Has Keir’s time come?

As voters across the UK go to the polls, we take the pulse of the ways a potential Labour government could change the energy landscape. Kier Starmer is committed to a clean power system by 2030, rather than maxing out gas and oil output. Whilst the right-wing Reform looks set to opt for a “burn baby, burn” policy, what are Labours other plans. Listen to a discussion with Regen CEO Merlin Hyman and Montel’s Phil Hewitt on the possible future energy trading arrangements between the UK and the EU. 

Host: Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel
Guests: Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen; Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics

Transcript

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 0:06

Hello listeners and welcome to the Montel Weekly podcast, bring You Energy Matters in an informal setting. Joining me, Richard Sverrisson, Merlin Hyman, CEO of Regen. And our own Phil Hewitt. A warm welcome gentlemen.

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 0:19

Hello, Richard.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 0:20

Good afternoon, Richard.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 0:22

Before we delve into the details of the manifestos and labors in particular. How, let's talk about energy as part of the an election issue. Has it been a top of the agenda at all? Merlin?

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 0:34

It's definitely been on the agenda and probably in a more significant way than in the past. I think that the context of, the energy price shock after the. War in Ukraine. The eye watering sums of money that British status had to put in to ameliorate the effects on people of that and labor setting a kind of mission of clean power by 2030 has definitely put it on the agenda, I think. And I think what's maybe, coming up the election, there was a thinking that it might really feature as a major issue. And I think maybe in the campaign it's a bit of the dog that didn't bark. And I think the reason behind that is that it's not really territory, the conservatives. Want to attack labor on, particularly, it's not, you're not in a debate gonna get, sak taking on starmer over their clean power plant.'cause he doesn't really wanna talk about that. He wants to talk about tax. So I think it, it is a significant issue. It's been the big issue before. But it hasn't really featured heavily in the election campaign.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 1:37

Would you agree with that, Phil?

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 1:38

Yes. Definitely. I think the conservatives have tried to attack labor on tax. And at the same time the Labor Party being keeping, keeping relatively quiet and and the conservatives seem to have managed to have a few. Own goals and mistakes in their campaign, which the press have probably found it easier to focus on because it's a lot simpler story than the energy transition.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 2:00

But would it be fair to say as well, Merlin that, there seems to be an assumption that UK, the UK voters or UK electorates is anti-green or anti-energy transition. Would you? Share that view?

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 2:13

No I don't think there's any evidence for that. And that might be a little bit why the conservatives haven't really gone full bore in the way that say, reform. Reform have gone. And we might see that post-election but it climate features consistently in the top five issues that the con the public is concerned about. There's some very good work by a public first and there are research, polling, public affairs type company. Looking at looking in kind of red wall type areas where you might think there might be some resistance in how people, in focus group type work. Looking at how people see this is a sort of. Anti net zero agenda attractive, and that there is no evidence that plays well with the British public at the moment. And if you look at polling evidence on the support for renewables, it's consistently over 80% in support. And for every technology in every ev, every poll's ever been. So there currently is no evidence. Not to say that couldn't. It couldn't be weaponized as an issue by a populist movement in the future, but it hasn't been so far. And, yeah, current, currently, no one looking at the polling evidence is gonna conclude that it's a good agenda to go after as a way of winning, getting more popular.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 3:25

And there's no appetite for maxing out the oil and gas reserves then would you say Phil?

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 3:29

No just reinforcement mur. We said it's about, there's some recent research only three days ago by Ipsos Maori that had that had 77% support for climate action. But it's kind it's not only 15% of people are extremely worried. So it's just generally people are worried about it. But then. On the reform side, there's definitely very anti, anti, what they call the net zero agenda. So they're all about burning and bringing even fracking back, whereas the conservatives are not keen on fracking, but are keen on still granting further offshore licenses to oil and gas, whereas the labor position is to is to not allow any more licenses, but allow those that are being granted the option to go through to, to actually. Production. So it's an interesting, that's the texture. So is it burn, baby Burn? Definitely not. Unless you're on the on the far right. Where definitely that's, it's seen as a as an issue that people can get their teeth into.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 4:28

