Coal Tip Safety and New Extraction Licences

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)]

I thank most hon. Members for the tone of the debate. I will return to the shadow Minister’s remarks later.

I thank the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) for securing the debate, and for recognising the context that it sits in. Several hon. Members have done the same. I wish to reflect first, as she did, on the fact that 59 years ago, 116 children and 28 adults lost their lives in Aberfan. I, too, am an MP for a constituency with a legacy of coalmining. In Lanarkshire in Scotland, we know that the hon. Member’s point about coal running through the legacy of people and communities is important. Even generations on from the coalmines in my constituency, I still see the impacts and the outcomes for people right across my community. I entirely understand the point, which is well made.

I thank hon. Members for grounding their remarks in that legacy and for recognising, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) did, how far we have come as a country in phasing out coal, and the importance of the consensus that got us to that point, while paying tribute to those workers, as I pay tribute to the workers in the oil and gas industry who powered the country for 60 years. Recognising the incredibly important role that they played in powering our country is important, but it is equally important to recognise that we have made progress since those days. We should recognise with pride the role that they played, and recognise with pride how good it is that we have moved away from having to put people down coalmines to power our country. I thank hon. Members for that recognition.

The debate had two key themes that I will try to focus on: first, disused coal tips and the funding for them, on which I will reflect, and secondly, the future extraction of coal. The disused coal tips right across Wales are the enduring legacy that people see and experience. Coal tip disasters have left deep scars on many Welsh communities. As many hon. Members have said in this debate, the risks—particularly of climate change and worsening weather conditions leading to incidents in future—are significant. That is partly why we should redouble our efforts to tackle climate change, and there is broad consensus on that, although not from everywhere. It is also why we should do everything that we possibly can to maintain the safety of those coal tips.

We take the situation very seriously. That is why just a few months ago, the Chancellor and the First Minister of Wales visited a coal tip site on the banks of the River Afan near Port Talbot in the historic industrial heart of Wales to see the work that is being done to stabilise a former coal tip. The UK Government and the Welsh Government are working together in partnership to secure coal tip sites, including by providing the funding to which hon. Members have referred.

In the spending review, we announced £118 million of funding to protect Welsh communities, in addition to the £25 million from last year’s autumn Budget. Combined with funding from the Welsh Government, that figure of £143 million increases to £220 million. Some points were made about whether more funding is necessary. We will obviously keep those questions under review, but the suggestion does not always follow that a figure is the way to deliver the necessary work. Yes, we want to be ambitious about we can achieve with this programme. The funding that we have put in place—the £220 million—is what can actually deliver work on the ground at the moment. If there is future ambition in that programme, of course we will look at that. But giving a bigger figure that the Welsh Government, who are on the ground dealing with this, have not asked for, because they do not have capacity to move any quicker on some of these projects, is not an answer to the question. The £220 million has been given to deal with the issue at hand and to move forward with a programme in the fastest way possible, in partnership with others. We will, of course, continue to look at these questions in future.

[Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)]

Given the challenges of having that specific figure in mind, if a future Welsh Government were to ask for the entire cost to be financed by the UK Government, given their historical and moral duty to do so, would the UK Government accept that request?

[Michael Shanks]

First, I should say that I am not the Chancellor. Such questions are rightly for the Chancellor at Budgets and spending reviews. However, I will say, as the Minister responsible for the Coal Authority, that we will look at this. The £600 million figure that was given was a provisional estimate, not a programmed budget. It was based on the very limited information that was available in 2020. A considerable amount of work, particularly on the mapping of these sites, has been done subsequently, and £180 million was given as the realistic amount of funding that could be used to protect communities now.

This needs to be based on evidence. Bandying around bigger figures does not necessarily improve the quality of the programme. The figure at the moment gives a signal of how seriously we take it, but also of the practical funding on the ground, to deliver what we think, based on more detailed information, the actual programme that is necessary. But of course we will always look at requests.

I want to reflect on some other things that have been established. The Disused Tips Authority for Wales will prevent unstable disused tips from threatening welfare. That is an important step forward, and will bring together some key people to deal with the matter. The Mining Remediation Authority, formerly known as the Coal Authority, is one of my Department’s partner bodies and is also playing an active role—in working partnership with the Welsh Government, in an advisory role—to ensure that a risk-based inspection and monitoring programme is in place, which has not been the case in the past.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

The Minister mentions the Mining Remediation Authority. I commend it for the work that it has commenced to address another hazard of our mining legacy: that of metal mines and lead pollution in particular. Does the Minister think that the work we are doing on coal might serve as a template for dealing with the historic legacy and problem of lead mines? Sadly, many of them are located in my constituency.

[Michael Shanks]

That is a very interesting point. I am sure that the Mining Remediation Authority, which I think I am meeting next week, will be delighted to hear the hon. Member’s praise, although perhaps it is also listening to this debate and wondering slightly how it is going to deliver another piece of work. The hon. Member’s point is useful, and I will take it back to colleagues. To date, the MRA has carried out 3,500 inspections, with the higher-rated category D and C tips continuing to be inspected on a six-monthly or annual basis.

Let me turn to the question of licensing. The Mining Remediation Authority currently serves as the licensor for most coal extraction in Great Britain. It is the owner of the UK’s unworked coal reserves. Our manifesto was very clear that we would not grant new coal licences, so we will amend the MRA’s licensing duties. The MRA takes the view that removing coal from tips that are made up of coalmining waste does not fall under the licensable activities defined in its legislation.

Extracting coal from tips does, however, require planning consent, which has to address all the environmental impacts individually. Most coal tips are owned by local authorities or private individuals, who under current legislation are responsible for maintaining their safety and stability. Local authorities have the primary responsibility for tip washing and reclamation schemes, through their planning and enforcement powers. We acknowledge the suggestion to make this type of coal extraction a licensable activity under the MRA, which would allow for a licensing prohibition, but our view is that the current planning policies around the regulations set by devolved Governments already provide robust frameworks.

We are a Government who believe in devolution. We created devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because we believe in devolving power to those authorities, so they are closer to people and to individual circumstances. It is right that we take their lead on these questions. Their firm view is that they can bring into effect the aim of the Welsh Government and the UK Government to make sure that extraction of coal is a thing of the past. Their view is that their existing powers do that.

[Ann Davies]

rose—

[Michael Shanks]

I will not question that process today, but I suspect that the hon. Lady will.

[Ann Davies]

Not at all; I would just like some clarification. The Government announced their intention in November 2024—nearly a year ago now—to introduce a Bill to ban new coalmining licences. Can the Minister tell us exactly when the Government will bring that legislation forward in Parliament?

