Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Northern Ireland Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts
Wednesday 6th March 2019

(5 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Andrew Murrison Portrait Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
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Is the Minister concerned about the possible impact on small businesses of the changes proposed to non-domestic renewable heat incentives in the legislation that we are about to consider, and is he particularly cautious about advice he may be receiving from the energy Department, because it was that that Department that got us into this fix in the first place?

John Penrose Portrait John Penrose
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Without wanting to prejudge this afternoon’s debate—as my hon. Friend the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Chairman has said, we will be going through this in a lot more detail—he is absolutely right that the renewable heat incentive scheme has been the subject of a great deal of concerned commentary, because it has dramatically broken its budgets and is not a sustainable solution. I think everybody is treating any proposals with a great degree of concern and scrutiny because of that history, and I am sure we will have a chance to go through it in more detail, and we will try to ensure that any proposals that are legislated on do not suffer from the faults that existed in the previous version.