Earl of Courtown
Main Page: Earl of Courtown (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Energy: Oil Price Projections
Earl of Courtown Excerpts
Baroness Verma
My Lords, while we encourage reduced use of oil in our country, the difficulty arises in emerging economies that have found greater demand for it, so it is about finding a balance between our own liberalised markets and the demand seen elsewhere. There has also been some slight uncertainty during the recent difficulties being faced in north Africa and the Middle East.
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, will the Minister tell the House how the Government intend to mitigate these increased oil prices, particularly with reference to using future renewable forms of energy?
Baroness Verma
My noble friend will be aware that this Government are keen to ensure that we have a good range of energy mixes, thereby reducing our usage of oil. However, we have a realistic view that, for the foreseeable future, we will still need extra supplies of oil and therefore we cannot mitigate our usage completely. We will of course try to make sure that, through our policies and the Energy Bill, all other energy resources have an equal footing to compete on.