Meeting staff from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult today in Newcastle ahead of the meeting of Regional Cabinet, Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry said:

We are witnessing an unprecedented global transformation to a low carbon economy.

This change creates enormous economic opportunities. Bloomberg New Energy Finance predict that of the $11.5 trillion of investment they expect to be invested in new power generation assets globally out to 2050, 86% is expected to be in low carbon, and 73% to wind and solar.

We want the UK to continue to be a leader in this global transition, and a leading destination for clean investment. Since 1990 the UK has cut emissions by more than 40%, while growing our economy by more than two-thirds, the best performance in the G7.

But cutting carbon and capturing clean growth is an ongoing challenge. Government policies have already led to rapid growth in the deployment of renewables. This has led to substantial investment by offshore wind suppliers into UK-based services and manufacturing, creating thousands of skilled jobs and delivering hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment.

Offshore wind is a success story for the UK – and we’re the world leader with over 7 gigawatts installed and operational. The scale and breadth of our ambition has driven innovation and evolution through initiatives like this catapult; in partnership with industry.

This in turn has in turn sharply decreased costs. A strike price of £57.50 per megawatt hour for offshore wind was unimaginable a few years ago, rapidly driving down subsidy costs for new projects.

The UK has helped to realise this extraordinary coming of age for the global sector, and are poised to reap the reward in new export markets. And we want to continue to build on our successes at home.

Today we’re announcing that the next auction for Contract for Differences Auction will open by May next year. And we plan to set out the parameters of the next auction later this year.

But we understand that to make meaningful long-term investments, industry needs clarity over years, not months. That is why we are also announcing the intention to run subsequent auctions around every 2 years after that, using the £557 million that we have already announced.

Depending on the auction prices, this could see 1-2 gigawatts of new offshore wind every year in the 2020s – powering millions more homes a year and we will look at ways to manage the auctions to ensure smooth delivery of low carbon generation. In return we expect the offshore wind sector to continue cutting costs and reducing household bills whilst growing UK manufacturing.

In giving companies long-term visibility, we should rightly expect long term commitments from them, and I look forward to working with the sector in the coming months to explore their ambitious plans to invest in the UK supply chain.

In recent years total UK content in the offshore wind sector has increased to 48%. And I am committed to upping the scrutiny of developers and their supply chains and ensure this number keeps growing.

For the last decade the Offshore wind industry has been a great British success story: increasing productivity, raising earnings and improving lives in communities across the UK. Today, the sector gets the certainty it needs to build on this success through the next decade.

Mr Hunt met with German foreign minister Mr Heiko Maas to discuss a range of issues of shared interest – including the UK’s exit from the EU, and UK-German co-operation on foreign policy issues such as NATO, the Western Balkans, Iran, and joint work at the UN Security Council, which Germany will join as a non-permanent member next year.

Ahead of the meeting, the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:

Germany is one of Britain’s most important allies in every field, from trade to European security to counter-terrorism. Our two countries work side-by-side to defend the rules-based international system on which our safety and prosperity depend.

We are striving together to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, uphold the Paris Climate Change Treaty, strengthen NATO, combat terrorism, improve cyber security and stabilise the countries of the Western Balkans.

We will also discuss the UK’s exit from the EU. I will reassure my German counterpart that we want to continue to work alongside our European friends and allies, in defence of our shared values. But I will also be clear that our European partners must show much more flexibility and creativity in negotiations if we are to avoid a ‘no deal by accident’ scenario.

Further information

The report sets out the way in which disruptive and investigatory powers are used by the security and intelligence agencies as well as law enforcement to tackle the threats posed by terrorism, organised crime and hostile state activity.

There have been 5 terrorist attacks in the UK since the publication of the second transparency report in February 2017 and the latest iteration shows a clear increase in the use of certain disruptive and investigatory powers.

Security Minister Ben Wallace said:

The spate of terrorist attacks last year and the nerve agent attack earlier this year were a stark reminder of the real and significant threat this country faces from terrorism and hostile states.

Wherever possible we will seek to prosecute and convict those who seek to destroy our freedoms and attack our communities.

Where that is not possible, we have a range of tools in our toolbox to disrupt and investigate terrorism-related and hostile state activity and organised crime which are vital to ensuring our national security.

As with the previous iterations, the report brings together and gives a detailed explanation of the various disruptive and investigatory powers such as stops and searches under the Terrorism Act and proscription of terrorist organisations. It also provides extensive statistical information relating to those powers.

The government will seek to use the full range of capabilities where it is proportionate and necessary to do so.