Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his statement. Unfortunately his office sent the statement and the 39-page consultation response document just over half an hour ago, so I have not been able to study it in detail. I was, however, able to get details of what was in the statement from someone at Friends at the Earth, who had been briefed by his Department before I received a copy. Perhaps the Minister can share with us why that was possible.
The chaotic manner in which the statement came about tells its own story about the Government’s approach to feed-in tariffs. No one disputes the need to bring down the FIT level in an orderly fashion, but the Government’s chaotic mismanagement of that process threatens a growing industry and undermines investment across the entire low-carbon sector. This debacle, a mess created by this Minister, began more than eight months ago and has so far cost the Department more than £80,000 in legal fees.
Once again, the Government are sneaking out changes to feed-in tariffs on the day before a recess. They did it in February and they have done it again today. The Minister threw a lot of smoke and mirrors about why he is moving the July deadline, but the truth is that he is changing the deadline not because he wants to but because he has to. Will he confirm that the Government have missed the deadline by which they were legally required to provide notice to Parliament for the next round of cuts to have come into force by 1 July? Is not his incompetence the real reason he has been forced to come to the House today?
On the detail of his statement, will the Minister tell us whether, despite the changes announced today, the number of installations will still drop by a third this year? I welcome the announcement that tariffs will continue to be linked to the retail prices index, but what estimate has he made of the effect on take-up of the reduction from 25 to 20-year payments? If take-up remains low, what measures will he introduce to boost demand to meet his ambition of 22 GW by 2020?
The Minister says he wishes to set up a PV cost reduction taskforce. What mechanisms will he put in place to ensure that a cut in the cost of installation does not lead to an increase in rogue solar installers? If demand does exceed the deployment level set by his Department, what will be the additional cut to the tariff above the 3.5% he has announced today? He says that he listens to the industry, but if he really listened he would not have dragged it through the courts, trying to impose devastating cuts that went too far and too fast. He lost that battle. This entire process has been a long list of blunders by the Minister and his Department. Will he now agree to independent oversight of the feed-in tariff to prevent future mishandling of the scheme?
In February, the Minister said that his cuts would
“deliver for far more people”—[Official Report, 9 February 2012; Vol. 540, c. 473.]—
and more than under Labour, but the number of installations has collapsed since his last cuts came into force in April. He said that his Government would deliver 22 GW of solar power by 2020, but at the current rate of installation that target will be missed by more than 100 years. He also said that he would put the industry on a sustainable footing, but a devastated 6,000 people have lost their job as a direct result of his actions last summer.
The Government’s rushed changes to feed-in tariffs go too far and too fast, hitting squeezed families who are trying to protect themselves from soaring energy bills and paralysing an entire industry. Instead of supporting businesses, he put thousands of jobs at risk and left the sector living on its nerves. Today was a chance to end the uncertainty and lay out a clear path to 2020, but the Minister has failed to set out his plan to deliver his 22 GW by 2020. He said that he wants to deliver TLC—I have noted the phrase transparency, longevity and certainty on a number of occasions—but all we got today was more of the same: more chaos, more confusion and more cuts.
Gregory Barker
I am very sorry that the Labour party is stuck in this rut of doom-mongering, carping and sapping the confidence of the industry. Everyone I have spoken to, right across the board, wants to re-inject a sense of confidence and energy into this vital sector, but rather than rally around the sector Labour Members are determined to sap confidence even more and send chaotic messages to people who are trying to make a living—all for short-term, petty political gain. Rather than look at the long term, they are just playing politics.
As for sneaking out an announcement on the last day before recess, it may be that this is a half-day, slacker’s shift for Opposition Members, but for coalition Members it is a full working day. Obviously, the hon. Lady sees today as part of the holidays, but I assure her that we are at work.
Let me be absolutely clear: we have not moved the date by one or two days, or one or two weeks. If that was what we wanted to do, we could have done it, but we wanted to send a very clear message to the industry that we are listening. We have moved the date from 1 July to 1 August in a very planned, deliberate and thoughtful way, and I think the industry will be glad of that change. The bottom line is that had we wanted to meet the 1 July deadline, we would have had to lay the measures sooner, but we did not want to meet the deadline of 1 July. The deadline is now to have the measures in place to allow the cuts to take place on 1 August. I thought that even the Opposition would have been capable of working that out.
The hon. Lady asked about ambitions for installation. Continuing to build deployment is key for a sustainable UK industry. I can tell her what our impact assessment will say and what the coalition’s clear ambition and expectation is. Under the totally unfit-for-purpose scheme produced by the current Leader of the Opposition as one of his last acts in government, about 250,000 solar panels would have been put on to roofs. I can say to the hon. Lady that, thanks to our reforms, there will be more than 1 million solar panels on British homes by the next general election. I am really proud of that. Delivery will be far more cost-effective than it would have been under Labour’s scheme, and unlike that scheme ours will be delivered on a long-term basis, free from political interference, and it will be much more transparent, sustainable and predictable.
On the 2020 ambition, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that solar is a transformational technology. Developments around the world now lead us to be confident that we can deliver on a very high ambition, and mine is 22 GW by the end of the decade—but that depends absolutely on our driving down costs. How and where we do that and the point at which we do it will be critical. That is why I am determined to work more closely with the industry.