Energy Grid Resilience

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend always makes his point in his particular style—perhaps a more political style than I will use from this Dispatch Box, but Inspector Clouseau is a new one that I will certainly add to my list.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. The broader point here is that we do not know the causes of the outages, and any sensible Member of this House will, I am sure, await the full response of any investigation that will be carried out by the relevant authorities in this case, rather than just jumping to speculation. As my hon. Friend says, the rush to conclusions betrays the truth of the matter, which is that many hon. Members in this place have an ideological, extreme and damaging opposition to clean energy. That includes Members in the party of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) and other parties, including the Conservatives, who defended this for such a long time and now seem to be working together against it. They want to leave us colder, poorer and in the pocket of Putin. We will not accept that.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Can the Minister please explain what exactly the Government disagree with in the considered written foreword by Sir Tony Blair to his think-tank report?

[Michael Shanks]

I have to apologise to the former Prime Minister, but I have been a little busy over the last few days and have not read all of his report.