Electricity Market Reform

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point on skills. There has been inertia in nuclear. I pay credit to the previous Government for reversing public opinion on nuclear, but not for the fact that there has been no activity. We have created much activity. Nine months ago, or when we got into power, people would have asked what was going to happen on nuclear. SIs have now created the opportunity for new nuclear. It has become a fundamental part of our programme. There is a serious task in obtaining the skills to satisfy that programme. I welcome the noble Lord’s support for that. It is fundamental because we have lost those skills in the past 20 years and it will be no small task to regain them. Therefore, we must have a programme that runs concurrently with the development to make sure that they both happen, and that we can cope with the eight or nine power stations that will, we hope, be built in the next few years.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I join noble Lords who have thanked the Minister for repeating the Statement, which was made in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Chris Huhne. It gives noble Lords in this part of the House great confidence that this important area is in the hands of Chris Huhne, our Liberal Democrat Secretary of State, and his team of Ministers in both Houses.

In view of the importance of making sure that consumers get a fair deal, does the Minister have confidence that this package will deliver more decarbonisation and low carbon for less cost? Is it true that this package shows that we can reach half the level of carbon in the electricity system at a lower cost than that which was planned by the previous Government?

[Lord Marland]

I am grateful that my noble friend champions my boss, Chris Huhne, who has been excellent to work with. I compliment my fellow Ministers on the Conservative Benches for their excellent work on this matter. The key to this reform package is to ensure that we have a pricing structure—which would otherwise be going out of control through the uncertainty of fossil fuel prices in the future—that gives us electricity security through our own supply of electricity from renewables. We have no alternative but to achieve our targets because they are set down in European law.