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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to National Grid's announcement of 6 October 2022 that the UK may experience power cuts lasting three hours per day during winter 2022, whether he has made an assessment of which business types or industries may be required to reduce their energy consumption as part of contingency planning for energy security during winter 2022-23.

The Government is confident in its plans to protect households and businesses in the full range of scenarios this winter and continues to work closely with Ofgem, National Grid and other key industry organisations to ensure the market can respond to any fluctuations in supply or demand. In the highly unlikely event of widespread disruption to electricity supplies, established emergency protocols would be implemented as early as possible to ensure an equitable distribution of electricity supply to customers, including industrial users, as far as reasonably practicable. No specific business types or industrial users are targeted to reduce energy usage as part of emergency measures