Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Lindsay Roy

Main Page: Lindsay Roy (Labour - Glenrothes)

Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Roy Excerpts
Thursday 20th October 2011

(13 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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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 Portrait Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
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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 Portrait Chris Huhne
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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.