Local Power Plan

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Briefly, there are three important aspects to this: first, communities can have lower bills for their community centres and local institutions; secondly, they can generate a stream of income by selling power back to the grid; thirdly, there is something wider, and perhaps more intangible, which is the matter of giving local communities a sense of stake in the system. I think this is really important, because one of the ways that we gain consent from people is through the sense that it is not simply the big multinationals that will own our energy system, but local people themselves.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I welcome the publication of the local power plan and I honestly recognise the Government’s commitment to community energy. However, I think there is still a piece missing—namely that properties in the vicinity of a community energy generator can ultimately benefit by being directly supplied, rather than being supplied through a third party. Will the Secretary of State look again at how community energy is defined and include households benefiting from the energy generated within that community? We have been struggling with the definition of community energy on the Select Committee. I think it is important that households can benefit from the energy generated within the community.

[Ed Miliband]

I thank the hon. Lady for her advocacy on this issue. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, who is the world expert on these questions—or at least the UK expert; I will not push it too far—assures me that her important question about the statutory definition, which is, I think, on code P441, is being answered in the plan.