Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

Debate between Pat Glass and Tom Greatrex

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have had an important debate and a number of significant points have been made by many hon. Members despite their speaking for a limited time. My hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), for Glasgow North West (John Robertson), for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), among other Members, made important points about the Government’s changes to the feed-in tariff. We could no doubt have had a somewhat longer debate had time not been curtailed by the Secretary of State’s lengthy urgent statement earlier this afternoon and his lengthy speech at the start of the debate, but I want to keep my remarks as brief as possible to enable the Minister to respond. A number of important issues have been raised and I am sure that he wants to respond to them.

The Minister is a politician that many of us have come to appreciate, especially in his recent works, as a master of his art. The reduction in the feed-in tariff

“effectively slowly suffocates the growth that the policy has so far encouraged.”

Not my words but those of the Minister’s close colleague, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London.

“Industry trust and confidence in the government has evaporated.”

Again, not my words but those of the CBI. The new rates mean

“that unless you have significant savings, you’re unlikely to be able to afford solar panels”.

Once more, not my words, but those of Friends of the Earth. The ability to build such a consensus against his own policy is a formidable feat on which I congratulate the Minister.

I would also like to pay tribute to the Minister’s transformational skills. In a few short weeks, he has managed to turn a policy that was admired, appreciated and effective into a shambles that is mired in confusion, contradiction and potential legal challenge. However, he is a man of great foresight and has the extraordinary ability to set a consultation with an effective date close to two weeks before the close of the consultation. It is a remarkable record from a remarkable Minister. I can only look on in awe and wonderment at his abilities and only aspire never quite to plumb those depths myself.

[Pat Glass]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue for the consumer is not the £1 each that the feed-in tariffs will cost, but the fact that the Government have clearly and demonstrably failed to tackle the big six energy companies that are taking massive and obscene profits from the British consumer?

[Tom Greatrex]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. When the Minister, as he is about to do, following the example of the Secretary of State, makes points about consumer bills and compares the £1 cost with the £1,345 for the average annual bill, which is 0.08%—less than a tenth of 1%—I think that the figures speak for themselves.