I think. I think that it's perhaps worth. So Richard, that the, the UK has been quite rare actually in benefiting from a consensus across the major parties to act on climate. And obviously, Boris Johnson made it quite a big part of his personal mandate and approach with COP 26, et cetera. And that kind of continues. The sunna has backed away a bit from the messaging, but not a lot from the kind of level of ambition. And you're not really seeing the Tories go after labor hard on this issue in the election, really. But that's not to say that couldn't happen in the future. And we've seen in other countries. You've seen in Germany recently a backlash of over over some rules around heat pumps and gas boilers. That has been a quite a significant part of the rise of the a FD that the alternative for Deutschland is German far right. So we are seeing populous movements across Europe starting to weaponize this agenda. You're seeing reform definitely picking up on that approach. And I think it's highly likely that this consensus in the parliament will break down and that there will be a strong right wing opposition. There will be a right wing opposition that is quite challenging about the consensus on climate and net zero. And that will be a very different climate in some ways than having. Where one the, even when you have the governing party very pro, it's a very different climate to when you have both main parties pro.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 5:50

Absolutely. There certainly has always been that, that kind of agenda in Italy and also other parts of it where the right wing has been anti, anti wind and anti solar and agricultural land. That seems, but that's doesn't, that's not necessarily just a right wing position, but it seems to be a common position elsewhere. But let's delve deeply into the labor manifesto as it looks, labor will win the election, whether it's by a landslide or not, remains to be seen. I think the economists gave the conservatives was a 1% chance of winning the election. So I think, one can assume that it's gonna be Keir in number 10, but Phil, what were the main tenets of the labor manifesta, the labor energy policy.

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 6:31

Oh it's quite interesting. It's that they're certainly focusing on on, on. On net zero by zero carbon electricity system by 2030. That's a very ambitious goal. Probably unlikely they can meet that, but it's certainly an ambitious goal. But also there's a lot of general growth strategy around it to enable that transition because if you're active in the energy space in the uk, there's certainly no, no lack of ambition about decarbonization. One of the problems is that there's not enough grid capacity, and the planning process takes a very long time to deliver you a project. So labor is also focusing on planning as change in the planning system to try and open up growth and deployment of renewables. And one of the key differences between them and the conservatives is allowing onshore wind to come back into the mix. Whereas previously the conservative government has prevented onshore shore wind not present, prevented it, but made it very easy for campaigners to stop an onshore wind farm.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 7:30

He basically prevented it

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 7:32

essentially banned it.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 7:33

But they were banning it in England.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 7:38

But how do you see Merlin, is, to go to net zero or, carbon neutral by 2030 is extremely ambitious as Phil says. And that's, if my maths is right five and a half years away,

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 7:50

Yeah. So the clean power by 2030 is the line, the terminology. So I think Phil's actually captured that pretty well. Maybe I'll come back to that in a moment. In a way, I think it's less the level of ambition. Or even the specific policy priorities, which actually are not really that di that different are not even sure that clean power by 2030 is particularly different to where the conservatives definite, you know, 20, 35 as our come, come back to that. I think it's more about the, what you might call the kind of pro the delivery mechanism that the machinery of government, the kind of the level of of input behind this. I mean, the issues on planning and on greed, are complex, challenging, requiring really, you know, really hard rolled up sleeves work to. To to get fixed. And at the moment, there, there's just not enough political will behind it, all that. So what Labor is talking about is, I think, a kind of mission board, some sort of cross government process that brings together clean bow. 2030 is a mission. It's got five missions. What, you know that's gonna bring that together. I think you might well see some Patrick Valance. Bringing his vaccine task force kind of mentality into this and invited to chair such a board and then a real kind of program management kind of vision of, what are our problems, what's the planning reform? Why is it taking so long? Prime ministerial authority. I think Patrick Valance, who was, is quoted in the manifesto as saying, we've gotta roll up our sleeves and get on with this and get stuck in kind of language. And in a way I think that might be the, I. Yeah, in fact, I've got the quote behind me. But I've gotten the quote behind me, in front of me from Patrick Valance in the Labor Party Manifesto. National mission for clean power by 2030 achievable should be priorities. We Britain can lead on this by treating this mission like the vaccine challenge. We can be the innovators and the implementers et cetera. I'd say, I think the more important thing than any specific policy might be that kind of, this is a Prime Minister or driven cross government mission where we are just gonna. Get any barriers outta the way and really, and roll up our sleeves and get, get stuck in.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 10:18

