Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Walley Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the security of the UK's energy supply.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

13. What steps he is taking to increase the UK’s energy security.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

We have taken a number of measures to ensure the security of the UK’s energy supply, including introducing new electricity system balancing measures. Our recent national gas risk assessment demonstrated that our gas infrastructure is resilient. In the autumn, I will publish the statutory security of supply report for 2014, which will provide a further assessment of our energy security, and set out my response to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets’ recent electricity capacity report. We have also engaged closely with EU and G7 partners on measures to increase the EU’s energy security.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The UK imports very little gas from Russia. We have the most liquid and resilient gas markets in the whole of the European Union, but of course we are not complacent. We have been working at the EU to ensure not only that we check resilience of our gas supplies but that our EU colleagues are able to ensure their energy security. This is an EU measure which is very important for the whole of the European Union.

[Joan Walley]

One of the best things that the Secretary of State can do for continued investment is to bring forward the 2030 decarbonisation target to give long-term certainty to investors.

There is a particular issue with regard to gas and gas storage, which is impacting on ceramic manufacturers. Now that we have a new Minister, who is at the Department of Energy and Climate Change and at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and National Grid has announced that it has brought forward the supplemental balancing reserve tender, which will put even greater pressure on energy suppliers and security this winter, it is absolutely essential that the Secretary of State reconsiders his Department’s stance on gas storage. We urgently need a change of policy on extra gas storage.

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Lady knows that we legislated to introduce a decarbonisation target for 2030 in the Energy Act 2013. She also knows that my party strongly supported that.

We looked at gas storage in huge detail to see whether there was a case for Government intervention, but we found that an awful lot of gas storage was being built with more modern technology, which means that the gas can be produced and brought into the pipeline network much more quickly. We have looked at that matter in detail and we do not intend to review it.