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

Analysis undertaken by the Department for Energy and Climate Change in February 2010 estimated that the feed-in tariff scheme would lead to the deployment of about 700,000 domestic solar photovoltaic installations by 2020. In the light of the reforms to the schemes and the falling costs, I believe that we can do significantly better than that.

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Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)

Will my hon. Friend consider the letter has been sent to the Secretary of State from the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network—the WREN group—in my constituency about community-based projects that might be bigger than the new threshold?

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Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)

The Minister has single-handedly destroyed the confidence of the solar sector and the wider renewables sector at a stroke, and personally shredded the Government’s green credentials. The Renewable Energy Association says that the industry has been “strangled at birth”. Sharp’s in Wrexham states that this was

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Huw Irranca-Davies

Those are the words of the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), then the shadow Minister. Why is he wrong on this as well, and why is the Minister of State the fount of all knowledge?

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Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in contrast to the Opposition’s array of red tape on funding, the coalition Government need to ensure that the funding for large, important projects such as CCS is as simple and straightforward as possible?

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Chris Huhne

I expect the decisions we are taking on feed-in tariffs to ensure a steady and sustained growth in the industry, which will protect householders, who are completely unaffected by the review, in respect of any amount below 50 kW. As the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) pointed out, that amounts to two tennis courts and it is absolutely unaffected. We therefore expect that the number of households generating their own electricity will rise.

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Mr Burrowes

How does my hon. Friend expect renewable energy in particular to help off-grid customers who have previously had no alternative to traditional supplies such as heating oil?

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Charles Hendry

My hon. Friend has raised an extremely important point. One of the purposes of our world-leading renewable heat incentive is to encourage businesses and, subsequently, homes to install renewable energy equipment. That is an important way of helping people who currently rely on off-grid mechanisms such as oil and gas.

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Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)

6. What recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the setting of an EU-wide 30% carbon dioxide emissions reduction target by 2020. ( 48543 )

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Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)

I was very interested to hear the Minister’s response on the green deal. As yet, we have seen no targets in the Energy Bill and nothing to link it to the Climate Change Act 2008 so that it can create a tangible emission reduction. Yesterday, we heard the Chancellor talk up the green deal in the Budget, but not so loud was his announcement on page 117 of the plan for growth that the Government have scrapped the requirement for new homes to be truly zero carbon. Does the Minister agree with WWF, which said that this announcement of the destruction of the policy sweeps away

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Gregory Barker

The Chancellor announced yesterday that the green investment bank will be up and ready for business in 2012 and will have £2 billion of additional capital. The key is that it will be able to raise funds from 2015 at scale, in the bond market for example, that will allow it to make a meaningful contribution to the billions of pounds that we will need to raise in the second half of the decade to finance the vital renewable energy infrastructure projects.

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Damian Hinds (Conservative)

13. When he plans to respond to the Committee on Climate Change’s fourth carbon budget report. ( 48550 )

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Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)

15. When he plans to respond to the Committee on Climate Change’s fourth carbon budget report. ( 48552 )

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

The Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Government to set the fourth carbon budget level in law no later than 30 June 2011. I anticipate that a statutory instrument will be laid before the House after the Easer recess.

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Simon Wright

The Committee on Climate Change recommended a tightening of the second and third carbon budgets in the light of the impact of the recession. Does the Minister agree that we must deliver on that recommendation and use the Committee’s report as a means of strengthening the UK’s global leadership in encouraging our international partners to tighten their emissions targets?

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Gregory Barker

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must maintain our global leadership position, not only because it is important for tackling dangerous climate change, but because we want to grab market share in the new clean technology markets around the world, which are growing fast. We need to assert our leadership in the low-carbon markets, and to do so we need an ambitious policy to drive it at home.

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Gregory Barker

Clearly there is a huge investment agenda, and my right hon. Friend is right, but we see that as an opportunity as well as a cost. He will also know that the cost of doing nothing and standing by while climate change hits the world progressively through this century will be considerably greater than prudent early action.

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Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)

T5. Does the Minister agree that offshore wind farms, such as the one that has been proposed for off the coast of Brighton, will not only help energy supplies and counter the effects of climate change, but boost the local economy? ( 48567 )

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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)

T9. Earlier, the Secretary of State said that in the long term, the costs of unrestrained climate change will exceed the costs of doing something about it. Surely he is aware that the Stern report states that over the whole of this century, the costs of the programme that he is advocating exceed any benefits from reducing climate change, so that— [ Interruption. ] That is in the Stern report on page 167. Surely the Minister is aware of it. ( 48572 )

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Chris Huhne

Let me answer my right hon. Friend. This is not just a question of assessing the costs to the world in the long run if unrestrained climate change is allowed to proceed; it is also a question of energy security in this country and of the costs of the alternative. Given that the oil markets have gone from $60 a barrel two years ago to $80 a barrel last year, and are now at $115 a barrel, my right hon. Friend should be well aware that relying on fossil fuel markets could be extremely damaging to our economic health.

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Ian Lavery (Labour)

The Committee on Climate Change has recommended that the carbon intensity of electricity should be reduced from today’s 500 grams of CO 2 per kWh to the highly challenging figure of 50 grams of CO 2 per kWh by 2030. The Energy and Climate Change Committee suggests that the target should be about 100 grams of CO 2 per kWh. Will the Minister or the Secretary of State explain how difficult it would be to achieve the recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change?

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Gregory Barker

Absolutely not. We have gripped this agenda, as the enthusiasm of the new marine programme energy board made clear when we met in Exeter. I can tell the hon. Lady that we will announce the allocation from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s budget for supporting low-carbon technologies very shortly, and the results of the review of the renewables obligation that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), brought forward will also be announced in due course.

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Chris Huhne

My hon. Friend should be aware that we are not providing underwriting funds or soft loans. In the United States, for example, the Obama Administration are proceeding with $35 billion of soft loans for the nuclear industry, but we have explicitly said that new nuclear will be built here without public subsidy. We have also said that, as Lord Stern pointed out, climate change is the greatest market failure of all time. We have to offset that market failure with a clear signal to the markets, whether through the emissions trading scheme or the carbon floor price, that low carbon is here to stay and we must accelerate it.

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