Text of Speech:
James Wild MP:
I commend my right hon. Friend for his refreshingly clear articulation of our strong record in this area, both in the House today and in the media yesterday. Obviously, security of supply must come first. How will the plans incentivise investment in back-up gas-fired power stations, while minimising costs to consumers, which is also very important?
Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, Graham Stuart:
I thank my hon. Friend. He and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) are absolutely right to focus on the economics. We have to get the economics right. We have used an auction-type mechanism in the capacity market to ensure flexible capacity. We are incentivising more and more of that to be low carbon, with batteries coming in at scale, as well as pumps and potentially hydrostorage. We also need hydrogen and carbon capture. We are ensuring a balanced system with discipline built into it to drive costs down. When CBAMs and so on come on stream, I firmly expect that in the 2030s we will have lower-cost energy than our neighbours and we will, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset referred to, be more economically competitive.
