Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to reduce energy bills for (a) businesses and (b) households.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)]

The best way to deliver lower energy bills for businesses and households is to have a robust and competitive energy market. There are now over 40 energy suppliers in the domestic retail energy market, which is up from 13 in 2010, and independent suppliers have over 17% of the dual fuel market. Competition is improving, but we are not complacent, and we look forward to implementing the recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s final report on the issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michelle Donelan]

What steps does the Minister plan to take to improve the effectiveness of the energy supply market to help small and large businesses to expand in Wiltshire and across the country?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The CMA has said that the energy sector for larger businesses is competitive, but it has put forward some strong and sound remedies for microbusinesses to prevent automatic roll-overs without a business’s consent and to improve online quotations, competition and the service available to microbusinesses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 12th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

We were all completely devastated to hear about that crash. Having been on one of those helicopter trips to an offshore rig, I have seen the amount of effort and the focus there is on health and safety, and that makes it doubly tragic. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the UK Civil Aviation Authority has grounded the helicopter model involved. I assure him that we are working very closely with it and with colleagues in Norway to understand exactly what happened so that we can make sure that it cannot happen in the future.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that historic market towns built for the horse and cart, such as Bradford on Avon in my constituency, could not cope, because they do not have the infrastructure, with the extra traffic that fracking will bring?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I absolutely think that is one of the factors any local authority planning committee will take into account. That is precisely the point of having local authority involvement and a community say, because local people of course know best what is suitable for their area. Local planning is one aspect of this, but the whole safety regulatory environment—the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency—is, nevertheless, absolutely vital. I assure my hon. Friend that there will be no compromise either on safety or on the view of the local community.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 19th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

A number of leading solar community projects and green energy companies are based in my constituency, including Good Energy, which supplies more than 50,000 UK consumers. People who work in the industry fully understand the need for it to be sustainable, but they feel that a drop of up to 87% overnight is more than the industry can cope with, in terms of local jobs and growth. Will the Minister look at what more can be done to support existing projects and for mechanisms to keep the solar industry alive until grid parity is reached?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this very important matter for her constituency. I can absolutely assure her that we are looking at it carefully. I had a round table meeting with a number of solar firms and heard their views at first hand before the consultation closed. We are looking carefully at the more than 55,000 responses and will come forward with our policy response as soon as we can.