Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. We have begun developing a consultation on the role of renewable liquid fuels in heat. We expect Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Ministers to receive detailed information on the shape of the consultation in the coming weeks, and aim to publish in the summer of 2024.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

15. When she plans to publish the second consultation on the review of electricity market arrangements.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

The Government plan to publish the second consultation imminently. It will set out a clear direction on how the GB electricity market arrangements will evolve to keep electricity bills as low as possible for consumers of all types.

[Andrew Selous]

There are two questions that my constituents ask me most frequently: when will we see cheaper electricity from renewables, and when people in areas such as mine, which host a lot of renewable production, benefit from cheaper prices, as a result of hosting that infrastructure?

[Graham Stuart]

The Government are moving on from our appalling inheritance in 2010 of less than 7% of our electricity coming from renewables, with that figure today up to well over 40%. Every day we add to that, we displace gas and other fossil fuels and lower bills for people, and we plan to keep that going. We already have solar, onshore wind and other developers providing benefits to consumers, and we will come forward with plans for those hosting—

Road Fuel Prices

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the precise details of everybody who will be included. He is right to highlight that this is not just an issue in urban areas. However, in those areas there tends to be more competition and easier transparency than there can be in rural and coastal areas.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

A couple of weeks ago, I drew the House’s attention to the fact that the same supermarket tanker would unload fuel at 10p a litre cheaper in one place than it would if it came 10 to 15 miles up the road to my constituency. If today’s report does not fix that, it will not have been good enough and the Government will have more work to do. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give me some reassurance on that point.

[Graham Stuart]

We have to make sure the market works. Transparency is our biggest single weapon, and we need to be doing this in a way that reaches people, be they digitally enabled or not; we are wrestling with those details. Let us look at the alternative to a market-based system—other countries have tried it, as it is a populist measure. It does not work, it leads to a shortage of supply and it ends up creating the very dominance that we seek to ensure is not exploited in systems such as we have seen in this CMA report.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Andrew Selous Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

That is a misreading of what the Bill does. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman: I refer to the answer I just gave. Given my record of campaigning against what happened with prepayment meters, he will know that that would never be the intention. The element in the Bill is to enable those trials to take place where they would not be able to otherwise, but as I just indicated to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), that certainly would not be forced.

The second pillar in the Bill will help to strengthen our energy security and minimise cost to consumers. It will pave the way for an independent system operator and planner, or ISOP, whose focus will be on building a better, more reliable energy system. The ISOP will maintain our energy security, operate at the cutting edge of net zero with long-term ambitious plans and bring electricity and gas systems together into a single institution, enhancing our ability to plan for our energy system in the future and to reduce costs.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

May I bring up the question of clean energy for aviation? In terms of sustainable aviation fuels, can the Secretary of State give us some assurance that we will have a home-grown UK sustainable aviation fuel industry, so that it is something we do here and do not import from overseas?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend may know that I helped to establish the Jet Zero Council, which has been working for nearly four years to answer exactly this problem, bringing together academia, industry and government. The upshot of that is that this morning I was honoured to be with His Majesty the King, in his first public engagement since the coronation, at the Whittle Laboratory, where he was turning the first sod to build a new £50 million building that will work primarily on sustainable aviation, including fuels. As Transport Secretary, I also set a 10% requirement for sustainable aviation fuel by 2030, ensuring that we lead the world in the production of this new industry, too.