UK Gas Market

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Steve Baker

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Member knows that I am constantly engaging with the steel sector—in fact, I resuscitated the Steel Council as one of my first acts when I was appointed Secretary of State—and I am always in ongoing conversations with it. I have, I feel, made a contribution to making sure that we can have this industry on a sustainable basis, but I am very happy to talk to the hon. Member, among other colleagues.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Unlike the Opposition parties, my right hon. Friend knows that we cannot just keep spending billions of pounds every time there is a major problem, but I have to say that he also knows that the keys to prosperity through production are prices, profit and loss. May I ask him now to prioritise affordability and security of supply by removing all fiscal and other disincentives to oil and gas exploration, including shale gas, to increase domestic production levels?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have rehearsed the shale gas issue many times on the Floor of the House. As Energy Minister, I was confronted with a situation in which the experiments with shale gas induced a reading of 2.9 on the Richter scale and people’s plates were falling off their walls. They wrote to me to say, “We’ve got to stop this,” and there was a moratorium. There is a moratorium, and I have said very explicitly that when the evidence changes we will look at it, but for now there is a moratorium on shale. However, my hon. Friend knows that I understand and fully appreciate the effect of supply and demand as well—perhaps not as well as he does, but better than the Opposition.

EU Withdrawal Joint Committee: Oversight

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Steve Baker

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. The terms of the withdrawal agreement relate largely to the implementation period. I remind the House that during the implementation period, we will technically be a member state. [Interruption.] During the implementation period, that is the case. After that, the CJEU will have some role in interpreting EU law, but we will be outside its jurisdiction.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Further to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), and since we are treating of matters that are both controversial and complex, may I invite my hon. Friend to commit today—since he must, if he is going to do it—to lay letters and other papers in the House of Commons Library by the rise of the House tomorrow, setting out what the Government know the Committee shall be able to do and shall not be able to do, and the authority for that statement, so that we can all be perfectly clear on the scope and authority of the Committee, and the Government’s view?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The scope, the rules, the jurisdiction, if you like, and the powers of the Joint Committee are very ably set out in the withdrawal agreement. I suggest that my hon. Friend peruses those once again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Steve Baker

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

We recognise that securing tariff-free access is crucial, and it is our policy to seek to do so.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of an implementation period after the UK leaves the EU.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Steve Baker

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am grateful to follow the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). I rise to give the Government my complete support.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

First time.

[Mr Baker]

No, it is not the first time—I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

I want to pick up on what the Secretary of State said—that there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. I will go on to talk about what else might be said, but, first, what has the Prime Minister said? In particular, she has said:

“Our laws made not in Brussels but in Westminster.

Our judges sitting not in Luxembourg but in courts across the land.

The authority of EU law in this country ended forever.”

Of the deal, she has said:

“I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work.

I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services.

I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within the Single Market—and let European businesses do the same here.

But let’s state one thing loud and clear: we are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration all over again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That’s not going to happen.”

So the Prime Minister has said a great deal, and it has been supplemented elsewhere.

One thing I particularly welcome is my right hon. Friend’s work to secure reciprocal rights for those EU citizens currently resident in the UK and for those British citizens currently resident in the EU. What we have learned through the press is that 20 member states seem to have agreed to her framework arrangements, but that the Chancellor of Germany and EU officials at the most senior levels are obstructing that—indifferently and intransigently—when they could actually put people’s minds at ease by agreeing with our Prime Minister.