Energy: Self-sufficiency

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is absolutely right that we need to try to maximise the economic recovery of oil and gas from the UK continental shelf, and our most recent licensing round has been the most successful ever. We are committed to working with industry to create a new world-leading, cost-effective UK carbon capture and storage industry, and policies such as the Green Deal and the introduction of smart meters will reduce our energy demand and ensure more efficient use of the fuel that we use. Our ongoing work is to achieve renewable targets which significantly increase the proportion of clean domestic energy in the mix. Ofgem’s recent report provides a comprehensive analysis of the security of supply. We are looking at it very carefully and will respond formally by the end of the year.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, by making the most of the wide variety of renewables that our islands are blessed with, we will move further towards self-sufficiency in energy and will effectively then disconnect ourselves from the threat of ever-accelerating fossil fuel prices?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend raises a very important point. We are trying to make sure that we have greater self-sufficiency through our renewables but this means only that we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and, although it is helpful to say that that is what we want to do, we are not currently at that stage. However plausible our scenarios of future energy, I think that there will still be a place for some fossil fuels.