Mr. Stephen Kelly:

It is good to see Mr. Hazzard again. I thank him for his comments. I will let my colleagues talk about the devastation in south Down some weeks ago. When it comes to the issue of the climate emergency and net zero our businesses are trying to see it as an opportunity, as good entrepreneurs and engineers do. We have businesses that are leading the way in terms of finding a net zero grid that never fails. That sounds inoffensive, but all of our power systems are designed to have bulky power stations at one end of the cable and all the consumers at the other end. In a net zero grid, the generation is happening everywhere. The existing grids are not designed to meet that requirement. As we would expect, entrepreneurs and innovators are trying to see the climate emergency and net zero as an opportunity.

We are developing alternative fuels, solutions on carbon capture and the circular economy. The friction lies largely in the energy space. This is not just the exorbitant costs people are being forced to endure but also the issue of availability. While much of our manufacturing community did not suffer from many of those weather incidents in recent months, they still suffer in terms of the availability of connections to open new facilities and grow their businesses.

In the digital space we are pretty well served. The North has probably one of the strongest digital infrastructure networks in Europe. To be fair to those digital providers, they actually see the North, in many ways, as a good test location for this stuff. BT and their partners in Openreach and others are doing projects in the North that simply do not exist elsewhere. This is because it is a closed market and it is easy for them to manage the space. We saw a large investment through the UK Government in Project Stratum which has brought digital infrastructure right in to the rural communities. Many of my members benefited enormously from that. Previously, they had to go home and pay the wages on a Friday because they all do digital banking. Now at least they are able to do it from their offices which sounds ridiculous but that is the scenario in which we found ourselves. From the point of view of digital infrastructure, we are in a really good place. From an energy infrastructure point of view, the grid needs to be upgraded. We need to do so in an efficient way that does not kill off businesses.