Draft Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards and Contract Budget Notice Amendments) Regulations 2026

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 General Committees

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. The primary purpose of the statutory instrument appears to be twofold: to extend the scheme to onshore wind and to put ringfenced spending on a statutory footing for nascent technologies such as floating offshore wind. We also see some technical adjustments in the extension of the sunset clause and the altering of timeframes, alongside amendments to the Electricity Market Reform (General) Regulations 2014 to uphold financial minimum standards as a prerequisite for the release of payment.

The clean industry bonus scheme was introduced by the current Government in 2024 to promote investment in domestic supply chains, although it of course follows the excellent work of the previous Government to reduce our reliance on foreign supply chains. However, there is irony here on multiple accounts. First, it was only following immense pressure from the Conservative party official Opposition—and from the other place—that the Government were persuaded to amend their flagship legislation introducing Great British Energy, in order to prevent investment in supply chains with proven links to slave labour. I am immensely pleased that the Government U-turned on that, as taxpayers’ money absolutely ought not to be spent on importing solar panels from China manufactured in horrendous conditions in regions where slave labour is proven to be commonplace.

We should be promoting domestic supply chains, building domestic capacity and seeing investment to benefit British workers and British communities. Nowhere is that more evident than in the north-east of Scotland, home to a world-leading energy industry and supply chain. The irony there is the Labour Government’s reckless disregard for our home-grown supply chains in the north-east of Scotland. They are the very same offshore logistics specialists, subsea cabling manufacturers and workforce that the Government claim to need more of, yet the Government have shown them nothing but disdain since getting into office. At a time of maximum geopolitical uncertainty, our domestic oil and gas sector deserves support. If the Government wish to support domestic energy supply chains, I suggest that the Minister starts there.

The statutory instrument broadens the scope for allocation to technologies other than offshore wind, facilitating the inclusion of onshore wind in allocation round 9. If the Government were as interested in securing domestic supply chains they would have been much better doubling down on nuclear, which has the most secure supply chain of any power generation technology. Yet the Government cancelled the third large-scale nuclear power plant that we signed off at Wylfa. After all the effort it took to get Hinkley and Sizewell’s development consent order across the line, we find ourselves with no pipeline for large-scale nuclear projects in this country. We should be under no illusion that this scheme represents yet another subsidy for wind developers, on top of the subsidies that the Secretary of State already handed to them through the renewables obligation scheme—which we have committed to scrapping in its entirety—and on top of the subsidies that they received through their CfDs.

This instrument also puts on a statutory footing the protected allocation of funding for certain technologies, such as floating offshore wind. The Department’s explanatory memorandum explains that that is

“to safeguard some investment in a newer technology with higher costs in its exploratory phase and to support investment in the supply chain”.

Although I do not wish to stand in the way of the statutory instrument today, I reiterate the fundamental irony in the Government’s attempt to invest in domestic supply chains while accelerating the decline of industry across the country, particularly in the North sea, and refusing to double down on large-scale nuclear, all while the Secretary of State signs secret deals with China.