17:40 Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)

Geographically, Sedgefield is covered by what is known as the Tees Valley plain, and has become a target for a great deal of wind farm development in recent years. County Durham has an excellent record on renewable energy: 22% of its energy needs come from renewable sources. The only English county that can beat that is Northumbria, which is also in the north-east. In my constituency, Dalkia has built a 17 MW biomass facility at Chilton. The development has my support, and that of the town and county councils. It employs about 40 people, and the money provided through a section 106 agreement will help to fulfil the local population’s ambition to establish an energy service company.

Those are all laudable initiatives. Some may take time to achieve, but I am sure that they will be achieved, and they are proof that the people of Chilton are prepared to embrace the need for renewable energy. However, I believe that what they face now is unfair, and is making Chilton—and, indeed, the main areas of population in my constituency, Newton Aycliffe and Sedgefield—a renewable-energy hot spot. The Dalkia biomass facility is north of Chilton. Just south of it, E.ON proposes to construct potentially the largest wind farm in England, consisting of 45 wind turbines, or no fewer than 29. E.ON has designated an area of 7.5 square miles of my constituency for the wind farm site, known as the Isles. That is 5% of the area of the constituency and is the size of Newton Aycliffe, home to 28,000 people.

If we are to win the fight against climate change, we will need to win hearts and minds. We need to take people with us, but when people feel engulfed by developments, do not feel as though they are being listened to, can point out of their window at a biomass facility—as the residents of Chilton can—or can point at a wind farm development, as in Sedgefield, Trimdon or Morden and Bradbury, I think they have the right to be listened to in detail when other developments are proposed.

[Source]

17:46 Julian Smith (Conservative)

I want to pay tribute to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and in particular to the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), for the work that is being done on carbon capture and storage. There have been a number of very important positive announcements in recent weeks: the decision to include gas as well as coal; the establishment of the Office of CCS within the Department, which is giving focus to this area; and the holding of a number of industrial days, which culminated a couple of weeks ago in 200 or 300 CCS industry representatives debating in London with the Department. The head of the CCS Storage Association described the relationship between the industry and the Government as “tremendous”.

There was criticism about the decision to pull back from Longannet last year. It was said that that would slow things down, but it has proved to be a positive move, and there seems to have been a strategic rethink of what we are trying to do, how we are going to achieve it, how we are going to include European money, and how we are going to support clusters. On the eve of DECC announcing the new terms of its CCS competition, we have an industry that is enthused, a Government who are focused, and, most importantly, a positive dialogue and a sense of mutual support, which is vital for the success of such a tricky and unproven technology.

This change of philosophy is important for Yorkshire and the Humber, as it is the best placed region in the UK to deliver on CCS, with its heavy-industry heritage and its proximity to North sea storage. Much work has already been done to position the region to make the most of CCS. There are four or five main projects, including Don valley, Killingholme, Ferrybridge and Tata Steel, and nowhere else in the country has so many potential projects.

On pipelines, the National Grid has already undertaken initial consultation work, with very positive feedback from the public, and CO2Sense—we are grateful for the fact that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has supported it, and continues to do so post-Yorkshire Forward—has been bringing together people and expertise in the region. Yorkshire and the Humber has so many pieces of the required CCS jigsaw: the right industrial heritage, a good geography and location, projects that are ready, and a team of people who are collaborating and have a vision.

I wish to finish by encouraging Ministers to do the following: accelerate further the timelines for the competition; focus even more on the cluster benefits; encourage Europe to push forward on its side of the financial bargain; and avoid the Opposition’s legacy of picking a project here and there across the country, and instead focus on a region, Yorkshire and the Humber, to develop the critical mass and ensure that Britain is a world leader in CCS.

[Source]

17:50 Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)

In the past, the industries in my county and constituency were farming, coal—based on the Point of Ayr pit, which the Conservatives closed, at the cost of 1,000 jobs—and seaside towns, which have had 40 years of steady decline. The jobs in my area are now increasingly in the renewable energy sector. One of the great stimulators of that process was introduced by Labour in the late 1990s, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), the then Secretary of State for Wales, allowed my county of Denbighshire and the neighbouring county of Conwy to come in on the objective 1 bid. As a result, £124 million was invested in Denbighshire over a seven-year period. The pièce de résistance—the best project we had—was a £17 million research and incubation centre, the OpTIC centre in St Asaph.

