Pippa Heylings

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government recognising what communities across the country have been saying for years: community energy is one of the most powerful ways to cut bills, rebuild trust in the energy system, rebuild local resilience and take people with us on the journey to net zero. We campaigned hard to see community energy written into the Great British Energy Act 2025, alongside many people—although not everybody here today it seems—in this House and the other place, and alongside community groups such as the South Cambridgeshire Climate and Nature Group and other community organisations across the country. We believe in localism, empowerment and giving communities a real stake and ownership in our clean energy future. I thank the Minister for working with us to make sure that we did get that into the 2025 Act. As we rightly move away from volatile fossil fuel costs controlled by foreign powers, we must ensure that our new clean energy system puts communities first. It must mean giving people the power to generate, own, and, crucially, sell their own clean energy locally, with profits reinvested in the places where the energy is produced. We welcome the local power plan in principle, but the devil is in the detail. First, what happened to the Government’s pledge of £3.3 billion for community-owned energy, when today we are hearing about £1 billion of investment? We do not want to follow the Conservative Government’s retreat from ambition on local clean power. It is not the time to scale back ambition. Secondly, on the crucial issue of local empowerment, regulation is needed. Organisations such as Power for People constantly told us that there are, as the Secretary of State said, barriers to access fair local markets. They welcome this plan, too, echoing the Minister’s promise that the Government will establish local energy supply models. The local power plan—I have looked through it very quickly—talks about the regulatory changes necessary, but when will they come through? The energy transition has to happen not to communities, but with them—