Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I understand what the hon. Lady says, but there has been a lack of understanding about what we are trying to do. We have been enormously successful in supporting renewables. The generation, particularly of solar energy, has far exceeded expectations, and we are on course to meet our legally binding targets, so in a sense we are victims of our own success. As the hon. Lady will appreciate, in this country we have the trilemma of energy security, decarbonisation and keeping the bills down. The problem is the more we subsidise and the longer we subsidise excessive deployment, the more it costs the bill payer.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

11. What steps she is taking to increase competition in the energy supply market.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

15. What steps she is taking to increase competition in the energy supply market.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)]

There are 31 companies supplying households in Great Britain, providing greater competition —that is an increase from the 13 in 2010.

[Christopher Pincher]

Labour’s price freeze plan discouraged the cost of capital and investor decisions in the competition marketplace. What steps will my right hon. Friend take to encourage smaller entrants into the marketplace, in order to make up the £30 billion or so shortfall between what we need to spend and what is planned to be spent on our pipes and our pylons in the next 10 years?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend raises the important issue of electricity transmission, and I intend to publish proposals later this year to enable the competitive tendering of certain onshore electricity transmission assets. Initial estimates show that these competitions could bring savings of at least £380 million in the first 10 years.