The Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy Committee welcomes the Chancellor’s adoption
of our recommendations to:
-
Treat pre-payment energy customers
fairly, by making the price of energy equal between those who
pay by direct debit and those who pay on a pre-payment
meter
-
Speed up the delivery of a viable
market for carbon capture and
storage
-
Review the leadership of local
economic growth policy, with a review including local
enterprise partnerships and local
authorities
Chair quote
Commenting, , Chair of the Committee
said:
“We remain concerned that a fragmented approach to local and
regional economic growth ownership continues to grow, with the
addition of investment zones on top of existing enterprise areas,
enterprise zones, local economic partnerships, city deals,
combined authorities, power houses and freeports.”
“It remains unclear whether the Government is committed to
industrial strategy or not. The Chancellor mentioned industrial
strategy in his speech today but has not published an industrial
strategy. We continue to call on the Government to speed up the
publication of important strategies, including for
semi-conductors, so that investors and business leaders have a
clear view of Ministerial priorities.”
“We welcome the interventions to support more people into work
and will reflect on the announced measures in detail as we
prepare our report on the UK Labour Market, to be published in
the coming weeks.”
“The reannouncement of support for nuclear energy and the
creation of GB Nuclear still fails to answer how the Government
will ensure the financing and delivery of nuclear power in the
UK. Other than full expensing of capital investment, there seems
to be little new support for the required rapid expansion of
renewable energy or support for tackling the bottle necks faced
by the industry, not least in being able to connect to the
electricity grid.”
“Whilst the Chancellor mentioned his target to reduce energy
demand, he once again failed to set out how the Government
intends to hit that target. We are disappointed that the
Government has once again failed to support a national roll-out
of energy efficiency works. Whilst the £20bn of funding for the
early development of carbon capture and storage is welcome, it’s
not clear how that commitment is being
funded.”
“We understand there will be further energy related announcements
on Net Zero later this month and we will consider the detail of
those announcements then, alongside our current inquiry into
decarbonisation of the power sector.”
“Investment in science and technology is welcome, but concerns
remain about the cut to research and development support for
small and medium sized businesses and the removal of the budget
allocation for the UK’s association to the EU’s research
programme, Horizon Europe.”
