Climate Change Policy

Debate between Douglas Ross and Claire Perry

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I neglected to mention the £8 million we have put into local energy partnerships. We often find that local authorities have lots of ambition but not necessarily the skills, and we want to make sure they have them and the investment. I also referenced the Salix pot, which is available for many local government buildings, which are also an important part of the built environment.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

Solar energy plays a crucial role. Last month, I met the Minister and Moray-based AES Solar, which explained its concerns about the cliff edge the industry was facing because of a change in policy. More than three weeks later, that policy gap still exists. I am sure she accepts the urgency of this issue, so can she tell us when the Government will publish their smart export guarantee policy?

[Claire Perry]

It will be published as soon as possible. I thank my hon. Friend for that meeting. As he will know, energy companies are voluntarily bringing forward what are in effect smart export guarantee prices, so those price signals are already coming through. As I said, we want to get it right. We do not want to find, as we did with feed-in tariffs, that we have committed more than £30 billion, as we will have done over the lifetime of that scheme, to deliver a relatively small number of installations. We want to future-proof the smart export guarantee and we want to make it stick.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Douglas Ross and Claire Perry

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman should know that we have signalled for many years how the closure of the feed-in tariff will work. We have spent almost £6 billion on existing contracts, and those contracts will of course be honoured. We have also announced with the closure of the scheme that there is a limited application period for projects for the next couple of months. There will be some that are brought forward, but it is only right that, as the price of this power provision has tumbled, we stop using other people’s money to subsidise something that we do not need to do in order to bring forward solar.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

While we have been in the Chamber, the Minister’s consultation has gone online, and Members and the public have until 5 March to respond to it. What reassurance can she give that those responses will be listened to? There is concern in the solar industry and among others that 91% of responses to a previous consultation by her Department were against the end of export tariffs, yet that went ahead. Will she meet me and an excellent local business, AES Solar, which has concerns but would like to discuss them with her and community representatives?

[Claire Perry]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and I am also very interested in the consultation results. I want to make the point quickly that the era of crude subsidy is over, partly because the price of renewables has dropped so significantly. We are trying to ensure that bringing forward the decentralised energy that we believe is so important to our system is also the objective of this tariff, and I would be interested to hear his views as well as those of his constituents.