Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Spellar
Main Page: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Spellar's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers
Lord Spellar Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
What happens—and it is happening at the moment—is that there is a process of bidding for the customers of the exiting, failing companies, and the cost of absorbing those customers is taken on by the company that wins the bid and also by the industry at large; so the costs are mutualised, but generally it has been seen that there is always continuity of supply. That is a key element of the system.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State clearly believes that the invisible hand of the market will solve all this without his doing anything—but when he talks about customers, does he mean only domestic consumers, or will he ensure that supply continues to keep industry going and jobs secure? In that context, does he think it acceptable that Germany has some 90 days of gas storage while we have only nine days’ worth? Will he also commit himself to ensuring that there are adequate supplies under our control for the future by licensing new gasfields?
Kwasi Kwarteng
We protect domestic consumers in the way I have outlined, but it is fair for the right hon. Gentleman to raise the issue of industrial users of energy in business. He will know that we have schemes that which protect industrial users of energy: we have the energy industry incentive scheme, and yesterday we launched a new tranche of the industrial energy transformation fund with up to £220 million, which enables businesses to bid in for further support.