Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing to the House the work that is going on for the Atom Valley development zone, which is incredibly important and exactly what we want to see. The Mayor of Greater Manchester is to be congratulated for his leadership in this space as well. I am very interested in the work my hon. Friend refers to, not least because of the critical minerals strategy we are developing and the graphene work that I know will be under way in the manufacturing centre hub, so I very much look forward to talking further to him about what is happening and how we can help.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Why is it that the Government’s energy policy is driving uncompetitive energy costs in absolutely the wrong direction? Sir Jim Ratcliffe has pointed out that the principal threat to any strategy is actually the uncompetitive costs for those enterprises that will have to populate it.

[Sarah Jones]

This Government inherited very high energy costs from the previous Government, who had taken no action to make our country more energy secure. We are powering through to have clean, green, home-grown energy that will bring costs down and make sure we are secure as a country and not reliant on the whims of global leaders and the price of oil and gas. We will bring those costs down and we will support our industry, which I am afraid the previous Government failed to do.