Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps she is taking to keep coal plants open.

Decisions on plant closures are commercial matters for the plant owners. However, we recently consulted on changes to the Capacity Market, which included proposals for an early Capacity Market auction for the 2017/18 delivery year to mitigate the security of supply impact of potential early plant closures. If we go ahead with this proposal, coal plants will be eligible to participate.

On 18 November we announced plans to close all unabated coal-fired power stations by 2025. Achieving this goal would make the UK one of the first developed countries to deliver on a commitment to take coal off the system. However, we have been clear that we would only proceed with these plans if we are confident that the shift to new gas generation can be achieved within these timescales.