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

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether she plans to take forward talks on reaching an intergovernmental agreement with Ireland on expanding electricity interconnection capacity in response to the conclusions of the National Infrastructure Commission's report on Smart Power, published in March 2016.

The Government is ambitious for the market to deliver an increase in electricity interconnection capacity where projects demonstrate value for money and provide benefits to consumers. We are primarily focused on facilitating developer-led delivery. Already one interconnection project to Ireland, Greenlink, has been approved by Ofgem in the first round of cap and floor applications. More projects, including to Ireland, can apply to Ofgem’s second cap and floor application window which opens this month.