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Business of the House

The Leader of the House was careful in the way in which he quoted from the national grid winter outlook. He made no comments about its prospects for major manufacturing industry. When the all-party aluminium group met leaders of the aluminium industry on Monday, they were extremely worried about prospects for the winter. Their next meeting after the all-party group was with officials at the Department of Trade and Industry who had invited them there and wanted to know from manufacturing industry the impact on it of interruptions in supply this winter. Why on earth should DTI officials want to know from manufacturing industry what would happen if there were interruptions to supply if the Department were not worried that there might be power cuts? Please may we have a debate on energy policy in Government time soon because manufacturing matters to Conservative Members?