European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

George Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for what she says about Britain’s support for the 40% carbon reduction target. It is important to get the EU to sign up to that deal, so that the EU can provide global leadership at the Paris summit.

The reason why I do not support total decarbonisation of our energy sector—[Interruption.]—our electricity sector is that until we can prove that carbon capture and storage is a workable and deliverable technology, setting such a target could mean the closure of every gas-fired power station in the country, which is not a sensible approach. I know the green movement pushes this, but, frankly, until we have worked out carbon capture and storage properly, it would not be a sensible thing to do.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and his continued diplomatic success at EU Councils, which suggests that his leadership of the EU reform agenda is strengthening the UK’s hand, while our reliance on economic sanctions makes that drive for a more competitive Europe all the more important. I also welcome the steps to reduce our energy dependence on Russia. Does he agree that UK geopolitical energy security should now be the No. 1 feature of our energy policy for the next Parliament?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that in looking at considerations within energy policy—security of supply, making sure that there is capacity, contributing to the decline in carbon emissions, and national security—there is no doubt that the national security part of the picture for Britain and for Europe has become a much more pressing issue. We have good, diverse supplies of electricity; we are reinvesting in nuclear; we have the world’s leading offshore wind industry, which I saw for myself in Hull yesterday; but we obviously need to help Europe to diversify away from Russian gas, and we should recognise our strategic interests in helping it to do just that.