Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
Oral evidence: Work of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, HC 396
Wednesday 14 October 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 October 2026.
Members present: Bill Esterson (Chair); Sir Christopher Chope; Lizzi Collinge; Torcuil Crichton; Graeme Downie; Wera Hobhouse; Melanie Onn; Mike Reader; Claire Young.
Questions 749 -842
Witnesses
I: Rt Hon Miatta Fahnbulleh MP, Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; and Jonathan Brearley, Permanent Secretary, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Witnesses: Rt Hon Miatta Fahnbulleh MP and Jonathan Brearley.
Q749 Chair: Welcome to this afternoon’s session of the Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee, where we welcome the new Secretary of State and the new Permanent Secretary to their first session with us. Congratulations, both of you, on your appointments. We are looking forward to taking evidence today. My colleagues are eagerly anticipating asking you their questions. I will start, as usual.
Secretary of State, how well are the Government doing on their ambition to hit the Clean Power 2030 target?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: That is a very good question. If you cast your mind back two years ago when we set the target, there was a fair bit of scepticism about whether it was a target that could be reached. If I am candid with you, what it has done is build a huge amount of momentum and confidence in the system. I think about what we have done over the course of the last two years. We have unlocked £100 billion of investment in clean power; we have consented enough clean power to power over 20 million homes. Last year was a significant year because renewables powered the power system two-thirds of the time in the year. We are making huge amounts of progress. There is more to do, but the key for me is that we keep momentum, we have a clear framework that industry can work with in partnership and we maintain focus on getting to that goal.
Q750 Chair: Thank you very much for your first answer. We, as the Committee, hear from developers a lot about their frustrations with the system. They would like to do things faster. I will ask you about solar first, for example. Solar, along with other technologies, saw the grid queue reordered, but they still face frustrations. One of the frustrations with solar is that those developers who are now proposing storage along with solar generation cannot see them both in the same gate. Their argument is that they then miss out—and the country misses out—on effectively two contributors to power generation. It is one example of a number that we hear. Are these blockages an indication that perhaps there needs to be a system overhaul, that Ofgem, NESO, grid companies and other parts of the system are not aligned to Government policy? If you agree with that, what is your intention in addressing some of these challenges?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Let me have a go, and I will also bring Jonathan in. I don’t think that different parts of the system are not aligned in our ambition. I think the truth is that we inherited a system where we had not put enough investment into network build. If you think about the trajectory over the last two decades, essentially the transmission operators were maintaining the system, and we are now asking them to invest and build out the system in order to ensure that the system is viable for the future. That is a big ask, so there is a mismatch and there are bottlenecks. The same frustrations you are getting from developers we are hearing as well and we are incredibly alive to it.
I think there are three things that need to be done. We have obviously done the process of reordering and, in essence, trying to get to connections that are genuine and that are important in terms of priority. I think everyone welcomes that, but there is more to do.
The second is that we do need to build out at pace. The conversation that we are having with the networks at the moment is how we do that and how we support and facilitate it. Part of the rationale for why we have launched Great British Grid is to accelerate the buildout of grid. There is a problem that we are aware of; there is a live conversation where we have everyone around the table trying to solve that problem. It is one thing unlocking the generation, but if the generation can’t connect, we have a collective problem. I think everyone recognises that.
We are trying to take the steps to address that, but what I would say—and I don’t think this is about bashing the networks—it is a hard thing that they are being asked to do against the backdrop of underinvestment, which I would put at the door of the last Government. We are asking them to ramp up at quite a pace, so there are bottlenecks in the system.
Jonathan Brearley: As you know, I am probably well placed to comment on both Ofgem and DESNZ. I don’t think the ambition is different. If you look at Ofgem’s programme around ASTI, a massive amount of investment was approved at pace. It is definitely pushing in the same direction as the Government, and the same with NESO, which issued the 2030 plan. I think the main issue is the scale of infrastructure that we are collectively building. There is a job for DESNZ there, so we have to make sure we do what we can to resource the planning system, which is one of the things that we need to get through to make sure we deliver this.
In addition, we need to make sure that things such as the grid connection queues are properly ordered. Now, having worked through that process, the scale and complexity of that task is big, but we are getting to a place where we have more stable connections as a result.
Q751 Chair: Yes. To come back to the point about battery storage and solar generation, developers are telling us they will get their development consent order for both, but they can’t develop both because they are in different stages in the gate system. That is holding back the development of clean power at the kind of speed that you want to see and that is needed to achieve your ambitions. That is not the only example. The Committee had examples of where businesses offer alternative technologies that are proven, but because their up-front costs are higher, they are rejected by the cap and floor mechanism, for example, with long-duration storage—we have a number of those examples—where over the lifetime they are significantly cheaper. This seems to be at odds with what you said, Secretary of State, a few minutes ago: that there is alignment.
I say again, these are the frustrations we are getting. Do you think that something needs to change?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Absolutely we think that something needs to change. We are not resiling from that. The same frustrations you are hearing, we are hearing as well. We are doing a huge amount of work across the networks to think about how we speed this up, because it is a bottleneck to us getting to the end destination that we want. We are having a genuine conversation around the trajectory of buildout that we expect, the ability of our transmission operators to deliver that and what you need to do to enable them. That is either dealing with practical barriers like workforce, but it is also thinking about where the Public Sector Challenges can step in to help us accelerate the buildout. We are trying to look at it in the round.
On the specifics of long-duration storage that you mentioned, I would say the wider principle is that we absolutely are trying to support and incentivise technologies that can get us through this transition. I can quote lots of different schemes and projects where the Department is backing innovation. That particular scheme was one in which we had record numbers of companies coming forward. It was very successful in that regard. Obviously Ofgem has just consulted on it and I think companies that didn’t quite like the original outcome have had the opportunity to make their case and then Ofgem will come forward. The wider point is that we are at quite an inflection point where we do need technologies and we need technologies that will deliver for the transition in a cost-effective way. As a Department, we are very much trying to create the space in which we nurture that and enable that innovation.
Q752 Chair: Jonathan, you might be able to comment on this. I wonder if the up-front cost issue is a problem here because that seems to be what is driving Ofgem decisions rather than the lifetime value. That is the allegation being put.
Jonathan Brearley: I know that, and I have to say that that is now an independent matter for Ofgem, but on the projects that have been approved, for example—
Q753 Chair: Isn’t that exactly the problem though, that if it is an independent matter for Ofgem, then Government-stated policy is more difficult to deliver? There is this dynamic, there is tension between its independence and Government policy, but isn’t that a big part of the problem?
Jonathan Brearley: Stepping back from that, I want to come on to the long-duration storage. In the Ofgem review we already have, the reason why we want to firm up the strategy and policy statement is because the Government sets policy and the regulator implements it. On the specifics of the capital versus the lifetime costs, I do think Ofgem will have to come back to you on the specific project. To give you an example, Coire Glas is a very high CAPEX project. Its benefits are very long term and that is one of the ones that got through the cap and floor minded-to decision. Ofgem is still consulting. It has closed its consultation and it is coming back to its decision, so it is still considering this. If you think about the policy goal, which was to get enough long-duration storage to create a sustainable system, we do think that cap and floor and the process so far will do that.
Q754 Chair: One last question from me before I pass on to the other members of the Committee: are you committed to the CfD mechanism for solar?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think CfDs have been a very effective tool. I quoted the numbers in terms of investment that we have locked in for clean power, and that has been because of the CfD. Countries across the world are looking at us and thinking about how we have used that as a tool. We are constantly reviewing what technologies we use it for, how we use it and how we get that balance between incentivising the clean power that we need to get through versus making it fair for consumers.
Q755 Chair: Yes. Do you accept that current forecasts suggest the CfD will continue to deliver cheaper power through solar than alternative mechanisms?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I won’t get into the specifics, but the job that I see is that we have a tool that I think has been very effective in driving clean power. We will keep deploying that tool where we think it makes sense, but ultimately the balance that we have to strike is how we do that and incentivise the technology that we have, but make sure that it is fair cost and reasonable cost for consumers. That is the approach that we will take to every single technology.
Q756 Chair: I am curious about your answer because your stated priorities are affordability and bills—we all understand that and support it—but if you have a system that is doing that, why would you change it?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I don’t think we are planning to change it, but my point is that at the moment we are trying to think about it. The trajectory looks like this: we have done a huge amount, CfD has been a very effective mechanism and ultimately we have to constantly be stress-testing what it is unlocking in terms of investment versus the cost to consumers.
Chair: Thank you very much. I will pass over to Melanie Onn next, please.
Q757 Melanie Onn: Thank you, Chair. The UK has some of the highest industrial prices in Europe and that is holding back investment and manufacturing, with household bills continuing to be very high. What is the plan to bring energy costs down?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We do have one of the highest electricity prices and I think it is a travesty and a scandal. You only have to talk to households or businesses and they are bearing the weight of this, so we are incredibly serious about affordability being the No. 1 priority for us. We have to get prices down.
I think there are three parts to the answer. There is stuff that we need to do to provide people and businesses with breathing space, so whether it is the action that we have taken on removing VAT from electricity bills, which is on top of the £150 of cost that we took off bills at the Budget, or it is schemes like the BICS, we are trying to do things to give some light relief, but my view is that is necessary but not sufficient, because we have to drive long-term structural change.