But I think rolling up your sleeves is one thing, isn't it? But actually, are you then just gonna ride RHA over local communities and just, just cover the North York malls with wind turbines. Phil, you live not far from the North Yorkshire Mall or, yeah.

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 10:31

Some of the language that Keir has used is things like, we're not afraid to make enemies. So this is very much that they're prepared to roll up their sleeves and if necessary steamroll her through. So because they believe that's required. And that's brave talk.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 10:47

There, there's a new government coming in. They have a kind of political mandate. They've put this out very clearly in their manifesto. They. Are politically they're less exposed on this issue than the conservatives where the conservatives have to worry more about, pe their voter base. I'm not sure the labor, I don't think labor is so worried about annoying their voter base. If the, part, I dunno, they might well take a slightly. Political view that if East Angler hasn't voted for them yet this time, it probably never will, and therefore, if we need some more substations, I kind of brutal politics. So yeah, I think they will go down that approach. My own feelings. I hope that they mediate that if they, that they don't go too far down that road. Because I think we've learned over the years that in, certainly in the UK. People don't want something, it's incredibly hard to impose on it. I mean, I remember for years the Treasury had, four pages in the budget each year about how we were gonna frack the hell out of everything. We were chief frackers, we were leading frackers. We, and no one ever, there was never, it's just never was never gonna happen.'cause people were just not gonna put up with it. And you, it's very hard in this country. To force something through. So I think they need to really engage people in this transition rather than, and keep that mentality. If we need to engage, explain, involve people. But in the end, a decision will have to be made. And if we need a new high, a new, grid line in order to open up areas of the offshore wind. Then in the end it does have to go somewhere. And that is a national priority. So if they can get that balance right of a, builders, not the blockers, we put it in our manifest air. We told you we're gonna do this and you voted for us. A little bit of political reality along with an effort to really bring people on it. Then I think there is a, there, there is a path there for them. I just wanna come out on this point about clean power. By 2030, they've been very clear that they're still gonna have a bunch of gas fire power stations on tap. So you haven't really defined what clean power means. Exactly. If you've still got gas, it clearly doesn't mean there's no gas. So what. Does it mean? If you look at the committee on Climate Change as balanced pathway, what do we need to hit net zero? We're at about, we were at 500 grams of carbon per kilowatt hour 10 years ago. We're now an average about one 50. We go down to about 20. Is the record low at any one moment? The CCC balance pathway of an annual average, it would by 2030, would take us to 46, I think, and 10 by 2035. So for me you know that, that's fine. That's what we need to do. And labor just slightly redefine, what do we mean by clean power that we mean what the CC says for, to achieve net zero, then we're, you, it becomes slightly more manageable and believable. Nonetheless, they are gonna really have to go some the current budget in the auction round six for the CFD process is a, we buy you about one third. Of the offshore wind that you need to hit their targets of quadrupling offshore wind by 2030. And that decision lands on their desk pretty much. As soon as they come in, are they gonna increase that budget? So we're talking about specifics. It's 1 billion at the moment. They're gonna make it 3 billion. Yeah. Some crunchy decisions to be made pretty quickly.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 14:03

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think perhaps it would be fair to say as well it's maybe easier to go from 400 to 150 than it's from 150 to 40. That, that's when the decisions, the real difficult decisions have to be made.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 14:15

