I’m grateful to the committee for giving me the opportunity to appear and speak up for our industry.

The focus of the early questions centred on decommissioning costs of the gas networks and how to pay for this. This struck me as an opportunity to speak the blunt truth to power and suggest this is the wrong question as it was not going to happen and even before you got there, some unpalatable truths needed to be addressed.

I reminded the committee that 24 million households were connected to the gas networks; 460,000 commercial and 67,000 industrial connections should not be ignored either.

When pressed, I pointed out that before decommissioning the management and decline of networks would need to be managed. The average of £122 a year we pay for the networks would double if the number of connections halved. With just 3 million left on the network, that annual cost would be close to £1000, that’s before any energy is used. And those likely to be left on gas will be the least well-off; probably renters and also those living in hard-to-treat homes – all punished because they can’t afford or control a switch away.

I then dropped the truth bomb on the committee. As a recovering politician I pointed out to them that it would be a political decision to switch off the gas network; it would be a politician that would have to “cut off the gas” – leaving households with no heat, no hot water and for half the population, no cooking. I suggested to them that they really don’t want to go there but ultimately that would be the conclusion of winding down the gas network. Yes, I know it will never happen and that is precisely why the committee had to be directed to draw that conclusion. And if you aren’t going to decommission the gas network, then the sensible option is to use it.

If outcomes (or ends) become the focus of policy, then the debate over means, or how to get there, becomes more sharply focussed, open to more scrutiny, and yes, debate and disagreement.

🎥Watch the evidence session (starts at 10.05 as per the note on the screen)