[Michael Shanks]

I cannot give an exact date, I am afraid, partly because bringing forward legislation is not in the gift of any one Minister, but I can say that it is entirely still our aim to bring forward that ban. To pick up a point made by a couple of other hon. Members, it is also our aim to bring forward a ban on fracking across the country; we will do so as soon as we are able to introduce legislation. We had a Bill in the King’s Speech, and we still intend to bring forward that legislation as soon as possible, but that is dependent on parliamentary time.

I will conclude by addressing the wider context. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire made the point about phasing out coal; the shadow Minister reflected on the same point. To me, one of the great sadnesses of the past year is that we have moved away from a consensus that was so incredibly important for this country. We were a leader on tackling climate change under different Governments, and that was reflected across the world in some of the strongest possible ways, by driving other countries towards ambitious targets of their own.

In September last year, I was at the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the last coal-fired power station in Britain. I had the privilege of being in the control room with the workforce who had been there for decades, as they were switching off coal for the last time. It was a huge achievement, under Labour Governments, Conservative Governments and, briefly, the Liberal Democrat and Conservative Government. That consensus allowed us to move forward as a country, recognising that the future of our planet is important. It saddens me greatly that that consensus does not now exist. We now have a script that is, frankly, one of climate denialism. It also misses the point about the economic opportunity that our country faces.

A few weeks ago, for the first time ever, we powered this country without any fossil fuels at all. That is a huge milestone for us. It is an example of how we can be climate leaders, but also build legacies and communities right across Wales and the UK with good, sustainable jobs—the jobs of the future, not a harking back to a bygone era. It is about securing jobs; as the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) said, it is about renewal, not nostalgia. That is an incredibly important point about building the economic system of the future.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I must come to an end, so that the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin has some time to wind up.

We will deliver on our manifesto commitment not to grant new coal licences. We will continue to build the energy system of the future. We will create good, well-paid jobs across the country. We will be forward-looking—not just delivering for people now and dealing with the legacy of what we built in past decades, but ensuring that we can pass our country and our world to future generations. We need to be safe for the future, with an economic and energy system that is built for the future as well.

All those things come together in our clean power mission and in what we are trying to do. Those who oppose that should recognise that they are against the economic opportunity of the century and against the climate action that is necessary now, not in the future. Together, we can rebuild this consensus. I look forward to working with hon. Members across the House on how we deal with this specific issue, but also on how we rebuild the wider consensus on the future of our planet.

Electricity Infrastructure: Rural Communities

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)]

I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for securing this debate. I have a huge amount of respect for him. He and I sparred at Scotland Office questions when we faced each other from different places in the Chamber. I genuinely take these issues seriously. In his list of quotes, I do not think he will find one in which I have dismissed community concerns. I have said repeatedly in Parliament that I take community concerns seriously, and I have met MPs from across the House to talk about these issues. I have probably had more meetings on these issues than previous Ministers have, so I do take them seriously, but they have to be balanced with ensuring that we are building infrastructure for the country’s future. That balance is difficult, and I will get into that throughout my speech, but I challenge the idea that I do not take these issues seriously, or that I do not respect his constituents’ views, because I do.

I will start with two points on which we agree, and then go on to answer some of the hon. Gentleman’s specific points. First, and most importantly, I will pick up on the point that he and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) made about the role of nuclear, which we should not forget has a hugely important role in our future energy mix. We are extremely ambitious about the role of nuclear and have announced funding for projects across the UK, but unfortunately not in Scotland at this stage. I genuinely hope that position changes soon, because there is huge potential.

A few weeks ago, I visited Torness nuclear power station, which the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk mentioned. I met the workforce, some of whom have been working there for decades. It is long-term, good, well-paid employment, and there is an opportunity on that site to look at the future of new modular reactors. I hope we will have that opportunity, but the SNP Government block us from even considering sites in Scotland at the moment. I hope that will change.

[Jamie Stone]

Is that not ridiculous, given that at Dounreay we have a skilled workforce, a fully licensed site and a local population that would warmly support new nuclear?

[Michael Shanks]

It is entirely ridiculous; the hon. Member is absolutely right. The thing about nuclear is that it often builds communities around it that respect the role it plays in the energy mix. Generations of people have worked at these power stations—they often start as apprentices and are still there decades later—so we do not disagree on that point. We should be building nuclear in Scotland, and I hope the SNP either loses in May so that we can change the position, or that the SNP changes its position. There are no SNP Members here today to answer that point.

The second point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk is the role of rooftop solar. We will be saying much more about that, but in the solar road map, we are clear that we should be building on every rooftop possible. It is a no-brainer, and there is support right across the country for it. Wherever we can put solar panels on rooftops—warehouses, car parks, supermarkets and so on—we should. That is why, in England, we have been funding schools and hospitals to do so. We would have liked to do it in Scotland as well, but once again the Scottish Government did not want to partner with us on that project, so it is for them to take that forward.

I will now reflect on what we are trying to achieve, because it is important not to forget the overall ambition for where our energy system needs to be. Every piece of infrastructure that we build across the country, whether it is wind turbines, solar panels or network infrastructure, is critical to protecting this country from future price spikes, like those that have hit households so much.

However, on infrastructure and the network in particular, there is a wider question about decades of under-investment in our grid, which has been holding back not just our energy system from working as we would want but economic growth. I gently challenge the hon. Gentleman’s points on AI and data centres. I understand the challenge they present, but they are also a huge economic opportunity. Right across the country, we are seeing good economic growth prospects being closed down because we do not have the grid connections that would allow them to be switched on. They are going to other countries as a result, so we need to fix this issue.

Delivering any infrastructure, whether it is energy, prisons or hospitals, involves tough choices, trade-offs and local impacts. That is precisely why we have a robust planning system. It is not a cop-out to say that I am not responsible for planning decisions in Scotland, and the hon. Gentleman knows that. It is for the Scottish Government to answer for the planning and consenting decisions they have made in Scotland, but every individual project is assessed independently and fairly through the Scottish planning system for proposals in Scotland.

If there are specific points about consultations not being done effectively, I am very happy to receive correspondence on that from the hon. Gentleman. It is for the Scottish Government, as part of their planning process, to follow that through, but I am happy to facilitate the exchange of that information.

[Wendy Morton]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I will just finish this point, as I have very brief time. It is right that the consultation is genuine and that people have a voice in what happens. I will give way very briefly, but I have only four minutes.

[Mike Martin]

In Wales, companies such as Bute Energy and Green GEN Cymru, which are both owned by Windward Energy Ltd, are prompting local concerns that the rules separating electricity generation and distribution are being undermined by corporate restructuring tricks. Is the Minister confident that Ofgem’s rules will deliver operational independence?

