Feed-in Tariffs

Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Meg Munn

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to look to the interests of small businesses, many of which were feeling slightly excluded, because of the speed with which larger firms were gobbling up the budget. It is because we want to preserve the budget over the longer term that it will be more sustainable for smaller businesses. However, I would recommend such businesses to look not just at solar PV, but at integrating a range of technologies into their offer—in particular, energy efficiency—and at how they might offer services for the green deal.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Feed-in tariffs should be about more than just solar. What is the Minister doing to help small businesses that are working on innovation and other technologies to compete and to provide a wide range of technologies for people to chose from, particularly when we get into the green deal?

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The danger was that solar, which was already taking more than 90% of the feed-in tariff budget, would take the whole lot. There are a lot of other micro-technologies out there that I want to see supported, such as micro-hydro, micro-combined heat and power, small-scale wind and small-scale biomass technologies. There are lots of different technologies that we need to come into the system and that also need fair funding. There are, of course, opportunities in the comprehensive reviews to look at the support for other tariffs, and we may even consider raising them where they act as an insufficient incentive to bring on those other technologies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Meg Munn

Thursday 7th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his heroic efforts to reduce consumption. He is right: the best way of ensuring less exposure to rising gas prices, oil prices and fossil fuel prices generally is to reduce consumption. The green deal—the most ambitious roll-out of home energy efficiency since the second world war—will be a massive bonus for all our homes, and we hope to have applied it to 26 million homes by 2030.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. What assessment he has made of the performance of the Energy Saving Trust; and if he will make a statement.

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

The Energy Saving Trust has helped to deliver substantial carbon savings and has assisted in Government energy efficiency objectives. However, the step change in ambition that will come with the roll-out of the green deal will include the Government ending dependence on just one monopoly provider and opening up the market for advice and best practice to dynamic competition.

[Meg Munn]

I agree that the Energy Saving Trust has done great work. It has been publicly funded and it has provided a lot of advice and resources for people, so why will the Minister not ensure that all that publicly funded advice and resource information published to date continues to be available to the public through an organisation that will become a social enterprise?

[Gregory Barker]

There will continue to be publicly funded information, particularly on the green deal. We believe that the public should get the very best information and that the way to achieve that is by opening up the provision of advice to competition, rather than by just continuing with one monopoly provider. The Energy Saving Trust has done good work in the past, and we certainly anticipate that it will be part of the tender for the new provision of advice under the green deal.

Energy Efficiency

Debate between Lord Barker of Battle and Meg Munn

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Lady knows that I hold her in high regard, but that has increased even more, as I had not previously appreciated what expertise she has in this particular area. May I invite her to come to the Department to join the round table on microgeneration that we will be holding—in July, I believe? If she would care to bring representatives from the company in her constituency, they would be very welcome to participate with other stakeholders from the industry on how we can have a more ambitious microgeneration strategy.

[Meg Munn]

I thank the Minister for that very generous offer. I am delighted that in securing the opportunity to have such a meeting, I have achieved the aim that I set myself in making this speech. He is very generous in saying that I am an expert, but indeed I am not; that is the last thing I am. I am, however, persuaded by the experts that this technology that can make a real difference. I am delighted to accept his invitation.