Michael Shanks MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. One of the things we announced before Christmas in the clean power action plan was the broad outline of where we see allocation round 7 progressing this year, alongside the clean industry bonus. We will be saying more about that in the weeks ahead when we launch the initial information on what it will look like, but I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is not surprised that I cannot announce anything today about what ringfences might be in place. It is a tricky balance. The aim of the CfD, and the reason that it is effective at what we want it to do, is that it has to balance the deployment targets that we want to see with the critical role of delivering value for money for those who will end up paying for it—the consumers and all our constituents. Ringfences have an important role to play, but there is a danger that a ringfence could lead to us paying significantly more for a particular technology than we might want to.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  That is an incredibly important point. I told the hon. Gentleman the last time we spoke on this topic that I am going to Northern Ireland soon for the next inter-ministerial working group for Energy Ministers from around the UK; I think that is in March. I hope that while I am there I have the chance to meet different organisations, because I am keen to understand how the energy system in Northern Ireland works, given the separate grid. I do not have responsibility for energy policy in Northern Ireland but I want us to work together and learn from each other. To conclude my remarks, I am, first of all, grateful—I thought that this debate might finish at 3 o’clock and I was going to have to sum it all up in 30 seconds, but I have a little more time. I thank right hon. and hon. Members again for their contributions. I have come away from every energy policy debate in this place enthused by the real cross-party consensus on so much of this. There is much on which we do not agree, but on a lot of this we do. We need to hold on to that consensus, because achieving the future economic and energy benefits of marine renewables will require them to outlive any particular Government. That consensus has been a strength over the past few decades and I hope it can continue. I have always said that I do not have any monopoly on wisdom on these questions and I am keen to hear and learn from projects in constituencies across the country. It is clear that there is huge excitement in the sector. I hope that we can harness that and drive forward the development of these technologies in the future, and remove the barriers there at the moment. Those barriers will be removed even if they are not specifically barriers to marine projects, although I think marine projects will be affected by many things, such as planning and grid reform, to unlock the immense potential that we have across this country. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. I hope to return to his constituency soon to see many of these projects and learn more about them. Together we can drive far more marine renewables in the UK, delivering value for money for households and harnessing the abundance of clean energy in this country.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  I will touch on the Crown Estate later in my speech. On that specific point, I am afraid that I fundamentally disagree with the idea that devolving the Crown Estate is the answer, and I take issue with the suggestion that the Crown Estate’s considerations in Wales somehow come from Whitehall. I have met a number of representatives of the Crown Estate, and they are engaged with the Welsh Government and with communities in Wales. If we can do more on that, I am very happy to reach out to the Crown Estate, although I am not directly responsible for it and it is not accountable to me. Of course, it has published a number of strategies recently and there is more coming on the long-term vision for the Celtic sea and other parts of the Crown Estate in Wales. It is about partnership work, which includes not just bringing together the Crown Estate but how we look at the planning system and consenting, as well as the strategic spatial energy plan more broadly to plan for the long term. I will come back to some of those points later. Although marine renewables are not at the centre of that clean power action plan to 2030, they will hugely benefit from the actions that we will deliver through it, not least on grid connections. Grid connections are all about future-proofing the grid in this country so that it can meet the demand of the future, and prioritising a grid queue that has got out of control with over 700 GW waiting to connect, which is simply not deliverable. I would like to turn to the issue of funding, but first I wish a happy birthday to the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), who does not look a day over 21—but that is the last time I will pander to the Lib Dems. He raised a point about Great British Energy, as did a number of other hon. Members, many of whom I cannot help but notice did not vote for it, but now want it to be headquartered in their constituencies and deliver significant amounts of funding. Great British Energy will play a role in this space. It is our first publicly owned energy champion, and it will deliver and deploy clean power across the country and help with some of the innovation and development work. Marine renewables are exactly the kind of technology that Great British Energy might invest in at an early stage and have a significant impact on, rather than technologies that are at a more confident stage. Hon. Members may not have had the opportunity to reach out to Great British Energy—the Bill is still going through the House of Lords, so it does not technically exist yet—but the start-up chair, Jürgen Maier, has had a number of meetings across the UK, has engaged on questions about a whole range of technologies and is keen to continue to do so. It will be for Great British Energy, as an independent company, to make its own investment decisions based on a whole range of factors, including the return on investment potential, but I see marine renewable technology as a potential benefit for it. We think that tidal stream energy will play a significant role, particularly beyond 2030. As many Members raised, tidal stream will bring balancing benefits to a future electricity system that will have