I think that's right. Particularly maybe in system operation and there's some big questions there. Can the system run this very diverse. Flexible, high renewable system, can the control room, manage that and keep the lights on efficiently? And I think that's where we, as we get into a high renewable system, that's where the big intellectual. Challenges is to reform this, the way we manage the system. Use all the storage capacity that's coming on all the smart tech technology, et cetera, to manage a very different system. And there's definitely some nerves there amongst, I think about people who are responsible for keeping the lights.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 14:54

Absolutely. Would it be fair to say then, Phil, to summarize, I mean, he's been, Keir has been criticized for playing it too safe. Is he doing the same in terms of energy policy? There's nothing very radical or, you know, that's gonna change things overnight here?

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 15:07

I think it is quite of the. Of the parties it's going to be elected is it's the most radical plan. It, it's, it is the most radical plan. Maybe the Greens have a more radical plan, but unlikely to get elected. It's certainly quite radical. It's being steered by Ed Milliband who is probably pretty well respected, I think amongst civil servants when he was the previous energy minister in the Gordon Brown government. So I think it's, it's a credible plan and it's quite ambitious. Some of the funding commitments have been downscaled because labor government the incoming Labor Party government has said that they might not be able to to afford it all because of issues with the state of the public finances. But certainly it's pretty, it's certainly reason reasonably ambitious. You could be more ambitious, but there's a limit on, on how ambitious and how quickly you can build out physically in terms of the constraints of grid planning and supply chains.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 16:02

Yeah. I think my view on that in clean power, I think they're super ambitious. The goal is what it exactly, whatever it means. It's a it is very ambitious. They've got it as a central mission. I think they'll be going, go. And I think that'll be the challenge to the industry will be to keep up, we'll make sure that decisions don't get rushed because we go down the wrong pathway.'cause we're just focused on 2030. I think on other aspects of energy, so for example, heat, decarbonizing our heat supply, moving to heat pumps rather than gas boilers. You see a much cautious call, more cautious approach. There are. They are. And that's, I think, where the money particularly has has bitten.'cause they're not a clean power. I'm not sure we really, there's plenty of people who wanna invest. We just need to give them the right, just, we need to give 'em the right framework to invest. There's plenty private sector investors out there want to build clean power. But if you're going to. Insulate and put. Heat pumps in the nation's homes. That's not something that the population can just fund itself that does need the sort of state to play a significant role. And they've committed another 6.6 billion over the next parliament to doubling the existing plan. Government incentives to upgrade 5 million homes to cut bills for families, which sounds all good, but it's still a long way away from what you would need if you were genuinely on track for net zero.

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 17:28

Yeah. There are 30 million homes that they have to deal with. So essentially, so 5 million is only it's a sixth. It's,

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 17:37

that's the difficult politics, isn't it? That's the bit that, where you're telling people they can't do things, they've gotta. Change their homes. Just no one's suggesting ripping out gas boilers, but that kind of language starts to get talked about. So I think they'll be very ambitious on power. I think they'll be rather go slower on, on, on heat.

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 17:55

That's heat. Exactly. That's one word that did jump out of the manifesto I saw, which it said no, nobody will be forced to rip out their gas fire boiler. Okay. So they're not at that point yet.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 18:08

Not yet,

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 18:09

but they are prepared to force landlords to improve efficiency of homes, to meet a minimum energy efficiency standard. So they're prepared to take on some people, but you don't have to rip your gas boiler out. Fair enough. What about nuclear film? I find the language in the different parties around nuclear is quite interesting. So Labor's committed to to Hinkley and to Sizewell, but there's nothing in the manifesto about Wiler. But they're also committed to building a fleet of small modular reactors, whereas the conservatives are committed to building two fleets. Of small modular reactors. Okay. I found that quite funny. That's quite a big difference. Then. It depends how big your fleet is and how big your small modular react, how small your modular reactor is. But for those who are not familiar with the modular reactor, essentially it's the technology that's been used in nuclear submarines and nuclear aircraft carriers, but essentially bolted to the ground. So the reactors are a lot smaller, and the idea I think is with a smaller reactor, you might be able to build a lot of them as opposed to large. Kind of Flamville or hinkley point's, sea size reactors, which as we've seen from Hinkley point C, go over budget. And the and the delivery timescale goes massively to the right.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 19:21

