Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lilley and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

In my view, leaving the EU will not make a difference to the innate cost of energy or the challenges for the energy sector. Most of our transactions for electricity generation are home-grown. There is a global market for gas. We have very good connections with European and non-European countries on interconnection, and we will continue to make commercial arrangements that are to the advantage of both the UK and those partners in energy.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her ability to do the work of four Ministers with such panache. She will know that normally economists disagree about everything, but one of the few things they are agreed about is that the best way to achieve an objective such as that set by the Climate Change Act 2008 is through a price mechanism. However, if subordinate targets are set, that inevitably means a less efficient and more costly route. When we leave the EU, will we therefore be able to scrap unnecessary targets while maintaining that final target, and thereby reduce the cost to consumers of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of keeping costs down while we decarbonise. The Department has always made it clear that every opportunity to decarbonise at the lowest cost to consumers will be taken. It is my view that leaving the EU will enable us to do that to an even greater extent than we have in the past.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lilley and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 12th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I said, the Treasury has already taken enormous steps through fiscal policy towards the North sea to promote further oil and gas exploration. It is constantly looking at that; in fact, I am having a dinner next week to talk again to the maximising economic recovery group of operators and investors, the Oil and Gas Authority and so on to look at what more we can do, and the Treasury plays its full part in that.

However, we have to be clear that the Oil and Gas Authority is already transforming things such as production costs and the level of co-operation between different operators in the North sea. This is an incredibly important area. We have an inter-ministerial group, which I think is meeting again next week to discuss what more can be done. We are pulling out all the stops for the North sea.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Although I sympathise with the constituents of the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) who have lost their jobs in the North sea, would not the best thing for them be for us to create new jobs by allowing fracking in Scotland for those very people, with those skills, who have been denied the prospect of such jobs by the hypocrisy of the SNP Government in Scotland?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I absolutely agree. Obviously, it is a matter for the Scottish Government to decide, but one of the policy options I am looking at in my Department, together with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is what more we can do in the energy space for those who have lost their jobs. For example, an experienced offshore engineer may well be able to retrain to work with offshore wind or even nuclear. There are therefore other opportunities in the energy space, and I know the Scottish Government are looking at that. I would certainly be delighted if they wanted to think again about the importance of shale gas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lilley and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As I said to the hon. Gentleman, we are looking at it. It is not something that we would introduce just on the back of a fag packet; it requires careful consultation and consideration. He will appreciate, alongside all the other priorities, that a subsidy-free CfD is not cost-free or risk-free to the bill consumer, and we are absolutely determined to ensure that we keep the costs down for consumers in his constituency as well as right across the UK.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise, when she comes to introduce a subsidy-free contract for difference, that it will be subsidy free only if the price reflects the value of the electricity, and the value of the electricity depends on the time that it is produced, where it is produced and how reliably it is produced? Therefore, variable renewable electricity is worth much less than regular supplies from ordinary power stations.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend points out exactly correctly that there are limitations to intermittent renewables technologies, and that there are costs associated with ensuring energy security when we become over-reliant on renewables. That is an absolute case in point. On the subsidy-free CfD, he is also right that we must take into account all the various costs. We are looking at the matter very closely. I am not making any promises here, but, alongside other subsidies and other CfDs, we are looking carefully at the proposition.

Green Economy

Debate between Lord Lilley and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lilley]

I do not know which industrial revolutions the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but they certainly did not rely on our subsidising the use of more expensive energy to replace less expensive energy.

There are perfectly respectable, if not entirely convincing, arguments for saying that we have to replace cheap energy with expensive, less reliable energy to reduce carbon emissions, and that that is a price worth paying, to coin a phrase. However, the premise of this debate is that we can generate economic growth by introducing fiscal measures to subsidise and promote green energy. Let us be clear what that means: it means subsidising the replacement of comparatively cheap and reliable energy from fossil fuels with more expensive and intermittent energy from renewables.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the debate should really be about whether we want to switch from higher-emitting to lower-emitting sources of energy, rather than having this complete confusion all the time about its being a question of carbon emissions or renewable energy? Renewable energy is very expensive, but there are plenty of sources of non-renewable energy that would be far less carbon-emitting.

[Mr Lilley]

My hon. Friend is quite right. We could halve our emissions by switching to gas from coal, but that does not please the greens.