Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that there are about 40,000 people in this scheme. About 5,000 of them are women, unlike the mineworkers’ pension scheme, of which the vast majority of members are men. The two schemes are different and operate in a different way, because in 2015 the BCSSS had run two deficits and was at risk, so there had to be an intervention from Government. The two schemes operate differently and have to be looked at differently. The Government Actuary’s Department team is working its way through the mineworkers’ pension process, and we are now working with officials on this issue. I am meeting officials later today to talk about it more to see what we need to do. I stress that this is very complex—we are talking about billions of pounds-worth of assets—but we are absolutely receptive to calls from the trustees, and I will meet with them again soon.

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

4. What progress he has made on achieving clean power by 2030.

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)]

We are driving forward at speed to deliver clean power by 2030. Last week, the Government introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will enable the biggest expansion of the grid for generations, sweeping away the connection delays and the queue that held us back for too long under the last Government and reforming the planning system to speed up delivery. We have also laid out for the first time legislation to provide households near new or upgraded pylons £250 a year off their energy bills for 10 years, as part of our commitment to delivering meaningful benefits for communities hosting clean energy infrastructure.

[Dan Tomlinson]

Does the Secretary of State agree that community energy has a vital role to play in the transition to cleaner and greener power? Will he accept an invitation to come to my constituency in north London to visit Community Energy Barnet, which is working on one of the largest community energy projects in the country?

[Ed Miliband]

I always like visiting north London, and I would very much like to accept an invitation from my hon. Friend. He makes a really serious and important point about community energy. If we look at Germany and Denmark, we see that they have done much better on community energy than us. Great British Energy has an important role to play in this, and we will say more about that in the coming weeks.