Barry Gardiner
Main Page: Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent West)
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Offshore wind has continued to deploy very successfully and prices are coming down. We are delighted that the UK is such a leader in this area and has the real prospect of exporting to other countries as a leader in renewable offshore energy.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
By ending support a year earlier than the right hon. Lady’s Department promised only eight months ago, the Government are sending yet another message to investors that the UK is not a stable regulatory regime in this area. Does she accept the calculations that show onshore wind is not only the cheapest form of new low carbon energy, but that for every pound of development cost, 98 pence is spent creating new jobs in the UK—jobs that were projected to double to 37,000 by 2023 had that support continued?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman fails to incorporate the fact that all that support costs money. We cannot ignore the fact that, obviously, people want subsidies if they are on the receiving end of subsidies, but we have to ensure that we get the good measure of it. He is wrong to say that this Government said this and that Government said that. The fact is that we said, in our manifesto, that if we had a Conservative majority we would deliver this. The industry was not surprised by the outcome here: we committed to ending new subsidies for onshore wind and that is exactly the promise we have kept.