Three things sit behind our high prices. One is our acute exposure to the global fossil fuel market. That is why the clean power mission that we started talking about is so important, because we have to make sure that we have home-grown clean energy at prices that are more affordable. When I look across Europe at the moment and think about the countries that are the least exposed to the current crisis in the Middle East, it is the countries that have diversified their energy mix and have deployed hydropower or nuclear in order to do that. We have to deal with that; that is No. 1 one. For me, that is necessary, but not sufficient, which takes me to number two.
Second is that we have to acknowledge that if you look at the energy system in the round and ask yourself the question, “If what you care about are consumers and affordability, is this the system that you would design?”—that is essentially the exam question I have asked myself going into the Department—my answer is, “Probably not”. We are looking at structural reform across the system that is looking at how we deliver an energy system that is more cost-effective, whether that is on the retail side, the generation wholesale side or on the network side in order to drive cost down.
The third dimension is we have to invest in critical infrastructure if we want an energy system that endures, and endures through the transition that we must make. We have to ask ourselves: what is the fairest way to allocate the fixed costs in the system? Ofgem has a massive bit of work at the moment looking at cost allocation, but thinking about what that balance looks like between, candidly, the bill payer, whether domestic or non-domestic, the taxpayer and the private sector. That is the conversation that we need to have. That is a very long way of saying we recognise that this is a central problem. I think it is completely untenable that we have energy prices at the level that they are at.
Q758 Melanie Onn: The reality is though, Secretary of State, that unless we do genuinely decouple our electricity prices from the international gas market, we are never going to be able to set our own electricity prices. It doesn’t matter if you take off all the policy costs, how are you going to do that when we are stifled by the inability to build out grid? Because we cannot deliver the clean energy that you talk about and we cannot use it and we cannot get ourselves off the reliance on gas.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Let me take it in two parts. I will talk about decoupling and then I will talk about the genuine constraints we have around generation versus our capacity to build.
We are on the process of decoupling. The first part of it is that we just need to bring more clean power on to the system, so gas drives less of the time. We are doing that and a huge amount of progress has been made over the last two years.
The second part of it is that what we have done with wholesale CfDs is essentially to fix more of the prices of renewables so it is not dictated by gas, so we are doing that. We are now asking ourselves the question: how do you take that forward? Irrespective, if you like, of where we are in the market structure, what are the steps that we can take to make sure that renewables reflect fair prices for renewables in a way that consumers benefit? Yes, there is a problem in terms of our network build. The conversation we just had a second ago I think illustrates that. We are not blind to that because, candidly, everyone is talking about the constraints and the kind of mismatch between what we are doing in terms of generation and where we are in terms of our build rate. I just think we have to be absolutely focused on tackling that. It is something that I am very exercised about and that the Department is exercised about, and we are working across the piece to do that.
I will come back to the point I made: yes, we will put pressure on the system to build out in the way that we think is necessary, but we also have to give the system just a tiny bit of slack because they have gone through a period of underinvestment in maintenance to a period of massive build. If you like, we are in the hump of that gear-out. We recognise that it is the responsibility of Government to do their part to enable that, but it is a hefty thing that we are asking the system to deliver.
Q759 Melanie Onn: Is Government funding that sufficiently?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I would say we are. It is a balance between the things that we can do as the Government and what we are doing through the recovery mechanisms on the bill. At the moment what I am hearing from industry is not that a lack of investment is the problem. It tends to be other constraints, for example workforce constraints.
I was talking to one of the contractors that build out the grid and they were like, “Just getting the workforce to do this at the pace that you are asking us to do this is very tough”. So, there are practical barriers. The thing that we are committed to doing is working in lockstep with industry to do it, because it is absolutely critical for the success of what we are trying to do.
Q760 Melanie Onn: You have said previously that you think that clean power is the only long-term solution to bringing down bills. Businesses are struggling; businesses are citing energy bills as being a serious issue. Do you think that there is a conflict between getting cheaper bills in the foreseeable future, meeting that clean power target by 2030 and looking at security of energy supply for the country?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think my position is a bit more nuanced. I think clean power is necessary, but not sufficient. The reason I say that is that I think there is structural reform of the market that we also need to do. We have to deliver clean power because that is the thing that allows us to decouple ourselves from international fossil fuel markets. That will do quite a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of bills, but I fundamentally believe that we also have to reform the system and the market.
To answer the question, “How do we get it to work for consumers and how do we get it to deliver on affordability?” we have to do both things, which is pretty hard, but my view is that we don’t get to our end destination unless we do both things.
Q761 Melanie Onn: I only have a couple of minutes left and I just wanted to turn to CCUS very briefly, because there are reports that your Department has to find over £2 billion worth of savings to aid with the Government’s Budget. Potentially that includes cuts to carbon capture projects. Can you give any reassurance that those projects that are already in train, that are critical to the Government’s mission on reindustrialisation, will continue and continue to have government support?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Thank you for your letter, which I will formally respond to. The first thing I would say is obviously that the Chancellor would not thank me if I were to disclose decisions that ultimately he needs to make. There is obviously a Budget process going on at the moment. I think the Chancellor has—
Q762 Melanie Onn: But the decisions relating to projects will be with the Department, yes?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, but if you like, the budget conversation is here. That is for the Chancellor and ultimately he will make a set of decisions and choices about the shape of the Budget.
What I can say about CCUS and hydrogen is that we are very clear that it is part of our trajectory. We started talking about our manufacturing and our heavy industry. There is no pathway to decarbonising unless we can help them do abatement. It is part of our strategy. We will do the work of supporting where we can and enabling where we can, but there is a hard choice for Government at the moment.
I would love to have the biggest budget possible and I would love to have finite amounts of resources. That is just not the world I am in, so we are asking ourselves the question: how do we work with industry to unlock the investment that we need to support to de-risk in the most cost-effective way? That might require us to use slightly different tools, including things like equity, but we are committed to that trajectory. The question is how we do it within the constrained resources that we have and in a way that balances the cost to consumers versus others.
Jonathan, is there anything else you would have said?
Jonathan Brearley: No.
Q763 Chair: Thank you, Secretary of State. You might want to reassure some of the businesses that are using CCUS and hydrogen. Melanie represents one part of the cluster, and I am very close to the other part. It is a real concern to them and is affecting their investment decisions right now. Are you having those conversations with them?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are having those conversations. These are key partners for us. We are on a journey together and we recognise our responsibility to give as much confidence. The thing that we have said consistently is we see that CCUS and hydrogen will have an important role in the mix, in the transition. We are working out the best way in which we can support within the resources that we have.
Q764 Chair: Thank you for that. I am going to turn to Sir Christopher in a moment, but you talked about affordability in clean power. Can you explain how clean power is delivering affordability?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes. For me, affordability is our central goal. I think clean power does, if you like, the first arc of that, which is if you ask yourself the question, “Why are bills going up at the moment and why are people under so much pressure?” it is because of conflicts miles away that are playing out on volatile global fossil fuel markets. That bit around getting home-grown energy here that we control is absolutely critical to that and that helps with the affordability journey.
The second bit is that piece we talked about, decoupling. If you allow that more renewables and more nuclear on the system drives prices rather than gas, that helps with affordability. I come back to the point I was making: it is the first step and it is very critical. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. There are other things that we must do to drive out costs in the system.
Q765 Sir Christopher Chope: Melanie Onn asked about investment and you said you were trying to get investment from the private sector. Isn’t the offer from Centrica to provide £2 billion towards the gas storage facility at Rough just such an investment opportunity? Why is it that the Government are not accepting that investment offer from the private sector? Cold water was poured on it by your colleague, Luke Pollard, when responding to the interview that Chris O’Shea, the boss of Centrica, gave earlier on this week.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I know Chris very well. We are working very closely with Centrica, including on this question. Ultimately the set of decisions that Centrica make are commercial decisions. We have engaged and we are engaging in a process because we are clear that storage is an important component. As we are thinking about all the conversations we are having about the state of the energy system, how we get more generation, also how we get more storage is absolutely critical. We are having a conversation about that in the round. We would prefer to have that conversation in private rather than in the media, but that is within the gift of Chris and other operators.
It is not the case that we are not engaging, we are engaging, but as you can imagine, there are many other propositions as well. The job of Government is to look in the round to say, “This is the outcome that we are trying to get to. What is the most cost-effective and efficient and resilient way in which we do that?” That is the process we are in at the moment.
Q766 Sir Christopher Chope: That all sounds delightfully vague. When is there going to be a firm decision in relation to the Rough application and particularly its application for support for a cap and floor regulatory framework to enable it to recover the costs of its £2 billion investment? How does that link in with the security of supply and the very real threat that we will lack sufficient gas later on this winter? Obviously if we are dependent on overseas imports, that then pushes up the price even more. Are those very critical issues and can you give us a concise, precise way forward?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I will try to be as concise as I can. Let me take this in two turns. On the question of security of supply, it is very important to emphasise that we have a very diverse, resilient and robust security of supply. If I am thinking about the things that are going across my in-tray, worries about security of supply is not one of them. We have the diverse mix of sources to get us through this winter and beyond.
