Speeches by Shanks.

“I am not sure, to be honest. I suspect it may be a factor, but on behalf of the public, who fund the National Wealth Fund, it is probably looking more at investability of the proposition, but it will take a wide look at that. It is important to say that the National Wealth Fund is not a high street bank; it is there to…”

“I am not responsible for sustainable aviation fuel, so I do not have all the detail here. The Department for Transport takes a lead on some of this. I think we will weigh up the options for Grangemouth in terms of the speed that something could be delivered and the viability of the project in the current regulatory fra…”

“Again, I am sorry, I cannot go into the detail because it is not in my brief. I think the HEFA cap is a question for DEFRA. I know it is something that we are looking at across Government and, of course, the SAF Bill will be looking at some of these questions as well. It is not something in my brief, I am afraid.”

“We are working together on a range of things, but individual Departments have a lead responsibility for policy on specific things. SAF is not in my Department. I do not want to speak on behalf of a different Department, so I think following up with DEFRA or the Department for Transport might be more useful. Clearly, wh…”

“They are working together, but again, if we were to change the SAF mandate in the UK, we could not change it just for Grangemouth, so there are wider considerations, and there are other refineries that may want to work on SAF production as well. I would just caution against the idea that enacting all the Project Willow…”

“I think I answered your question by saying I have not done an assessment of that, which is true because I am not the Minister responsible for aviation fuel. What I would say, in a general sense, is that our approach across Government is that we are going to co-operate with China where we can, and we are going to challe…”

“Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be back in front of the Scottish Affairs Committee. I was a member in the last Parliament, so thank you for having me back. We need to look at the question of the transition in the wider context of what has been happening in the North Sea over the past few years and indeed decades; i…”

“First, we have been in government for less than a year. More than 70,000 jobs have gone from oil and gas in the past 10 years. This is not something that suddenly started in July last year. What we have seen is a failure over the last 10 years to grasp the opportunities of that transition. If I take offshore wind as a …”

“I do not think it is. There is a natural decline happening in oil and gas, and that is just a reality, whatever way we want to look at it. We will need oil and gas for many years to come, and it is an important part of our energy mix, and it will be, but so too is our mission to move towards clean power by 2030. The tr…”

“I do not think it makes a material difference, in the sense that we do not own what is extracted from the North Sea. It is owned by private companies that trade on an international commodity market, at an international price that is not set by Britain, for anything that they extract from the North Sea. Although the rec…”

“There are two different points in your question. First, we have been importing from Norway for many years. This is not something new. The fields are different. It is important to say that the continental shelf produces different things. If we look at the licensing position, for example, less than 10% of the licences th…”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“I might ask Michael to come in on some of that. Your second point around material benefits is important. That is partly why it is so important that we now move forward as quickly as possible on building up investment in the jobs that come next so we do not lose that investment. The reason this is so important to this C…”

“We will publish a Government response to the consultation, which will summarise the answers. There are some specific things that will require some legislative changes. Some of that is quite technical in nature. The NSTA, for example, is still called the Oil and Gas Authority in legislation, so there will be some tidyin…”

“The hon. Gentleman may be confusing two things. The National Energy System Operator is no longer part of National Grid, as it was made into a publicly owned company by the previous Government, which was introduced by us when we came into Government. So the National Energy System Operator is responsible for managing the…”

“Since I did not realise in my statement earlier this week that the hon. Gentleman is now the SNP’s energy spokesperson, I welcome him to his place—I hope he will bring the same customary sunshine that his predecessor in the role did to our deliberations in this place. On the incident itself, clearly there are lessons t…”

“My hon. Friend always reminds me how much he knows about many of these issues; it is hugely welcome. He is right: there are wider lessons to be learned across the system, and not just for large critical national infrastructure. As he says, we have a grid that has many more power stations, of different forms, than we ha…”

“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to broaden this beyond the electricity system and North Hyde to take in wider questions around critical national infrastructure. He is also right about investing in the future. I always think that grids and networks set the heart racing a little faster, but that is just me. This i…”

“With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the publication of the report from the National Energy System Operator following its review into the fire at the North Hyde substation on 20 March. NESO’s review was commissioned jointly by the Energy Secretary and Ofgem in the immediate aftermath …”

“I was going to start—and I will, regardless of the rest of that speech—by warmly welcoming the right hon. Lady back to her place as the shadow Secretary of State. I will miss sparring with my Scottish colleague, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), although I am sure we will still have …”