The Growth Plan

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

What I will confirm is that the top rate of tax has gone back to what it was before the hon. Lady entered the House, when the Labour party was successful and winning elections. That was the top rate for 20 years, and that is what we have gone back to.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

In the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth area there is already an enterprise zone that has been very successful, although the land allocated needs to be adjusted to take advantage of the opportunities in offshore energy and a revived fishing industry. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the existing enterprise zone will benefit from the opportunities that will be provided for the investment zones that he has announced?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The enterprise zones, freeports and new investment zones will all benefit from tax reduction and planning relaxation. Of course, there will come a time when other places will want to become investment zones. This is a huge opportunity for communities up and down the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

People will understand that the increase in the national insurance contribution was precisely to pay for the NHS backlog and for ongoing health and social care costs. In that context, it made sense.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

T3. As my right hon. Friend has indicated, we had the very good news last week that ScottishPower Renewables had been successful in the contract for difference auction for its East Anglia Three offshore wind project. I would be grateful if he would outline what else is being done to provide certainty over future CfD auctions, which will allow offshore wind developers to invest more in order to meet the Government’s 2030 target and bring more jobs to coastal communities such as those in Waveney?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

In Suffolk and Norfolk, investment in research and development is vital to making the most of the opportunities emerging in such sectors as low carbon and life sciences, as well as to tackling pockets of deprivation, particularly in coastal areas. It is thus concerning that, in the Budget Red Book, the east of England is coupled with London and the south-east as an area from which spending on R&D will be diverted and in which it will be discouraged. Will my right hon. Friend work with his colleagues across Government to ensure that this discrimination against Suffolk and Norfolk is removed and is not included in the levelling-up White Paper?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I pay tribute to the fantastic work that my hon. Friend has done representing his constituents over 11 and a half years. He will know that I personally, as a Minister, have always been committed to the east of England. I have visited him in Lowestoft, I have visited offshore wind projects, and I would be very happy to speak to him about how we can drive the R&D programme and how East Anglia and his constituents can benefit from the UK’s science superpower status.

Offshore Wind Transmission Connections

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Perhaps regrettably, the subjects of the Queen’s Speech are beyond my pay grade, as people say, and I cannot possibly divulge what will be in the speech in that context, because frankly I do not know. However, my hon. Friend makes a serious point, and any subsequent legislation from BEIS, or that I try to introduce to the House, must consider the question of the regulatory regime and the environment through which we can develop the offshore network system. We are looking at that issue and taking it seriously.

[Peter Aldous]

Does the Minister agree, given the highly innovative solution that he is working up, that industry has been working ingeniously in the North sea for more than 50 years, and it has come up with the most remarkable technological solutions? Industry must be involved, along with us, with business, with the Government, and with regulators.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will know that I have visited his constituency and seen the wind farm installations off the coast of Suffolk. Industry and the operators of offshore wind farms, National Grid, and others, will be involved, and I am sure they will be consulted. They have come up with their own review, and people are very much engaged in that wider debate.

I am pleased that our review has been welcomed across the sector and across the House, and I am pleased to respond at any time—perhaps not at dinner time, but at any other time—to my hon. Friends’ insistence and brilliant advocacy on this issue. This is a remarkable instance of a group of MPs representing a locality pushing an important issue, not only for their constituencies but for the country as a whole. I commend them in their efforts and look forward to hearing from them. I hope that together we can all push forward and deliver on this agenda.

Question put and agreed to.

Electricity Generation: Local Suppliers

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

No, I am afraid I am very hard pressed for time. I may have time later to take an intervention, but I need to press on with my remarks.

Ofgem, as I have suggested, has been consulting widely on how to use such facilities more effectively to bring innovation to the specified locality, as it were, in this retail market. I understand that the consultation closed on Monday 12 October, and I hope that small-scale generators who wish to supply local communities have responded fully to the consultation.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion mentioned, very ably and relevantly, the Licence Lite provision, which allows aspiring suppliers or local generators to apply for a supply licence and receive relief from compliance with industry codes. On existing mechanisms, the Electricity Act 1989 already allows the Secretary of State to exempt, by scale, electricity suppliers from having an electricity supply licence if they meet certain conditions. There have been examples, certainly in my tenure as Energy Minister, of people successfully applying for exemptions.