On the specifics of Rough, there are two parts. There is an immediate question about the here and now and what it may do this year, and there is a longer-term question about, if you like, the shape of the storage capacity that we build across our energy system. We are very keen to work through the latter particularly, but we have to do that in the context of conversations with other potential providers and ask ourselves, as you would expect us to, and you would be very cross as a Committee if we weren’t: what is the most cost-effective way that we are doing this for the taxpayer and for the bill payer?
Q767 Sir Christopher Chope: You still have not identified the timescale. If this is urgent, when is this process that you are working going to be complete?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Imminent. I will use Whitehall speak: in due course and imminently. We are engaged in a conversation with it, but my point is that there are two parts of it. There is a question about this year and then there is a longer-term question about storage capacity and the role that Rough can play within that. We are having both of those conversations. For me, the latter is the one that is absolutely critical, but that has to be taken in the round with other conversations about where we can unlock storage capacity.
Q768 Sir Christopher Chope: Secretary of State, some people think that the reason you are not answering these questions and you are sitting on this issue is because you are prejudiced against the whole idea of the production and storage of gas, which is absolutely fundamental to our energy needs.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: No, absolutely not. Just to be very clear, I have been consistent—I am on the record—that gas is part of the mix. We are dependent on it in this transition, so that is not the issue. No one negates that we need storage and that we need gas storage, but you would expect me to look at it in the round in terms of the value for money of that proposition versus other propositions and to have a proper process with the company in question to get to that answer.
Q769 Sir Christopher Chope: Has the process you have described begun?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes.
Jonathan Brearley: We have consulted on options around security of supply. It is the conclusion of that consultation that will give some answers.
Q770 Sir Christopher Chope: When is the closing date for the consultation?
Jonathan Brearley: I will have to come back with the specifics, but I think it is not very long away.
Q771 Sir Christopher Chope: It is all so vague, isn’t it? Anyway, can I turn to something else? There is rising scepticism among my constituents and people in this country about the value or otherwise of net zero policies. It is well summed up in a letter today in The Daily Telegraph from Dr Fiona Underhill, who asks, “How many lives will be harmed by the unaffordable, unachievable and unnecessary net zero fantasy before politicians wake up to scientific and economic reality?” What is your answer to Dr Underhill?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I would say three things. First, it is worth saying that—and we look at this all the time—the majority of the public, seven in 10, support action on climate and the transition to net zero. Part of the reason they support it is because they are living and breathing through it. I don’t think anyone who could have lived through the summer that we have just had, where we saw record heatwaves, we saw droughts, we saw wildfires, and we saw much worse across the world, would think that this is a fantasy. It is not a fantasy. Why it matters is that if we do not get this right, it is people’s homes, it is their livelihoods and it is their communities that will be impacted. We have both a responsibility to people in the here and now and we have a responsibility to future generations.
The second thing I would say is that I am very clear that the job—and we have to be intentional about it—for all of us is that we do this transition in a way that works for people and benefits them. Part of the way that I hope I can counter some of the frustration and scepticism that I see, and I know is growing, is to say, “Look, we will do this transition because we must and it is the right thing, but it has a net positive impact in terms of affordability, it has a positive impact in terms of the industries.”
I talked about the £100 billion of investment that we have unlocked. That is investment in places; that is jobs that we are creating; that is industries and supply chains that matters for the British economy. Success for me is if I can persuade your constituent that this is the right path, not because I say it, but because they can see the benefits of it in their lives and their communities.
Q772 Sir Christopher Chope: Don’t you recognise, Secretary of State, that climate is not something that we can control within our own domestic agenda, it is an international issue? While we are deindustrialising, our competitors are continuing to emit CO2 emissions in very large quantities—so much so that the International Energy Agency do not think we have a hope in hell of getting anywhere near the climate targets, CO2 reduction targets, even by the end of this century. Are we not imposing unnecessary burdens on our own people and industry in terms of costs, while ignoring the reality of what is happening out there and probably needing to adapt rather than to pretend that it is not happening?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: The two things I would say is that of course it requires multilateral action, but within that, every single country that is in the multilateral race has a responsibility. Often people say, “Look, we are just 1% of global emissions,” but lots of 1% add up to about 50%. Every individual country has its own responsibility.
The second thing is that I talk to my international counterparts and they are looking to the UK with envy. We are a leader in this world, but we are a leader in a massively growing economy. China is leading the race on clean power. It is a huge global economy. The thing I say to people who may be sceptical about climate change—I look at the science and the science is pretty clear—is: “Fine if you are sceptical, even if you don’t believe in it, but why would you not want to be part of that global economy that is growing?” Ultimately, I think the way that I and the Government should engage with people, and it is within their gift to be sceptical, is to say, “Look, we need to do this transition in a way that isn’t a burden, where we are unlocking billions of investment.”
You talked about deindustrialisation. My view is that our route to reindustrialisation, which the Prime Minister talks about all the time, is through our sector. There is a massive pipeline on talking to global investors, trillions that they want to invest in the net zero economy, and we can be part of that. Why on earth would we not want to be part of that?
Q773 Chair: Before I move on to Wera Hobhouse, you used the phrase “diverse supply” earlier. Can you spell out what that diverse supply of gas is, because it is different sources, isn’t it?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think coming from different parts of our supply chain, whether that is Norway, whether that is LNG that we are importing. There is a range and we are confident that we have the diversity of supply.
Jonathan Brearley: Particularly having worked very closely through the two energy crises, the one we are going through today and the one we went through three or four years ago, we looked very closely at how we are going to get our gas. The UK does have a set of different sources of gas. We have the North Sea, we have Norway, we have LNG terminals, we have import, we have import interconnectors, and of course we have storage. What we have been consulting on is how we maintain that security of supply.
Coming back to the Secretary of State’s answer specifically on Rough, we need to look across the board at the measures we have to make sure we have not only security of supply, but security of supply at the least cost. That is what we will be doing. Very soon NESO will set out its winter outlook, it will talk about the security of supply situation going forward, but as you can imagine, both in this role and in the previous role, gas security of supply is paramount for us because we know the serious consequences were anything to go wrong.
Chair: Thank you for that level of detail. Wera Hobhouse, please.
Q774 Wera Hobhouse: Thank you very much. Thank you for coming, Secretary of State, and for what you have already explained. Directly after this meeting I will chair a Delegated Legislation Committee on the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, with the aim to add thermal energy storage systems or heat batteries as a listed technology under section 100 of the Energy Act 2008. This will enable the Secretary of State—you—to provide support to heat batteries. Great; I am sure a lot of people will be very happy with that, but there are other technologies that are still excluded, for example electric boilers. They are excluded from grants, they are excluded from emerging HEM and EPC regulations, despite evidence that they can reach a market and householders, particularly smaller households with smaller incomes, which other technologies cannot. Is it not time that other technologies get looked at and that your focus is really an output focus rather than banking on particular technologies?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: It is definitely outcome-focused. We are constantly keeping the technologies under review. The reason why we are putting through the new measures we are is that we have gone through that process. My view is that there are two things that we need to do. We absolutely want to have the Boiler Upgrade Scheme incentivising households, and where there are cost differentials against gas boilers, helping manage those cost differentials. Ultimately the judgment that the Department is always taking when we think about what is captured in the scheme is the ease of the technology and how easily it can be adopted by households. It is looking at the emissions impact of it and then, critically, it is looking at whether it needs to be subsidised.
Some of the technologies have parity with gas boilers, so the market should just kind of get on with it, but where that isn’t the case, it is right—and we often get lots of representation from companies that have different technologies—we will always look at it and always review it. If you think about where the scheme was a couple of years ago, it was pretty narrow, and it has been expanded over time as we have reviewed different technologies.
Q775 Wera Hobhouse: Indeed. I have to declare an interest: very near to Bath there is a company called Luthmore, which is a growing business producing basically electric boilers, and they are zero-emission battery-enabled boilers. I saw what it had to offer, and they could be great for social housing, for example, but it feels frustrated that for some reason its technology has not really been looked at. They seem to be quite competitive in terms of what you have just been saying about ease. It just installs one boiler with another boiler. It is used like a gas boiler; it is just a different technology. Not that I am a salesperson for that particular company, but electric boilers—
Miatta Fahnbulleh: You are doing a very good job. I want one.
Wera Hobhouse: I am talking about electric boilers. It seemed to me, as a technology, to tick all the boxes. I am just asking out of curiosity.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Can I commit to taking that away? The purpose of the scheme is genuinely to look at technologies. Our biggest challenge is uptake and our biggest challenge is households that think about different types of clean heat technologies and feel that it is a bit of a faff or it is too expensive. If there are technologies that make that journey easier for people, we should always be reviewing and looking at them. Maybe if I ask that they get in touch? I have no doubt that the team is reviewing them, but I will ask those questions because there is no prior reason why we would exclude clean heat technologies. It would go through a series of tests, so it has either gone through a series of tests and not passed those tests or it is something that we are in the middle of exploring.
Jonathan Brearley: Yes. After this, let’s get in touch with that specific company.
Q776 Wera Hobhouse: The other thing, very quickly, is that I visited the British Standards Institute, which was fascinating—anybody who hasn’t should see it. There are also restrictions about definitions—what you include in a definition, for example. Can you expand a little bit on how that works?
