Energy Costs for Businesses
Tuesday, 13 October 2026
Contributions
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)Labour
6. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade to help reduce energy costs for businesses.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Blair McDougall)Labour
The Government recognise that energy costs remain a challenge for businesses across the country. Our British industrial competitiveness scheme, which is now open, will support over 10,000 businesses, cutting electricity costs by up to £40 per MWh. There is also the British industry supercharger’s enhanced support for our most electricity-intensive firms. We know that is not enough, and we are working across both my Departments to explore further options.
I have been investigating the extraordinary differences in domestic electricity standing charges in regions of the country, and I am increasingly concerned that the same underlying network charging system may also be imposing substantially higher fixed costs on businesses in Merseyside and north Wales. Will the Minister ask Ofgem to investigate the impact of regional network charging on business competitiveness, as well as household bills?
As ever, my hon. Friend is a champion for business and industry in Southport. The short answer is yes, I will write to Ofgem on this matter, and I will share the response with my hon. Friend. In the meantime, I reassure him that Ofgem’s cost allocation and recovery review is considering how costs should be recovered from consumers, and the arrangements for recovering network costs.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)Scottish National Party
I entirely agree with the comments made about business costs. That also applies across the public sector; local authorities and NHS trusts and boards all pay substantial amounts for their energy, particularly leisure trusts, which have swimming pools and ice rinks and provide a great deal of community wellbeing. Will the Minister commit to addressing these issues for public authorities as well as businesses?
The hon. Gentleman makes one of the many good arguments for acting at pace to get cleaner energy, which is good for business and household consumers, and saves a considerable amount of money for the public sector. That is exactly why we are investing in, for example, rooftop solar across the public sector. We will certainly work with the Scottish Government on that.
Mr SpeakerSpeaker
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)Conservative
Businesses are being crushed by the weight of energy costs in this country, and that is leading to the deindustrialisation of Great Britain, everywhere from the ceramics industry in Stoke to the chemicals industry in Grangemouth. Labour’s policies are making Britain poorer and more vulnerable, and are leading to thousands of job losses. Does the Minister think that is why Gary Smith of the GMB described Government energy policy as “batshit” and the Department as the “ministry for P45s”?
As has happened so often, we find ourselves rising to the Dispatch Box to answer Opposition Front Benchers’ questions about why we have not been quick enough to fix the mess that they left us. By all means criticise the speed and the scale of our ambition—we are certainly ambitious to go quicker—but the shadow Minister’s proposal is to regress to the policy of reliance on fossil fuels that got us into this mess, and does not bear any scrutiny.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5415301.