Energy Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank the right hon. Member for that list of important questions. He will know that the new taskforce has already started meeting to extend the energy bill support scheme, or provisions thereof, to Northern Ireland; that is welcome news.

I think the right hon. Member said that fracking would lead to quick supplies. I am not as convinced that he is that it would be quick, but as I said, we will be responding to the British Geological Survey in due course.

On dependence on renewables, the right hon. Member is right that a number of elements used in creating renewable energy resources are dependent on critical minerals, but that is exactly one of the reasons why the Government have recently launched the critical minerals strategy. We will be talking to all our international partners, as I do, about critical minerals and making sure that we have a diversity of sources of supply for them going forward.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I do not get any sense of urgency from the Minister about the plight of businesses negotiating energy contracts. I have been contacted by a family-run independent craft bakery that is about to celebrate its centenary and has been run by six generations of the same family. It employs 20 people in my constituency, but is facing at least a 300% increase in the energy costs in its contracts. We cannot leave businesses in that situation hanging. We have no date yet for the Government to come forward with a set of proposals. When will those businesses have some idea what support they will get from this Government? Businesses in that situation are just not going to survive for very long.