Energy BILL [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

I take the point that the Minister made. On occasion Governments allow themselves secondary legislation opportunities, which are then placed in a cupboard and never seen again. I deplore the tendency in Bills to provide possible powers that are never acted on because the Government subsequently feel that it is not a good idea to do so. However, the provision in the Energy Act 2013 is not a small power that was put in the back of a cupboard. Part 1, section 1 is the part around which the rest of the Act hangs. Other parts of the Act that refer to other targets make complete sense in the end only if the decarbonisation range is properly put in place by the Secretary of State. It is not at the front of the Act by accident, but because, in order to make sense of the Act overall, it is clearly incumbent on the Secretary of State to set that decarbonisation range at some stage.

If we are doing so well and we want to stand by our Paris commitments, why on earth would we not set a range? What is there to lose? I am more worried about what the Minister says than I am that the Government are unwilling to come forward with a range, because it suggests that—in the light of all these other matters—perhaps there is the beginning of a conscious view that targets will not only not be met, but consciously veered away from in future.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Not only is there nothing to lose, but much to gain. Taking risk out of the investment picture for investors coming into our energy system will be a huge benefit. It comes down to the theme that we have returned to again and again in this sitting, which is that there is a lot of ambiguity about the Government’s position on these issues and a lot of investors telling all Members of Parliament that they simply do not trust the political will behind this.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about how we settle the trajectory that we are on. It is a question not just of what tomorrow’s cost might be, but of the long-term cost and stability of our decarbonisation programme, and indeed the extent to which setting such targets and giving such certainty moves towards, rather than away from, what the Government have said about trying to meet targets in a low-cost way. Therefore, I am disappointed by the Minister’s response to this new clause, particularly as she appeared to give reasons in her own comments why the target decarbonisation range should now be set, but then concluded that it should not. For that reason, we would like to divide the Committee on this new clause.