But there's largely unproven as well, though. The srs, the technology, okay, fine in submarines, but on land, the there's no where it's been built or can actually generate a kilowatt hour of electricity

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 19:33

unless it's. Up by Dune Ray actually, where they developed them, I suppose they actually had to develop the original ones bolted to the ground but the, yeah. Yeah. But it's, there's a couple of people, a couple of companies like Rolls Royce and Westinghouse who are pushing them hard. Sure. And they're very confident. But yes, you're right. I don't know if anybody's actually put an SMR into commercial operation yet. I dunno. Merlin might know different.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 19:57

No, I, the nuclear thing is, is interesting because you, if you'll. Thinking about 2030, if we were to go ahead with Sizewell, what's anyone's, 2040, I think 2045. I think 2040

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 20:09

Would be an aggressive timescale, but the experience for 2040. I think if you think about it, if experience of watching Hinkley Point C limp along Ley. Yeah. Then 2040 is, yeah. It 15 years, but that still

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 20:20

seems quite an aggressive timescale for,

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 20:23

so I, it's like, it's irrelevant to. To this, and by the time you've got them, if renewables and short term, longer term duration technologies have really come on, then you might be thinking this is rather than expensive white elephant. I, if they, it's it feels about to me like a rather a bit of a distraction and I'm told by someone that something like half the wage bill of des goes on people working on the Sizewell project. So that's, that seems nuts to me. I have to say the SMR thing that, it's, it begins to sound a bit like a dream that, that's gonna. Come one day. They talk, they say small. It's not, they're not small, are they? I think they're about a gigawatt. Is the general view, is it cheap? Generally these kind of big industrial projects benefit from economies of scale, so going smaller and therefore expecting them to be cheaper seems like a counterintuitive conclusion. So yeah, my guess is that. Nuclear will continue to absorb a lot of airtime, a lot of civil servants, but be pretty irrelevant to the future of the UK's energy system.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 21:34

So DESNZ that's the beast, formerly known as. Base, is it BIS? Yeah.

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 21:38

Which was formerly known as Deck, which was formerly known as DTI or whatever the energy department.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 21:43

Yeah. So what's it gonna be in the next label government then, or the potential Next Label government film?

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 21:47

I don't know. That's not for red Milli band to decide, but I doubt it'll be DESNZ. I dunno. Will it go back to deck or, I dunno,

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 21:55

what was it under Gordon Brown? Deck?

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 21:57

Yeah, it was, yeah, it was Deck, yeah. Yeah,

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 22:00

it was Deck. Yeah. I'm not. Sure whether la we've said nothing about labor moving the deck chairs around the Titanic in terms of departmental names and it's tempting thing for politicians to do.'cause you you're trying to make things happen and you pull on policy leavers in the, and then the real world doesn't seem to change very much. But you, you can

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 22:19

change the name,

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 22:20

you can take. You can change the name on top of something and you can move civil servant desk around so you can think, oh, I've actually done something there. So it's quite change. Logos and stuff, I'm not sure It really makes it a huge amount of difference. I think. I suspect they might leave the departments alone and focus instead on this kind of cross-government mission stuff. And they've got Sue Gray, who was a leading civil servant, and most people. Probably heard of in context of the parties at Down Street Inquiry who's a sort of expert in fixer in government. And I think these, I think rather than moving departments, I think they'll focus on those kind of cross government mission board type structures.

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 22:56

And I think one of the impressions you get from talking to from reading around the the various profiles and various, document. Yeah, no documents, on Keir. He does appear to be a pretty good manager. So he yeah. I don't think changing the name on, on the front door really matters. It's more around getting people working together effectively. What do you hope anyway?

