Emma Pinchbeck

There's more competition from it from Asia and new technologies that come forward.

And we are in what I always described as the crunchy bit of the energy transition where you're putting on new technologies and services into an old grid set of policies and set of politics, which are entirely geared around the idea that you have cheap and available gas and

And so I think if you think about the network costs or the wind farms, there was an idea that it would be

we had more time than we did to get the renewables on and then to get the power flowing.

So the example you gave of Scotland, Scotland is not going to be a problem post the early 2030s because they're building the connection that moves that power.

They had the time.

What's changed is we've had two now fossil fuel price shocks, which have put that pressure quite rightly on the cost of living and the need to do something about bills immediately.

If you think about what that's done to my world and kind of energy conversations over the last 10 years, I think it is entirely welcome that there has been a rebalancing away from we just need to build loads of stuff as fast as possible to how can we get the benefits of that new infrastructure to people.

I would have done in my last job, where I didn't represent the network companies either, I should add, but I would have done in my last job.

Honestly, one of the great gifts of this job for me is that it is a different way of looking at things.

I spend my time thinking about 12 years ahead.

I was just struck by that language, which I haven't heard before, though I have heard the argument.

Look, the UK is not the leading nation on a move to net zero.

We should get that right.

Firstly, we're in a group of 10 or so big economies that are moving in that direction.

But you don't think we are?

I think we can be rightly proud of the track record in this country and the emissions are very measurably, tangibly, factually down over half now from 1990 levels.

And a lot of those emissions have been...

reduced through the investment in renewables over the last 15 years.

I mean, it depends on how you look at the question.