[Michael Shanks]

I am, and I am always happy to have more conversations with Ofgem about its regulatory role. If the hon. Gentleman has specific things he wants to raise, I am happy to follow up. I will not give way again, as we have very short time.

While it is absolutely right that communities should have a voice in this, should be able to scrutinise planning applications, should be able to object and should be able to understand how those objections affect the proposals, it is also right that we recognise as a country that we have to build infrastructure and that it has to be built somewhere. That is vital for our energy security and for the future of our country.

The grid has suffered from decades of under-investment. The legacy means we are constraining the amount of cheap, clean power we have in our system. Upgrading and expanding the electricity grid is not optional. The reason I challenge some of what the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk said earlier is because a number of his proposals were not in the previous Government’s plan for the future of the energy grid. It was the previous Government who said that we need a great British grid upgrade, and they outlined many of the plans that are now being delivered across the country. Undergrounding was not a feature of those plans either.

It is critical that our current grid, which was largely built in the 1960s and was not designed to handle the type of power generation or electricity demand we have now, is upgraded. In 2023, the previous Government estimated that four times as much transmission infrastructure would need to be built by the end of the decade as had been built by 1990. This is not a Labour Government plan; it is the previous Conservative Government’s plan.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the role of NESO, and I want to reflect on the point that he and other hon. Members rightly make that strategically planning the future of our energy system has been a significant failure. The truth is that decades ago, under the previous Labour and Conservative Governments, we should have more holistically planned the future of our energy system to make sure we get the most out of it, and to make sure that we are building the least possible amount of network infrastructure. That work was not done, so NESO is now leading the strategic spatial energy plan to make sure that, across the country, we have a holistic view of what our future energy system should look like.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I will not give way; sorry.

That will also include a centralised network plan so that we have a network that fits generation across the country, and so that we build as little as possible while still getting the most out of the energy system.

In the minute or two I have left, I want to say that we recognise the point about community benefits. Because of the network infrastructure, electricity is flowing through communities that do not necessarily understand the benefit they get from it. First, cheaper power in the system brings down everyone’s bills, so it is in all of our interest. Secondly, we have recognised the problem, which is why we have introduced community benefits for households directly affected by transmission infrastructure—the first time we have done that as a country. There is money off bills for people who have infrastructure in their locality, and there are also community benefits for substations and other infrastructure. That is currently commonplace for onshore wind and solar, but not for network infrastructure. We want to change that so there is a direct benefit from this infrastructure.

We need to be honest about the scale of the challenge we face as a country. We cannot meet future electricity demand without building grid infrastructure. I am sorry to say that means it has to be built somewhere. There is no magical third place where we can build infrastructure. We want to work with communities to make sure it is done with them, wherever possible, and so they benefit from it, but ultimately the whole country benefits when we have a functioning grid that delivers cheap, clean, secure electricity to people’s homes and businesses.

I have 20 seconds left, but I am very happy to meet the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, as I am genuinely happy to meet Members on both sides of the House. It is important that we do this with communities. I want to hear their concerns and questions. That does not mean it will always be possible to do exactly what every community wants, but I am happy to have those conversations. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk for securing this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage: UK Accession

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)]

I am writing to inform the House of the UK’s accession to a further international nuclear third-party liability (NTPL) treaty, the convention on supplementary compensation for nuclear damage (CSC). On 3 October 2025, the UK deposited its instrument of accession with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Under the provisions of the convention, the CSC will enter into force 90 days following the deposit of the instrument, on 1 January 2026.

The domestic implementing legislation for the CSC is set out in the Energy Act 2023, which amends the Nuclear Installations Act 1965. Minor technical changes were made by the Nuclear Installations (Compensation for Nuclear Damage) (Amendment) Regulations 2025. The CSC was laid before Parliament on 30 June 2025, under cover of Miscellaneous Series No. 4 (2025), and completed scrutiny on 10 September 2025.

Nuclear power is a reliable and low-carbon source of electricity. It is an essential part of this Government’s mission to protect family finances and replace the UK’s dependency on fossil fuel markets with home-grown power that we control. NTPL treaties bring benefits to the nuclear sector and potential victims as they establish minimum compensation thresholds which operators have financial security to cover, assign liability exclusively to the operator of the nuclear installation, and channel claims to the jurisdiction where the incident occurs.

The UK will remain party to the Paris convention on third-party liability in the field of nuclear energy and the Brussels convention supplementary to the Paris convention on third-party liability in the field of nuclear energy—or the Brussels supplementary convention. Accession to the CSC will enhance the UK’s NTPL regime by establishing NTPL treaty relations with the 11 contracting parties to the CSC, thus further removing potential barriers to investment and supporting UK exports.

The CSC establishes a shared international fund of supplementary compensation for victims of a nuclear incident, which is made up of contributions from contracting parties to the convention based on their installed nuclear capacity and UN rate of assessment. At present, assuming UK membership of the convention, the shared international fund would be valued at approximately £120 million, with the UK’s contribution at approximately £6.6 million. This would create a contingent liability on HM Government that could crystallise in the event of a nuclear incident in a contracting party to the convention. In the unlikely event of an incident in another contracting party, said contracting party could call on the UK to make its contribution of £6.6 million to the shared international fund once that party’s national minimum compensation amount has been exhausted.

Additionally, should an incident occur in the UK, HM Government may be required to compensate victims up to the value of the shared international fund of approximately £120 million. However, in the event of a civil incident, the UK would be able to call on the shared international fund for the contributions from the other contracting parties to the convention, thus significantly offsetting the value of the contingent liability to the value of the UK’s contribution to the shared international fund—i.e. approximately £6.6 million. To date, there have been no calls on this fund. Further details are available in the departmental minute also submitted to the house.

This contingent liability will be incurred on the day the treaty enters into force in the UK, which will be 1 January 2026.

[HCWS946]

Great British Energy: Strategic Priorities

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

Great British Energy (GBE) is central to this Government’s mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower and will play a pivotal role in accelerating the deployment of clean, secure, home-grown energy as the UK’s publicly owned clean energy company. GBE is putting energy back into the hands of the British public, enabling the benefits of the clean energy transition to flow back into communities, households and businesses, to protect billpayers for good.

At the spending review, the Government confirmed over £8.3 billion in capitalisation for GBE and Great British Energy Nuclear. The statement of strategic priorities—"the statement”— now sets out the Secretary of State’s vision for how Great British Energy should contribute to the mission. It does so by identifying two core objectives for GBE:

Drive clean energy deployment across the whole of the UK, as a strategic developer, investor, and owner of clean energy projects.

