Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

There was an amendment tabled by the former Labour Member, Alan Simpson. My right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) said at the time:

“I sympathise with, and fully support, people’s yearning for appropriate incentives to encourage the faster take-up of microgeneration.”—[Official Report, 30 April 2008; Vol. 475, c. 393.]

He told my hon. Friend and the House that he wanted to go away and look at what could be possible. On 5 November in the same year, the Labour Government tabled an amendment in the House of Lords that paved the way for the scheme that we have today. We do not need any lectures by the Secretary of State on who created the opportunity for feed-in tariffs in this country—it was the Labour Government.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Companies such as Sharp in Wrexham have expanded and employed more people because they believed the Government on feed-in tariffs, only to find that they have pulled the plug.

[Caroline Flint]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the damage that has already been done to many businesses around the country. I will come to his point about the impact not only on insulations but on manufacturing in Great Britain.

We are happy to have a debate about why the Government are cutting help for pensioners this winter, when they need it more than ever, and about why this Government have stood back and allowed the big six to increase their profit margins to record levels while energy bills have soared, but let us also have a debate about why this Government have failed to stand up to vested interests in the energy industry and failed to reform our market.

Let us not pretend that the Government’s approach to today’s debate is about some new-found concern for bill payers. However much Ministers like to claim feed-in tariffs cost the public, when 25,000 people lose their jobs—[Interruption.] Government Members might not like to hear this, but people may be laid off this Christmas as a result of an ill-thought-through strategy. When 25,000 people lose their jobs, when the Treasury loses the taxes and national insurance they pay, and when we have to pay out unemployment benefit, the costs will be a lot higher. This Government would rather pay people to be on the dole than support an industry of the future.