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 merits of increasing the capacity of the Moyle electricity interconnector between Northern Ireland and Scotland to improve electricity interconnection within the UK; and if he will make a statement.

The Government supports the development of new interconnection where it delivers benefits to the consumer, and our approach is designed to deliver those benefits in the most efficient way. We have a developer-led approach to interconnection where the market identifies the best projects and applies to Ofgem to assess their merits. In the 2016 Budget the Government said that it supports the increase of interconnection capacity to at least 9GW; if a developer was to propose additional capacity between Northern Ireland and the GB market, Ofgem would assess it on its merits.