Energy: Large Combustion Plant Directive

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can agree on that. Where emissions from one country affect other countries and the whole world, that should be dealt with internationally. That is why it is quite right that the EU should deal with them, especially those that are damaging to human health, which is the case with those dealt with by the large combustion plant directive. The noble Baroness then referred to the recent vote by the European Parliament on the industrial emissions directive. Again, we will take that forward, and it will replace the large combustion plant directive in 2016. That will further tighten the requirements, but those are matters that we have agreed, and we have introduced certain flexibilities that will make life easier for a lot of those plants until the end of 2023.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell me how much of our generating requirement over the next five years will be fulfilled by buying electricity from France?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give that figure to my noble friend off-the-cuff; I will certainly write to him. If the French have spare capacity from their nuclear power stations, I do not see anything wrong with buying in capacity from them to deal with shortfalls that we may have.