Lords
Proceedings
14 July 2026
State of Climate and Nature
My Lords, I declare my interests as the chair of Amey, the chair of Acteon and the chair of Buckthorn Partners, which are all involved, in different ways, with energy transition both in the UK and around the world. I am grateful to the Minister for answering questions on the Statement made in anothe…
Lords
Committee Stage
7 July 2026
Electricity Capacity (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026
My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Amey, an infrastructure and support service company in the UK, Acteon, a global subsea engineering company with interests in offshore wind and oil and gas production facilities, and Buckthorn Partners, which invests in energy transition companies.
I am g…
Lords
Committee Stage
23 June 2026
Nuclear Safeguards (EU Exit and Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the Committee to introduce these regulations. I am particularly pleased to be opposite him for the first time on these issues. I hope we will have many similar exchanges in the years to come. I am glad to say that, on this occasion, we are in agr…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
23 June 2026
Carbon Budget Order 2026
My Lords, while preceding my noble friend Lord Deben, I pay tribute to his lifetime work on climate change and, while our views will certainly differ this evening, I share with him a passionate belief that we should work towards tackling climate change—he will agree that there are many different rou…
Lords
Committee Stage
15 June 2026
2 contributions
Pollution Prevention and Control (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026
My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of Amey, Acteon and Buckthorn Partners, which show an interest in energy transition. However, on this occasion, it is a rather tenuous link to this specific debate, since only Acteon provides global subsea services to both offshore wind and oil and gas in …
Does the Minister agree that the issue is not a reduction in the oil and gas available? After all, in 1990, we were at just over 2 million barrels a day and so was Norway. By 2000, we were each producing just over 4 million barrels a day. Norway has continued to produce, because its fiscal and regul…
Lords
Committee Stage
10 June 2026
Energy Prices Act 2022 (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026
My Lords, this instrument underpins the measures that we have already debated. It creates no new powers and His Majesty’s Opposition are supportive of it. More broadly, as the Minister knows, we do not believe that the Government can lower the structural cost of energy for families and businesses in…
Lords
Committee Stage
10 June 2026
Contracts for Difference (Allocation) (Amendment) Regulations 2026
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very kind opening remarks, which I greatly appreciate. It is good to be back for what is, as he says, always a constructive and convivial exchange of views with him. I am sure that that will continue to be the case, even in the very late nights that I anticipat…
Lords
Oral Questions
28 April 2026
2 contributions
National Emergency Plan for Fuel
The UK benefits from a strong and diverse range of energy supplies, and the physical supply of fuel to the UK is stable. The national emergency plan for fuel, which has been in place for over a decade, sets out a number of levers that can be deployed in a fuel emergency depending on the type of issu…
The noble Lord conflates a number of different sources of fuel into one in his question. It is certainly the case, as far as petrol, diesel and other similar fuels are concerned, that supplies in the UK are stable. The UK as a refiner of petrol actually exports petrol from the UK, so there is no que…
Lords
Committee Stage
27 April 2026
Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2026
I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate; I will attempt to address them in the best way I can.
I have got to know the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, well during my time as a Minister in this House. I say to him, with respect, that, although he is unfailingly constructive and…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 April 2026
Clean Power 2030 Action Plan: Rural Communities
My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have contributed to this important debate and particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for securing it in the first instance. She made a number of important points that go along, I think, with her particular view about the role of renewables bu…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 April 2026
Low-carbon Heat Networks
Yes, the Government believe that those targets can be met, and local authorities up and down the country have shown, by activities in their own areas, that they are very keen to make sure that those targets are met. Following earlier requests for expressions of interest, the applications for heat ne…
Lords
Oral Questions
21 April 2026
Electricity: Domestic Pricing
Of course, the Government have addressed those costs, particularly in the recent move to take elements of the levies away from levy arrangements and into the general Exchequer. That is part of the £150 off energy bills that the Government have recently reported. The noble Lord is absolutely right ab…
Lords
Oral Questions
16 April 2026
Data Centres: Energy Demand
I am afraid the noble Lord is back on his fairly standard topic. As far as AI is concerned, we ought to bear in mind that clean power already represents 73.7% of GB electricity generation and we are targeting clean power providing at least 95% of that power by 2030 or so. Importing a lot more gas to…
Lords
Committee Stage
23 March 2026
3 contributions
Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards and Contract Budget Notice Amendments) Regulations 2026
I thank noble Lords for their important contributions to this debate. I did not hear any particular dissent from the idea that this is a good thing that will help British supply chains in offshore wind and, we hope, onshore wind, to develop significantly in the future. That will be done through a pr…
I thank the noble Lord for that clarifying intervention. Essentially—forgive me for putting it quite like this—both of us are more or less right: the charter is there and has been there for a little while. But obviously, once a charter is up on the noticeboard, as it were, there are details of its i…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
23 March 2026
Onshore Wind Farms
We have been around this path several times before recently. Suddenly introducing lots more gas into the system will make no difference to the resilience of this country against international prices, whereas developing genuinely homegrown power over a period makes all the difference. I should add th…
Lords
Committee Stage
23 March 2026
Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026
I thank noble Lords for their valuable and apposite contributions to this debate. They were quite extensive. I will do my best to respond to them, but if I miss anything I will be happy to write to noble Lords.
One particularly important element of this scheme, alluded to by a number of noble Lords…
Lords
Oral Questions
19 March 2026
UK Energy Sources and Cost of Energy
No, the Energy Secretary does not wish to see drilling for North Sea oil banned. What he is doing, as the noble Lord will know, is developing transitional energy certificates, which will enable tie-backs to take place in existing fields. The noble Lord will know that the existing structure of the No…
Lords
Committee Stage
17 March 2026
Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2026
I thank noble Lords for, as I have said on previous occasions, their valuable, extensive and wide-ranging contributions to the debate. I am similarly tempted to follow the wide-ranging comments that have been made—some of which I agree with and a lot of which I do not—but I do not think that this is…
Lords
Committee Stage
17 March 2026
3 contributions
Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2026
First, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. The Government have listened carefully to the concerns expressed, particularly in relation to investor confidence, which I will come back to in a moment, to policy stability and to the long-term credibility of the UK’s renew…
I thank the noble Lord for placing that on the record. The Norwegian basin, of course, is far less mature than the UK basin, and indeed the Norwegian system works on substantially the same basis of international pricing as the UK system as far as gas is concerned.
The noble Lord has used the word “…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Proceedings
9 March 2026
Energy Markets
My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Amey, Acteon and Buckthorn.
This Statement comes at a time when the United Kingdom faces major, unparalleled challenges to its energy supply. For 50 years, under successive Conservative and Labour Governments, energy policy has been built on the four pil…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 March 2026
Carbon Budget 6
I think the noble Lord knows that, even if we were substantially to increase the footprint of gas production in the North Sea, that would not come on stream for many years. Secondly, gas is traded on international markets at a particular price, so it would make no difference to energy costs in the U…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 February 2026
Fire and Rescue Services: Clean Energy Projects
I do not intend to go back to the department and tell it that its particular concerns are wrong. What we are talking about today are fires in large stand-alone battery storage plants, of which there have been four in the last five years. If the noble Lord would like the individual addresses and loca…