Energy BILL [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Andrea Leadsom]

No, it does not.

The Government continue to invest in the development of CCS. This includes investing more than £130 million in CCS research and development since 2011. For example, in October last year we invested £1.7 million to support three innovative CCS technologies—Carbon Clean Solutions, C-Capture Ltd, and FET Engineering Ltd—and there is the potential to reduce costs. We have continued to support, jointly with the Scottish Government, the CCS developer, Summit Power, with £4.2 million in funding to undertake industrial research and development at its proposed CCS Caledonia clean energy plant in Grangemouth in Scotland.

We have invested £2.5 million in a project to investigate a suite of five stores for the storage of carbon dioxide in the North and Irish seas. We have continued to invest in the development of industrial CCS, providing £1 million to Tees Valley for a feasibility study on an industrial CCS cluster in Teesside. We remain committed to exploring with Teesside how to progress its industrial CCS proposals as set out in the area’s devolution deal, published last October, and in the context of the Lord Heseltine-led taskforce on Teesside.

Through our international climate fund, we have invested £60 million in developing CCS capacity and action in priority countries, including Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico and China, and we work with CCS partners, including the United States and Canada, through the international carbon sequestration leadership forum.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I do not think anyone would argue that the Government have not made financial commitments to the specific technologies. I am looking at the manifesto again—I know we are obsessing about this—but it says,

“We will protect our planet for our children”,

and it mentions

“committing £1 billion for carbon capture and storage.”

Most members of the public would see that as a straightforward commitment of £1 billion, and yet it has been taken away. The point is that a thread seems to be running through the Bill and the rest of the Government’s actions, whether on community energy, on the subsidies and tax exemptions for solar tariffs, on ending the renewables obligation a year early, or on carbon capture and storage. They are making it more difficult and more expensive for investment to come into renewables by pulling the rug from under the feet of these nascent industries. The important thing is that the Government are making investment in this country’s renewables sector less attractive and forcing up the price of low-carbon technologies.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Only yesterday, in a debate in Westminster Hall, the hon. Gentleman and I were discussing the very real issue of fuel poverty in this country. We were discussing the plight of people who cannot afford to heat their homes, yet today he is advocating more subsidies and more billpayer investment in technologies when I have already made it very clear that we have not gone ahead with the competition project because of the relative value for money versus other infrastructure projects. This is about protecting consumers. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways.

Similarly, the hon. Gentleman talks about cutting subsidies, but although we continue to support the renewables sector, which is absolutely amazing and I pay tribute to it for its enormous success, he must see that as its costs come down so should the subsidies that are paid for by people who cannot afford to heat their homes. He must agree with that. I just cannot understand why yesterday he was arguing that we should be cutting costs and today he is arguing that we should be increasing them.

[Clive Lewis]

I can answer that. Ending the renewables obligation a year early has saved the average consumer 30p a year off their bill, yet we know that the Carbon Capture & Storage Association has concluded that CCS could save the average consumer £82 a year off their bill by 2030. It is a false economy. The Government are either going to be saying in a few years’ time, “We’re not going to meet our carbon targets,” or they will have to go for a more costly way of bringing carbon down and out of our economy. That is the reality. Ultimately, this is about taking a long-term view, not a short-term one.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman hangs himself with those remarks. He is saying, “Don’t save 30p today; save £82 by 2030.” Yesterday, we were discussing fuel poverty. The Government do see a role for CCS in our long-term decarbonisation efforts, but the point is that people are unable to heat their homes today. He derides 30p off people’s energy bills, but the central case is that it is £30 million saved over a one-year period or, at the most, if we had greater than expected deployment, up to £270 million. Why does he not write the cheque? If he thinks it is a trivial amount of money, I am very happy to accept his cheque and we can see whether we should continue with these things. It is simply unconscionable to try to equate something that you might achieve by 2030, according to some think-tank, with the very real issues today, including the state of our economy and a very difficult spending review, and the reality of people who simply cannot afford to heat their homes.

[Clive Lewis]

rose—

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time, but then I will continue.

[Clive Lewis]

Thank you, Minister; you are being very generous with your time. On fuel poverty, I will say what I think your fellow Conservative Members were saying yesterday, which is that the key thing for them was that energy efficiency has fallen through the floor. The green deal is finished and the energy company obligation has no funding beyond 2017. That leaves a big gap by 2018. On your own estimates, you are not going to achieve your own targets for warming and insulating people’s homes for another century, so I will take no lessons from the Minister or Government Members on energy efficiency and fuel poverty.

[The Chair]

Order. I hope that in future the hon. Gentleman will not drag me into the debate, because I am not expressing any opinions. If he wants to refer to the Minister, he should refer to her, rather than to me.