Oral Answers to Questions

Olly Glover Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am glad that he, too—like everyone else in this House, according to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry—has constituents who will be benefiting from this work. The best I can say to him on this issue, which has now been rightly raised a number of times, is that the Minister for Industry will have heard the calls made with real urgency, which I think we all recognise, and will act accordingly.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

3. What steps he is taking to support community energy projects.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

Community energy will play a pivotal role in our mission for clean power. Last week, we published the clean power action plan, which contained more information about how we will meet this world-leading mission, and the report confirmed that community energy will play an important role, particularly through Great British Energy.

[Olly Glover]

Renewable energy schemes on community buildings in my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage, supported by the Low Carbon Hub in Oxford, have mostly benefited building owners up to now. Would the Minister support more flexibility in local energy systems and allow local energy trading to get more support for renewable energy schemes in our communities, so that more local people can directly benefit?

[Michael Shanks]

The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point about how local community groups can benefit from not just hosting the community energy, but from being able to sell locally. We have had a number of conversations on this topic already. I most recently met the community energy contact group, which does a lot of work to look at what regulations there might be, and we are happy to look at any proposals that come forward. We want to see a revolution in community energy right across the country so that more communities can benefit.