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 23:16

Absolutely. I'd just like to, we could talk for hours on this, but I, in the interest of time, we have to draw things a bit to a close. But if I can talk about the relationship with the EU and in, CBAM, the carbon border adjustment mechanism, particular Phil. What that, is there any mention of that in the manifesto? What do you, what are your expectations there?

Phil Hewitt, Director, Montel Analytics: 23:37

In the labor manifesto, they do mention C-B-A-M carbon Border adjustment mechanism, but they don't mention that if it applies to electricity or not. So the current UK position as it doesn't apply to electricity, but obviously the European Union cbam does apply to electricity. That might be an interesting debate and something that, that the conservative opposition, if it is big enough to be the opposition, some polls are suggesting it might not even get that big that that would use the potential of, the potential renegotiation or window for renegotiating the trade and cooperation agreement, which starts in 2025 because it's only a five year agreement that was signed on the 1st of January, 2000 2021. So it, it does have, it does, there is a window for renegotiation, but, to quote Mr. Banier it's, it won't just be about energy, it'll be about everything. So certainly the current interconnector arrangements aren't efficient. There's worries about cbam. There's a need for the countries around the North Sea to cooperate on offshore wind and to be able to share power and share interconnection. So there's a lot of stuff that needs to be clarified, and then to an extent was written down as a wishlist in the TCA that was signed at the end of Brexit, but wasn't actually delivered on at all. So maybe that'll be reopened. And the, then there is a point at which having efficient interconnect trading when you've got a country like GB in five years time clean power by 2030 might be looking for a route to dump all its excess offshore wind somewhere. Then it might be in the interest of the European Union to start. Reopening that to to make interconnects trading more efficient. But, and maybe that if that happens in 25, 26, I think there might be a lot of political jumping up and down and calls a portrayal over Brexit. But but yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting. But that has to be re that there is an opportunity to renegotiate that and whether that impacts on the, on the energy relationship between Europe and between the EU and the United Kingdom is we'll see. It might be tied up with other things such as free movement and and security.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 25:45

Any thoughts Merlin?

Merlin Hyman, CEO, Regen: 25:47

Yeah I was up recently at the Global Offshore Wind Conference in Manchester with Ed Miller. Listened to Ed Miller van speaking very passionately in fact, about this. A gender and a offshore wind more generally. And a lot of the kind of, when, you know, various panels across the two days talk when you are people asked about their kind of wishlist. A lot of them brought up better relationships with Europe and particularly, specifically precisely 'cause of the point Phil's made about interconnectors and optimizing a across them. And I think there is a really big prize there. If we. It just makes a lot of sense where, we are physically interconnected quite extensively with Europe already. The way those in the interconnects work is not optimized, doesn't make a lot of sense. As we build out North Sea and we get sort of North Sea grids coming out from Europe, the UK interconnecting into those makes a lot of sense. This whole process is gonna be a lot easier, a lot more logical if we do it as part of a European approach, so I think there's a lot there. Any of these sorts of negotiations are always hideously complicated, but I'm a little bit, I'm a bit more positive about the fact that quite a lot of people in Europe, now want, are over some of the shock and would like to rebuild. Positive relationships with the UK in certain areas. Energy seems like a quite a good area to do that. It's quite technocratic and is anyone really gonna, it's oh yeah, okay, we're sorting out the energy stuff. It doesn't feel quite as personal, some sort of free movement and the like, so I think they might be able to hi it off a little bit and go. It's just a sensible technocratic bit of kind of policy adjustment over here. Nothing to see too much. So yeah I and it seems to fit. With labors like pragmatic, we wanna work better with Europe. So really important area. And I'm, and I think there is a window of opportunity, but I don't underestimate the complexities of any of these kind of these negotiations.

Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 27:48

Gentlemen, I'm afraid we have to draw a line on the discussion there. But, fascinating to hear your views on what we can expect from what looks like very certainly a labor government and maybe not even the conservatives in opposition. That's quite a thought there, Phil. But gentlemen, thank you very much for joining the Montel Weekly podcast.