Speeches by Shanks.

“I completely agree. The only way to permanently protect hard-working families and businesses from the high energy bills from which many are still suffering is to get ourselves off our reliance on the volatile fossil fuel markets. That is why we are rolling out at pace and at scale the clean power necessary to do so, wh…”

“The hon. Lady is right to highlight those issues. The connections queue, in particular, is a huge challenge, with more than 700 GW waiting to join it. The last Government did some work to establish how the queue could be prioritised, and we will now implement that, but we need to go further. It is clear that by 2030 we…”

“We have heard from the hon. Gentleman already. There were multiple questions in this debate about how Great British Energy will lower bills and when taxpayers will see a difference. That features in the reasoned amendment tabled by the Opposition. Conservative Members want to raise the issue of bills as if they have be…”

“I will carry on just now, because we have a very short time before we finish. I wish to address the reasoned amendment tabled in the name of the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). I shall address many of these points in more detail, but, in short, Great British Energy will produce clean energy, protec…”

“May I begin by thanking right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in this extremely wide-ranging debate this afternoon? I particularly pay tribute to all Members across the House who made their maiden speech in this debate. Thankfully, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) has alr…”

“indicated dissent.”

“I will not give way; I am very short on time. In an unstable world, the only way to guarantee our energy security and protect bill payers from future energy shocks is to speed up our transition away from fossil fuels and towards home-grown clean energy. We have been clear that we cannot flick a switch and fix 14 years …”

“I have said that I do not have time. The hon. Gentleman gave a speech in which he raised a number of points, and I am happy to come back to him at another time. Community energy also reduces pressures on the transmission grid and the need for expensive investment, so community ownership will be critical. Great British …”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, but it takes a bit of brass neck to come here and talk about bringing down bills when the Government he supported for so long saw those bills skyrocket. We have been very clear that bills will come down. We said it throughout the campaign, we said it yesterday and we s…”

“I will, and I apologise for not doing so earlier.”

“With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will respond to what has been a very wide-ranging and—until that last speech—a mostly positive debate. I thank all those who have contributed and have brought us their ideas and their huge experience, not just in relation to the green energy transition but in relatio…”

“rose—”

“My hon. Friend has raised two important points. To answer the first, GB Energy will invest in a range of projects and will have a key stake in them, delivering a return for the British taxpayer. There will be a range of projects, in some of which we will certainly have the controlling stake, and some of which we might …”

“We made it very clear during the election that the future of the North sea is incredibly important, but that future is a transition away from the oil and gas industries that we see at present. The Conservatives also need to recognise that the North sea is a declining basin. We have lost thousands of jobs there over the…”

“I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman understands the purpose of GB Energy, but it is not to bring down gas prices; it is to bring down bills. The whole point of GB Energy is to move us away from our over-reliance on gas. If we are not reliant on gas prices, we will remove that risk to bills from the shocks that we rec…”

“My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. This transition has to be hand in hand with the industrial strategy that the Government are driving forward. That is why the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones) is also a Business and…”

“I thank my hon. Friend, who has already become a very strong advocate for his constituents. He cornered me in the Library to talk about these issues, and long may he continue to do so. He raises a really important point. The whole point of our partnership with the Crown Estate is that we will be able to look not just a…”

“I will make a bit of progress, if that is okay. We will create thousands of skilled jobs, which, crucially, will also tackle the climate crisis that we have not done enough to tackle in recent years. It is for these reasons that the Prime Minister has made making Britain a clean energy superpower one of his five missio…”

“That is a helpful contribution, and I thank the hon. Lady for it. Even if we reached our solar target by 2030, it is a very small amount of land that would be used for what is an important part of our energy infrastructure. A number of other points were made in this debate that underline how complex some of these decis…”

“I will first give way briefly to the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer).”