Jonathan Brearley: I am happy to. One of the things, particularly with heat pumps, is obviously that they have a big efficiency advantage over traditional boilers normally because they maximise the use of electricity. That is what makes them competitive with gas. We have to have a set of criteria because we have to be able to reassure you and other Select Committees like the PAC that we are using the money in the right way, but we are always open to amending those criteria as the technology changes.
There is a lot of innovation in heat at the moment. I have spent some time in East Sussex with a very new company that has a very different way of heating water. I think if you encourage the company you have near Bath to make sure it comes to us, we can make sure it is in touch with the innovation team and we would be very happy to apply those criteria. The reason why we have that specificity is we have to be clear that the money is going to the right place.
Q777 Wera Hobhouse: Can I just ask again about the standards authority, because that is the underlying thing? How is your working relationship with the BSI to clarify the standards? How does that work?
Jonathan Brearley: There are two separate issues. We are very close with the BSI. In fact, when you look at our history—[Interruption.]
Chair: We will just wait for the bell. If you finish this answer, then we will suspend the session.
Jonathan Brearley: Yes. When you look at our history, product standards have played an incredibly large part in reducing the need for electricity overall, particularly in the early 2010s. We work very closely with the standards authority, but equally the criteria for this are slightly different. It is set out in regulations and Ofgem is the one that applies it. We can come through both.
Chair: We will suspend this session and continue this questioning after the vote.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Q778 Chair: Welcome back to this afternoon’s session of the Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee, where Wera Hobhouse is grilling the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary. Do carry on.
Wera Hobhouse: Another question: the Government have said a Warm Homes Plan will help lift up to 1 million households out of fuel poverty—again great—with more than £5 billion of funding targeted at low-income households. Given that these households have the least ability to meet the up-front cost of home improvements, how does it work? Particularly there might be an underspend, but will the Warm Homes Plan funding still be part of the future and not be reduced?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Warm Homes Plan funding will be part of the future. It has to be, because the way in which we translate everything that we are trying to do in terms of clean power to households is through technologies like solar, battery and clean heat. We have several grant schemes, the Social Housing Fund, our Local Grant scheme and then the Warm Homes grant scheme, which will essentially be targeted to lower-income households. Our ambition, partly because we want to deliver at scale and pace, is to devolve the Warm Homes programme so that we are working with regional government and local government to do far more area-based interventions, street by street, estate by estate. We think there are efficiencies in that, but critically it means that we can better reach and target households and get the set and suite of measures that work for them.
Success for me is getting to a point where different funding pots—whether it is the Warm Homes grants, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme or loan mechanisms that we are looking at—those are working in concert so that you can do a diversity of households in a particular area so that we can get the sort of scale and quantum that we need.
Q779 Wera Hobhouse: When I hear the word “efficiency” I always think that is code for cutting funding, so have I heard that the funding itself is not going to be reduced, although it is going to be devolved?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: It will be devolved, and obviously questions about funding are subject to Budget and spending review processes, but by “efficiency” at the moment, if you think about how we do home upgrades, you are putting up a bit of scaffolding here, you are then putting up a different bit of scaffolding there, and if you are doing a whole street or you are doing a whole estate, it just allows you to do better. I don’t think we will get to the quantum—the ambition is 5 million homes. We ultimately want to upgrade all the homes that have not been upgraded across the country. I do not think we get there unless we take a far more area-based approach, and we do it in partnership with regional government and local government.
Chair: Thanks very much. Lizzi Collinge, you have some questions on this as well.
Q780 Lizzi Collinge: Thanks, Chair. I want to ask you about the Warm Homes Plan, but also about nuclear power. I have been speaking to people involved in delivering Warm Homes with a local authority level and they have flagged some issues. I want to raise them with you as Secretary of State. Some local authority schemes, like the Cosy Homes scheme in Lancashire, have nearly run out of allocation. They have agreed 90% of the jobs with DESNZ, they are trying to prioritise the remaining 10% to meet the cost requirements. Lancashire has effectively closed grant new applications in year two, and it already has sufficiently eligible applications to cover the 2027 and 2028 budget. But the national delivery figures look quite sluggish and look like money is not getting out the door, so there is definitely a postcode lottery going on there. Some local authorities are performing well and I have been told this is because they usually already had the infrastructure in place, but because the grant is paid in arrears, local authorities that did not have that infrastructure already are struggling, and some are not prioritising it—it is not statutory—and they are struggling to get it out the door.
I have been told that the impact of this and other issues are leading to not only the plan not being delivered; it is also leading to a lack of confidence because we are saying we are putting all this money in and then it is not being spent and people are not seeing the benefits. Also, there are supply chain problems with scheme installers not training staff, not taking them on, and in some areas they do not even have enough staff to deliver the local grant aspect of Warm Homes properly. Will the ambition for devolution make this better or worse? How will you ensure these issues are addressed and the full benefits, particularly economic growth benefits, are realised?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Thank you for bringing the specifics to my attention. The ambition is to try to do large-scale home upgrades and so we are hoping that devolution makes it better, in part because it puts the regional government, local government and communities in the driving seat of what upgrades are done where, how you align it to different housing stock, and what you prioritise. It is the difference between individualised interventions versus scale interventions because you can do a whole estate or a whole street. It should make it better, and ultimately devolution means that there is more flexibility in the system for local and regional authority to make the right decisions, and also to hopefully blend different bits of funding. I always talk about maintenance budgets for estates that sit separately to home upgrade budgets. You could align them and, therefore, go into a place and do one set of interventions rather than multiple interventions. I think it will get better.
We have made lots of progress on local grant. It has evolved because the scheme has been designed in a way where we are constantly getting feedback from local authorities and trying to flex and evolve it in response. Whenever there are both criticisms of how it is not working or issues, I am desperate for people to keep telling us, and that is the spirit that the team and the Department have worked in. We are always trying to flex it and evolve it. We know that some areas have outperformed and they have, if you like, more demand than the grant that has come through. We will look at how we deal with that across the system because we have a massively ambitious target, and I want to kind of built out.
I am hoping as we move, with the presumption of greater devolution, that will help fully assist it all. There are big challenges. We have never done it in this way, we have never devolved it in this way, and there are questions around capacity and capability of different parts of the country. One of the things we are thinking about is how the Warm Homes agency when it is fully established can help and support—
Q781 Lizzi Collinge: When will it be established?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We have, if you like, shadow structures that are sitting between DESNZ, Ofgem and Salix.
Q782 Lizzi Collinge: When will it be doing its work?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We have some enabling legislative mechanisms which will be in the energy independence Bill as soon as we get a slot in legislation, but we will set it up as a shadow scheme partly because it will need to be supporting places that do not have the capability or the track record, so that the people in those communities are not left out.
Jonathan Brearley: The only thing I would add—
Q783 Lizzi Collinge: Sorry, I want to move on. I have also had representations about the zero VAT rate on energy materials, solar panels, and the installation of those. That zero rate is due to come to an end in April and revert to 5%. Have you made representations to the Chancellor to extend that?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, but, as you can imagine, all tax issues are at the Chancellor’s discretion.
Q784 Lizzi Collinge: Thank you very much. I want to ask you about nuclear and regulation of nuclear. First of all, something very specific: the semi-urban population density criteria—
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I am already turning to Jonathan, but please continue.
Lizzi Collinge—is a piece of legislation from the 1960s. It has been heavily criticised for being out of date and it currently affects my constituency in that it prevents new nuclear being built where there are already two nuclear power stations, which to my community seems very odd. The Government have promised that this would be reviewed. When will we see the new criteria?
Jonathan Brearley: We are reorganising the whole of the nuclear regulatory framework in response to the Fingleton Review. That work is continuing at pace and we have the taskforce who are making sure that is both designed and implemented. I will take this specific criterion away and give you a written response, if you do not mind.
Q785 Lizzi Collinge: Thank you. I want to go on to wider regulation, but I will start with regulation and strategic objectives in regulation. I spend a lot of time looking at things like graphite cracking and how you shut down nuclear reactors. Currently the Office of Nuclear Regulation will not accept duty-holders or licensees including the country’s need for energy security, including the risks for things like blackouts, climate change mitigation, or economic growth in the decisions it is making. For example, when we look at life extensions at nuclear power stations. To be clear, my concern is that we might be shutting down power stations that are perfectly safe to operate because the ONR is, first, very risk averse, and secondly not able to take into account strategic considerations when it is making decisions. The Government have said that they will make sure strategic factors will be part of risk assessments. Well respected nuclear allies such as Canada have done this. Will you mandate that the ONR consider wider strategic factors when it is making its decisions?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I will have to take away the specifics or defer to Jonathan. We are very clear that they should be taking those strategic objectives into play. There may be a conversation or a question that we need to ask ourselves about the right mechanism to do that but the policy intent is very clear.
Q786 Lizzi Collinge: That is good, because currently the message is that that is not being taken into account and that decisions are not able to take wider risks into account. Let me give you an example.
The risk of a nuclear reactor having a serious problem is more than 1 in 1 million. It is a very rare event. If you look at the risks we are looking at on the Government risk register for things like blackouts, that is a significantly more likely risk. What I want to know is that when the ONR is looking at decisions about shutting down power stations is also taking into account those wider risks.
