Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

The hon. Lady is right to say that public confidence in the safety of all infrastructure is incredibly important. Battery technology is no more unsafe than any other technology, but if there is a public perception that it is, then it is right that we take action to deal with that. That is why I am hosting a roundtable to look at what more we can do around safety, and it is why the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is doing work on some of the regulations in this space. This is regulated closely by the Health and Safety Executive, but I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss what more we can do.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that answer. In my constituency, several planning applications are pending, and one has already been granted in the villages of Wilsden and Cullingworth for battery storage and onshore wind in the wider area. Can the Minister explain how constituents with clean energy infrastructure in their area can benefit from both cheaper bills and community funding?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that building renewable infrastructure is how we will bring down bills for everyone in the long term. It is incredibly important that we can store cheaper electricity, including through battery storage, so that we can deploy it in the system far more regularly than we are currently deploying gas, which is what is driving up people’s bills. We also want the communities that host the infrastructure to benefit directly from it. They will benefit from cheaper bills, as well as from direct community benefits. We have been consulting over the past few months on whether those should be made mandatory, and whether we should raise the expectations on developers.