renewables at its heart. The balancing role that tidal can play—as a baseload, in the traditional way of thinking about the electricity system—would be important. Currently over half of the world’s tidal stream deployment is situated in UK waters. However, this Government want to go further and faster, as the technology has huge potential. Aside from having one of the world’s best tidal resources, the UK also hosts world-leading marine energy hubs. Many hon. Members spoke about the EMEC. I have been pleased to speak to the EMEC over the last few months; the Minister for Climate, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), visited recently and I hope to get to Orkney to do the same at some point. When we came into power, the Government took the contracts for difference option that had been started by the previous Government and increased the budget to try to get as many projects as we could over the line. That led to a 50% increase in the ringfence for tidal stream to £15 million in the last allocation round. That demonstrated our commitment to the technology and ensured that 28 MW of tidal stream was secured in allocation round 6, including 9 MW for projects based in Orkney.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  I won’t. Hopefully, it was not the upcoming speeches from me and the shadow Minister that drove her from Chamber. In any event, it is a delight to be here. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) not just for securing this debate and the customary way that he introduced it, but for the engagement we have had since I came into this post on this issue and many others. He is a great champion not just of marine renewables, but of Orkney and Shetland. In fact, in the last debate we had in this Chamber, he declared that God came from Orkney and Shetland. I am glad that we did not get into the theological nature of the debate this afternoon. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to this wide-ranging debate. I pay tribute to the various policy teams and organisations that have clearly done a very effective job of getting a consistent set of lines out to Members of Parliament; they have certainly earned their salary this week. Those are important points, and I will address each of them. As hon. Members have said, the sector has enormous potential relating not just to energy outcomes, but to the many positive opportunities in skills, supply chains and innovation. The UK can export that innovation to the rest of the world. I will say at the very beginning that the Government are hugely supportive of marine energy, and we want to do what we can to support it. I will start by giving some context on the Government’s position. As Members will be aware—many have raised it today—we published the “Clean Power 2030” action plan just before Christmas. That was an important step in providing some considerable detail on how the Government will deliver on our mission of clean power by 2030, which is hugely ambitious but achievable. It picks up on some of the strands that Members have raised this afternoon, including how we will deliver more effective grid connections and connections reform, as well as look at the planning system and consenting. It is about all the various things that Members have raised that hold back so much of the delivery of such projects across the country. Clean power by 2030 is not some ideological project, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), and others in the Conservative party might like to suggest. It is a critical pathway for how we deliver energy security in the long term; all our constituents have been facing a considerable cost of living crisis as a result of us not having home-grown energy security. The clean power mission is about ensuring that we not only have that energy security but tackle the climate crisis and deliver economic growth. I make no apologies for the fact that we are a Government moving at pace, because it is important that we grasp the opportunities for the implementation of both marine technologies and the many other innovative technologies that Britain can be a world leader in delivering. It is also our best opportunity to deliver cheaper energy for people across the country. I want to pick up specifically on the point made by the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and the shadow Minister on the clean power action plan. It is right to say that marine renewables are not in the top lines of the pathways to clean power by 2030, because we do not think that that technology is quite at the point where it will be deployed at scale to help us to achieve that mission. That does not mean that we do not hope that projects will come onstream before 2030. Although we are sprinting to deliver clean power by 2030, that will not be the end of the journey. By 2050, we estimate that the electricity demand in this country will have doubled, so this journey will require us to harness all possible technologies to continue to expand our energy supply over the coming decades. That is where I think marine renewables will start to play more of an important role, as they get past the commercialisation challenges and their price comes down, and as we have some more confidence in the technology.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  I am tempted to say that, although this debate has been great, it has gone on for so long that Ms Jardine has turned into Mr Betts, so I did not get the chance to congratulate her on her new job.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the shadow Minister’s raising that point, because that is an important piece of work that we have been moving forward. With the Scottish Government, we launched a consultation, which ran for four weeks, on how the consenting process could be reformed, so that we can change the 1989 Act in a number of key areas. I think the consultation closed a couple of weeks ago; the responses are now being analysed, and we will bring forward legislation in due course. That is a good example of partnership working with the Scottish Government on attempts to deal with some long-running issues. Across the UK, the key point is that the aim is not somehow to reduce the burden of planning where there are still opportunities for affected communities to contribute; it is about saying that it does not serve communities, developers or the Government well when decisions are held up for years on end. That is part of how we will speed these things up. Other hon. Members mentioned the supply chain, which is incredibly important. That is why we as a Government have said that we are not agnostic about industrial policy in this country; we want manufacturing to come to these shores. It is encouraging to see that there is already significantly more UK content in tidal stream projects than in some other technologies that we have in this country. That is a real positive. I hope that we can continue that and learn from it for offshore wind and other technologies that we want to expand. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and many others asked about setting up a taskforce. I am very open minded about that, and when I met the Marine Energy Council just before Christmas to discuss this and a number of other matters, I said that. I cannot quite remember how many taskforces I am currently chairing—we do like a taskforce, and they are important —and I am extremely grateful for the expertise of those who give up their time to come into Government, to help us to shape action plans and route maps and to understand what the challenges are. I am open to the suggestion, but if we set up something like that it must have a clear purpose, and at end of it we want a set of actions that Government and others can drive forward. That is what my officials are working on, and I am happy to speak to the right hon. Gentleman more about it. On the technology point, the Government’s position is that overall the wave energy industry is at research and design phase. That is a key step on the journey to potentially achieving commercial viability, but we do not think it is quite there yet. We are aware that it has huge potential, given the nature of this country, and significant strides are being made to take it forward. My officials are regularly in touch with those in the sector and are being kept up to date on the latest developments. We hope that all these technologies will become extremely successful and the Government are happy to do whatever we can to support that. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said that he had not had time to write a speech but then, as always, he made a very eloquent contribution. I think that he and the hon. Member for South Devon made the same point about partnership, which is critical to all of this. The coast around this country offers enormous potential in our energy future, in floating offshore wind, in which we are already a world leader in so many ways—I hope we will continue to be so—and marine renewables, in the economic programme that we have already, and particularly in fishing. The point was strongly made that this is not about competing priorities, although it might seem like that; it is about how we can bring industries together to ensure that they co-exist. We can get real strength from that.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The decisions that the previous Government took on storage are for them to answer, and anyone who looks at their record will rightly raise questions about that. On the broader point, he is right. The only plan for how we can get off the volatile fossil fuel markets, to which the previous Government left us far too exposed, is the clean power action plan that we have announced. If the Tories oppose that, they need to come up with their alternative to deliver the resilience in the system that we are fighting for every single day.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Mr Speaker; I think the shadow Minister was confused in the facts that he gave to Parliament today. I am happy to set that right. Let us look at the facts. The National Energy System Operator—the people who run the system—stated clearly: “At no point were electricity supplies less than anticipated demand and our engineers were able to rebalance the system without the need to consider any emergency measures.” If we listen to the experts—to National Gas and to NESO—they both confirmed over the weekend that there was resilience in the system. I reiterate the point that the system operated exactly as it was intended to do. If the shadow Minister has complaints about how the system operates in the country and the gas storage situation, he may want to look at some of his colleagues who were in power over the past 14 years. He knows the truth about his party’s record. He is a very smart guy, and he knows they left us exposed. He knows they did not do enough to build the system that we need and he knows what caused the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. While his party is busy crowdsourcing policy advice on Twitter from net zero sceptics, it would be far better if they looked at their own record in government and, instead of criticising us, recognised that we are getting on with building a resilient energy system for the future.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  I take issue with two of those points. First, in the past decade, 100,000 jobs have already been lost from the oil and gas industry, and that happened under a Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported. The industry is changing. We are putting in place a robust set of plans to help the workforce into the jobs of the future, rather than burying our heads in the sand and pretending that the basin in the North sea is not super-mature. Secondly, even if we were to extract more gas from our continental shelf, given that it is traded on an international market, and the pricing is set not by us but by the international market, we would continue to pay more for it, whether or not it came from the North sea, so that would not deal with the pricing issue reflected in the hon. Gentleman’s question.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  That is a really interesting question that I asked myself when I came into this role. Logically, we might assume so, but we do not empty the gas storage and then wait to refill it; we refill it constantly. That topping up will be done at whatever the price in the market at the time. The main reason why we would have used the gas in storage is that there is such demand in the system that the price is likely to be higher anyway. The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point, but I do not think that gas storage would have been the issue. I reiterate the point I made at the beginning: part of the reason why we have less gas storage than other European countries is that we have a different mix of routes to get gas in, and far more reliable supply chains for it, so we do not need to store quite as much as our European neighbours.