BEIS Committee launches inquiry into bargaining priorities for Brexit

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee has launched an inquiry into its bargaining priorities for energy and climate change in future Brexit negotiations.

The investigation will examine the implications of Britain’s departure from the EU on the energy sector and national climate change commitments, and determine in which policy areas the UK should pursue continued cooperation during negotiations.

The inquiry is the first to be undertaken by the BEIS Committee since it took on the brief of the Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) which was disbanded last month. It will pick up on the work which the ECCC began in its two inquiries into the implications of Brexit. The preliminary findings were published in ECCC’s final report on 15 October.

A sizeable chunk of energy and climate change policy in the UK has been driven by EU directives and initiatives; for example, the Industrial Emissions Directive, which has helped push coal plants towards closure by placing limits on their emissions.

Britain’s membership of the internal energy market has facilitated the regular cross-border trading of power via interconnectors with France, the Netherlands and Ireland, and the UK is also a participant in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) – the union’s carbon pricing mechanism.

The inquiry will determine which of the EU’s policies should be maintained; whether they should be grandfathered into UK law; and how they might be updated and enforced. It will also look at the impact on Britain of leaving the internal energy market and what form any continued participation could take, and will similarly examine the government’s priorities with regards to the ETS and what the alternatives might be.

BEIS Committee chair Ian Wright said: “The UK’s vote to leave the European Union raises serious questions about the UK’s future energy and climate change policy, which the government will need to consider carefully during exit negotiations.

As a committee, we want to examine the implications of the UK’s departure from the EU on the energy sector and on our ambitions to combat climate change. We are keen to hear from stakeholders about what they want from the UK’s exit negotiations and we will want to consider how best to maintain investor confidence and security of supply as we leave the EU.

We also want to explore how, post-Brexit, the UK can build on its international standing in climate leadership and as a centre for low carbon innovation.”

The deadline for the submission of evidence is 15 December.