13:11 Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)

President Reagan once turned down $50,000 that Congress had authorised for redecorating the White House, but he did accept private donations to spruce up the presidential home on the sound basis that one man’s subsidy is another man’s tax burden. There is no better example of that than the burden of a levy on everyone’s energy bills to cover subsidy payments to renewable energy firms and landowners who happen to have wind farms or individual turbines on their land—the irony being that those who are already asset-rich become even more wealthy at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.

It is fair to suggest that renewable energy should be subsidised to some degree to help stimulate a market, and I agree with that. I am not against all renewable energy subsidies, but we should be supporting technologies that are effective in producing power when we need it and not just when the wind blows. There are technologies that get a relatively poor deal from the subsidy market, and when we look at the efficiency data for onshore wind, we can see why wind is a bad deal for taxpayers. Onshore wind farms are dependent on the wind blowing at the right speed in order to reach maximum output. Because wind speed is variable, so too is the output of Britain’s onshore wind farms. As a result, onshore wind farms are unable to respond to spikes in demand, in contrast to other forms of low carbon generation such as the biomass conversion projects that are being so ably demonstrated at Drax power station in my constituency and that I hope will shortly be introduced at Eggborough power station.

Research by the Renewable Energy Foundation shows that Whitelee in Scotland, the site of Britain’s largest onshore wind farm, was paid more than £22 million in constraint payments last year. In other words, it was paid £22 million of taxpayers’ cash not to produce anything. Very nice work indeed if you can get it! Last year, a total of £53 million was paid in constraint payments to wind farms—both onshore and offshore—which is the most since 2010. Wind farms are being paid more than £1 million a week to switch off their turbines.

The renewables obligation was introduced by the Labour Government to encourage investment in and development of the renewable energy industry. The cost is added to all energy bills, meaning that not only households but industry and employers pay, adding to the cost of all our goods and services. Labour also signed us up to meeting legally binding green energy targets by 2020, with the prospect of financial penalties if we failed to do so. Surely the only possible justification for subsidising these technologies is to drive down costs, but Labour ignored that principle and decided to use subsidies to meet arbitrary and foolishly high targets for green electricity in a very short time scale.

A report produced by Frontier Economics on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change concluded that Britain’s wind energy subsidy was 35% more expensive than the international average. Two countries in particular, Germany and Denmark, have been at the forefront of promoting wind energy. Germany pays £80 per MWh for its electricity from onshore wind, while in Denmark the cost is less than £60 per MWh.

If wind power really is the cheapest form of renewable energy, as its supporters claim, it should now be able to stand on its own feet without using any more taxpayers’ money and increasing our bills. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that if the Conservatives achieve an outright majority after the election, subsidies for onshore wind will end. That is welcome news to my constituents in Thorpe Willoughby, Hambleton, Gateforth, Hillam, Riccall, Kirkby Overblow and Spofforth, and right across the beautiful part of North Yorkshire that I represent. I know it is also welcomed by constituents of many of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

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