Oral Answers to Questions Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts
Tuesday 19th April 2016

(8 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Indeed. Were it only the case that the sun would always shine. Under Labour, we had the highest dependency on fossil fuels in the G8 and the lowest contribution from renewable energy of any major EU country. As I said earlier, the deployment of solar power has been a great success story since 2010.

Angus Brendan MacNeil Portrait Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
- Hansard - -

One of the big things this Government could do to help solar and, indeed, all renewables is to remove the double charge on storage, whereby storage is charged when it takes on the power and charged again when it gets rid of the power and puts it back in the grid. Will the Treasury consider changing its approach and helping storage? It could do so with a stroke of a pen and it would make a huge difference. I urge the Treasury to stroke that pen and make sure that that change happens.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The tariffs are designed to make sure that there is a reasonable and appropriate return to investors. They have to be adjusted periodically when costs come down. Of course, one of the great parts of the success story of solar is the fact that costs have come down by about two thirds since 2010.