That centre will create 100 new opto-electronic companies over the next 10 years. It is based in the north Wales area—the third biggest for opto-electronics in the world. We build to our success in Wales, and we have had excellent success in renewable energy. Dyesol, a small two-man company, relocated from Australia to the OpTIC centre in St Asaph, and it is now working on organic photovoltaic paint that can produce electricity. It is working with Corus, down the road in Shotton, so that when that company produces its sheet steel, with the paint by Dyesol, electricity will be automatically created. The OpTIC centre is also working on fusion powers. There are two ways to fuse atoms and create power, one of which is by magnets and the other is by lasers. That work is being conducted in my constituency and I am very proud of the centre.

In the OpTIC centre in St Asaph, we have a Welsh solution to a British problem. The centre has been acknowledged: Rhodri Morgan, the then First Minister of Wales, visited it on the same day as the then Labour Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—now Labour’s leader—addressed a conference there; and the current Prime Minister has also visited. So we have a prestigious centre in St Asaph, and the British Government should look to it as a means of spreading best practice around the whole UK.

Let me now discuss wind power. As I have said before, I turned on 30 turbines off the coast of north Wales. I do not think that it is any relation, Mr Deputy Speaker, but these turbines were at North Hoyle. The then Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath, switched on a further 30 turbines some two years ago, and in two years’ time, those at Gwynt y Mor will be up and running. When all those turbines are running, we will have the biggest concentration of wind turbines in the world. North Wales is playing its full part in renewable energy, creating jobs and growth.

[Source]

17:57 Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)

I am very happy to follow the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), and I pay tribute to the opportunities and success in north Wales. I visited the area when I shadowed the energy and climate change brief in the previous Parliament, and I must say that the whole of the north Wales coast and the area off the north Wales shore is a fantastic site. It gives us not only the success we have had already, but huge potential.

I am pleased to welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to his post, to join his colleagues in the Department’s team—

I am glad that we are having this debate, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for choosing this important issue. She knows my commitment to it and I am grateful for the acknowledgement of the work I have tried to do in this area for many years. The Labour Administration had many successes, the Climate Change Act 2008 being the biggest, and the Leader of the Opposition, as he is now, tried hugely hard at the Copenhagen summit, which I, too, attended, to rescue it, as far as was possible, from the disaster that was otherwise afflicting it. Happily, he made sure that there was good progress that could be built on in the years to come.

I have to say to the right hon. Lady that in some areas Labour clearly did not deliver. I do not wish to spend most of my time discussing the past, because we all have a duty to work together to ensure that we have the best possible present, but the renewables figures I cited were not speculation; they were the figures that are in the record. The energy figures for the EU show that we were the worst at achieving the renewable energy targets we had set. The table is commonly available and the share of renewable consumption as a proportion of our target showed us in the worst possible light. That was not acceptable and this Government will, I know, do better. It was a defeat of the Labour Government in the House of Lords that got the feed-in tariff system going and that was resisted by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Leader of the Opposition. The European common energy market was never delivered in 13 years of Labour government. On all those things, the record was not all that the right hon. Lady might wish to make us believe it was.

There was one area in which Labour had a clear position with which I disagreed and with which I still disagree. I am not committed—the Liberal Democrats are not committed—to nuclear power. We do not think that it is the solution— [ Interruption. ] There had to be negotiation for the coalition agreement but we have made it clear that it is neither necessary for the future of British energy policy nor good for investment in jobs. It creates very few jobs compared with community-based and renewable energy schemes, and the criterion negotiated, while we retained our opposition, was that it would go ahead only

When the coalition Government were formed, we set 23 objectives for energy and climate change policy. I hope that Ministers might either now or by the second anniversary put in the Library a report on how far they have gone towards achieving those objectives. Many have already been achieved and Ministers have set out down the road towards achieving the others. We already have £60 million invested in world-class offshore wind conversion in our ports to produce jobs and many people are being trained as apprentices to work on the green deal. We have a green deal energy efficiency initiative for homes across the country and a decision on the green investment bank, the location of which will be announced soon. Let me repeat what I have said publicly in the past: I do not think it should be in London. It should be elsewhere in the United Kingdom so that the benefits can be spread, and I say that as a London Member of Parliament.

