The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)

My Lords, these draft regulations were laid before the House on 16 March 2026 and consist of one of the briefest SIs that I have had the pleasure to introduce in this House. The SI consists of two clauses, one of which is a citation and commencement clause. The other one is a very straightforward amendment to Schedule 5 of the Energy Prices Act 2022, which amends the period to which certain powers in respect to Northern Ireland may be exercised from 26 months to six years. Therefore, this is a very brief SI, but I think it will be helpful to noble Lords to explain why this is being put forward today. In the Autumn Budget on 26 November last year, the Chancellor announced changes we would be making to reduce costs on energy bills in Great Britain. We committed at that time to working with the Northern Ireland Executive if they chose to develop a comparable offer. These regulations show us delivering on that commitment. In Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the energy bill changes rely on Energy Prices Act powers subject to different sunset provisions. On this occasion we are altering the sunset relevant in Northern Ireland to facilitate the Executive’s delivery. In Great Britain, the changes announced were to discontinue the energy company obligation home insulation scheme, and to transfer 75% of renewables obligation costs in respect of domestic supply to the Exchequer. The energy company obligation has never applied in Northern Ireland. As a result, the Executive’s comparable proposal to reduce bills relates only to the latter scheme. The Northern Ireland renewables obligation is a scheme to incentivise renewable electricity generation in Northern Ireland. As with the renewables obligation in GB, it closed to new applications in 2017. Following ongoing official-level engagement, my colleague the Minister for Energy Consumers received a letter from the Minister for the Economy in Northern Ireland on 2 March. Minister Archibald asked that we take forward Energy Prices Act regulations to support her department’s powers to deliver. We laid these regulations two weeks later. As noble Lords may know, the context here is that most energy policy issues are transferred matters for the Executive in Northern Ireland to decide on. We in the UK Parliament have a role in these regulations because the primary legislation was passed in 2022 when the Northern Ireland Assembly was not sitting. None the less, I should be clear that the powers we are ensuring that the Northern Ireland department can access relate to a transferred matter and are entirely for it to exercise. It will be for the Executive to announce the full details of the policy they are taking forward.