Annual Energy Statement

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State understand the concerns of those who have “prepared their homes”, to use his words, and fitted solar panels about the pace of the reduction in feed-in tariffs, especially when they see the onshore wind industry being rewarded for inefficiency and destroying the UK countryside?

[Chris Huhne]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. We have cut the subsidies for the offshore and onshore wind industry, too, and we have done so because this Government are firmly committed to making sure that we deliver what we intend to deliver—that is, the shift to a low-carbon economy—at the lowest possible cost to British consumers. I am sure that we will have a greater opportunity to debate this subject later today, but I merely point out that the subsidies for solar feed-in tariffs now reflect a substantial fall in the costs of the underlying technology. That fall in costs, caused by the global changes in circumstances over the past year, means that those subsidies are providing a very similar real rate of return to that which was planned when the scheme was launched in April 2010.