Energy: Large Combustion Plant Directive

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, this is not just about climate change. It is also about human health, which is why it is important that we see a reduction in the particular gases that we talked about earlier—nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxides—and, for that matter, dust emissions. On his further point about how many people are allegedly going to be put out of work, if we had not secured the changes to the industrial emissions directive, we would have seen an increase in electricity prices of some 8 per cent. As a result of the changes that we have secured, which I talked about earlier and which go up to 2023, those rises will be only about 3 per cent. I do not think that that is bad, and I do not think that it will lead to any loss of jobs.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Will the Minister undertake to give us a health warning if ever the Government were tempted to formulate their European policy on the basis of the opinions of Open Europe and the Daily Express?