Michael Shanks

I apologise, Mr Speaker; I think the shadow Minister was confused in the facts that he gave to Parliament today. I am happy to set that right. Let us look at the facts. The National Energy System Operator—the people who run the system—stated clearly: “At no point were electricity supplies less than anticipated demand and our engineers were able to rebalance the system without the need to consider any emergency measures.” If we listen to the experts—to National Gas and to NESO—they both confirmed over the weekend that there was resilience in the system. I reiterate the point that the system operated exactly as it was intended to do. If the shadow Minister has complaints about how the system operates in the country and the gas storage situation, he may want to look at some of his colleagues who were in power over the past 14 years. He knows the truth about his party’s record. He is a very smart guy, and he knows they left us exposed. He knows they did not do enough to build the system that we need and he knows what caused the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. While his party is busy crowdsourcing policy advice on Twitter from net zero sceptics, it would be far better if they looked at their own record in government and, instead of criticising us, recognised that we are getting on with building a resilient energy system for the future.