I will move on now. I want to talk about Fingleton, so going up from some of the more specific ones that I wanted to get on the record. On the Advanced Nuclear Framework and the Fingleton Review, concerns have been raised to me about the pace of decision making and the pace of regulatory reform. Looking at decisions on applications to the Advanced Nuclear Framework, and also the legislation needed to implement the Fingleton Review fully, when will the Fingleton Review be implemented fully, including all relevant legislative changes? That is my first question. How will you keep the pace needed to ensure that new nuclear technology is ready to deploy to provide both baseload but direct energy to industry, because that is one part of the decarbonisation of industry?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I will do the first question on legislative and then if you do the second question, Jonathan?
We recognise the urgency and industry have been pretty clear and robust with us. We are at the behest of the parliamentary timetable and getting a legislative slot in a very busy Session. We, as you can imagine, are making the representation because we think this is an important enabling Bill. We are ready as a Department; it is a question of when parliamentary time allows.
Jonathan Brearley: We should point out that we have recently announced the Sizewell B extension, so we are trying to extend nuclear plants where we can. We are working on all 47 recommendations from the Fingleton Review. The Secretary of State has laid out that it is subject to parliamentary time but I will point out there are a number of things there that do not need legislation that we are pursuing, and we know that this is time critical. We are working with international partners to make sure that we are aligned.
On what I describe as new nuclear technologies, I think we should emphasise that we have very recently signed the deal with Rolls-Royce on SMRs. I cannot emphasise strongly enough how that is a global leadership role we are playing. In fact—
Q787 Lizzi Collinge: But the rest of the rollout of new nuclear will be with the private sector, things such as the Advanced Nuclear Framework. How are you enabling that?
Jonathan Brearley: I am happy to talk about that, but to finish the point, when we talk internationally, I think Rolls-Royce is becoming a global leader in a new technology. On the Advanced Nuclear Framework, we are in deep conversation with companies already. Clearly there is a set of things that they need to submit to us to satisfy us that we can take them through to the next stage, but we are very keen to make sure that we keep growing this sector. We think it has a high potential not only for the UK but as a sector that will support reindustrialisation in the future.
Lizzi Collinge: Thank you.
Q788 Chair: Thank you very much. I am struck by both the questions on the Warm Homes Plan and on nuclear regulation, that in both cases—with the comment, Secretary of State, you made about the Warm Homes Agency sitting between DESNZ and Ofgem, and with the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the point that Lizzi Collinge made about whether its risk appetite is in right place—we have this difference between what these arm’s length bodies are doing and what government policy needs them to do. That goes back to my opening question. Do you accept that is a very realistic analysis of what you find in your in-tray as you come into the role?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, in part. Where the system is getting strategic direction there are many players within the regulatory space, DESNZ and NESO. One of the things that we considered and put forward recommendations on when we were thinking about the Ofgem review is how we try to consolidate some of that architecture so that it is far more coherent, aligned, and we have different players working together.
The reason I say it is partial is that I do think Government have a responsibility here. One of the outcomes of the Ofgem review is that policy statements coming from Government should be clear and robust about what it is that we want the system to deliver, a clear line between strategic direction that must sit with Government and ultimately Ministers so that we are held accountable, implementation and regulation. To date it has been a little bit too woolly and lines of accountability have been less clear. I accept the characterisation but I also think it is a bit of a cop-out for Government and ultimately it is our job to make sure that there is clear strategic direction about where we are trying to get to.
Q789 Chair: Can we take it from what you have told us, Secretary of State, that you will make a step change in the way that Government operate with their arm’s length bodies in your Department?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, and that process is already in train.
Chair: Thank you. Mike Reader.
Q790 Mike Reader: Thank you, Chair. Secretary of State, I want to pick up on Fingleton with some quick questions, and then I will get on to my other questions. How many of the 47 recommendations have been implemented?
Jonathan Brearley: We are still in the process of implementing them all so none are completely finished, but we will come back on the detail of what needs to be done.
Q791 Mike Reader: Some require legislation—which you have picked up on—and some do not. Tolerance of risk panel; the DCO centralised unit—they were due for June. Should we be concerned that the Department is late in its delivery against the commitment the Government made on Fingleton, Secretary of State?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are trying to take all the recommendations that are legislative forward. Can I suggest that we come back to the Committee and set out where we are in the process?
Q792 Mike Reader: Do you not get a report from the implementation panel? Have you not come prepared with that information?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I do not have it with me at the moment, which is why I am very happy to write to the Committee and bring it forward. The key point is there is no desire on our part to go slow on this. This matters not only for industry but for Government and for our strategic objectives. We are running at this. Some recommendations can be done quickly, other recommendations are more complex, but rather than me talking in the round I will commit to write in with the specifics of where we are on the 47.
Q793 Mike Reader: Do you have confidence you will meet the Government’s commitment to implement by the end of 2027?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, and that is my job to put pressure on the system to make sure that we do deliver that.
Q794 Mike Reader: When will see the Bill come forward?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: If it was solely down to me, it would be yesterday, but as I said, there is a busy parliamentary schedule and we have to compete with others to make sure that we get the time with very busy—
Q795 Mike Reader: Would you accept that it will take at least a year to get through the parliamentary process, and so you have to be laying it now to get it done by the end of 2027?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are prosecuting that case. It is quite a slim and defined Bill. The other Bill that we are trying to get through the system is a very big Bill, that will take a year, whereas this is quite a defined Bill and there is lots of cross-party consensus for it so I am hoping we can get it through—
Q796 Mike Reader: Is there capacity to deliver both the energy independence Bill and that Bill at the same time?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: It is our working assumption that there is.
Q797 Mike Reader: Thank you. On connections Ofgem said that NESO failed; they did not meet their performance objectives, they did not support progress or show sufficient progress. Do you agree with Ofgem’s assessment of NESO?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: In part, but my view coming into the role is back to the Chair’s point that we have a very complicated Government structure. One of my criticisms of where the system has got to is that we have lots of different operators, lots of different parts of the system trying to drive things without enough coherence, co-ordination and strategic direction. NESO takes some responsibility for that, Ofgem takes some responsibility for that but, candidly, so does DESNZ. I will not point the finger at any part of the system because I think we are all culpable. Our job now is to try to get that coherence and direction because there are huge things that we are asking of the system, both build out—
Q798 Mike Reader: Sorry, Secretary of State, because I will get told off by the Chair for using up all my time. When do you expect all Gate 2, Phase 1 offers to be made?
Jonathan Brearley: We are expecting it to be within the coming months. We have been working with NESO to make sure they get out as quickly as possible. We recognise that is later than we had originally scheduled. They have had some technical issues, as I am sure you know, and that is one of the reasons I think Ofgem came to their conclusion. We are working through this at pace. We already beginning to set the connection offers out and the next job is to work with developers to make sure that work is done.
Q799 Mike Reader: The published deadline now is 31 October. That is the second extension. You used the word “we” then, but it is not the Department that is responsible, it is NESO. Is it clear who is responsible for fixing this issue?
Jonathan Brearley: NESO is setting out the offers but throughout this process DESNZ, Ofgem and NESO have been working closely and indeed we have been co-ordinating on this.
Q800 Mike Reader: Secretary of State, we have heard over the summer suggestions from whistleblowers around issues in NESO. We saw this week the issuing of the Emergency Assistance order. Do you have confidence in NESO as we go into the winter?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Let me try to disaggregate that. NESO uses lots of tools to make sure that it is balancing the system. The example last week was that it doing what it needed to do, so we have confidence in terms of security of supply on the system is working. It has been tested and it is robust, and it has been robust for two decades. I am not worried about that. Obviously any allegations from whistleblowers we take very seriously. There is an independent review going on, let us see what the outcomes of it are. Ultimately my job as Secretary of State is if there is a problem we need to see that problem, jump on it and fix it, but I will not prejudice the outcome of the review. Let us let it play out and then we will respond in the appropriate way.
Q801 Mike Reader: On this issue of connections, if there is further slippage into months—as was suggested by Jonathan—does that put the clean power mission at risk?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: It puts it under pressure if I am completely honest, but looping back to the start of the conversation, it is already under pressure because we have been successful with generation and buildout is not as fast as it needs to be. For me the critical thing is that we maintain momentum towards clean power. Why I say that is—and I have been consistent on this—it is not the target in its own right, it is the momentum and confidence it is building in the system. We have to maintain that momentum and confidence because that is the thing that is unlocking the scale of investment.
Q802 Mike Reader: The Chair raised this in his very short question and we heard it also in Lizzi’s: are we clear who is responsible? We have DESNZ, NESO, Ofgem, now GB Grid, Elexon. There is a range of organisations here. Does the Department have a clear hold on who is responsible for delivering it, or is it a bit of a mess?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, but it is too noisy, so when we are thinking about the reform agenda going forward, what public control and strategic direction means, those are the very questions we are asking ourselves. I will come back to the point I made at the start. Would you design the system in this way if you were starting from scratch? The answer is no.
Q803 Mike Reader: Those are the questions you are asking yourself; what do you think the solution is?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think the solution is that we will have to think about how we co-ordinate and rationalise some of the architecture that exists at the moment. That co-ordination process is already happening where NESO, us, Ofgem and other parts of the system are working far more in concert. One of the outcomes of that process with the Ofgem review was DESNZ has been much clearer that it is our job to set strategic direction and we need to set it so it filters through the system. We will ask ourselves how we can strengthen the architecture to make sure that we are underpinning the collaboration and co-ordination that is happening between institutions.