Ensure that UK taxpayers, billpayers, communities, and the current energy workforce benefit from the clean energy transition by increasing public ownership and community involvement in the development of clean energy projects, and by supporting jobs and economic growth across the UK.

The statement provides strategic direction by specifying that GBE should focus on three core groups of activities to deliver on GBE’s objectives:

The statement outlines the key principles for intervention. Underpinning these principles for intervention is a requirement for GBE to ensure that its portfolio of activities and investments is additional. The statement also outlines GBE’s long-term goal to become financially self-sustaining, and the importance of setting a clear path towards profitability with a plan for self-financing to be in place by 2030.

Partnerships with the private sector and other public sector organisations will be critical to GBE’s ability to deliver on its core objectives. The statement therefore provides detail on how GBE should work collaboratively with private and public sector organisations. This includes local and devolved governments, the National Wealth Fund, The Crown Estate and Great British Energy-Nuclear.

The statement also sets out the Secretary of State’s expectation that GBE put in place a robust corporate governance framework which adheres to corporate transparency principles.

GBE is foundational to this Government’s mission to bring energy security, protect billpayers, create good jobs and help protect future generations, and will be a key player in establishing the energy system of the future. In doing so, Great British Energy will demonstrate how modern public ownership can deliver a dynamic state which works with industry, workers, unions and local and devolved Governments to accelerate the clean energy transition and deliver benefits for citizens across the UK.

[HCWS925]

Significant Energy Infrastructure Projects: Suffolk Coast

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

Thank you, Sir John, for recognising that my role is exactly the same and yet somehow changed in title. I am grateful still to be the Energy Minister, because, as I often say in this place, the debates that we have are always hugely interesting and bring in so many different aspects of how we plan our future energy system. Indeed, you and I, Sir John, have had many conversations about this particular issue.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) for securing this debate and for her contribution. She and I have had a number of conversations about this issue. Let me say at the outset that I actually agree with her on the need for better co-ordination—I have said that many times here and to her personally. I think it is a source of deep regret for all of us—I think the previous Government will look back on this as well—that we did not more properly co-ordinate what has been a huge build-out of new, important infrastructure.

As my hon. Friend said, the previous Government vacated the space of leadership in planning the future of our energy system. That was not because it was an impossible task; I can only assume it was because they thought it was too difficult to do. We have grasped that task in the 14 months that we have been in office. I will talk a bit more about that later.

I want to start with a bit of context, which is important. My hon. Friend also mentioned this point. We are committed as a Government to building things in this country again. For far too long, under both Labour and Conservative Governments, we have held back a lot of critical infrastructure. The plan for delivering economic growth across the country does require us to build infrastructure. Energy infrastructure is going to be absolutely key, not least because even if we were not on the journey to clean power, which is critical, we would still be having to upgrade much of the energy infrastructure, particularly the transmission network, which has been so under-invested in over the past 50 or 60 years.

Our mission as a Government is to move towards clean power, making sure that we deliver our energy security; and every wind turbine, solar panel and nuclear power station that we build protects us from future energy shocks and delivers our energy security here at home. So, it is a critical mission.

New energy infrastructure—indeed, new infrastructure of any kind—is always controversial in some circumstances; there are always impacts and there are always differing views about whether it should be built or not. That is why we have a planning system that seeks to balance the pros and cons of applications against a framework that sets out, as a country, that we have to build things somewhere. So, the planning system is there to make sure that the planning process is rigorous and open, but ultimately so that we make decisions and build things.

For obvious reasons, I will not comment on individual planning applications; they will be decided in due course in the usual way. However, I will make a fundamental point about why we are on this journey and why we think that building this infrastructure is so important. The reason is that the only way to reduce our exposure to the volatility of fossil fuels is to build a new clean power system. That means new nuclear, renewables and storage working together to bring down bills and tackle the climate crisis.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal is aware of the NSIP regime, but for the purposes of the hordes of people that I am sure are watching this debate at home, let me say a little about it. The “nationally significant” in NSIP—nationally significant infrastructure project—is really important for us to recognise. The reason we have an NSIP process is that some decisions have to be made that local communities might not be able to make in isolation because they are of critical national importance, whether that is in transport, water or energy projects. It is important that we have this process and it is a robust process, involving the Planning Inspectorate, and various statutory bodies such as national environment bodies. Projects are judged on a case-by-case basis, weighed against the local impacts, be they environmental, economic or social. The need for this process is set out for all to see in local and national planning policy, and of course national policy statements are scrutinised by this place before being agreed.

When an applicant submits an application for a development consent order or DCO, the Planning Inspectorate, particularly for energy NSIPs, will appoint an independent inspector to examine the application. A recommendation will be made to the Secretary of State about whether permission should be given and the Secretary of State makes the final decision; that decision might be made by a junior Minister on their behalf, but the law states that the decision is still in the name of the Secretary of State. Such applications are considered against the relevant national policy statements as approved by Parliament, which make the case for infrastructure and all the various considerations that have to be made.

Cumulative impact is an issue that my hon. Friend raised with me today, and that a number of hon. Friends have raised with me previously. I know that it is a particular concern. Projects must consider their cumulative impact as part of their applications. Also, the local authority that hosts the infrastructure and surrounding local authorities—given that often these projects are on the borders with other local authorities—are invited to submit impact reports as part of the process, to ensure that the potential impacts of an individual project are taken into account, based on local knowledge.

Of course, there are also opportunities for local communities to have a say. Members of the public can get involved not just in the planning application itself, but in the pre-consultation process and in the discussions before applications emerge. They can also register through the Planning Inspectorate during the pre-examination phase.

On planning reform, we are mindful as a Government that the planning process can take much longer than we think it should. Let me say at the outset that that is not about trying to get to the decision that one particular group might want; it is about getting to any kind of decision much faster, so that instead of projects and communities being held up for year after year, with people not knowing whether something will proceed or not, decisions are made.

The average time to secure development consent for NSIPs has increased from 2.6 years in 2012 to 3.6 years in 2024. Such delays cost a vast amount of money—£1.5 million a month for some large projects—and that of course impacts taxpayers and bill payers, who foot the bill for these projects.

There is always a balance to be struck, as we have said throughout the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Of course we want communities to have a say and we want the process to be as robust as possible, but we need to get decisions and end the uncertainty as quickly as possible, and the Bill will be key to improving the process. Our reforms are about trying to make sure that the system is flexible, proportionate and responsive to Government priorities. The Government must deliver the change on which we were elected; in the energy space, that means building the clean power system of the future. The planning system should reflect the priorities of the democratically elected Government of the day.

