Energy Costs for Businesses

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, first, of course I very much agree with the noble Earl in wishing to see a reduction in the cost of energy, particularly electricity, for our businesses. We believe that in the long term—and in the medium term, to 2030—clean power is the way to do it. He raises a very important point: one of the responses, as he will have seen in the US, is the linking of heavy energy users, which can be companies such as Amazon, with their data centres, to nuclear power generation through advanced modular reactors. Of course, the other very important issue is getting connections to the grid, which is why the clean power action plan is so important in relation to speeding up those connections.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, following the very helpful reply which the Minister gave during the earlier stages of the Great British Energy Bill on the subject of slave labour, can he say what further consideration he has given to the dilemma of purchasing solar panels that have been made in a state accused by the House of Commons of committing genocide and using slave labour in the Muslim areas of Xinjiang?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as ever, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising these very serious matters and particularly the plight of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, which we have debated. He knows from my response in the Great British Energy Bill that we are looking at this very carefully. He is right that there is a tension, and clearly many of our solar panels come from China with all the attendant issues that this involves. But we have established the Solar Taskforce to look into the issue of supply chain, and we will be taking very seriously the points that the noble Lord has raised.