Q804 Mike Reader: Who is accountable for that?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Ultimately me.
Q805 Mike Reader: Do you think GB Energy Grid confuses or simplifies the system?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think it should hopefully help simplify the system. Don’t take my word for it; the proof will be in what we deliver. The reason I say that is there is a question around the planning, the investment and the delivery of grid and how you can bring that together, and I think GB Grid can help with that. There is a critical question where we are seeing bottlenecks: how can we get other challengers into the system to leverage in private sector investment so that we can build out? In the end there is a question of co-ordination but there is also a question of delivery and I think GB Grid can help with that.
Q806 Mike Reader: If responsibility sits with yourself and DESNZ—when Chris Stark came in front of our panel twice I asked him about organisation capability and he was very clear the last time he saw us that this clean power unit was not at fully operational capability in terms of being able to deliver. That unit is now being wound down; Chris Stark is leaving. Is the Department delivery focused? Is it delivery ready? What happens to that capability?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: It is, but there is always room for improvement. The critical bit is the strategic role that the Department plays. If we start getting into the weeds of delivering and micromanaging, therein lies unsuccess. We need to play a strategic role across the system and we need to give clear signals to every part of the system about the outcomes that we are trying to achieve, but then we need to make sure that other parts of the system are fit for purpose.
We talked about Ofgem and the big review that is fundamentally looking at the mandate of Ofgem and how it operates. There are questions around NESO and how we get that to operate, and then there is a fundamental question of how we bring it all together so that there are not 101 conversations but there is one conversation that is underpinned by strategic direction. That is the reform journey that we are on.
Q807 Mike Reader: What happens to that capability that was in the clean power unit? Where does that go?
Jonathan Brearley: We still have the clean power unit itself; we still have the capability that is monitoring delivery. We are much further advanced on understanding the information that we get from networks and others, so we are monitoring things much more closely. I emphasise as Perm Sec I am conscious this Department is on a journey though. If you think about some of the things we talked about in nuclear, we have Sizewell, one of the biggest major infrastructure programmes in the country, that we will have to oversee and support. Over time we will continue to build on what Chris Stark built, we will make sure that we are fully focused on making sure that we are at a strategic level looking at delivery, and that extends beyond Clean Power 2030 to some of the major projects and programmes that we oversee.
Q808 Claire Young: Going back to nuclear for a moment—but we will also still be talking about this issue of different structures—GBE-N were supposed to be reporting back this autumn on its review of nuclear sites. Are they still on track? Do you think that there is a good understanding in the industry of the process that they are going through doing that review? Associated with that, what happens with GBE-N’s own sites, how private investors may gain access to those sites? Do you think that there is an open door policy for local authorities to discuss proposals that are coming forward in their area and share their local knowledge? I think there is concern that that has not been the case with the ANF.
Jonathan Brearley: The process is definitely under way and GBE-N are working through identifying potential sites. If there was an issue with their transparency and engagement then I am happy to pick that up and take it up with the CEO and Chair, but we are working with them to make sure that we have sites for future nuclear power stations.
Q809 Claire Young: Secretary of State, are you confident that they are on track to deliver and that there is good understanding in the industry? That is not the impression that I am getting from potential developers.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Certainly, from the conversations I have had with industry I am not picking concerns. As you know, delivering any nuclear programme is complex and difficult, and there are lots of constraints and barriers that we are having to operate against. I am confident but we can always stress test it. If there are parts of the industry that are communicating things to the Select Committee that they are worried about they should come to us and tell us. The objective is aligned; we want to build and develop at scale because we need to. If there are barriers that sit with us, we want to know about them so that we can fix them.
Q810 Claire Young: On the issue of GBE-N owned land and access to that, do you think that process is clear yet, or it has that not been set out yet?
Jonathan Brearley: That needs to be worked through. That is, in part, linked to the Advanced Nuclear Framework so we need to put the two things together. Of course we have obviously made some decisions on sites already; Rolls-Royce, for example.
Q811 Claire Young: We are increasingly seeing that these private proposals are coming forward alongside private wire offtakers. We have a limited amount of space in this country for nuclear. If we need nuclear to be part of the mix supplying our national grid then in some way we need to make sure there is capacity to do that. Obviously there is a scale where you have a complete command and control approach, and at the other end of the scale you have a complete free market, open approach as to how you are dealing with these sites. Where do you see the Government’s approach sitting on that scale, and how do GBE-N fit into this? They feel like a slightly strange organisation, and probably we are speaking to the same people in the industry but I am not getting the sense that it is clear what their purpose is in this.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think we are in the middle of that scale. We need better planning and co-ordination. I do not think we can have a free-for-all free market, not for something as critical as nuclear that underpins something as absolutely foundational as energy. When I have spoken to investors the feedback we have had about it is positive. Unless we had essentially part-funded and derisked we would not have had the partnership that we have had. I have other companies come to me interested in that model of co-investment where the public sector is co-investing with the private sector to get big infrastructure and technology away. That is the model in a lot of Europe.
I am proud we are doing it with nuclear because I do not think we would be delivering this scale of nuclear programme if we were not doing that. We are starting to do that through GB Energy as well and I think that as we ask ourselves the question of what public control looks like in the context of generation, it is that mixed model where the public sector steps in, we do some underwriting, some derisking in order to get critical infrastructure away.
Q812 Claire Young: Is it also about the strategic approach to what happens and where? If effectively all our nuclear sites were taken up with—if we were effectively importing overseas data centres, for example, so we were creating extra demand and then you were supplying that demand, your net effect on the grid supply is zero. That is obviously an extreme case but how are you ensuring as Government that that is not what happens. There seems to be a belief in the industry that you need those income streams in order to fund the nuclear.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are clear that there needs to be more strategic planning and the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan will be our first step in doing that, where there is far more co-ordination, where we are asking ourselves where the existing infrastructure is and where is the capacity to build out is, and we are trying to do that in a far more planned way. We have worked closely with industry to design and develop that. I am clear that there is the need for planning and co-ordination, but you combine that with partnership with the public sector. There is a model that that we are moving towards in our collective defence, and now we are in the position where we can hopefully start reaping the benefits of it.
Q813 Claire Young: Moving on to something else now—to prove it is not all about nuclear—I have asked this question of your predecessor. I am concerned that the Department has maybe quite a narrow approach of wind, solar and nuclear. There are many other technologies out there: in my own patch there is tidal and the potential for geothermal. I was told that STAC was set up to advise on this. Can you explain what STAC have done since they were created to help DESNZ look at alternatives, and particularly in the light of the potential cuts to your budget that we have been hearing about, how you see them working in the future?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I will ask Jonathan to pick up the specifics on STAC but in the end the job is complicated but quite simple. We are trying to get to a diverse mix of technology at the most affordable cost, and that is cost for both billpayers and taxpayers. The approach I am taking is there is no technology that is out of scope. Ultimately the conversation we need to have with industry is, “Can you deliver, at what cost can you deliver, and what is the level of derisking and subsidy that is required from the state to get this project away?”
Ultimately that piece around feasibility and capacity to deliver, and the cost of doing it, are the key binding constraints when we are having that conversation. There is not a prior position that this technology is out of scope; this is in scope. We test technology across that, acknowledging that the cost curve of technologies changes over time. Something that is incredibly expensive today will not necessarily be that expensive in 10 to 15 years, so you have to keep it under review.
Jonathan Brearley: With STAC and with our Chief Scientist and our engineering team we are always looking out for new innovative technologies. We talked earlier about heat and we are looking at new heating technologies. That feeds through the value chain into our process, so stage one is trying to support early stage demonstration to make sure the technology is viable. Then we have a set of schemes, including CfDs, that begin to scale them out.
We have quite a strong record in the UK on taking new technologies, developing them through the FAT cycle, and ultimately scaling them up, and we will continue to try to do so. Obviously there is a value for money trade-off there, so we always have to be conscious that we are confident we have something that we think has potential for the long term. Coming back to the story about nuclear, the Advanced Nuclear Framework, and indeed fusion, there is a whole set of things we are doing there to bring new technologies forward.
Q814 Chair: Thank you very much. Before I go to Torcuil Crichton, this point about costs comes up again. Are we talking about the day 1 costs here, or the costs after 10 years, 20 years, 100 years? If we are talking about tidal, the likelihood is it is a 100 year plus project, even longer than nuclear, which is long. The sense we are getting is that too much emphasis is going on the upfront cost and not looking at how it is spread over a long timeframe.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I do not think that is a fair reflection of the way that we assess cost. It will be the cost over the lifetime of the project. There are two challenges and that is both a Government challenge but also a challenge for industry: you may look at the costs over the lifetime but there will be upfront costs that you have to get over the hurdle. Unless you can raise the capital, whether that is a combination of private investment and subsidy, you cannot get over that hurdle and that can be a constraint. But generally when we are thinking about value for money we should always think about value for money over the life of a project.
Jonathan Brearley: I think in the UK we have taken a very long-term view. We are putting over £2 billion into fusion that, Chair, as you know, will be a valuable technology in the late 2030s, 2040s. If you look through all of our investments we do put a lot of emphasis on the long term as well as the short term. Sadly I have been around long enough to know about the review of the Severn Barrage a long time ago. Even though the Government turned it down it was based on a very long-term value for money assessment.
