Energy Grid Resilience

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for drawing attention to my appalling time in the marathon. [Interruption.] That is kind of the shadow Secretary of State.

My hon. Friend made an important point. The serious response to an unprecedented incident like this is to take stock of what happened, to introduce some facts into the debate—some people do not like to see facts in these debates—to allow a proper investigation to find out what caused it and, yes, to learn lessons from it. There will be lessons to learn, but I will not rush headlong into an ideological argument that damages our energy security by suggesting that somehow we should go back to the past and then everything will be fine. The clean energy transition is right for climate, right for jobs in the supply chains, right for bringing down bills and right for this country.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I welcome what the Minister has outlined and his reassurances about resilience, particularly to a cyber-attack. However, there is also the danger that if we hand over the on/off switch for vital energy supplies to a foreign country, they can be switched off without our control. What mitigations are the Government considering for projects like the vast wind farm in the North sea for which the Chinese company Mingyang wants to provide the hardware?

[Michael Shanks]

I will not be drawn on an individual commercial arrangement that a project may or may not have. As I have outlined, in any investment case the Government will carry out a number of checks, one of which will always be a national security check, so these questions will be looked at. I reject the suggestion that there would somehow be an on/off switch—that is not the position that the Government would take—but we look at all these investment decisions individually, and that is not for me to do on the Floor of the House.