We have a legally binding target for a 50% reduction in UK carbon emissions by the mid-2020s. We have the establishment of the low-carbon technology and innovation centres, a 25% improvement in energy efficiency standards for all new buildings, support for green buses, subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles, a reduction in carbon emissions from central Government buildings of an almost incredible 14% over 12 months and—I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne)—very successful participation in the climate conferences in Cancun and Durban, which has ensured that we are at last on the right road to international agreement and making up for what we did in the past.

[Source]

18:06 Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)

Let us not forget that on 30 June 2010, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), gave the proposals the go-ahead and that in November 2010 the Department’s business plan expected the green investment bank to be operational in September 2012. On 23 May 2011, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the green investment bank would begin to provide funding from as early as April 2012. Now we are told, however, that it will be operational from the end of the year, subject to state aid approval. I suspect that that means that in practice we will not see the green investment bank in operation until well into 2013, almost a year late. That is extremely concerning and is also a condemnation of the way in which the Government have taken forward the proposals on the green investment bank. One cannot blame a year’s delay on the fact that there are 32 rather than 20 cities interested in the proposals.

[Source]

18:19 Caroline Nokes (Conservative)

It is striking from the Back-Bench contributions that rather than an endless drip of negativity, there is a commitment to the innovative and exciting technologies that are growing in many parts of the UK. Last week in Westminster Hall there was a debate on Government incentives for renewable energy. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) may not have been aware of it, but the focus was on the generation of energy from waste. Had any members of her party been present, they would have heard the commitment of the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) to the eight technologies in the renewable energy road map.

The commitment to anaerobic digestion was present in the coalition agreement, in the renewable energy road map, and in the strategy published jointly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and DECC last June, and I look forward to the publication of the annual progress report this summer. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said last week, 56 actions have been identified to tackle the key barriers to deployment. I do not pretend that it is easy or that there are not significant challenges. There are, but I welcome the inclusion of anaerobic digestion in the feed-in tariffs scheme.

[Source]

18:22 Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

As the former chair of Flood Risk Management Wales charged with leading Wales forward in adapting to climate change, I am pleased to speak in the debate. The Welsh Assembly Government have sustainable development at the core of their constitution. I shall put in a bid for Swansea as the site for the green investment bank, given the access to the natural wind and wave power, the great universities there and the financial cluster in Cardiff to support it.

[Source]

18:27 Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)

As in the case of most Opposition motions, there is much in the motion before the House with which I agree. For instance, there have been mixed signals from Government over the level of their commitment to the renewable energy programme, and that uncertainty has hit the confidence of many investors. The uncertainty was reinforced by the letter from 106 of my colleagues to the Prime Minister calling for a reduction in the subsidy offered to onshore wind farms.

I appreciate that those who signed the letter did so with the best of intentions. They believe that renewable energy should not be subsidised because it is uneconomic. However, some in the anti-onshore wind farm lobby demonstrate slightly muddled thinking. I have heard many opponents say, “But of course I support offshore wind farms.” Let us be quite clear. A threat to onshore wind is a potential threat to offshore wind. Although it is unquestionably true that wind energy is currently uneconomic, with the new generation of wind turbines, wind energy will become cheaper and more predictable. It is also worth pointing out that onshore wind is the cheapest form of renewable technology that can deliver at scale.

Yes, I accept what my hon. Friend says, but that does not mean that onshore wind energy is wrong. It means that it must be put in the right place. If we start from the premise that the nation needs to increase the percentage of our energy obtained from renewable sources, increasing onshore wind energy production is financially beneficial to the country because it reduces the need for other, more expensive forms of green power. There are those who question the need for renewable energy at all, and I appreciate their point of view. I disagree fundamentally with them, but I acknowledge their right to hold an opposing view.

