Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
14 October 2026
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Energy Security and Net Zero Committee House of Commons
Follow its sittings00:03 - 00:43
Speaker 1
Order, order. Welcome to this afternoon's session of the Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee, where we welcome the new Secretary of State and the new Permanent Secretary to their first session with us. Congratulations both of you on your appointment, and we're looking forward to taking evidence today. My colleagues are eagerly anticipating asking you their questions, and I will start as usual. Secretary of State, how well is the government doing on its ambition to hit the clean power 2030 target?
00:43 - 01:46
I mean, look, that's a really good question. And if you sort of cast your mind back two years ago when we set the target, there was quite a fair bit of skepticism about whether it was a target that we could be that could be reached. But if I'm candid with you, what it's done is to build a huge amount of momentum and confidence in the system. So if I think about what we've done over the course of the last two years, we've unlocked a hundred billion pounds of investment in clean power. We've consented enough clean power to power over 20 million homes.
Last year was a significant year because renewables drove and powered the power system two-thirds of the time in the year. So we are making huge amounts of progress. There is more to do, but the key for me is that we keep momentum, we have a clear framework that industry can work with in partnership, and we maintain focus on getting to that goal.
01:46 - 03:11
Speaker 5
Right. Well, thank you very much for your first answer. Now, I have, we as a committee hear from developers a lot about their frustrations with the system. They would like to do things faster. I'll just ask you about solar first, for example.
And solar, along with other technologies, saw the grid queue reordered, but they still face frustrations. And one of the frustrations with solar is that those developers who are now proposing storage along with solar generation are not able to see them both in the same gate. And this means that their argument is that they then miss out, and the country misses out on effectively two contributors to power generation. It's one example of a number that we hear. Are these blockages an indication that perhaps there needs to be a system overhaul, that the Ofgem, NESO, grid companies, other parts of the system are not aligned to government policy?
03:11 - 03:18
Speaker 1
And if you agree with that, what is your intention in addressing some of these challenges?
03:18 - 04:43
Yeah, look, let me have a go and I'll also bring Jonathan in. So I don't think the different parts of the system aren't aligned in our ambition. I think the truth is we inherited a system where we had not put enough investment in network build.
So if you think about the trajectory over the last two decades, essentially the transmission operators were maintaining the system. And we are now asking them to invest and build out the system in order to ensure that the system is viable for the future. And that is a big, big ask. So there is a mismatch, there are bottlenecks. The same frustrations you are getting from developers, we are hearing as well, and we're incredibly alive to it.
I think there are sort of three things that need to be done. So we've obviously done the process of reordering and, in essence, trying to get to connections that are genuine and that are important in terms of priority. And I think everyone welcomes that. There is more to do. I think the second is that we do need to build out at pace.
And the conversation that we are having with the networks at the moment is how we do that and how we support and facilitate that. And part of the rationale for why we have launched Great British Grid is in order to accelerate the build-out of grid. So look, there is a problem that we are aware of. There is a live conversation that we've got everyone round the table trying to solve that problem. It's one thing unlocking the generation.