Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and James Gray

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

We should celebrate foreign investment in the UK and welcome the fact that the UK, particularly under the coalition Government, is becoming a world centre for inward investment. We are seeing investment in the green energy sector reach record highs—more than £30 billion since the coalition came into government —and seeing the amount of clean energy that we are generating take us up the European league table from the miserable second from bottom place that we used to occupy under the last Government.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

One of the groups most deserving of benefit, from the warm home scheme in particular, are those who live in park homes, of which we have many in North Wiltshire. Due to the curious anomaly that electricity payers have to match exactly the people listed in the Department for Work and Pensions, they are not eligible for the warm home discount. Will the Minister find some way of getting around this anomaly, so that these deserving people, who live in their own homes, many of which are the coldest that could possibly be imagined, benefit from the scheme?

[Gregory Barker]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his tenacity in raising this issue. He is right. Park home owners and occupants have traditionally had a very poor deal compared with other consumers. We do not have the full answer yet, but I am determined to try to improve their lot, and I will be happy to meet him to try to iron out some of these quite difficult problems where people do not own the meter. There must be more that we can do.

Energy Generation

Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and James Gray

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Gregory Barker]

No, I will not, I am afraid. I greatly welcome the closer alignment with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I cheered the last Government when they created a separate Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is a good thing, but it must also be a good thing, as he pointed out, to have much closer alignment between BIS and DECC. The appointment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) to the important job of Energy Minister, much as it will stretch him, sends a clear signal about the central importance of the low-carbon economy to British growth and our long-term growth prospects, as the Prime Minister said and every Member who has spoken in the debate has pointed out. The CBI supports the agenda, and there is wider support for the low-carbon economy that goes way beyond certain renewable energy technologies. It offers export and other business opportunities requiring little or no subsidy, and it has a great deal of its own momentum.

We will return to the decarbonisation target when the Bill returns to the Commons on Report after the Queen’s Speech. I know that some hon. Members have argued that we should go further and set a target now, to provide greater certainty to investors. I understand that argument—I listened carefully to the contributions made in the evidence session before the Bill Committee—and I see the strong merit of the argument for a decarbonisation target. That is why we are introducing measures in the Bill to create such a target. However, we must also resist the temptation to think that life is about targets. Surely, we learned our lesson under the last Government. Simply setting targets does not deliver results. If this Government are about anything, we are about deployment, results and driving real change in real time, and our record demonstrates that we are capable of doing that.

As we set out in the carbon plan in December 2011, it is likely that, as well as decarbonising electricity generation, meeting our 2050 target will require the electrification of a significant amount of heat and transport in the UK. In turn, that will not only affect overall demand for electricity but require us to take into account when that electricity is needed. For instance, when will people want to charge electric vehicles? Heat demand changes seasonally and over the course of a single day. All those things must be taken together when we consider the best way to decarbonise electricity as part of a least-cost route to meeting our obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008.

The second reason why I believe we should wait to set a target range is that we do not need to do so now. As I have said, we have provided clear signals to investors via a range of different initiatives, legally binding targets and the action that we are taking through the electricity market reforms in the Energy Bill. They have prompted the director of the CBI to say that the Bill sends

“a strong signal to investors that the Government is serious about providing firms with the certainty they need to invest in affordable secure low-carbon energy.”

That is what we are doing.

This must be seen in the context of the Government’s wider plans. The green investment bank is now investing billions of pounds in our green economy and catalysing billions more. I appreciate that hon. Members have focused on one element, but the wider package is extremely ambitious and encouraging.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

I am most grateful to the Minister for winding up precisely at 6.15. Can people from the last debate leave the Chamber quickly and quietly?