Speeches by Shanks.

“I think they call that my full Sunday title, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Llinos Medi) for securing this debate and also, as I said to her in the House last week, for her passion on this issue and energy projects more generally. We have debated a number of them in this Chamber over the past few month…”

“I thank the right hon. Lady for that point. Trawsfynydd—I think that is the correct pronunciation —is potentially also an important site for future nuclear, but she is right to highlight decommissioning. I am sure the Minister for nuclear, my noble Friend Lord Hunt, will be happy to discuss this in more detail, but cle…”

“I thank my hon. Friend, not least because that is the very next part of my speech, so it is excellent timing. The history of Wylfa is important to our energy story, but so is the future. The potential of the site has long been recognised. I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn that, after several ye…”

“I will come on to the question of siting in a moment. I do not want to be drawn into the particulars of the SMR competition because Ministers are not involved in that at the moment. That process is under way, and we are moving forward with it at pace. First, our targets for clean power are really important. We have set…”

“Thank you, Mr Efford, for chairing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) for securing it and for all his experience in this area, which is of great value to me and the Government. It is an important topic. I will speak more broadly about the issue of energy resilience, and then come…”

“I am not aware of the specific circumstances mentioned at the end of the right hon. Gentleman’s question, but I am happy to look into that particular case. The broader point is that we do not see licensing for new oil and gas and fracking as part of our future, and there is a presumption against fracking in other parts…”

“I shall start with the more serious of the hon. Gentleman’s questions, and then, in reply to some of his other questions, I might gently remind him who was in office not that long ago. On a serious note, I agree entirely with him on his opening point: the first priority of my Department and the Government is to ensure …”

“I thank the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for his question. Let me reiterate the point that he made and that I will, I suspect, make a number of times during this statement. I will not be drawn on unfounded claims and speculation about what the causes might be. It is rightly for the authorities in…”

“Let me repeat the point that I made to the shadow Minister. It is absolutely right to point out the widespread cascading impacts of power failure and just the sheer amount of our lives that is now driven by electricity. The hon. Lady also made the same point as the shadow Minister, which I did not respond to at the tim…”

“Storage will be crucial in the clean-power system that we are building. Batteries will play a critical role in making sure that we can store the clean, cheap energy that we are generating for times when we need it most. We have also announced the first long-duration energy storage in 40 years, building the assets that …”

“I congratulated the hon. Lady yesterday on her remarkable marathon; I think she ran it two hours faster than I did, which leaves considerable room for improvement on my part, but congratulations to her again. She is right to raise this point, and I have answered questions on it before. I have met Centrica on several oc…”

“My hon. Friend is perhaps referring to the most recent situation at Heathrow. The Secretary of State commissioned a report after that incident to find out what the causes were, and that report is due. Airports in this country are private businesses, but given that they are clearly critical national infrastructure, the …”

“While Great Britain’s energy network is incredibly resilient and robust, there are outages for a whole range of reasons. The system continues to function, as it did entirely, without any concern at all, in the instance he raises. While it is not a regular occurrence, outages do happen in any system, particularly in the…”

“My hon. Friend always makes his point in his particular style—perhaps a more political style than I will use from this Dispatch Box, but Inspector Clouseau is a new one that I will certainly add to my list. My hon. Friend raises an important point. The broader point here is that we do not know the causes of the outages…”

“Indeed. I apologise and will prioritise it for my weekend reading. What I did see is that the Tony Blair Institute outlined very clearly its support for clean power as an important transition for this country. The shadow Minister earlier said that this was all about wind and solar, but that has never been the position …”

“My hon. Friend raises an important point. The issue of cyber-security across our critical national infrastructure becomes more and more important day by day. As our energy system becomes more complex and as smart systems become part of how we all interact with our daily lives, there are increased risks. That is why the…”

“The right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) made a point yesterday about black start, and it is one that the Secretary of State will take away, particularly around black-start capabilities across the whole UK. On the Acorn point, we have said on a number of occasions that it is a r…”

“My hon. Friend has been a champion of these issues for a long time, and it will not surprise him or the House to hear that I entirely agree with him; clean, cheap and secure is absolutely right. We know that because when we invited many countries around the world to the energy security summit last week, it was clear th…”

“I am happy to agree with the right hon. Member on his final point. Small modular reactors will play a really important part and are an exciting proposition that the UK can be at the forefront of. The technology competition will conclude shortly. On the broader point, we get to the heart of the contradiction. The Conser…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for drawing attention to my appalling time in the marathon. [Interruption.] That is kind of the shadow Secretary of State. My hon. Friend made an important point. The serious response to an unprecedented incident like this is to take stock of what happened, to introduce some…”