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes a really important point about energy storage in its various forms. Battery storage technology is moving forward extraordinarily quickly, and the short duration that we can get from batteries is improving quite considerably, so batteries will have a key role to play. Importantly, there is the potential for communities to drive some of that. We have been really clear in our local power plan that we want communities to be in the driving seat as much as possible, so that they can secure community benefits. We also want them to own some of the infrastructure. In a few weeks’ time, I will visit a scheme in Scotland where the community would be able to own not just a battery storage project, but a wind turbine that fills the battery. They would get a double benefit from the energy that they are generating and able to store. We would like to see more such schemes right across the country.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is worth saying that electricity margin notices are not unexpected, particularly at this time of year. They mean that there is enough generation available to meet demand, but that NESO would like to see a larger safety cushion; that is the important point for people to understand what margin notices are about. The notice was cancelled, of course, because there was sufficient supply to ensure that cushion. My hon. Friend’s broader point is important. We have outlined in great detail how we will deliver clean power by 2030. The Conservatives now claim to oppose that; in fact, they oppose much of net zero full stop. They will have to answer how they would deliver a secure and resilient energy system of the future that brings down bills and delivers on climate leadership.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  If I am in any kind of attack mode, it is because the Opposition do not seem to be dealing with reality, and I think it is important to correct that. The right hon. Gentleman is right that the future energy mix, as we outlined in the clean power action plan, will involve a range of technologies. We outlined the range we would expect for each of those, and nuclear—in particular small modular reactors—will play an incredibly important part in that. We are moving forward with the programme we inherited from the previous Government, which was yet another incomplete process. We will make it happen as quickly as possible, and SMRs will play a key role in our energy mix.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  I can give that assurance. Indeed, every month I have been in this job, I have been in Aberdeen, meeting oil and gas companies to discuss the issues. We are not going to agree on everything, but I have been very clear that there will be a long future for oil and gas in the North sea. Yes, we absolutely have said that we do not want to issue any new licences for new fields, but we will not revoke any existing licences. That means that there will continue to be work in the North sea for a long time to come. I repeat that it is categorically untrue that our electricity or gas supplies have been at risk over the past week. We have robust systems in place, and they worked exactly as they should. Consumers lost absolutely no supply over the last few days, nor will they in the weeks and months ahead.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that as well as building an energy system that will deliver generation capacity for the future, we need to work as fast as possible to reduce demand. Part of that is about moving away from gas to heat pumps. That is important not just for our energy system and climate, but for individual households in reducing their bills. We already see a huge shift in the uptake of heat pumps across the country. There is, of course, much more to do on that if we are to reach our target, but the Government are committed to that, and it is important for households right across the country. I echo his points on insulation. Those in fuel poverty are more likely to live in houses that are cold. The more we can do to create warmer homes—that is what the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), is doing—the better for everyone.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that this Government are moving as fast as possible to build a more resilient system to get the country off the rollercoaster of volatile fossil fuel markets. The Conservatives seem to oppose that, but they have been on something of a journey in all these questions: they used to champion net zero and recognise that climate change was a clear and present danger to the world, but now they are drifting further away from that, looking for more extremist views on Twitter and elsewhere to crowdsource their policy. We are getting on with building the energy system to bring down bills, deliver energy security and, yes, to deliver climate leadership.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady raises the potential of hydrogen in our energy mix. Of course, one of the real strengths of the gas network is that it can be changed into other things in the future; that is a real strength of what we have, and we are looking at what those options might be. There is a mix of options available with hydrogen, including home heating, but it could still play a really key role in industrial projects, for example, in the shorter term. We are looking at those projects. We need to ensure that it is financially viable and that we have worked out all the technological details on how we would make it happen. We will have more to say on that in due course.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  Characteristically, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and he has raised similar points with me before. It is important that the most vulnerable on the priority registers are prioritised for any additional support, and that is what we continue to do. Energy is a transferred matter in Northern Ireland, so I do not have a direct role to play in the gas system there, but I continue to engage with both Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive that have an interest in this topic, and we have talked about these issues most recently.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  That is a really important point. