Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

As I said, we have connected the second highest amount of renewable electricity anywhere in Europe since 2010. Our record on renewable energy is clear. This is the most extraordinary deflection that I have seen. In recent weeks, the right hon. Gentleman’s leader has shredded his policy platform on energy. To be honest, I feel quite sorry for him, because thanks to the action of his leader and his shadow Chancellor, he has been hidden away, his policy has been ripped up and it is now obvious to everyone that Labour has no plan for energy.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

T3. Further to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) about the review of electricity market arrangements, I welcome the fact that we are, at last, getting to grips with the clunky old rules that add potentially hundreds of pounds to everyone’s energy bills. May I urge the Minister to go faster? This is chugging along at Whitehall speed, and we need urgent action to reduce energy bills soon.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his continuing interest in this issue. The REMA programme is considering a number of options, including sending more efficient locational signals, which I know he is very knowledgeable about, zonal pricing, reform to transmission charging and changes to network access. The second round of the consultation is imminent.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank the hon. Lady for the meeting we had to discuss the matter, which we are looking into. We must recognise that it is the suppliers and consumers who have entered into a contract. However, my strongest encouragement to suppliers is that they do all they can, and blend and extend is certainly one of the ways we can help on that.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

T7. Does the Minister agree that rewiring energy markets through REMA, the review of electricity market arrangements, is the fastest and cheapest way to cut bills by uncoupling them from gas prices? Does he therefore agree that we should speed up and that bill payers would be best served by a Government White Paper on that before the summer recess?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for separately sharing his detailed thoughts on REMA and its reform. This is a complex area with multiple interrelated mechanisms; it requires careful consideration to unlock the £280 billion or perhaps £400 billion of investment in generation and flexible assets that could be needed by 2035. While I share his impatience and desire to move fast, it is more important still that we get it right. I aim to publish a second REMA consultation in the autumn, which will narrow the options for reform and detail the direction of travel.

Energy Bill [Lords]

John Penrose Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This does go back a little way, so it is worth reminding the House that we have gone from 14% of homes being A to C—energy secure, essentially—to 47%. Energy company obligation plans were put in place and plans 1, 2, 3 and 4—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State is chuntering along, saying they are not going very well, but I have just explained that nearly half of homes have now been greened up. Primarily, it is social homes that have been taken to that level, so I am very interested and concerned to understand why her own local authority has yet to follow some of those plans, and I look forward to its getting on with the job with all the money being made available to do that. She is absolutely right—I actually agree with her—about the energy producers. That is why we have taxed them at a punitive 75%, and we have handed those billions of pounds to her constituents and businesses, paying roughly half of the typical energy bill in this country.

In addition to the measures already contained in the Bill, we will go even further. Following on from the “Powering up Britain” plan, we will table four sets of amendments to achieve these goals. First, we will amend the Bill to provide Great British Nuclear, a new flagship body, with the power to enable nuclear projects and support the UK’s nuclear industry with a specific role to support Government in rebuilding our civil nuclear industry. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine is our country’s first Minister for nuclear in relation to that plan.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I compliment the Secretary of State on bringing forward this huge, much-needed and excellent Bill. I want to take him back to his point about the Secretary of State’s and other Ministers’ powers of intervention. The scale of investment that these plans will rightly require in whole swathes of the new technologies to be introduced will be vast; a vast amount of cash will be required to be invested not only in the UK, but internationally. Reducing the cost of that investment is essential, and reducing the uncertainty and risk of political intervention will make a dramatic difference to both the efficiency of that investment and the productivity of our economy. Will he please commit to making sure that we improve the regulatory certainty—the legal certainty—in which all those investments will be made by reducing the opportunity for politicians to meddle, be they on our side of the House or those, I hope at some very distant future date, on the other side of the House?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Yes, I provide that commitment—the Bill attempts to do exactly that in some of the ways I am about to describe—and he is absolutely right about lowering the costs by lowering the uncertainty for investors as well.