Michael Shanks

Let me come to that point, because we have discussed that before. My starting point is that communities who host infrastructure should feel the benefits of it, and they should be meaningful benefits. We consulted on how we will deliver both community benefits and shared-ownership opportunities for communities. We have put £1 billion pounds into Great British Energy to make sure that there is the financial capacity for communities to take up that shared-ownership offer. We will continue to push that. I have spoken before about the need for us to balance that though; ultimately, all the costs of building these projects is borne by consumers across the country. The hon. Gentleman and I share the objective of bringing down bills as much as possible. There is a balance to be struck and I do not pretend that is easy because his community—he is right to champion them—will rightly want more and more community benefits. My job is to balance that against the cost of these projects. I need first to ensure that they are economical and will be built, because that is important for the national interest, and secondly that they are built as affordably as possible so that we can bring down bills for everyone. There is a balance to be struck, as I have said to the hon. Gentleman before. I know that the hon. Gentleman will always want us to go further, but I would just say that the cap and floor scheme is designed to provide not huge public subsidy to make these projects happen, but just the right amount to make them viable. That is the key thing; the cap and floor scheme is designed to be a viability mechanism, so there is a risk that we end up using consumer bills to subsidise projects if we go too far. That does not mean that I do not share his ambition, and I have been very clear with developers that we should see genuine community benefits coming forward and that those should be meaningful for communities.