Alex Cunningham
Main Page: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Charles Hendry
I would take the hon. Gentleman to task on this. The two consortia that continue to go forward as planned—the EDF-led one and the one in Cumbria—are looking at 9.7 GW. The Horizon one—I have strong hopes that new investors will come in and take forward that programme—will deliver an additional few gigawatts as well. I firmly believe that, following on from the work of the previous Administration, we have created a very attractive regime for people from around the world to look to be part of the nuclear renaissance in the United Kingdom. We cannot do this without international investment and we recognise that we need to create the right framework for that to come forward.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
21. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
The launch of the green deal this autumn will put in place the biggest and most ambitious energy efficiency programme Britain has ever seen. Furthermore, we anticipate that our electricity market reforms will create further opportunities for large-scale investment in energy efficiency projects.
Alex Cunningham
Last year, nearly 30,000 households that applied for help through Warm Front were turned down even though the budget had an underspend of more than £50 million. Will the Minister take this opportunity to apologise to all the families who were left in the cold last winter because of his Department’s incompetence?
Gregory Barker
We need to send a very clear message from this House that Warm Front remains open. Certainly, the scaremongering from the Opposition last winter that Warm Front had closed and was no longer available was extremely unhelpful. That was coupled with a very mild winter, but one message that I want to get over is that Warm Front remains open and that those who think they can benefit from it should definitely apply.