Energy White Paper

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I am sure my right hon. Friend’s constituents will agree with him that he is an outstanding Member of Parliament for Gainsborough. I agree with him—we are not trying to get people to stop using cars. We are saying that we want to move to zero-emission vehicles. That is why, in the 10-point plan that was published, we have put forward many hundreds of millions of pounds to support electric vehicle manufacturing and £1.3 billion for charging points across the country. We need to continue to work to ensure that we have EV manufacturing in the UK, and of course, the costs of that will come down as we have economies of scale.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

To accompany the White Paper, the British Government have confirmed that they are willing to take a direct equity stake in the proposed £20 billion Sizewell C nuclear plant. Why is similar direct public funding not being made available to other energy technologies, such as the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, instead of the very costly contracts for difference model?

[Alok Sharma]

May I respectfully suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he looks at what we have actually said about nuclear? What we have said is that we are starting a discussion with the developer, EDF. We have not set out a financing model. As I have said, the point at which a decision is made on whether we move to a final investment decision in this Parliament will be on the basis that any financing model delivers value for money for the British taxpayer and, indeed, for consumers.