16:48 Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

The right hon. Member for Don Valley began by wanting to reach consensus and, to be fair, it is not the first time that she has done so. Right hon. and hon. Members might be surprised to learn that she talked warmly in a speech last week about the consensus on energy policy in the UK. They might be even more surprised to learn that I agree that there is consensus on some aspects of energy and climate change policy. The Labour party has accepted the coalition’s major reforms of Britain’s electricity market. Labour voted for the Energy Act 2013 and backed its centrepiece—contracts for difference—which will be crucial in creating the world’s first ever low-carbon electricity market. Labour appeared to be backing our measures that are driving the massive increase in energy investment from which the UK is benefiting, including the more than doubling of renewable electricity. Labour seemed to be backing the measures that we are introducing to keep Britain’s lights on, such as the plans for a capacity market and National Grid’s supplemental balancing reserve.

I am fairly confident that there has been a consensus on energy security and climate change for some time, because the right hon. Member for Don Valley never questions me about our climate change or energy security policies. I am grateful for her support, however tacit. It would be nice to have more opportunities to explain by how much renewable investment has risen in the UK. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the UK had the highest level in Europe in 2013. It would be nice to have a chance to tell the House in detail how we have turned around the legacy of under-investment that we inherited, which was threatening Britain’s energy security.

It is very important that the Minister is not allowed to get away with an empty boast. The Energy and Climate Change Committee report states that

Pursuing the Opposition’s policies would be nothing short of a disaster, not just for consumers but for investment, for decarbonisation and for energy security. If any Government were so misguided as to intervene with the two prices regulations proposed by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) it would lead to chaos in our energy system.

In fact, it was one of a number of reasons and findings that led Ofgem to propose a market investigation reference. That is exactly what I think we should support when faced with such a worrying finding for consumers. There should be a no-holds barred inquiry by independent experts, whom we have given real teeth to act for consumers. That is the action that the right hon. Lady should be proposing and that I am backing as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

I am not the first Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to be confronted with the problem of wholesale and retail energy prices—the possibility of a rocket and feather consumer energy price rip-off. As Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the Leader of the Opposition, presided over a period in which wholesale prices crashed and retail prices did not. When he did my job, between September 2008 and January 2010, wholesale prices actually fell faster than the figures set out in the Opposition’s motion. Wholesale electricity prices on the day-ahead market fell not by the 23% mentioned in the motion but by 62.5%. Under the Leader of the Opposition, wholesale gas prices to businesses fell not by 38% but by 43%. A big driver of those falls was, of course, the massive recession, and they went on so long that, eventually, retail prices for consumers fell—but only by a bit: electricity by 7.5%, not the 62.5% fall in wholesale prices enjoyed by the energy firms, and gas by 5.6%, not the wholesale fall of 43%.

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17:19 John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)

We are here today to talk about prices and costs. That has nothing to do with the reinvention of history and nothing to do with the previous Government—although the previous Government gave the Secretary of State the job he has today. If it had not been for the previous Government, we would not be talking about energy and climate change. It was the previous Government who set that up with, I have to say, help from Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition at that time. His own party, the Liberals, were against having a balanced energy policy, because they did not like the balance. Let us put everything in perspective: if the Liberals were honourable, they would not take up a post in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, because they were totally against what the Labour party and the Conservative party wanted at the time. Our parties worked together to meet the needs of the nation. It seems now that the agreement we have had over the years has gone out of the window. I blame the Secretary of State for that. Until he came into the job there was still a friendship between the parties to ensure that energy was in place to meet the needs of the nation.

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18:00 Nia Griffith (Labour)

Another point I would like to make quickly relates to the sorry state of investment in renewables that we have seen under this Government. Despite what the Secretary of State tried to say at the Dispatch Box, whereas we had £7.2 billion of investment in 2010, it is down to £2.3 billion in 2014, which is a dramatic drop. SSE says that it now has grave doubts about continuing its offshore wind programme. That is because it does not get confidence from the Government and it does not get a feeling that it will be backed. It gets no clear and definitive messages on what the Government want to do on renewable energy. We would like to see a considerably greater and more consistent commitment to the development of renewables, which have a tremendous potential in this country. We should be a world leader on renewables.

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18:06 David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)

The point must be made that every time we vote in this House on energy prices— this really surprises me—Opposition Members go through the Lobby in favour of more expensive energy. In 2011, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), wanted to reduce the solar PV tariff from six times grid parity to four times grid parity, but the Opposition rejected it. In 2013, they were determined to force through a unilateral carbon target, in spite of the fact that our carbon emissions are among the lowest in Europe; it would cost £130 on every bill. The big date was 4 December 2013, when Opposition Members voted in the Lobby for accelerating the closure of UK power stations over and above what is required by the directive relating to industries with large emissions.

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18:12 Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

It started off as a green power station six times the size of Cardiff bay, stuck in Swansea bay, that had no benefits for Swansea in terms of energy costs and that might have undermined the tourism industry. The company has come back and provided a visitor centre and suggested berthing for cruise liners, which might help us to take advantage of the momentum from the Dylan Thomas centenary and our ambitions from the city of culture bid. In that way, the green offer might be combined with a tourism offer and an economic offer, and, hopefully, with sustainable energy prices, which is what this debate is all about.

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18:37 Sammy Wilson (DUP)

One issue that has not been touched on much in the debate, although the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) mentioned it, is the aspect of energy policy and prices over which the House has some control—the increasing reliance on renewable energy. I notice that the Secretary of State boasted that we are the best place in the world for onshore and offshore wind power, but his boast is paid for by our consumers. According to his Department, in 2013 electricity prices were 17% higher as a result of feed-in tariffs, carbon taxes, smart meters, additional infrastructure costs and so on. By 2020, those factors will add 33% to electricity prices. Some Members, such as the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), suggested that we should have more renewables, but more of that sort of policy will add to the cost of household bills.

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18:43 Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)

We have had a number of contributions this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) is a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee. He reminded the House of the lack of transparency in the market and what he has encountered as a member of the Select Committee when seeking to get to the bottom of the issues.

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