Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Leslie and Chris Huhne(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Chris Huhne
We have today announced the latest consultation on the renewables obligation. That reduces by 10% the renewables obligation certificates available for onshore wind, reflecting the fact that there have been further technological improvements that mean that the costs of this technology are coming down. I realise that my hon. Friend has a long-standing interest in this, but I caution him, particularly given his experience in the European Parliament, to recognise that under the renewables target for 2020, which is EU law, we are committed to meeting 15% of our energy from renewable sources. Onshore wind turbines are one of the cheapest renewable sources, so the fewer onshore wind turbines we have, the more expensive renewable sources we need to have instead. That is a very important factor for him to bear in mind.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State will be aware that subsidy is not just for wind power but for other forms of carbon reduction, which are incredibly important to all our constituents, not just for their energy bills but for their personal efforts to reduce carbon consumption. What is the Secretary of State’s view of the report on the front page of today’s Financial Times, which suggests that he is completely pulling the rug from underneath thousands of people up and down this country who might have taken steps to invest in solar power for their own houses and who are now finding that their investment is being completely undermined by his decisions?
Chris Huhne
There is no question of anybody’s investment being undermined by any of our decisions, because this Government—in this respect, I think we are no different from previous Governments—are very committed to not having retrospection in legislation and legislative changes. However, we keep all our subsidies under review. I just told the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) that we are cutting subsidies for onshore wind turbines by 10%, and that reflects what is going on in the real world. I recently visited a project run with the city council in Birmingham, where people were able to show me invoices from solar panel suppliers showing that they had managed to get a 33% reduction in the cost of solar panels in just one year. It is absolutely right that the Department goes on looking at the appropriate levels of subsidies to bring on these important technologies, and that is obviously what we will do.
Annual Energy Statement
Debate between Chris Leslie and Chris Huhne
Chris Huhne
I had absolutely no idea that the hon. Gentleman shared to such a degree my enthusiasm for the European Union.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State’s statement shows that he has quickly assimilated and merged with the Conservative view—the “market knows best” approach to environmentalism. However, will not the swingeing and unnecessarily quick cuts to some of this expenditure, particularly for local authorities, make a mockery of any carbon-reduction strategies or aspirations that he has?
Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman is not listening if he thinks that I am saying that the market always knows best. I am saying that the Government have a responsibility, in the national interest, to set a framework that will deliver a low-carbon economy and energy security in what is likely to be an increasingly volatile and difficult world. In that context, having put the incentives in place, it is up to the market to deliver. We need to ensure that those incentives are adequate, and I assure him that I believe in the need for that overall framework.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Leslie and Chris Huhne
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. The latest scientific evidence on the health effects of modern municipal waste incinerators—this might be reassuring for her constituents—was reviewed independently by the Health Protection Agency. Its report, published in September 2009, concluded that although it is not possible to rule out adverse health effects completely, any potential damage from modern, well-run and regulated incinerators is likely to be so small as to be undetectable.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I commend to the Secretary of State the report on energy-from-waste issues by the New Local Government Network, which I had a hand in writing a couple of years ago. In particular, will he consider ameliorating some of the concerns that residents can have about incinerators, even the new generation incinerators? Although, as he says, they can be quite successful, local people get very concerned about them. Given the controversies that can arise, giving back to local residents the proceeds from the sale of some of the energy generated could make them slightly more palatable.
Chris Huhne
That is certainly an interesting model. It has been tried with other schemes, such as with wind turbines. I know of a wind farm in the highlands where that was the case. It certainly helps to get local support for particular schemes. However, fundamentally it has to be a local decision for the local authority. Local authorities know very well that we want to recycle first before going through to waste and energy recovery, but very high rates of recycling and energy from waste can co-exist. In the Netherlands, for example, there is a 65% recycling rate with 33% energy from waste. Local authorities must make their own decisions on this, but if they get the waste hierarchy right they can get the whole mix right.