Alan Whitehead
Main Page: Alan Whitehead (Labour - Southampton, Test)(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Gregory Barker
A couple of weeks ago, the Department launched a new project to help communities build local energy schemes and programmes, and many communities across the country have responded very positively to it. They will be ideally placed to help inform, encourage and drive forward local programmes. We take the issue of communities very seriously, which is why we are consulting on a new community tariff. We are also considering introducing a community tariff guarantee to make it easier for communities to plan ahead, recognising that it sometimes takes them a little longer to get their plans in place.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does the Minister intend to increase the proportion of the levy cap that is provided for FITs up to the end of the spending round in 2015? If so, how much will he increase it to—and why could he not do this before the recent fiasco?
Gregory Barker
We will substantially increase the DECC resources that are made available for this scheme. We are happy to do that now because this new scheme offers much better value for money than the scheme we inherited. We expect that about £1.3 billion will be made available for this scheme over the spending period, but there will not be any increase in the cost to consumers, and the total sums will still be within the overall levy control framework. This will be achieved through better budgetary management by DECC, and our conviction that the new scheme offers better value for money than the one we inherited from Labour.