as well, so my hon. Friend should not withdraw his criticism so hastily. Anyway, he is ever present in these discussions and we enjoy his contributions from beyond the Committee room.”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important intervention. I will turn to the substance of the amendment before I get into trouble, Mrs Hobhouse. The amendment seeks to set the level of benefit at £1,000 per year over 10 years. First, I should say I welcome the fact that across the Committee today there is support for…”

“I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but a transmission line goes through a significant number of communities in a linear way. For a wind farm, you could draw a line around it and benefit all those communities; a transmission line does not work that way, so we would be giving to a significant number of …”

“That is a question that I have asked myself many times over the past nine months. The problem is that we inherited a number of these things from the previous Government and we are working through them. I have regular meetings on the subject. It is really important that we get this right, because we need to strike the b…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for that point; I will come to the new clause shortly. The difficulty with that approach for transmission infrastructure is that by definition it goes through so many different communities in a linear way that it would be really difficult to divide up that funding among communities. How you define…”

“We come to the most exciting clause in the Bill: the offshore transmission owner, or OFTO, regime. I can see everyone is on the edge of their seats. This is an incredibly important clause. It provides a competitive market for offshore electricity transmission, which is important because it helps us to achieve cost-effe…”

“The clause enables the generation of electricity from renewable sources within the public forest estate through inserting a new section into the Forestry Act 1967. Our public forests are a national asset, providing vital environmental, social and economic benefits. They also offer an opportunity to contribute to our cl…”

“Again, there is a balance to be struck: we do not want to create a fixed set of national guidelines that preclude larger scale projects that would not disrupt existing forestry. I do not want to suggest that every piece of forestry land is the same, and therefore that the guidelines should apply in the same way. None t…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which we will take onboard. It is already part of what the Health and Safety Executive and the Fire Service are looking at nationally in terms of guidelines, but the Government continue to take an interest. The hon. Gentleman is right that as the schemes expand across the co…”

“I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and their recognition, first and foremost, of the important role that long-duration energy storage plays in our system. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East referred to Cruachan—the hollow mountain —and I think there is barely a person in Scotland who has never bee…”

“Thank you, Mrs Hobhouse. On that cheery note, it is great to be back in Committee this morning. The clause is about long-duration electricity storage, or LDES, which is an incredibly important part of an electricity system, allowing us to store cheap renewable energy when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and…”