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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of entering a collective bargaining agreement with Europe to regulate high gas prices enforced by Norway.

Norway is a significant, longstanding and reliable gas supplier to the UK with supply based on commercial arrangements between buyers and sellers. Current gas prices are high for many reasons including rebounding global demand as COVID-19 lockdowns ease; greater LNG demand in Asia; upstream maintenance affecting supply capacity over summer, and higher demand for gas in electricity generation on the Continent as coal is disincentivised.