Local Power Plan

Baroness Gill Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gill (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a most welcome initiative. Energy poverty and security of supply have been a real concern for years for people in many parts of our country. I have three short points that I would like my noble friend the Minister to address. Does this mean that the consumer will get improved energy security and resilience? Will it save them money on their energy bills once the scheme is up and running? How does the local power plan balance affordability, reliability and decarbonisation under the worst-case scenarios, and what trade-offs are we prepared to make if there is a conflict in our goals?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lady Gill for her carefully thought-out contribution. These are questions that we need to make sure we have got right as far as a local power plan is concerned.

The first thing I can say is, yes, the local power plan will start saving people substantial amounts of money on their bills. That will not necessarily be absolutely everybody under all circumstances, but certainly, provided that the local power plan is carried out properly, there will be lots of opportunities for the return on the investment that has been put into local communities through those schemes to come back in some instances directly off people’s energy bills.

As I mentioned in response to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, one of the things that we are doing is making sure that we have all the back-up material for the local power plan, which would give effect, for example, to people’s ability to trade locally, although that may require legislation. But that will mean, in conjunction with code changes, for example, there will be an ability of local power projects to deliver direct benefits, not just in the traditional way of the developer giving a little bit of money to the local community to help the village hall or whatever. This is about real changes not just in people’s energy relationship; the fact that they own the energy themselves and can get direct benefit from it will, I think, quite transform the local scene.

By the way, because that is all local and if it can be integrated with local power systems generally, it will add quite considerably to the resilience of the country’s energy supplies. It is all based in the UK, it goes around in the UK, the benefit comes out in the UK and it is a considerable addition to the energy security of our country. I hope that my noble friend can take some assurance that we have thought about all these issues and are determined to make sure that they are firmly a part of the local power plan as it rolls out.