Amber Rudd

As always, my right hon. Friend makes an important point. Renewable electricity is essential, and I hope his Christmas tree lights burn even brighter this year, because 15% of that will indeed be from renewable energy, which is twice as much as under the last Government.

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Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

The Prime Minister said at the Liaison Committee this week that his party would scrap subsidies for onshore wind after 2015 and he did not expect any more to be erected without subsidy, but onshore wind is one of the cheapest forms of green energy. Does the Minister not agree that an essential part of trying to reduce energy bills is having onshore wind as part of the mix?

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Kevin Brennan

May I say merry Christmas to everyone, Mr Speaker? That should help climate change because I do not have to send out cards now. How are the Government’s talks on the Swansea tidal lagoon, which were announced during the autumn statement, progressing? As part of the studies that the Government are undertaking, are they working with the Welsh Government to look at proposals for a possible tidal lagoon, again on a larger scale, between Cardiff and Newport?

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David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)

Since we are quoting EU league tables for energy, will the Minister confirm that in 2010 only two EU countries had less renewable energy than us—Malta and Cyprus—and that he has no intention of allowing that situation to occur again?

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Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)

Investors in renewable energy will have been very interested in the Minister’s answers but will have been dismayed this week to hear the Prime Minister attack onshore wind, the cheapest large-scale form of renewable energy, in the Liaison Committee. He said

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Mr Bain

Meeting our security of supply challenge requires stable investment, and investors need confidence in the long-term direction of Government policy. After 2020, when the levy control framework expires, that confidence evaporates in this Government’s current road map, so will the Secretary of State give the industry a big pre-Christmas present by finally committing this Government to a 2030 decarbonisation plan to give the sector the certainty it needs?

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Philip Davies

The Committee on Climate Change has said that households already pay an average of £45 a year to support low-carbon power, and that will rise to £100 in 2020 and £175 in 2030. Can the Secretary of State confirm that those figures are true? Does he agree that there is nothing more nauseating than hearing people in this House on the one hand calling for lower energy prices, and on the other hand calling for more climate change policies and renewable energy, which are the one thing that increases prices? Is it not time that we had more cheaper energy and less greener energy?

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Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

I expect any figures from the Committee on Climate Change to be correct, but of course the ones my hon. Friend quotes do not tell the full story of our policies, which was told by my response to him. My hon. Friend just does not get the green energy opportunity, but in the spirit of Christmas let me cheer him up by telling him that the green energy savings I mentioned come partly from regulations—the type of Government intervention he dislikes so much. Worse still for my hon. Friend, his constituents are saving money, thanks to green regulations from the European Union.

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Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

The most significant development for my Department since the last DECC oral questions has been the climate change agreement secured in this year’s talks in Lima last week. British leadership on the European Union’s position on climate change helps to secure an ambitious 2030 target for EU cuts in greenhouse gases. This European leadership has been significant in accelerating political momentum into the Lima talks and beyond, through to the crucial Paris summit on climate change next year.

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John Robertson

Secretary of State, I sent your Department, Ofgem, the chief executive officers of the big six companies and many other interested groups a copy of a report that I did for the Energy and Climate Change Committee on how to help the safety of vulnerable people at times of need. Everyone except your Department and Ofgem has replied: why? All the others have contributed to a voluntary code of practice, and I am happy about that. Why cannot DECC and Ofgem put people before political point-scoring?

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Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

The right hon. Lady asked a very important question about energy efficiency. She will know that our approach has been to go after measures not only on loft insulation and cavity wall insulation—which are very important but declining in terms of availability and options because so much has been done—but on solid wall insulation, which is more expensive but vital for tackling fuel poverty and climate change.

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Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. In our community energy strategy and our work with both the solar and the onshore wind industries, we have stressed the importance of community benefits, and that is having a marked effect. We have enabled that through voluntary protocols, community benefit registers and the like. We have accepted and are taking forward the report of the shared ownership stakeholder group, which has also shown that people can be directly involved and have a stake in local renewable energy projects.

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Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)

T7. Following the story in The Sun today, may I congratulate the Secretary of State on slapping down his jobsworth official by wishing us all a merry Christmas, and may I reciprocate those wishes? May I also take him back to the reply given to me at the last Energy questions by the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who claimed:“There will be no blackouts this winter”? —[ Official Report , 6 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 951.] Does the Secretary of State agree with her? ( 9906715 )

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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)

When people voted for the Climate Change Act 2008 in the last Parliament, we were told that if we passed that legislation, every other country would follow suit. Have not the Lima negotiations proved that to be a complete and utter load of old cobblers, like much of what the Secretary of State says? If what I am saying is wrong, why, in a recent Westminster Hall debate, did Labour MP after Labour MP, many of whom voted for the Climate Change Act, complain that it was doing untold damage to the steel industry?

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Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

I think that my last answer to the hon. Gentleman, in which I recommended EU product regulations as very effective in reducing his constituents’ bills, must have annoyed him a tad. The UK’s leadership on climate change is acknowledged not just in this country or in Europe but around the world. We are taking forward the climate change negotiations successfully and I look forward to a successful agreement in Paris. The one thing that we have to achieve next year is to ensure that the deal is ambitious enough.

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Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)

The Secretary of State will be aware that the Energy and Climate Change Committee has produced a report on small nuclear reactors. May we have a quick response from the Government very early in the new year? When we produced a report on fracking in 2010, it took three or four years before it became a flagship policy of the Government. We could go on to lose the opportunity.

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Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

Analysis by climate change scientists of pledges made by Governments at Lima shows that the world is currently at risk of experiencing about 3° C of global warming. What can be done to reduce the global ambition gap on emissions by the time of the Paris summit, so that we do not cross the 2° C threshold?

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