Public engagement is key to this process. We want communities to participate in the planning system, but as I will come back to in a moment when I talk about strategic planning, we also want communities to have a say much earlier in the process. It is not just about individual applications, but about the whole question of infrastructure in communities more generally. We are consulting on further proposals to streamline the NSIP process, including for new guidance on engagement following proposals in the Bill to remove statutory pre-application consultation requirements, and we encourage feedback from communities. We are also keen to hear views on the practical next steps and on how the system will actually work. I understand that the consultation is now open and will close at the end of October.

On the siting of energy projects, I agree with my hon. Friend that we should be much more strategic as a country in considering what the future of our energy system should look like, and in planning holistically what infrastructure should be built and where. She made a powerful point about the sheer amount in her part of the country. Had we been strategically planning a decade or so ago, we might have avoided some of those planning decisions, so it is important that we take this step. I regret the fact that we have not done so for the past few decades, but we are moving forward with a strategic view as quickly as possible.

The problem with being the Minister for Energy Security is that we are not short of acronyms—let me just go through some of them. The strategic spatial energy plan, or SSEP, and the centralised strategic network plan, or CSNP, are two crucial parts of how we will provide a holistic design much more carefully. The strategic spatial energy plan is about looking at the whole of Great Britain and how we map out the future of our energy system, and it will be published by the end of 2026—there is work going on at the moment. The centralised strategic network plan will follow, so that we can work out what infrastructure we need on the grid in order to meet the strategic spatial energy plan, and it will be published by the end of 2027.

This is about taking a much more active planning role in the future of energy right across England, Scotland and Wales, both inland and at sea. My hon. Friend rightly brings both of those things from her constituency into this discussion. It will be about assessing the optimal locations for things and the type of energy infrastructure that we need in the future. We must look beyond a developer’s five or 10-year plan and ensure that we meet future energy demand, knowing that it will significantly increase in the years ahead.

The centralised strategic network plan will build on the SSEP by ensuring that our transmission infrastructure meets the need and, crucially, is co-ordinated. My hon. Friend made that point very powerfully, and I was in Denmark last week to talk about this very question with EU Energy Ministers. The North sea is already congested with a lot of infrastructure, and the only way we will effectively plan the future of the North sea— for a whole range of uses, from fishing and energy to carbon capture and storage—is by working together. We will be part of much more co-ordination on the infrastructure in the North sea.

It all feeds into my hon. Friend’s point: we will only get this right by having a holistic view and enabling the efficient and co-ordinated use of infrastructure. That is better for communities affected by this issue directly, but we can also bring down the cost of building infrastructure if we plan it more coherently. That will benefit every person right across the country.

[James Naish]

The Minister describes something that I am extremely passionate about, as he knows, but it is a very top-down approach. I wonder whether we simultaneously need a bottom-up approach that engages with communities via local authorities in order to look at what land is available and how it could be used. Is that not something that we could do side by side with the vital strategic approach that he describes?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend foresees what I was going to say. I was just about to come on to his earlier intervention, which was really important. He is right about the need for infrastructure plans to be generated by communities and bottom-up. We need to take a national view of the future of the energy system as well, but I think both can work together.

The third great part of this planning is the regional energy plans. We also see a place, on a very localised level, for the local energy plans that many local authorities and combined mayoral authorities are working on, but the regional plans break up the whole of Great Britain into smaller areas so that we can look in detail at what energy can be sited in different areas, and crucially, at how the two kinds of plan can work together—the Government’s land use framework for the future use of land in the country alongside the capability and interest from communities to host infrastructure as well. I hope that we are doing that, but my hon. Friend should continue to bring that challenge to the Government, because it is something that we are committed to doing. I am confident that he will do so, which is great.

Let me finish on a point around the impact on communities. We do not want to get to a place where the future energy system is something that is done to communities, and we recognise that the failure of strategic planning across the country has meant that that is all too often what it has felt like for communities. We have a role to play in ensuring that, where communities do host important energy infrastructure, they benefit from it. Hosting such infrastructure benefits the whole country—without a resilient energy system, we all lose out, and we will not deliver the economic growth that we need—but the communities that host this infrastructure should feel a benefit from doing so.

That is why, in March, we announced two community benefit initiatives, guidance on community funds for communities that host this key infrastructure, and a bill discount scheme for households that are sited in proximity to new transmission infrastructure. The guidance sets out our expectations for how communities hosting that infrastructure should benefit. We will have more to say as the bill discount scheme is developed through secondary legislation, but that is an important statement: people should directly benefit, through money off their bills, if they are doing the country a favour by hosting that infrastructure. In May we also published a working paper on wider questions around community benefits, to make sure that other types of energy infrastructure also benefit communities.

In conclusion, I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal for securing the debate. I know that we will continue to have these conversations. In this job I sometimes wish, for a number of reasons, that we could turn back the clock and do things slightly differently. I have been told repeatedly that, unfortunately, that is not an option, although I continue to push for it. Strategic planning is one of those regrets. As a country, whatever the political view, we will look back and wish that we had planned our energy system more holistically across the country. We are doing that. That does not change some of the decisions that have been made and some of the decisions that are in the system now, but it will allow us to build a more holistic system in the future.

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

Will the Minister meet me to talk about what more co-ordination can happen now through the projects that are live, in the way that I set out in my speech?

[Michael Shanks]

I am always happy to meet any hon. Member from either side of the House, and I do regularly, but I will certainly meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. For obvious reasons, it is difficult to comment on specific applications in the system, but I am happy to meet her.

Let me finish with a general point that brings us back to our national mission. As a country, we must move quickly to replace a 19th-century fossil fuel-based energy system with a system that is fit for the 21st century. Even if we were not on that mission, the huge increase in demand for electricity necessitates the building of more energy infrastructure across the country. We must make the change that we are making to bring down bills and benefit consumers, to benefit our national energy security in an increasingly uncertain world, and to tackle climate change. Anyone who says that we can get by with not building any infrastructure is quite wrong.

Since time began, there has been opposition to any pieces of infrastructure built in any part of the country, but we must as a country recognise that, for us to deliver on the outcomes we want as a Government and improve people’s lives, we have to build infrastructure across the country. We want to do that in partnership with communities, to ensure that we do so in as well planned and strategic a way as possible, and to ensure that communities that host such infrastructure genuinely benefit from it. There is much more work to do, and I look forward to engaging with hon. Members on these difficult questions so that we can find the right solution for the country and local communities. I thank my hon. Friend once again for securing the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Hydrogen Supply Chains

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts—and to still be here as the Energy Minister. It is the only Government job that I wanted to do, which is perhaps just as well given how the reshuffle has landed, so it is genuinely a pleasure.

