L

Lord Whitehead (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 9 March 2026

Debate

Energy Markets

Contribution

I thank the noble Baroness for that interesting image of what we do not want to happen, as opposed to what we do want to happen. Of course, what we want to happen is real, low-carbon energy projects, and there is an enormous amount of investment—£90 billion is the figure from 2024—going into the low-carbon green economy at the moment, running three times as fast as the general economy. However, that investment has to be in real things. An issue that Ofgem is dealing with at the moment is distinguishing between what you might call tyre-kicker projects that want to come online in order to fund a speculative project, and those that really are necessary for our energy renaissance as a low-carbon energy superpower. The only way to become an energy superpower is to have a super-powered energy economy of real projects with real connections that actually do the business in the way the noble Baroness suggested, rather than being diverted into things that may or may not happen and are largely speculative at the moment in their promotion and origin.

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