Electricity Generation

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend is of course a great advocate of shale gas, which offers huge potential for adding to the UK’s energy source but we need a diverse mix of energy supply. As a Government, we have tried to remove many barriers that get in the way of exploration but we have to work very closely with local communities to ensure that they come on board.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords, further to that point about shale gas, one of the main reasons for the interconnector clicking into the UK direction is the rather dodgy state of our generation capacity at the moment. Given the glut of oil and the impact on oil prices, which knocks on to gas prices, what discussions have the Government had with the major generators about their long-term projections now and their choices for sources of generation? That impacts on shale gas and shale oil because the cost of exploration and production is not cheap.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Baroness’s point is well intended. As she rightly says, we need to look at the long term. While we have a drive-down of prices today, we need to see how the longer-term picture will encapsulate all energy supplies. That is why I am really pleased that this Government at least took the decision to make a greater diversity of energy supply available through the Energy Act 2013. That enabled the renewables sector to come and work on a par with traditional fuels. However, we have to make sure that whatever we do and whichever source we try to promote—in this case, shale offers huge potential—we support all supplies that make us less dependent on imported energy.