Climate Change

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for inviting me to comment on the Hartwell report as I have studied it, which gives me a few brownie points. It raises a number of points of interest, some of which we agree with and some of which we do not. Among other things, it draws attention to the need for energy efficiency, which is high on our list of priorities, and investment in non-carbon energy supplies, which again is high on our list of priorities and is hard to argue against. A lot of things in the report were agreeable but some were not. We shall consider them in the recess and bring them together in a debate in the autumn.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, in reading the report has the noble Lord looked at the section relating to the committee’s concern about the delays in the development of wind farms due to delays in the planning system? He will know that the previous Government established the Infrastructure Planning Commission as a way through this. Why are the Government now abolishing the IPC? Will that not bring about the very concerns about which the committee has complained; that is, insecurity and indecision inhibiting the development of wind energy in this country?

[Lord Marland]

I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was not present at yesterday’s Question Time—of course, we missed him—when that question was posed by noble Lords on his Benches. We disbanded the IPC because it was not making enough progress on planning. As the noble Lord rightly said, planning is critical. However, it has been slow and logjammed. We intend to change that.