Rewiring the State

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend has put it incredibly poetically—better than I ever could. He is absolutely right that the machinery of government and the culture across Whitehall need to be challenged. The Prime Minister has been clear that this Government will bring about an end to local and regional government coming to Whitehall with a begging bowl. Whitehall and the Government as a whole have been told in no uncertain terms that they will now be required to justify why policies are not devolved, rather than the other way around.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The transition to clean energy could be an opportunity to build a different model that would, to use the First Secretary of State’s own words, end

“overly centralised decision making and over-privatisation”.

Development thus far has simply concentrated power in the hands of the big corporates and left communities feeling left behind and disempowered. In Shetland, we host one of the largest onshore wind farms in the country, but we have the highest levels of fuel poverty, and last year the developer SSE was paid £9 million in constraint payments not to generate electricity—that is regulatory madness. In this rewired state, will the communities that host renewable energy developments have control and get direct financial benefit from them?

[Louise Haigh]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a number of really important and interesting issues that will be considered as we look to greater public control of our energy system. Local and community control is central to the Prime Minister’s vision for public control, and that “madness”, as the right hon. Gentleman described it, is something that will drive our energy reforms.