As it happens, although I believe that, in an effort to cut lung diseases and global warming, we must reduce the amount of pollution we pump into the atmosphere, my primary reason for supporting renewable energy and reductions in the use of fossil fuels is concern about energy security. We are importing ever more energy into the United Kingdom and, in order to maintain supplies, we are increasingly at the mercy of events over which we have no control. Oil prices continue to fluctuate alarmingly and unrest in the middle east could affect supplies. A couple of years ago we saw Russia cut the flow of gas to Ukraine. It could easily do the same to us or push up the price of gas to even higher levels. It is worth repeating that spiralling household energy bills are driven by higher oil and gas prices and fluctuations in the exchange rate, not support for renewable energy.

Let us not forget that oil and gas are finite resources. The high price of energy is a growing problem, but at least we have energy. As fossil fuels begin to run out, as they inevitably will before the end of this century, energy prices will become so high that people will simply be unable to afford to use their cars or heat their homes. I have been to countries where power cuts are used to manage energy consumption and are a way of life. It is not inconceivable that in 50 years’ time people in this country could routinely flick a switch and find that the lights do not come on. If we are to prevent that from happening, we need to invest in a range of alternative, non-fossil energy sources. That is not an investment we can leave for our children and grandchildren to make; that would be too late. We need to invest now. We need to invest in nuclear power stations and renewable energy sources such as tidal, wind, biomass and anaerobic digestion.

Of course, investing in renewable energy will not only provide us with increasing energy security, but will have the beneficial side effect of creating thousands of extra jobs. Let us take wind energy as an example. Nationally, RenewableUK estimates that 6,000 people are directly employed in the onshore wind sector. That figure could grow to up to 12,000 direct and 19,000 indirect jobs by 2021. In my constituency, Vestas is considering building a factory in Sheerness, which would create 2,000 jobs. Our community took a hard hit recently when our local steelworks went into administration, with the loss of 400 jobs. I genuinely believe that the United Kingdom needs a thriving wind energy industry. More importantly, Sheppey needs that wind turbine factory.

[Source]

18:32 Nicholas Dakin (Labour)

I particularly value the opportunities associated with renewable energy because close to my constituency, on the south Humber bank, there is a huge opportunity to develop a big area of land for the manufacture and deployment of renewables technology. It is a great opportunity, along with the potential for development on the north bank of the Humber, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) outlined in relation to Siemens’s interest there. Together with the Able UK development on the south bank, that represents a site of European significance for driving the UK’s renewables industry forward. As has already been said in the debate, we need the opportunity not only of site, but of skills. We must ensure that the proper skills development is in place to take advantage of that opportunity.

I am concerned that UK taxpayers and energy bill payers should not end up resourcing jobs outside the UK. It is absolutely crucial that we ensure that the supply chain is developed to provide jobs within the UK’s renewables sector. Otherwise, we will find a huge missed opportunity. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about how the Exchequer, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are working together to ensure that appropriate incentives are in place to develop the renewables industry supply chain in the UK so that we get maximum benefit. We also need to ensure that the penalties that are in place for energy intensive-industries are properly addressed. Industries such as the steel industry, which is crucial to not only the old industries of the past, but the new renewables industries, have made huge strides in becoming energy efficient.

My hon. Friend mentioned energy-intensive industries. Is he aware that, due to the carbon taxes that the Government are imposing on energy-intensive industries, Rio Tinto Alcan will close its plant in my constituency sometime this week, which will affect 600 jobs directly and 3,000 in the supply chain?

[Source]

18:37 Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)

The thrust of my right hon. Friend’s comments—that we cannot generate jobs with lower-productivity activities—is right, but if we accept that the Climate Change Act 2008 is right also and we have to decarbonise, we reach a position whereby we ought to decarbonise ruthlessly with the cheapest option in front of us, which takes us to nuclear power rather than to some of the others.

[Source]

18:43 Chris Evans (Labour)

For too long I have been worried about debates on green energy and technology. I have been one of those who has said, “This is our last best chance,” but the real problem is that we talk in the abstract and in the future, so as we are only a few weeks away from the Budget there are three fundamental things that the Government can do to increase jobs and growth in the low-carbon sector.

[Source]

18:49 Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)

It is fair to say that there will be no economic growth without increased energy consumption, and the challenge to decarbonise our economy comes at a time when we have to spend about £200 billion on rebuilding it. The electricity market reforms have been very positive for the construction of new nuclear power stations. That did not happen under the previous Government, and I am proud that it will be happening under our Government. Sizewell C will be a key employer for many years to come, and it will afford construction opportunities in the near future.

