Leaving the EU: the Rural Economy
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Andrea Leadsom(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I will give way once they have listened to me for a moment.
Leaving the EU will allow us to shape our own trade and investment opportunities, encourage even greater openness with partners, in Europe and beyond, and put Britain firmly at the forefront of global trade and investment. The recent launch of our international action plan for exports, with nine campaigns across a number of global markets, demonstrates our ambition in this area—an ambition that builds on our strength as a great, outward-looking trading nation.
Scotland has always been at the heart of this success, accounting for 30% of the UK’s total exports of food, feed and drink in 2015. One of the highlights of my trip to Vietnam last year was a lunch to promote fabulous Scottish smoked salmon and Aberdeen Angus beef to Vietnamese food importers.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The Secretary of State mentions planning and careful thinking going forward to 2020, but what planning and careful thinking have been done for the crofters of Na h-Eileanan an Iar and the west highlands, and what will post-2020 mean for them and their futures?
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend the Minister of State met the National Farmers Union of Scotland yesterday, as I did recently, so we have taken informal advice. At the same time, I have made it very clear—unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman was not listening—that the consultation on our Green Paper on the long-term future of food, farming and fisheries is the perfect opportunity for him to represent his crofters’ interests and for them to feed into the consultation, and we would welcome such an opportunity. [Interruption.]
Draft Renewables Obligation Closure etc. (Amendment) Order 2016
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Andrea Leadsom(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I have to say I am getting sick and tired of the barrage of complaints from Opposition Members on one day about the end to subsidies— at a time when subsidies are no longer necessary at the level they were—and the next day or the next week about fuel poverty, with Members throwing stones at the Government for not doing enough to reduce bills to consumers. They cannot have it both ways. They need to decide. Do they want subsidies to continue, regardless of the impact on bills?
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test, the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, and others, including the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, complain about fuel poverty and about the effort to avoid the impact on consumer bills—they say it is only a pound, it is only £60 million, it is only £100 million, it is only £2 billion over 20 years. Why is that worth saving? Because the Government’s policy is to be the consumer champion and to ensure we decarbonise at the lowest cost.
Andrea Leadsom
No, the hon. Gentleman has had his say so many times and I am sick and tired of it. He needs to stop peddling that argument. The point of the Government’s policy is to support consumers and to decarbonise at the lowest price. We absolutely support subsidies for renewables. They have been so successful and their costs have come down so much. We have carefully consulted, and we have concluded that they no longer need the subsidies at the rate they were receiving them at and that the potential impact on consumer bills of continuing with subsidies at that rate is too great. That is the end of it. Those are the facts. I am sorry that Opposition Members want to play politics with that but we are on the side of the consumer.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test specifically asked about the eligibility date and why we chose 22 July 2015. That is the date on which we announced the proposals and the grace period was designed to align with that. The significant financial investment grace period is designed to protect those who made such commitments before we proposed to bring forward the RO closure date for solar PV. Moving the date to enable other less advanced projects to meet the eligibility criteria would increase the risk of more projects deploying at greater cost to the LCF. We have tried to strike the right balance between the public interest, including protecting consumer bills and ensuring the right mix of energy, and the interests of solar developers and the wider industry.
The other thing I will say to Opposition Members is that, since our changes to the feed-in tariff, deployment has continued in the solar sector. They like to speak as if no subsidy somehow means that no solar or renewable projects are coming forward. That is blatantly not the case. A significant and decent amount of renewables are still coming forward. Under the Government’s policy, we believe that the feed-in tariff will enable up to another 1.1 GW of new solar installations between now and 2020, protecting the consumer while protecting and supporting the industry.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby asked about job losses. The consultation period suggested that up to 23,000 jobs will continue to be supported by subsidy and, potentially, many others without subsidy. We are aware that large-scale solar projects are coming forward without subsidy, so it is simply not true to say, as she did, that there are thousands of job losses and that there will be thousands more. There is no evidence for that.
Other hon. Members asked about the LCF transparency. I will make a further point about that. We have been clear that we do not break down published information on components of LCF spend, because of the potential disclosure of commercially confidential information. In certain sites, that has to be the case and has to remain so.
Other hon. Members talked about our impact assessment not having sufficient data points. I can tell the Committee that there were 55,000 responses to the feed-in tariff review and, from that, we gained about 5,000 extra data points from which we were clearly able to target that policy to continue to support renewables, so it is simply not the case that the draft order has been ill-thought-through or that it is not seeking to strike a balance between the interests of the consumer and the interests of the industry.
We are confident in our policy on renewables. Those industries are superb and great British success stories. Hon. Members will be aware that 99% of all solar installations have taken place since 2010, when the Conservative-led coalition Government came to office. Today, still, the vast majority of solar deployments has taken place under a Conservative Government.
In answer to the specific point about nuclear made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, he must realise that solar and nuclear are not directly comparable. Solar is not dispatchable; it provides electricity when the sun is shining. Nuclear is dispatchable; as the hon. Gentleman is aware, most days we get 19% or 20% of our electricity, day in, day out, from dispatchable, reliable nuclear electricity. That cannot be the case from solar.
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman did not make that point, but I entirely agree. As he well knows, in the Department we are looking closely at what exactly we can do to bring forward more storage. He also mentioned that nuclear in Scandinavia is asking not to be brought forward because it cannot compete with renewables. As he knows, what is meant there is hydroelectricity, which is dispatchable, so he makes my point for me. We cannot compare intermittent technologies with dispatchable electricity—it is simply not relevant to our discussion.
I thank members of the Committee for their contributions to this debate. It is very important to make it clear on the record that this Government are on the side of consumers. We will absolutely keep the lights on and decarbonise at the lowest cost to consumers, keeping the balance right between the interests of consumers and of developers.
Mr MacNeil
Does the hon. Lady agree that present-day consumers have benefited from past investment in renewables?
Andrea Leadsom
I absolutely agree. As I have just said, 99% of all solar installations have taken place since 2010. This Government have done more to promote renewables than any other Government ever in the UK. Some £52 billion has been spent on the renewables sector since 2010. I absolutely agree. We utterly support this sector and we are keen to continue to do more for it, but not at any price and not at subsidy levels that harm consumers and are not needed by the industry.
In conclusion, this order achieves a balance between the interests of consumers and the interests of developers. The grace periods will make sure that significant financial commitments are protected.
Question put.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Andrea Leadsom
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Thank you for the encouragement, Mr Speaker. On the environment, since the Secretary of State said what she did about onshore wind, the industry needs to know what the Government intend for feed-in tariffs, contracts for difference and islands with regard to onshore wind.
Andrea Leadsom
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position. He is right. We want investor certainty. Our priority for the Department is to keep the bills down, to keep energy security and to decarbonise. In order to do that, we recognise that significant private sector investment is needed. We want to give certainty as soon as possible, and that is what we will be doing.