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UTILITY WEEK | 28TH APRIL - 4TH MAY 2017 | 7 Interview I ain Wright's brief stint as chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee has not been low profile. He has pinned his colours to the flag of energy retail intervention in no uncertain terms and grilled some of the biggest names in the industry. Following the prime minister's shock announcement of a snap general election, Wright has advertised his intention to bow out of the political circus. The Labour MP will not run again for his Hartlepool seat and, con- sequently, will also soon relinquish his committee posi- tion – the most prominent role he has landed since he entered Parliament in a by-election in 2004. When Utility Week meets with Wright, however, this development is in an unimagined future. It is less than a week aer Khalid Masood's attack on Parliament, but normality has nonetheless return to the halls of power. The security staff are cheerful and unflustered and wait- ing for Wright in the lobby, Parliament has its usual, if slightly surreal, atmosphere. Wright's own attitude reflects the wider determina- tion to minimise disruption following 22 March's tragic events. He is keen to get down to business. Some worry that energy has been sidelined within the now sprawling BEIS department, leading to delays on key policy announcements, notably on the emissions reduction plan. But Wright, who previously chaired the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) committee, says the prime minister has created a "great opportunity" for a more "coherent approach" by bringing the energy and business briefs under one roof. As for the policy delays, Wright believes these have more to do with wider hold-ups across government as it contends with the challenge of Brexit – and now a snap general election – than with any lack of commitment to tackling climate change. One of the options, following the departmental shake- up, had been to retain a dedicated energy and climate change sub-committee that would report to the main BEIS committee. Wright feels he made the right decision not to pursue that option, but his committee has now started picking up where its Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) predecessor le off. It has continued the inquiry into the implications of Brexit for energy and climate change policy, which the Decc committee began last summer, and Wright is full of praise for its 2016 report on investor confidence in the energy market. Insisting that both topics are still "key priorities" for the BEIS committee, Wright says: "We are our own committee with our own priorities but I was clear that I wanted energy and climate change to be central to what we do. I wanted to give out a very clear message that this is going to be front and centre. The role of us as a committee is to keep pressure on all of these fronts." Some energy bosses might have welcomed a little less scrutiny from the committee over the past few months, particularly over the vexed issue of energy prices. Wright laid down his marker on this issue when he kicked off his committee's grilling of utilities by describ- ing the relationship between the big energy suppliers and their customers as an "abusive" one. Such comments have contributed to an increasingly hostile political mood towards the energy companies, with even the prime minister signalling that price caps were on the cards for gas and electricity customers.