Q815 Chair: Secretary of State, you said industry who are coming to us should come to you. This is part of the problem: they are coming to us because they cannot get through to you. Can I ask you to take that away as a particular barrier that we have encountered and is what is being said to us?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Okay, I will absolutely take that away. In my defence I have only been in the job for two months, but what I do know is across our senior official team, our junior Ministers, and myself, we spend a lot of time engaging with the full diversity of industry. If people have not had time with me it is maybe because I am new to the job and we have not put time, but they would have met my senior officials, they would have met Jonathan, they would have met one of my ministerial colleagues. But I will take it away.
Q816 Chair: The evidence to us is that is not always happening and it is not happening in far too many examples. It is very encouraging to hear you make that offer to industry. Torcuil Crichton.
Torcuil Crichton: Thank you, Chair. Secretary of State, Permanent Secretary, thank you for coming in—possibly the longest two hours of your two months. I will ask you about the transition and about grid connections and communities. I want to pick up first on Mike Reader’s very sophisticated question so I can put it in more tabloid terms: what assurance can you give consumers that the lights will not go out this winter?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I am 100% confident that they will not go out this winter. The first duty of a Secretary of State is to make sure that we can deliver security of supply, so that is the first question I ask the system, and all the questions you are asking of me, I have asked of the system. We have tested it and we kicked it around and I am 100% confident. We have not had an outage or problems with security of supply for coming on 20 years.
Jonathan Brearley: Certainly for nationally significant ones. We have had some in 2019 but certainly earlier than that.
Q817 Torcuil Crichton: Forgive the clumsy metaphor but in the North sea the lights are going out. That is not just an Abdereen issue; there are only two postcode areas in Britain that do not have a jobs connection to the North sea—this is one of them, I think. Everyone accepts that it is a declining basin, but we have heard evidence up in Aberdeen that in order to get to large-scale renewables and clean energy, as it is called, we need to maintain our skills base, the supply chain, and the workforce. Notwithstanding what you may or may not say on Jackdaw and Rosebank—and please feel free to make news—I am not predicating—
Chair: We are poised for an announcement, Secretary of State.
Torcuil Crichton: I am not predicating what the Chancellor may say about the Energy Profits Levy. We talk about pragmatism; what practical and pragmatic steps are you taking to make sure that we stay in the North sea and that we keep these jobs for another 20, 30 years?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: There are three parts of it. Obviously, the consenting decision is quasi-judicial, I cannot go into the specifics other than to say I am putting quite a lot of urgency in terms of making a decision. I am doing that out of a slight vested interest because it is the only question I am ever asked about and I want to be asked about other parts of my brief, so we are moving at pace to make those decisions.
There are three parts of this. We are clear that oil and gas are part of our mix in the transition and, therefore, we do need to make sure that we are securing the jobs that we can. The second part of this—and this is important—you mentioned that it is a declining basin, and it is, and so the question for me is what is our plan for oil and gas workers, not just in the northeast of Scotland but across the piece. The criticism I have of Government—and it is definitely one I have of the last Government, and I think there is more that we need to do—is that we need a proper plan, and that plan needed to be in place a decade ago because 75,000 jobs were lost well before we came anywhere near power. There has not been a plan that says, “This is the jobs that we have, this is what we can secure. This is the trajectory of how those jobs are changing over the next 10, 15, 20 years. This is what we will do to help people to reskill, to upskill, to support them in transition. This is the role of decommissioning that can unlock 25,000 with the skills that we need.” There needs to be a proper plan.
My commitment is to make sure that we have a plan for the workers, because I think it is unforgiveable that there has not been one. That is about jobs that we secure now but it is also about the jobs that we can create, both in the industry and beyond industry where we can use those skills.
Q818 Torcuil Crichton: When will we see this plan?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: To be fair, this is down to my predecessor. We have been working on the North Sea Jobs Taskforce and the future plan. We will be coming out imminently, including with some infrastructure to support that transition.
Q819 Torcuil Crichton: On the grid, you told the Chair that we are asking hard things of the networks to get the grid up to speed. But it is also a very profitable thing for them: we are giving them £86 billion to get the grid. I know there are constraints on their profits but that is a lot of money. Should that grid belong to them or should it belong to the public?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: In the end the thing that the regulator does—and I think the regulator has got this wrong and a lot of the changes to the regulatory framework we have for the networks is a recognition of that. For example, we know that there were returns that were made because of inflation rather than things that the networks did, and the regulatory framework has been made tighter. Ultimately what people care about is that they have the grid infrastructure that we need. The question for me—and this is why I think Great British Grid is so important—is that I do think we need a public sector operator in that space, and if we are seeing the capacity and build out constraints that we have, it is the responsibility of Government to step in and to make sure that we are doing our bit.
Q820 Torcuil Crichton: You anticipated my next question: what is GB Grid about?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: GB Grid should do three things. The first is that bit of strategic planning that says where we are in the system, where the bottlenecks are, and how we get build away—working closely with DESNZ and NESO to do that. The second thing is we know already where there are constraints, where the transmission operators are moving at pace but there are bottlenecks. The thing I think GB Grid can do is be another player in that system. Leveraging private sector investment, not from our existing transmission operators, going in partnership to build out. We are trying to create the space for different self-builds or different challenges in the system so we can build out our grid capacity. Then ultimately where we are building out there is the opportunity for us to take a stake in that.
Q821 Torcuil Crichton: As I understand it, GB Grid comes out of GB Energy’s funds. Did you do that because you do not think GB Energy is delivering?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: No. One of the things we have definitely learnt is one of the many downsides of privatisation—and you will hear me banging on about this quite a lot in the coming months—is that the system is quite fragmented. If we have a public sector generator that we are creating in the system, I think it should be aligned and integrated with a public sector operator within the grid system, because I think it will make for a more coherent system.
Q822 Torcuil Crichton: What do you think of ideas of private companies building their own grid and then connecting to the National Grid or, as they do in Germany, municipalities owning or building the grid?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: We are looking at that. I think it is Ofgem that is reviewing that at the moment and looking for options around self-build and greater competition. We are looking at it in the round. From my perspective there is a clear problem. We need to build out the grid and the infrastructure at pace, and the system is creaking in its ability to do that, so what are the different mechanisms that allow us to get to the outcome that we need to.
Jonathan Brearley: We can see advantages in that. Clearly if you have a diversity of people building and some of the major developers want big sites, they may have capacity to be able to build some of this themselves. That is something we are actively working through. On the question on security of supply, there are always things that are outside of our control that may hit us. We are very confident but acknowledge that any system in the world will have a small degree of risk.
Q823 Torcuil Crichton: On a creaking grid and community connections, let me take you back to your speech to conference where you talked about public control not just being national control, that your power should sit close to people, postcode after postcode, community after community, people have to have a stake in the energy system. I could have written that. The only way to achieve that is to allow community energy projects priority on the grid. In two years of banging my head against the wall on this, NESO, Ofgem, the transmission operators, Ministers, communities, everybody thinks it is a good idea. The rhetoric is great but it needs ministerial direction and authority to give communities priority grid connections. Why do you not do that?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: There are two parts to it. There is definitely more that we want to do, particularly as GB Energy is doing a lot of investment in community energy and municipal energy to ensure that we are driving the system. I am quite interested in the role of regional and local government in some of those questions. The conversation is we are thinking about Warm Homes Plan and devolution that we want to have with regional and local government is what role they can play in prioritisation within their own regional economies. Yes, I as Secretary of State can make a decision, but it would be an imperfect decision, whereas I think there is a lot of room for regional government that will understand in their patch when you have a whole host of priorities—whether it is community, energy, particular developers—that can take that view across the region and say, “Well, what is most important for us and, therefore, what is our role in helping to think about prioritisation?”
Q824 Torcuil Crichton: But as you said yourself, ultimately this is your responsibility?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes.
Q825 Torcuil Crichton: To put it in other terms: there is the grid queue, there is EDF, there is the Irish Electricity Board, and somewhere further down there is my local community. Why is that not flipped? Why is that community not on the grid first?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: The honest answer is as Secretary of State—and it is not just you asking me, I have Secretary of States from other Departments asking me the same question, whether that is around data centres or anything else—ultimately there is a judgment call that we need to make around what is the relative benefit for UK plc strategically across the economy. The point I would make is I do not think it all should sit with me. I genuinely think there is agency and there is a purchase for regional local government to be able to have more of a say, which is why I am interested in the conversation about what is the scope for us to create an architecture where they understand their patch and the priorities and pressures that matter in a place, rather than the national picture that I will always take, and can make some of those judgments.
Chair: Thank you, we will move on. We are running over time but we have one more member of the Committee to ask you questions. Graeme Downie.
Q826 Graeme Downie: Thank you very much. The joy of going last is that it is not only the Chair hoping that I shut up very quickly, but it is absolutely everyone else who wants to get away too.
Building on some of the points that Torcuil was making around security of supply, I want to talk about how secure our infrastructure is more generally. In July we had Iranian hackers reportedly shutting down a small UK power station, in April Russian submarines over cables, Germany finding explosive devices on power lines near one of its large power stations, in August Romania had to scramble F-16s to destroy an explosive drone near its Neptun gas platform. If that situation was to happen here in the North sea a few hundred metres from a UK offshore wind farm or a gas platform, who has got the authority to take action and how quickly is that decision made?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: As you can imagine, we have a pretty robust architecture including with the security services. We are very alive to pressures in the system and how we build our resilience against that—
Q827 Graeme Downie: Specifically in the Romanian example in Neptun they had recently reformed their rules of engagement with a very clear line on whose responsibility it is and how fast a decision can be taken. Do we have that in the UK?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, we do. We have a framework.