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy Consumers is leading a review of some of this work, and will have more to say about it soon. We need a scheme that rolls out far more insulation to retrofit homes. We have also driven forward a higher standard for new houses, but the delivery of the schemes has been questionable in places. I recognise some of her points, and that is part of what we have been reviewing. I recently met my Welsh counterpart to talk about planning regulations that are being brought forward in Wales, which will also make a difference to these kinds of projects.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  Energy security is a key priority for this Government, and at no time was there any concern about Britain’s energy system being able to meet demand. Our systems worked entirely as intended. We had capacity to deal with market constraints, and that has been backed up by the two authoritative voices on this issue in the country—National Gas, which runs the gas network, and the National Energy System Operator. We have sufficient gas supply and electricity capacity to meet demand this winter, due to our diverse and resilient system. While storage is an important flexibility tool in the gas system, our varied sources of gas supply mean that the UK is less reliant on storage than some other European countries that have a more limited supply options. Our diverse options include the UK continental shelf, our long-term energy partner Norway, international markets via the second largest liquefied natural gas onshoring capacity in Europe, and two interconnectors. Gas storage is used throughout the year, but typically operates in winter to help meet peaks in demand. Through colder spells, storage levels are expected to fluctuate across the winter period. That is what happened last week following the severe cold weather, and it is a sign that the gas and storage markets are working exactly as they should. That is precisely why we have those systems in place. In their winter outlooks, National Gas and the National Energy System Operator assessed that there is sufficient supply to meet winter demand, including the role of storage. On Friday, National Gas, the owner and operator of Britain’s gas networks, confirmed that “the overall picture across Great Britain’s eight gas storage sites remains healthy.” We will continue to work closely with National Gas, NESO and storage operators to maintain continued security of supply. I reiterate: Britain’s energy system is working to continue to meet the demand of consumers across the country.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  The decision on whether to run gas storage sites is a commercial one for Centrica. The storage site at Rough was closed between 2017 and 2022—hon. Members may remember that that was when the “beast from the east” was attacking the country. The previous Government will have to answer for the decisions that they made on that. We are making it clear that the only way to build the energy system that we need in the long term is the clean power action plan. The Conservatives used to support much of that but, increasingly, they have decided to walk away from it. They will either keep us attached to the volatile fossil fuel markets, with all the price spikes that our constituents continue to pay the price of, or they will have to come up with an alternative plan. We are getting on with doing the work.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is right; this is an incredibly important issue that gets to the heart of the fact we inherited from the previous Government not just an economic mess but a series of policy decisions not made, and an energy system that needed us to take serious decisions quickly to build resilience for the future. On the broader point about consumers, she will know that my hon. Friend the Minister for consumers is doing a lot of work on exactly what the warmer homes scheme will look like, to ensure that people have as warm a home as possible. She is right that at times such as this, the people in the poorest households struggle the most. We are doing what we can to ensure that homes are insulated and, in the long term, to bring down bills. The only way to do that is to deliver clean power by 2030—faster than the previous Government would ever have managed.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  That is the kind of extremist scaremongering that we have come to expect from the shadow Secretary of State on Twitter, but we are now hearing it in the House. It is thoroughly irresponsible to use such language. In my answer, I read the very clear view of the National Energy System Operator, which runs the system and is the expert. I repeat it for the benefit of the House: “At no point were electricity supplies less than anticipated demand and our engineers were able to rebalance the system without the need to consider emergency measures.” The shadow Minister and Back-Bench MPs can repeat the phrasing around blackouts all they like, but at no point was that a concern. The reality is that while the Conservatives are happy to throw around such phrases without any evidence, we are building the resilient system of the future, and we will get on with doing that.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his characteristic question. On the first point, let me just say that it was not I who said anything about what the margins were. I quoted the National Energy System Operator, which actually delivers in this country—and will quote it again for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman: “At no point were electricity supplies less than anticipated demand and our engineers were able to rebalance the system”. He can take or leave my words—I am not particularly bothered—but those are the words of the people who actually operate the energy system. On the hon. Gentleman’s final point, I absolutely agree with him on the importance of long-duration energy storage. That is why, for the first time in 40 years, this Government announced a new cap-and-floor regime to deliver new long-duration energy storage schemes. That is a huge step forward from the position under many previous Governments, and it will allow the building of the pumped hydro schemes and new innovative technologies that will deliver that energy storage. We are moving as fast as possible. I hope that he and his hon. Friends will support those decisions.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister’s point would be well made were it not for the fact that it is completely untrue. If we look at the facts, the capacity market notice that he mentions was cancelled—