Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Gregory Barker
I fully share my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for tidal technology. It has huge potential in UK waters and my hon. Friend is right, as usual. A national policy statement is the next logical step for the industry, once it can demonstrate that it can deploy at scale commercially and economically, ideally above 50 MW. I am determined to work closely with the sector to make that happen.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that like me, the Minister would welcome a decision by the Scottish Government this week to grant £2 million to a tidal power global engineering hub in Edinburgh. Following the decisions about carbon capture and storage this week and earlier grants from DECC for wave energy in my constituency, does the Minister agree that the interests of the Scottish renewables industry are best served by the two Governments working together, with unlimited access to the UK-wide market, rather than any separation between the two countries?
Gregory Barker
Absolutely. Undoubtedly we are better together, and the fact that we are seeing increased co-operation between the UK marine energy park in Cornwall and the south-west and the Scottish marine energy park in the waters of the Pentland firth is a clear demonstration of how, together, we are much greater than the sum of our parts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz(11 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Gregory Barker
That is very puzzling, because the ECO, which is designed to complement the green deal, has exactly that sort of consumer in mind. I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss his constituent and see how we can help.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
During the passage of the Energy Bill I raised with the Minister the way that the Government’s policy on simplifying tariffs is resulting in some customers paying more. Ofgem’s recommendation of the reintroduction of standing charges is resulting in some customers who are energy-efficient, increasing, rather than lowering, their bills. That cannot be right. Why cannot the Government look into it?
Gregory Barker
I am sorry, but I did not catch all of the hon. Gentleman’s question. He raises a serious point, however, and I will be very happy to talk to him in more detail about our tariff plans. This is a Government who are taking real action to simplify tariffs, to get on the side of the consumer and to deliver better value for money after years of inactivity and inaction under the last Labour Government.
Energy Prices and Profits
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Gregory Barker
No, I will not.
The winter fuel allowance is helping 12 million pensioners with up to £300 this winter. Cold weather payments have been permanently uprated to £25 per week, and the green deal ECO programme has already made more than 100,000 homes warmer and cheaper to heat and run. The first proper, independent, thoughtful review of our fuel poverty strategy for decades was completed this year. We are targeting finite resources at the most in need in the fairest, most cost-effective responsible way.
Where Labour shrunk the domestic energy market and presided over massive corporate consolidation, we are unleashing a decentralised energy revolution on new distributors of energy on an unprecedented scale— 2.5 GW of solar alone under this coalition. Community energy, distributed energy and heat networks—all are on the up. At the same time we have begun the first new nuclear programme in a generation. Our green investment bank, created by this coalition, is now up and running and transforming the energy investment landscape. No wonder Ernst and Young last week moved the UK from fifth to fourth in the global league table for renewables, and called the UK the best place in the world to invest in onshore wind.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz
Gregory Barker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I know he is a huge champion of smaller businesses, and I can assure him that we see small and medium-sized enterprises as critical to the delivery of the green deal. In fact, I regularly meet SMEs, and this week had a meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses. My Department has set up an expert panel specifically to consider the role of SMEs, chaired by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), for whose co-operation I am very grateful. We have also held a series of national roadshows around the country to alert local businesses to the opportunities right the way through the green deal supply chain, which I am pleased to report to my hon. Friend has attracted a great deal of interest.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
The green deal is an excellent initiative and we obviously hope it will get results, but clearly the current economic situation is not a time when many people are going to be keen to take out loans for anything at all. Will the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to support people on lower incomes who might feel unable at the moment to take out loans under a green deal scheme?
Gregory Barker
First, let me make it absolutely clear that green deals are not loans—certainly not loans as most people understand them. Everybody taking out a green deal should be better off, net-net, on their energy bill after they have had the interventions. It is not something that anybody could feel unable to afford. For those on particularly low incomes, where more work needs to be done on the home than can be financed on a green deal plan, there is £1.3 billion ECO—energy company obligation—programme, which will unleash a huge wave of investment to bring up to standard the homes of the most vulnerable and poorest.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to suggest that a lot of SMEs want to be green deal providers and offer that service in their own right to consumers, and it is vital that they should be able to do so. I am pleased to say that a number of commercial offers are now coming forward to create exactly that white-label proposition, and the Department is doing everything it can to facilitate that. We are also looking at other ways in which we can give confidence to the SME sector.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the current financial situation, SMEs are often reluctant to take on additional loan finance even if they are offered it. Would the Minister therefore accept that it is particularly important that the support for SMEs under the green deal should have a large element of either grant or long-term financial support, rather than deals that are attractive only in the short term?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
Of course, the green deal has not actually started yet; it will not be launched until the autumn and we have yet to see the full framework, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we have already taken several steps to make it easier for SMEs to engage in the green deal across the board. We shall continue to work with SME working groups to ensure that there is maximum availability of the green deal and the ECO—the energy company obligation—for SMEs, who will be vital for their delivery.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
T5. The Minister will be aware that although the ECO will be delivered in Scotland by the Scottish Government, the underlying legislation applies to England, Wales and Scotland. Given concerns about how the green deal will be implemented, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that my constituents and those of other Scottish MPs get full benefit from the ECO when it is finally brought into effect?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman will know that we are still finalising the details of the ECO, but I should be happy to meet him to reassure him that the scheme really will benefit the whole country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Gregory Barker
I should be happy to do so. It is true that older properties without damp courses, many of which were built before the first world war, are more difficult to treat, and much more research and development is needed to ensure that we do not unintentionally cause more problems than we solve.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
T9. I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State and the Minister are going to the climate change conference in Durban next week, but has the Secretary of State not left it too late? Is there not a danger that the conference will not produce the outcome that we want? What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that we secure an international agreement, especially in the light of reports that have appeared over the past few days of a lack of progress in the negotiations?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz
Gregory Barker
They were of course options for the international community, not just for the UK, and we need to do a lot more work collectively to put the flesh on the bones of detailed and radical proposals so that the UK can consider each of them on their merits. I fear that there is still some time to go before we are in a position to do that, but the UK is very much committed to the process and to doing so sooner rather than later.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that some people are already writing down the prospects of a successful agreement at Cancun and talking about Johannesburg next year as the place at which an agreement might be reached. Will the Minister reassure the House that the Government will do everything possible to ensure that an agreement is reached at Cancun? Will he therefore show Britain’s role in that process by providing information about how we will commit climate finance as soon as possible?
Gregory Barker
I am glad to say that there is strong cross-party commitment to a legally binding global deal, but I do not think that we are being unduly pessimistic in saying that we do not expect a globally binding deal to be reached at Cancun. That seems to be the expectation of most of the key participants. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the UK is committed to making good progress at Cancun across a range of issues, including finance. We have committed in the CSR to a strong role for fast-start finance, details of which we have already announced.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Mark Lazarowicz
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
We are very clear that wood biomass has a key role to play, particularly in local energy economies, which we want to see developed to encourage a greater link between local communities and the energy that they consume—coppicing, for example, has great biodiversity as well as low-carbon advantages—so I would happily meet my hon. Friend and his team.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that no decision has yet been taken on the location of the headquarters of the proposed green investment bank? That being so, does he agree that Edinburgh would be an ideal location, particularly given what he just said about ensuring that green investment is not focused just in the south-east of England?