As I have often said, these debates are a great example not only of how we come together to talk about quite complex topics relating to the energy system, but of how this part of Parliament works. I always come out of these debates having learned something, as the shadow Minister said. Sometimes it is quite a niche fact that I am not quite sure what I will do with. I always learn a huge amount from my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins), given his detailed knowledge of the industry and its practical application, which is often lost in our debates. I thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish), who also worked in the energy sector, and whose constituency was home to Britain’s last coal power station, the closure of which I attended last year. His understanding of the importance of the transition and the potential of future clean energy technologies is hugely welcome.

It has been an interesting debate not least because, as the shadow Minister said, we have had a degree of consensus. We once had consensus on quite a lot of things in respect of the future of our energy system, but that has somehow changed in the last few months. I will leave it to others to judge why that is, but it is really important that, given the huge opportunities for the future of the country and for thousands of jobs, there is a degree of consensus. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said, we get things done when there is a degree of consensus, and that is hugely welcome. The hon. Gentleman referred to Joule’s law on the loss of power, which I think, if my standard grade physics holds up, is P = I²R,. I am sure people will correct me when that is typed up in Hansard.

Let me say a bit about our commitment to hydrogen before I respond to some specific points. We have been clear that hydrogen will play a fundamental role in the future of our energy system. Not only is it a crucial part of how we decarbonise heavy industry and transport, which are among our most energy-intensive and hardest-to-decarbonise sectors, but it is, as many Members have pointed out, part of our work to provide large-scale storage for our baseload of year-round clean power. As the Government have set out in everything we do, our mission to achieve clean power by 2030 and to maintain that relates to tackling the climate crisis, delivering energy security and reducing our dependence on unstable, volatile fossil fuel markets. How we take back control of our energy supply and storage will clearly be a critical part of that. It can also help us to reduce system costs as both electricity demand and renewable generation increase.

There are other great other examples of the use of hydrogen. The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) made the really interesting point that the world’s first hydrogen double-decker bus was made in North Antrim, which I had not realised. As the shadow Minister pointed out, there are challenges around how we maintain such innovation and make sure that it continues to work in the future. Last week I was in Denmark to meet European Energy Ministers. It was really interesting to see examples there, as well as at the port of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, of where infrastructure is being rolled out, while facing some of the same challenges about how we achieve the scale that makes it competitive. That is part of the work we will have to do.

We are acting now to seize the economic and industrial benefits of the hydrogen sector, which is why we have been not only pushing forward on our policy framework but trying to make clear our ambition. There is much more to be said about that, but there has been industrial and investor interest in our hydrogen allocation round programme. The first HAR1 projects are now putting spades in the ground, with the first wave expected to access more than £2 billion over the next 15 years in revenue support from the hydrogen production business model, and over £90 million in capital from the net zero hydrogen fund. Over £400 million of private capital has been committed up front for 2024 to 2026, with more than 700 direct jobs created in construction and operation. Those are among the first commercial-scale hydrogen projects in the world to take a final investment decision, and we expect them to become operational between this year and April 2028. That will kick-start our green hydrogen production at scale.

Following the success of HAR1, we expect to announce successful projects in the second hydrogen allocation round in early 2026. The current shortlist includes innovative projects that could support ammonia production in Shetland, produce new clean energy at Grangemouth and decarbonise lime kilns—one of the first steps in cement production—in the Humber area. Moving forward, in June this year we published our industrial strategy, which set out plans for the further hydrogen allocation rounds, HAR3 and HAR4, for our first regional hydrogen network, and for the launch of the hydrogen-to-power business model in 2026.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester talked about the crucial role that storage will play in the renewable energy we are building. The question of how we store that for when we need it is crucial. We laid out our plans in the industrial strategy, backed up by the spending review, with £500 million for hydrogen infrastructure, partly to look at how we unlock hydrogen’s potential for clean power and provide home-grown energy and good jobs. We also have an ambition to deploy the first regional hydrogen transport and storage network, to become operational from 2031, which will aim to connect producers with vital end users such as power for the first time. This will unlock hydrogen’s role in clean power and help to realise the potential of large-scale hydrogen storage in maximising renewable energy use to support the transition to a decarbonised energy system. We are also currently designing a hydrogen storage business model, alongside a hydrogen transport business model, with the intention of providing investors with the long-term revenue certainty that many Members have raised in the debate.

There is no doubt that the clean energy transition is the economic opportunity of the 21st century. This is about not just our energy security but, as many hon. Friends have pointed out, how we deliver the good, well-paid, trade-unionised jobs of the future. It is about how we reindustrialise communities that have for too long been left behind. The UK is well placed to be a global leader not only in hydrogen deployment but, crucially, in making sure that we capitalise on the supply chains, which is where we get the jobs, given the shared skills, experiences and qualifications in the existing oil and gas sector, our strengths in advanced manufacturing and innovation, and the policy environment we have set out.

We have taken significant steps to attract inward investment, and the public finance tools set out in the clean energy industries sector plan will play a crucial role. We have also looked at the question of skills, which a number of Members raised earlier. The Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young), made the point very well. The hydrogen skills framework, which we published just a few months ago in April, is an open-source framework to try to enable the development of new qualifications and training programmes, in conjunction with industry, to make sure that we are bringing forward the apprenticeships and the skilled workers of the future.

We are also making sure that companies can access international markets and collaborate with global partners. We want to build a domestic success story by exporting hydrogen equipment and services across the world and reinforcing their role in global hydrogen supply chains, with the UK set to benefit from being right at the forefront of that work.

As the sector grows, we want to make sure that it benefits from the comprehensive public finance offers that we have set out. I will cover that briefly, because we have debated many of these things in the past. Part of that includes Great British Energy, with its £1 billion clean energy supply chain fund, which will be aligned with the clean energy industries sector plan to support companies that have the potential to grow in supply chains.

We have empowered the National Wealth Fund with a total of £27.8 billion in capital to enable it to take on higher-risk investments, including equity. It will invest in capital-intensive projects, businesses and assets, with at least £5.8 billion on carbon capture, low-carbon hydrogen, gigafactories, ports and green steel over the lifetime of this Parliament. We have also launched £4 billion in British Business Bank industrial strategy capital to scale up the financing package, and we introduced the clean industry bonus following the success in the round that we have just concluded. We are looking at whether we should expand that to hydrogen, and we will consult on that in due course.