Being an electricity supplier, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, confers the right of the licensee to supply electricity to customers, but it also bestows certain obligations, and that is very important to remember. Those obligations include payment of a proportion of network costs. Clearly, if one is operating in a situation where one is not a licensee, then one can avoid paying the costs on which the whole system depends. That is a critical issue. In some instances, the Licence Lite regime can remove this burden, but clearly we would not want to go down a route where large numbers of suppliers are simply exempting themselves from those obligations.

Network charges, as people will understand, are levied on all users of the network, and they send signals that reflect the costs that users impose on the network. There are a range of signals to encourage generators to locate close to sources of demand, and placing a source of generation close to areas of high demand will mean that the generator gets paid credits for helping to avoid further investment in the high-voltage transmission network. Essentially, that means suppliers are incentivised to be in areas of high demand. There will be a commensurate problem in areas of low demand, because how would they attract the relevant suppliers? Ofgem is working to reform these signals through improvements to network charges, and it is also working to develop local markets for flexibility, which goes to the core of what I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

I do not believe—and I think the Government, thankfully, are of the same opinion—that artificially reducing network costs for local electricity suppliers is going to be highly efficient, because it could distort the market. One is essentially incentivising a behaviour that may not be economical in the first instance, and that would mean higher costs falling on other consumers, which would increase as more local suppliers were subsidised. Creating a special category of local supplier brings its own complexities, and there may well be unintended consequences as a result.

Having said that, I commend the hon. Gentleman for thinking very deeply and creatively about this issue. This is part of an ongoing conversation. He was quite right to say at the beginning of his remarks that a lot of the structures that we have today reflect the conditions and circumstances before we legislated for net zero, and in many cases reflect conditions that operated 30 or 40 years ago. There is an ongoing discussion to be had about how best to adapt our institutions to modern circumstances.

[Peter Aldous]

My right hon. Friend has highlighted some of the challenges that the Government face. As we have heard from Members around the Chamber, we have shown enormous potential for local community energy supply to play a full role in decarbonisation and the covid recovery. Will the Government be setting out in the forthcoming energy White Paper how we fully realise this potential and meet these challenges? When can we expect to see that White Paper?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend is straying into ground that is not necessarily covered in this debate. I am very hopeful that the energy White Paper will be published soon. I think the Secretary of State said in front of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee that it would be published in the autumn, and we are still in the autumn, so I am hopeful that it will come imminently.

UK Oil and Gas Industry

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Naturally—my hon. Friend appreciates that reaching the net zero carbon target is a cross-Government endeavour. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for which I am responsible, and other Departments, including the Treasury, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport, must all be engaged to reach those targets. I am therefore happy to engage in such conversations; they are crucial to our ability to reach the target.

A lot has been said about the oil and gas sector deal. I am not bound by any promises made by previous Governments, but I assure Members that we are committed to an oil and gas sector deal in the course of this Parliament. It would be premature of me to go into details, because those are precisely what we are negotiating. I look forward, hopefully as Energy Minister, to being able to celebrate and launch the deal.

[Peter Aldous]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am not going to play the game of saying some arbitrary date. It is a serious, ongoing discussion. As I said, we will have a sector deal in the course of this Parliament. I will not be drawn any more on the timings.

[Peter Aldous]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Aldous and Kwasi Kwarteng

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

When the right hon. Gentleman spoke about “the rich men”, I thought he was referring to his friends in Davos, such as the former Prime Minister, who seems to be very focused on trying to reverse the verdict of the 17.4 million people in this country who voted for Brexit.

It is very clear where the interests of Airbus and businesses lie. They have said repeatedly over the past six weeks that they want to back the deal—they want an end to this uncertainty, and they want clarity and the ability to plan for the future. Where does the right hon. Gentleman stand on that?

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

14. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on fishing policy after the UK leaves the EU.