Renewable Energy

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Charles Hendry

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

It is a privilege and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and congratulate her on securing the debate. She has given us an excellent summary of the benefits that such technologies can bring and a clear understanding of where she sees the barrier to their deployment. I want to go through where we see the opportunities and to say what we are doing to remove the barriers.

My hon. Friend has not been alone in the debate. I welcome the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), for Redcar (Ian Swales) and for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), which all showed the understanding, depth of knowledge and interest in the issue that is present throughout the country.

I have already had the chance for a brief conversation with some of the people involved in SEaB. I am delighted with the opportunity to visit in the future and to see on the ground the work that they are doing in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North, but it is also important to put our discussion in the context of the wider energy debate, and that is how I wish to begin. She is absolutely right, however, to highlight the untapped potential of the sector, and part of our objective as a Government is to realise that potential in the most effective way that we can.

As my hon. Friend outlined, renewable energy has a vital role in our low-carbon future. By the end of the decade we must cut our carbon emissions by 35% on 1990 levels, and by the end of the next decade they must have halved. We also have the EU renewable energy target, which means that we must generate 15% of our energy from renewables by 2020. In order to meet that target, about 30% of our electricity and 12% of our heat will need to come from renewable sources. That is not only about meeting targets, because it is also the right thing to do, and we need to reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels. Home-grown renewable energy can enhance our energy security and give us a greater degree of energy independence, helping to shield us from global fossil fuel price fluctuation, which seems to be in only one direction at the moment, as we see high prices for oil and gas. She also touched on the immense economic potential in renewable energy, and the sector could provide opportunities for up to 500,000 jobs.

In the Department of Energy and Climate Change, we have been working with the renewables sector to understand more effectively how much renewable energy can be deployed by 2020, and to identify the current constraints that must be addressed.

[Rehman Chishti]

The Minister knows that 6.7 million tonnes of food waste are being discarded each year. Are there any plans to ban completely food waste going into landfill? If so, what is the time frame?

[Charles Hendry]

My hon. Friend is aware that what we have been seeking to do is to give local authorities more say in how they should manage their affairs, rather than a top-down, Government approach. For many of us with landfill or land-raise issues in our constituencies, it seems absurd to put food waste into such facilities. At the end of the day, however, we want the local authorities to be the driving force in resolving such issues. In his own case, Kent is a beacon authority in looking at how to manage its waste issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Charles Hendry

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

As I have said, the spending review settlement allocated £1 billion to project 1. We will then take forward three further projects, and we have now announced that that could be open to gas as well. We are looking at three further projects because we believe Britain should be leading the world in this technology, and we are absolutely determined that it will.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The generation tariff payment is not the consideration of any supplier and is therefore outside the scope of VAT. If a commercial company wishes to assign its income to a third party in exchange for the supply and installation of solar panels, will the funder of the panels be able to claim back the input VAT?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Charles Hendry

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

I understand from the discussions I have had with Ofgem that it believes that it already has the right powers to do this. We must understand that one of the reasons for the pressure on prices is that, as a result of the failure to secure investment under the previous Administration, we are looking at these companies to rebuild our energy infrastructure, with £200 billion of investment over the next 10 to 15 years. There is a real energy challenge in this crisis, and we have to encourage companies to put that investment in place if we are to be able to keep the lights on in future.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to enable local authorities to generate electricity and sell it to the National Grid.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

Many local authorities are keen to take forward renewable energy projects. New regulations introduced on 18 August mean that local authorities can now sell electricity and can also benefit from renewable incentives such as feed-in tariffs and the renewables obligation. This new provision gives them the freedom to do that, enabling them to play their part in reducing emissions and meeting national renewable energy targets while saving money on their energy bills.

[Rehman Chishti]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the export tariff of 3p per kWh for households should be increased?

[Charles Hendry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, which does not directly relate to local authorities, but I can say that we are looking at these rates in the totality of the comprehensive spending review. We inherited schemes from the previous Administration that were extremely generous but which were not absolutely clear as to who was going to pay for them and how they were going to be paid for. We are absolutely committed to encouraging the roll-out of renewable electricity and renewable heat, but we must study very carefully exactly how these schemes can be paid for.