Julian Huppert
Main Page: Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat - Cambridge)
Charles Hendry
I agree strongly with my hon. Friend, and the reason why we have brought forward this competition with the speed that we have—three months for submissions to be made and another three months or so before the final outcome is known—is the importance of speed. Work is going on around the world to try to deal with this. We think that with £1 billion up front and £125 million for research and development, and through our new market reform structure—a long-term mechanism for supporting that industry—we can move this from being a few pilot projects to an industry.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
12. What support he plans to provide for Cambridge retrofit and other schemes to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
I am very glad to report that my Department is already working closely with the Cambridge retrofit project, which is just the sort of ambitious city-wide retrofit programme the green deal is designed to support.
Dr Huppert
I thank the Minister for that comment. The Cambridge retrofit is an excellent programme that will make a huge difference. How will the Government ensure stability of energy and climate policies in the long term, so that investors are willing to put finance into major schemes such as the Cambridge retrofit?
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend raises a good point. We know what investors want. They want TLC—transparency, longevity and certainty. Unlike previous short-term or stop-go policies, such as the carbon emissions reduction target and the community energy saving programme, the green deal is designed to run well into the 2020s, giving investors exactly the sort of longevity and certainty they need.
Gregory Barker
We have now put the whole solar industry on a much more stable foundation. We shall shortly be publishing our plans for a feed-in tariff system that really can go forward into the next decade and beyond, with a real sense of ambition. It is affordable, it is ambitious and it will bring real clarity to the industry.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
T9. Earlier, the Secretary of State mentioned the excellent Which? big switch scheme to save people money. What I particularly like about it is the fact that it is based on co-operative action—individuals choosing voluntarily to work together rather than a statist top-down approach. Does my right hon. Friend share that view and what support was he able to give?
Mr Davey
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He will know that when I was at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, I stimulated a huge amount of research and work on collective purchase and co-operative principles so that together we can purchase not just energy but other things more cheaply. I asked if the Department had any detailed research, because I thought the previous Government, who were supposed to be in favour of collective and co-operative principles, might have done some—they had not.