We will continue to do all that we can to put the UK at the forefront of the global hydrogen revolution and thereby unlock billions of investment, create new-generation jobs, build the infrastructure and drive the clean growth that we—there seems to have been consensus today—all want to see. This autumn, we will publish the UK hydrogen strategy, which will be evidence-led, impact-focused and designed on the premise of fast-tracking delivery.

Since the publication of the last hydrogen strategy four years ago, the landscape has evolved significantly. Electrification technologies have moved on rapidly, pointing to a more focused and essential role for hydrogen, complementing the electrification that we will see in so much of our energy system. The new strategy will sharpen our priorities, deepen collaboration with industry, which is key to this, and seek to unlock the full potential of hydrogen over the next decade.

[Jamie Stone]

Does the Minister agree that we should at least check the proposed grid improvements against the possible strategic sites where hydrogen could be made?

[Michael Shanks]

My very next point was on the future of the network. It wasn’t, actually, but I will come to it now, because the hon. Gentleman made a very good point, which I meant to come back to. He is right, of course, that we need to invest in the grid—even if we were not embarking on this clean power mission, the grid is very much in need of upgrading—but we want to take the strategic planning of that much more seriously than it has been taken in the past.

We know that we need to build significant amounts of grid—the hon. Gentleman recognised the importance of that—but we also want to plan the future of the energy system strategically so that the grid follows a logical way to build out the energy system. His point about trying to make use of the abundance of clean energy to transfer it into hydrogen as an off-taker was well made. It will feed into the work on the strategic spatial energy plan. It is about how we best use all the energy system to our advantage. It is also about how we can reduce things like constraint payments and make use of it as efficiently as possible. That is an important point that we will take forward.

To conclude, our vision is clear: a thriving low-carbon hydrogen economy—one that decarbonises those hard-to-electrify sectors, strengthens our energy security and fuels good jobs and growth across the country—is at the heart of the Government’s mission.

[Jim Shannon]

I asked a question about the opportunity for apprentices. I know that the Government are committed to that; I have never had any doubt about that, but I want us to show where the opportunities may be. I know that the Minister is also committed to ensuring that all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can take advantage.

[Michael Shanks]

A key part of my conclusion was the useful challenge that there always is from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about ensuring that we represent all parts of the United Kingdom. He was right to point out earlier that it is a beautiful part of the country to visit. I confess I have still never been to Strangford, but there is still time.

The hon. Member is right on two other fronts. First, the skills strategy is all about unlocking the next generation of workers. We need to inspire people in school right now to see that we want them to be at the heart of the energy system of the future, and apprenticeships are crucial for doing that. We will create tens of thousands of jobs in the sector, but as part of that there has to be investment in apprenticeships. On his wider point, he knows that I enjoy the engagement with Ministers in devolved Governments across the country. We work closely with the Northern Ireland Executive. As I always say, the energy system is transferred in Northern Ireland, but there is a huge number of areas where we can learn from each other and work together to ensure that the people in Northern Ireland and Great Britain benefit from what we are trying to achieve, and we will continue to do that.

To conclude my conclusion, unless anyone else wants to intervene, we are firm in our commitment to working with industry. There is a huge opportunity here. This is an exciting moment for us to recognise—as we are doing with small modular reactors and with floating offshore wind—that we have the potential to be at the forefront of the next great thing in our energy system. It requires the strategy that we are putting in place and the long-term confidence for investment, and we will continue to work hand in hand with industry, investors, innovators, workers—

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I will not, because I am just about to conclude. We will work with workers and trade unions to turn this vision into reality and ensure that every part of the UK benefits from the potential of growth and jobs in hydrogen and in securing our energy system for the future. I again thank all Members for this hugely constructive debate. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester for the way he introduced it and for the knowledge and experience that he brings to all these matters.

Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill (Instructions)

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)]

I start by paying tribute to several people across this House from a number of different parties. When I arrived here last year, I could tell they had already been working hard on this issue, including my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). There is consensus across the House that this huge injustice must be righted. The question, as we have heard from a number of people, is how that is done in Scotland, and that is what I want to speak to briefly.

I want to make two points. First, there is the question of speed, which we have heard about a number of times, but more importantly, there is the question of accountability. Accountability is important. The Scottish Parliament has responsibility for justice in Scotland. Scotland has always had a separate legal system—since long before the Scottish Parliament was re-established—and, as we have heard, there are the questions of the Lord Advocate’s position, of how convictions were taken forward not by the Post Office by but by the Crown, of the basis of evidence used—

[Marion Fellows]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

May I make a bit of progress? I will then give way.

There is also the question of the evidence used around corroboration. There are differences in the convictions.

More importantly, the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw spoke about one of the organisations involved—the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which she rightly said was the body that brought cases for review in Scotland—but she did not mention the accountability aspect. The commission was created by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, is responsible to the Scottish Parliament and gets its budget from the Scottish Government. There is a clear line of accountability between the Scottish Justice Secretary, the Scottish Government and the bodies responsible for reviewing these convictions, so the accountability is clearly with the Scottish Parliament.

[Joanna Cherry]

May I put it to the hon. Gentleman that he is completely misunderstanding what we are dealing with? We are dealing with absolutely extraordinary legislation that is quashing convictions as a gateway to compensation. Giving us a lecture of dubious accuracy on the lines of accountability of the Crown Office in Scotland does not address that. This legislation is going over the head of the Crown Prosecution Service in England, just as it would go over the head of the Crown Office in Scotland. Why cannot he appreciate that point? Is it because he is playing politics with the issue, like his Front-Bench colleagues?

[Michael Shanks]

The suggestion of dubious lectures coming from the Scottish National party is slightly misguided. I accept the point that the legislation goes above normal legal precedent, but there is no reason why the Scottish Parliament could not invoke its emergency Bill procedures as it has done in the past, recognising that this is an extraordinary situation.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) clearly does not understand how prosecutions are done in the UK—sorry, in England. [Interruption.] Well, not in England. In England, the Post Office took the prosecutions—they never went through the CPS. In Scotland, they did actually go through the Crown Office and the Advocate General. That is the difference. In terms of where decisions were taken and the people who reviewed cases before they went to court, the cases are not similar.

[Michael Shanks]

That is absolutely right. The key point is that there is no question about the Post Office being held to account for the institutional levels of cover-up—

[Marion Fellows]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Shanks]

May I just make the point and then I will give way? The Post Office must be held to account for that institutional cover-up, and it is the responsibility of this place and the inquiry to look into that, but the prosecutions in Scotland were taken forward by the Crown Office, which is responsible to the Scottish Parliament. That is the point that I am making about accountability.

[Marion Fellows]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that accountable for all of this is Post Office Ltd, which is wholly owned by the UK Government as its single shareholder, and that the UK Government took their eye off the ball, did not follow through, and took years to admit that there was a problem in the first place, and that if the UK Government caused this, they should fix it?

