Draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026
House of Commons · General Committees · 6 Jul 2026 · 29 speeches · Official Report
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
Chair: Carolyn Harris
† Beales, Danny (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
† Cooper, Dr Beccy (Worthing West) (Lab)
† Cross, Harriet (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
† Egan, Damien (Bristol North East) (Lab)
† Hatton, Lloyd (South Dorset) (Lab)
† Heylings, Pippa (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
† Lumsden, Douglas (Aberdeen South) (Con)
† McCarthy, Kerry (Bristol East) (Lab)
† Morris, Joe (Hexham) (Lab)
Osamor, Kate (Edmonton and Winchmore Hill) (Lab/Co-op)
† Poynton, Gregor (Livingston) (Lab)
† Qureshi, Yasmin (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)
† Shanks, Michael (Minister for Energy)
† Smith, Greg (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
† Thomas, Bradley (Bromsgrove) (Con)
† Trickett, Jon (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)
Young, Claire (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Jonathan Finlay, Zac Mead, Committee Clerks
† attended the Committee
First Delegated Legislation Committee
Monday 6 July 2026
[Carolyn Harris in the Chair ]
Draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026
I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. Laid before the House on 14 May, this statutory instrument seeks to make technical improvements and changes to the capacity market, which is the Government’s main tool for ensuring security of electricity supply in Great Britain. Before outlining the specific provisions in the instrument, I will briefly provide some context. The capacity market was introduced in 2014 and is designed to maintain the security of electricity supply by ensuring that sufficient capacity is available to meet future demand predictions. Through auctions held one year and four years ahead of delivery, the capacity needed to meet future peak demand under a range of scenarios is secured, based on advice from the National Energy System Operator. Through those auctions, participants secure agreements requiring them to make capacity available at times of system stress. It is a technology-neutral scheme that pays providers for making capacity available when needed, covering generation, storage, consumer-led flexibility and interconnection. Since its introduction, the capacity market has contributed to investment in about 20 GW of new capacity needed to replace older and less efficient plants as we transition towards the clean power 2030 target. To ensure that the capacity market continues to function effectively,...
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. With your indulgence, I will start by welcoming the new Conservative Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South. I am sure that, in a series of firsts as he finds his feet around the House of Commons, his first Delegated Legislation Committee will be the one that stands out most in his mind. As the Minister laid out, the draft regulations make several technical amendments to the capacity market. They are perhaps most notable for the absence of the proposed multiple price capacity market, which would have created a two-tier system that the industry warned would result in increased costs for consumers. I understand that the Government have said that these changes would “ensure the continuation of security of supply while supporting the transition to a decarbonised energy system.” However, can the Minister explain why the results of the latest four-year-ahead capacity market auction secured only 40 GW of generating capacity, which was 3 GW less than the year before? Not only is that less than the current peak demand of 50 GW, but it is less than the projected peak demand of around 80 GW by 2030. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition have warned countless times that forcing decarbonisation and electrification on to families and businesses at any cost would simply result in industry shutting down and livelihoods being lost. Although the Government have rejected those warnings in public, the results of that...
For the third time, let me welcome the hon. Member for Aberdeen South-although I think he was in a Delegated Legislation Committee in his first week in this place. I am not sure whether his SNP predecessor was ever in a Delegated Legislation Committee in all his years in this place, so the hon. Gentleman is already making progress on Stephen Flynn in that respect. First, I welcome the support for the capacity market, which was introduced by the previous Conservative Government. It has served the country well, and it continues to play an important role in bringing forward the investment needed to ensure the security of supply in the future. I want to make a couple of points clear. The T-4 auction for delivery in 2029-30 secured 40 GW of capacity at £21 per KW per year, which is above the target capacity that we set out. We work towards a range of future scenarios, which is why we have both the four-year-ahead auction and the one-year-ahead auction. As we get closer to those dates, we have a much more accurate sense of what demand will be, and we therefore procure additional capacity in the one-year-ahead auction. I would gently challenge a number of the points made by the shadow Minister. First, we are moving towards a low-carbon power system because that is what will get us off the volatility of fossil fuels. Gas will play a strategic reserve role in the system, as was highlighted in the clean action plan, which set out that 95% of our generation will come from clean...
Committee rose.