Q828 Graeme Downie: There is a certain framework that can be acting inside—because that is not what we have heard from offshore energy operators who consistently ask me, “I do not know who to phone if I see that”.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: They should phone me.
Q829 Graeme Downie: I will pass on your number. That specific question has been raised numerous times and no one has been able to give me an answer, and that has been different Ministers over the last few years frankly because I have been raising this numerous times. You are the first Secretary of State to say there is a clear framework. Whose decision is it; is it yours or is it the Secretary for Defence?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: If there is a specific threat it will go to Cobra, but the point is we have the architecture that sits underneath that so we are working in co-ordination. If there are particular companies or organisations that are worried, come to me.
Q830 Graeme Downie: Is the kind of scenario I have outlined tested regularly?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Yes, there is a contingency framework in place and there is a cross-government team that brings in all the agencies that you would imagine, that are constantly reviewing and testing that and also reporting to Ministers so that we are alive to any issues.
Q831 Graeme Downie: You are comfortable that should that incident happen and something happens near UK offshore energy generation it will be dealt with quickly enough in a way that would not presumably disrupt UK electricity supplies?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think we have robust structures in order to that. Until structures are tested we cannot say definitively, but we have robust structures to deal with that.
Jonathan Brearley: Clearly the context has changed. You saw the speech from the Director General of MI5 and so we are very alive to that. We are working across Government on a series of risks, including cyber risk as well. There is a whole programme of work looking at the security of our offshore assets. We cannot give all the details of that here but there is a great deal of work making sure that we understand that risk and we respond to it.
Q832 Graeme Downie: Do you think the public would benefit from some of that information being published in some way and discussed more openly?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: There is a balance. What the public need to know is that we have the structures in place, we have the contingency plans in place, and that we are working across Government so that everyone that needs to be part of a process to respond is there and responding. That is the thing that I can give assurance about.
Jonathan Brearley: I think the Defence Secretary has talked about some of these issues in Parliament.
Q833 Graeme Downie: It was me who asked the question, both of Secretary of State for Defence and of junior Defence Ministers, and their answer was not as clear as the answer that you have given there, Secretary of State. I hope that is something that is being progressed. If I can develop that a little bit onto a cyber-attack point as well. We have raised these questions with Ofgem and others who gave limited reassurance. I think it was a session with yourself in your previous role. I understand you do not want to present your opponents with all of your preparation but some of the discussion with Ofgem and NESO around what is in place to prevent or to deter a cyber-attack had not necessarily been worked out. There was talk of co-ordination bodies but no one being clear about how that is being done, how that works with NCSC and others. Do we know where the pinch points are? We know that our adversaries are very keen to use energy as a weapon. With winter approaching the energy system is more under stress at those points and they will know that. Can you tell us a little bit more—as you have on physical security—about cyber-security and how that operates?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: There is a cross-government process that has been co-ordinated with the Cabinet Office to look at our resilience across the piece for cyber-security. From a DESNZ perspective we are doing all the planning, we are putting in place the infrastructure, we are making sure that we have the relationships and information flows with different parts of the system to be able to respond. We are very alive to this and we are building our infrastructure. The threat is new and it is real, so we are constantly having to adapt and improve, but there is a clear mandate and requirement from the centre that we get our house in order and that is what we are doing.
Q834 Graeme Downie: There was discussion this week from the AI Minister that he felt the UK could be under AI attack in the future. Do the plans on cyber-security take into account what initially begins as low level AI attacks that can escalate very quickly and they can be sustained over a very long period of time?
Jonathan Brearley: That is absolutely in the thinking between DESNZ, NCSC, and my old organisation, Ofgem. We are Joint Competent Authority with Ofgem. We are taking the industry on a journey. In my previous job, with successive Secretaries of State from the Department, we have been very clear with the industry that they need to move to respond to this risk, and we have made significant progress. The other thing that is happening, which I am pleased about, is that we have the legislation in the House on firming up those powers and broadening the supply chain that we look at. All of this will need to continue to evolve as the risk evolves. We work very closely to make sure that we are aware of all the emerging risks. But, as ever, we are dealing with an old system and we will have to make sure that old system remains robust.
Q835 Graeme Downie: With that in mind, can you give the public the same reassurance you gave earlier on that you are 100% sure that there would not be difficulties with the energy system over this winter?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: Driven by—
Graeme Downie: Driven by cyber-attacks. Do you feel the resilience is at that level?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I think the system is resilience but I also think that the nature and sophistication of the attacks are changing all the time. What I am confident about is that we have structures in place and we are testing it and working in the way that we need to. Candidly, the fact that the system remains robust should give people some confidence, but you will understand while I will not say that with 100% certainty because the nature of it is changing every day.
Jonathan Brearley: But we are doing incredible amounts of work to make sure the system is increasing its resilience and we continue to do that.
Q836 Graeme Downie: I will move on because I am conscious of time and I can feel the Chair’s eyes drilling into the side of my head. We heard from Offshore Energies UK that their offshore gas fields and wind turbines and other things that we know about are not designated as critical national infrastructure. Is that something you think is the correct position? Is it something you would look to amend in the future?
Jonathan Brearley: Is this in reference to cyber-security or more generally?
Q837 Graeme Downie: Just generally. It generally surprised me that we designate other energy generation as critical national infrastructure, which helps them secure support, but we do not do that with any offshore assets, whether it is renewable or oil and gas.
Jonathan Brearley: As you probably know, the decisions on ultimately what is CNI are taken through a separate process so I will have to come back on that. The measures we put in place on security and cyber-security are expected to go beyond CNI, and that is why that new legislation is important.
Q838 Graeme Downie: Your view is they are protected enough, that being designated CNI would not add value; you feel it is already enough?
Jonathan Brearley: I have to come back on the specifics, but our security strategy goes well beyond that.
Graeme Downie: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.
Q839 Chair: Thank you. We may ask you to follow up in writing on some of these resilience points. It is hugely important to get clarity, especially given what Graeme has had from defence Ministers previously in comparison to what you were saying, Secretary of State, to make sure we have it absolutely clear. As far as you are able to, obviously.
Miatta Fahnbulleh: The caveat is: if it falls within the energy system, it comes to me. That is possibly why defence colleagues were not as robust.
Chair: That is helpful but if you can give us what you are able to publicly on both physical and cyber resilience that is important, thank you. Melanie, I think you have a follow up question.
Q840 Melanie Onn: I have been listening carefully to your responses and I heard lots of references to bottlenecks and defence of some of the quangos and agencies that the Department relies upon to deliver our future energy system in all of its parts, whether it is understanding and accepting that there are workforce issues, or whether it is very difficult to get the materials or to get the planning in place. Given we have had a change in Secretary of State after two years—and I wish you a long career in this role— were it to change again, unless there is some robustness behind the conversations that are happening, are we not at risk of the Government being led by all of these other organisations, holding their hands up and saying, “There is nothing we can do because we are waiting for them to get on and do it”?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: I do not believe that there is nothing we can do and our job is to get on with it. It is not necessarily defence of the system but a recognition that different parties are working within a system that is candidly not fit for purpose and that we need to reform. DESNZ needs to take responsibility and Secretaries of States that have preceded me also need to take responsibility for that, but we are robust. In the end no one will forgive us if we do not deliver on affordability, no one will forgive us if we do not deliver the clean power ambitions we have that will translate into jobs in industry. We are very clear about the imperative. We will put a lot of pressure on the system, but I do that with some humility because I also think in the end it is the job of Government to design it and for 40 years Government have not designed it in the way it needs to and we now have an opportunity to get that right.
Melanie Onn: I hear you say we need to reform the system and I think that sounds like it will take a very long time. Thanks, Chair.
Chair: Thank you. That might be something else we ask you put in writing, what does reform look like. I will not ask you to answer all of it now. Final word goes to Mike Reader.
Q841 Mike Reader: Thank you, Chair. Picking up on Torcuil’s question, I recognise you cannot make a comment specifically on Jackdaw and Rosebank but the Committee has heard—including when we went to Aberdeen—that consenting is directly linked to taxation, and the industry needs to enter the energy profit levy to make those fields viable. Does that consideration come into how you make a decision on those?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: No.
Q842 Mike Reader: Do you have to consider viability of those consents when you make a decision on consenting?
Miatta Fahnbulleh: It is a planning application so the viability of the project is part of that process, but ultimately tax decisions are out with that consenting decision. That is something for the Chancellor. The framework that I have to make the decision by is pretty clear. There is obviously an environmental consideration and the requirement to take in scope 3 emissions has made that tighter. It has to be compatible with our climate obligations and our delivery of common budgets. Then there are other considerations such as security of supply, and economic considerations such as jobs. You have to weight those in order to come to a final decision. Ultimately that is out with tax decisions that the Chancellor needs to make.
Chair: Secretary of State, Permanent Secretary, thank you very much for your evidence this afternoon. That is the end of our session.