Gas and Electricity Costs — [Sir Edward Leigh in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 3:50 pm on 18 January 2022.

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Photo of Greg Hands Greg Hands The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy 3:50, 18 January 2022

No. I have only two minutes left. The hon. Lady asked a question about storage, and I repeat that the current issue is not a question of supply. Storage helps if there are supply issues, but we have an issue relating to price. Storage does not protect, generally, from price shocks if the supply is secure, and I have already said that our supply is secure.

Layla Moran made an extraordinary speech, in which she said, I think, a windfall tax would be a powerful message to Moscow. I thought the intervention by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun slightly exposed that. If the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon can show me how to design a windfall tax that would clobber Gazprom, I am all ears. Bearing in mind that our imports of gas from Russia are almost entirely liquefied natural gas and only less than a handful of percentage points, if the hon. Lady can show me how her Robin Hood tax would have an impact on Gazprom, I am all ears. We are not dependent on—she said “rogue states”. More than half of our gas imports come from Norway. I do not think anything she is proposing is going to protect us from rogue states.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun made a number of familiar points on supplier of last resort costs. SoLR is there to protect customers when their energy supplier ceases to trade, so that they can transfer their account.