Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to speed up the process for connecting infrastructure projects to the National Grid, following reports that UK energy companies are taking their investments abroad.

The Government is working with Ofgem and network companies to accelerate network connections and halve the end-to-end build time for new transmission network infrastructure. The Connections Action Plan, published in November 2023, aims to reduce transmission connection delays from 5 years to no more than 6 months after the date requested by the customer and release over 100 Gigawatts of network capacity. Projects that are able to connect faster are already being offered earlier connection dates, including 10 Gigawatts of battery storage being offered an average of a four year advance in their connection.