Lindsay Roy
Main Page: Lindsay Roy (Labour - Glenrothes)(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Order. We now need to increase our efficiency and have somewhat lower intensity in the answering of questions from the Treasury Bench. May I say very gently to the Secretary of State that the “War and Peace” versions of answers should be preserved for fireside chats in the long winter evenings that lie ahead?
Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
Plans for carbon capture and storage have descended into a farce. The length of the pipeline from Longannet to the empty reservoirs in the North sea, which is the excuse for not continuing, has not changed. Is it not the Government’s economic commitment to CCS, and to the pioneering project at Longannet, that has changed?
Chris Huhne
No, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that. Once we had gone through the front-end engineering design studies, the specifics of the Longannet project were clear, including on the costs of transferring carbon into the reservoirs. Those costs were high; as a result, we could not do carbon capture and storage at Longannet, compared with where we believe we can do it elsewhere.