[Michael Shanks]

I am happy to agree with the hon. Lady about the responsibility of Post Office Ltd—I said that a few moments ago—but the prosecutions based on that Post Office evidence were taken forward by the Crown Office. There is responsibility to go around here. [Interruption.] I will just answer the point, if that is okay.

The evidence absolutely came from a flawed system, and Post Office Ltd must be held to account. That does not deal with how prosecutions in Scotland were taken forward not just on evidence from Horizon but with corroboration from other sources.

[Patricia Gibson]

I wonder whether the hon. Member shares my distaste at some of the things said in the Chamber today, including that we cannot bring this legislation forward in Parliament today because some of the postmasters in Scotland might indeed be guilty of theft and that we have to tread carefully. That bar has not been placed on postmasters elsewhere in the UK.

[Michael Shanks]

I would share that distaste, but those comments were reflecting what the Lord Advocate has said. I have letters from the Lord Advocate in my hand that repeat that point a number of times. Of course, the Lord Advocate sits around the Cabinet table with, I think—I will need to check—the current First Minister, Humza Yousaf.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Michael Shanks]

No. I have taken a lot of interventions and am going to make a bit of progress.

My second point is about timing. I do not accept the SNP’s argument at all that the timing is an issue. I have heard the Minister make the point on a number of occasions that the compensation regime will be available to people who have been exonerated—by whatever means that is—at the moment they are exonerated, so there is no question about that.

On the point about the Scottish Parliament not being able to rush through legislation, it does not have the same processes as the Northern Ireland Assembly—it does not have to go through a lengthy consultation process—so it could introduce a Bill tomorrow and have it passed before there is a vote on any of the confidence motions on Thursday. Indeed, in 2020, the Scottish Parliament passed an emergency Bill on covid—a considerably more difficult piece of legislation, stretching to 138 pages—in just two days, and the idea that this Bill is somehow more complicated than that is ridiculous.

There is no reason why the Scottish Parliament cannot take responsibility and introduce a Bill now. Indeed, if there was a question about not being able to finalise the Bill until the UK Bill had passed, the Scottish Parliament could take it all the way to the final amendment stage and amend it as necessary. But actually, again, the Minister has said that the Scottish Bill does not have to mirror directly the UK legislation for people to have access to the same compensation, which is what the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw and I both want to see.

If the SNP is unwilling to act in the Scottish Parliament to introduce the Bill, my colleague Michael Marra MSP has already drafted a Members’ Bill and will introduce that Bill this week.

[Marion Fellows]

rose—

[Michael Shanks]

If the SNP is unable to act, there will be no more dithering and there will be no more delays, because Labour will act. For that reason, I will not be supporting the SNP motion.

[Marion Fellows]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. At no time have the Scottish Justice Secretary or the Scottish Parliament said that they will not pass legislation—

Post Office Horizon Scandal

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have to improve the remuneration of sub-postmasters and the businesses they run. We want to ensure we have a viable network going forward. We have 11,700 branches around the country. We have set a minimum number of 11,500, and a minimum of 99% of our population has to be within three miles of a post office, so we have already set access criteria. We are keen to ensure that the network is viable going forward; the hon. Gentleman offers one solution to that.

The Government already offer significant financing for the Post Office—about £2.5 billion over the last 10 years—in addition to other financial commitments we have made for other matters, such as rebuilding the IT system. We feel that the post office network has a bright future, particularly in areas such as access to cash, the banking framework and parcel hubs, and we see the remuneration opportunity improving in future years.

[Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)]

On Monday, I asked the Minister how we can ensure that any system is the same across the whole of the UK. In the past few days, before today’s announcement, what discussions has he had with the Lord Advocate in Scotland about the decisions? Has he given any consideration to legislative consent motions so that this Parliament could legislate to ensure that the same system is in place across the whole of the UK—something the Scottish Government are reportedly minded to consider? If that is not the case and the Scottish Parliament takes a different approach, how will the Minister ensure that the compensation regime is the same across the whole of the UK, so that people who may not have their convictions changed in Scotland in the same way still have access to the same compensation?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very keen to make sure it is a UK-wide scheme, both in terms of compensation and people’s access to it. We have already had conversations with the Scottish Administration—I think they happened yesterday evening—so that they fully understand our intentions. Clearly, these matters are devolved in Scotland, so there are different routes to make sure that there is one scheme across the UK. I am keen to continue those conversations and make it as easy as possible for postmasters to overturn convictions or access compensation.

Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My constituents have also written to me, appalled and outraged at what has happened. Again, we should pay tribute to the people behind the programme who have brought it to the public’s attention. I agree; we are looking for a process where all victims can be compensated quickly. We have compensation schemes in place already, and 64% of those affected have been compensated. On overturning convictions, we are looking at a collective exoneration to see what is legally possible. That would open the door to rapid, immediate compensation of £600,000 for people who choose that route. The full assessment takes more time, and people would have to choose the right route for them. It should deliver on all the ambitions that he sets out.

[Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)]

This disgraceful scandal reached every single part of the country, including in Scotland, where the Crown Office held prosecutorial power rather than the Post Office. In 2020, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission identified 73 potential victims, of whom only 16 have come forward to date. Clearly, there is still work to do to get the message out to people that they are entitled to have their conviction looked at. Of course, the scheme only reaches the people who had a conviction in the first place—many affected by the scandal never had their case taken forward but still lost their reputation and their livelihood.

Today, the First Minister of Scotland said that he will look at a mass exoneration in relation to these convictions, and I think that is the right approach. I wonder whether the Minister will confirm that he and the Lord Chancellor will take that forward in England, because across the whole of the UK, we need a system where everyone understands what will happen next, so that no victim anywhere in the country who was affected by this scandal is left with justice not served.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Again, I share the hon. Member’s ambitions in every part of his remarks. We, too, are disappointed that we have not had more people coming forward to have their convictions overturned, for a number of different reasons. Those people have been written to several times by different bodies, including the CCRC. We are keen to get the message out, but we do not think that that is the whole problem. We think there is a confidence issue for some of those people in coming forward after so many years, after what has happened to them, so we are very keen to say to them, “You will be treated fairly and dealt with as quickly as possible.”

A mass exoneration scheme, as the hon. Member described it, is something we are looking at. I cannot confirm that today on the Floor of the House, but we certainly think that that kind of blanket overturning of convictions, together with a rapid compensation scheme, will mean that more people get access to justice more quickly. That is something we are very keen on, and to deliver it UK-wide would absolutely be the right thing to do.