Business of the House

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting angle in the academy debate by drawing the House’s attention to the links between primary and secondary education. As I said earlier, GCSE records indicate faster improvement among schools that have become academies than in the rest of the school population. I hope that other schools in his constituency will follow the example of the one to which he has referred and go for academy status, with the benefits and freedoms that go with it.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The Government are rightly promoting the development and marketing of electric cars. In parallel, we need energy supplies that are consistent with our CO₂ objectives. May we have a debate on energy infrastructure and on how we can develop electricity storage systems, because that would lead to technical developments that we could market abroad?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is right that if we are to hit our targets, we need to develop more effective methods of storing electricity. I understand that storage demonstration projects have been funded through Ofgem and through DECC’s low carbon investment fund. Announcements will be made in the summer about how the Department proposes to support energy storage innovation, which will include the examples to which he has referred.