Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effect on the closure of the Rough gas storage facility on domestic gas prices; and if he will make a statement.

Centrica Storage Ltd’s decision to close the Rough gas storage facility is a commercial decision based on the age of the asset and the costs of repair. As such, we do not have the information to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the effect on wholesale gas prices of maintaining the gas storage facility at Rough. However, Rough was unavailable in the market last winter, and we believe this was largely expected by market participants so we don’t expect any significant effect on prices.