[Source]

18:50 Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)

The change of Secretary of State has given the Government an opportunity to reassess their policy prescription in the light of the evidence of falling investment in the green economy, taking the UK from third to 13th place, and to make good much of the rhetoric of the past two years on the opportunities for growth and investment to help to rebalance the economy and to build vital skills that could create and keep jobs in every part of the country. Those opportunities should not be missed. However, there is genuine concern that a combination of the effects of Government policies elsewhere, the Chancellor’s comments on a range of related issues at party conferences, and the hapless approach of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), on feed-in tariffs are combining to reduce the attractiveness of those opportunities, not least in renewable energy.

The Secretary of State spent some time in Scotland this weekend, and he will have appreciated that Inverness is a little less crowded and a little windier than Surbiton, and that is not just because he was at the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ conference. I welcome his recognition of the benefits to Scotland and the rest of the country of the single energy market and the mechanisms within it to improve infrastructure and promote new developments that work in the interests of the whole of the UK. As well as appreciating the potential for renewable energy in Scotland he will also, according to press reports, have witnessed some of those who are less convinced at the staged wake at the conference. For the avoidance of doubt, it was an unofficial wake outside rather than something on the agenda inside.

We should also be maximising the opportunities for jobs in our economy to build growth and provide employment in the parts of the UK that are suffering the most economically, not least because of the impact of other aspects of Government policy. That was pointed out in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and in the speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). Many places around the UK are well placed to be the hubs for renewable energy because they combine the port infrastructure, the manufacturing expertise and the chance to develop new export opportunities. We have heard about the need for joined-up thinking within Government to attract that investment. Much of that depends on confidence, as the Secretary of State observed, and the Government must be aware that the shambolic handling of the feed-in tariff debacle has dented confidence more widely across the energy industry. I hope that Ministers learn some lessons from that sorry exercise, because it not only has direct consequences for jobs and businesses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North said, but sends a wider message to the industry.

The hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) highlighted the importance of CCS, quoting Professor Jeff Chapman, and reflected on the decision on Longannet, which many Members are sorry has been unable to be demonstrated on a commercial basis. We should not forget, however, that the work at Longannet, including the FEED—front-end engineering design—study, will bring some benefits to potential future CCS projects, and it is important that we learn from that. I hope that as the Government outline their new competition, they do not use criteria that restrict the ability of many potential CCS projects to go ahead.

The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), in an interesting and courageous speech, made clear the problems that the mixed messages coming from the Government and from Government Members are creating as regards some of the investment decisions that may or may not be made. He made the important point that while there may be costs associated with renewable energy, there are also costs associated with an over-reliance on declining and volatile resources. We need to bear that in mind.

[Source]

19:00 The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)

The year 2012 will be the one in which we finally shrug off the humiliation left by Labour of being the third worst country in Europe for renewable deployment. This year, we expect to install at least 4 GW of green energy—double the amount that we inherited from the Labour Government. We are also building for the long term, not only with our forthcoming electricity market reforms and their game-changing measures for energy efficiency and demand production, but with our ambitious plans for marine energy, which will harness wave and tidal power; a world-leading programme for carbon capture and storage; and the ambitious roll-out of a new nuclear fleet. That all means that we can face the 2020s with growing confidence.

The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) spoke encouragingly of a range of renewable energy projects and initiatives in his constituency. I am happy to invite him to meet my officials to see how we can help to develop those programmes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) spoke with authority about CCS. He spoke up for the positive engagement that there now is between the industry and my Department.

Despite the partisan note injected by Opposition Front Benchers, I believe that there is still much that unites Members throughout the House in their commitment to green investment and climate change. The real difference, however, is that Government Members believe in enterprise, the private sector, innovation and the genius of British business. The Labour party, I am afraid, is retreating to its left-wing comfort blanket of heavy-handed regulation, punitive taxation, fat Government subsidies for the chosen few and the dead hand of state planning. That is not our vision. We believe that the green economy can be an engine for growth, not a burden on taxpayers.

[Source]