Simon Hughes
Main Page: Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Caroline Flint
Of course, the Conservative attitude to wind, offshore or onshore, has been represented by 101 Conservative MPs who wrote to their Prime Minister complaining about our attempts as a country to utilise that resource that is at our disposal. Unfortunately, the Chancellor of the Exchequer believes that we should not pursue the potential of this new energy revolution faster than Europe—we should go back to the slow lane. In the 1980s wind developers decided that there was insufficient support from the Government of the time—we all know which party that was—and they went elsewhere. That is why Denmark became the world leader in this area and we missed an opportunity.
As a result of those decisions in the 1980s, we have been playing catch-up ever since. We must not destroy the foundations laid in the past five years or so by not making the right decisions now and playing to those who do not understand that the future is a new form of energy and a new way of empowering our citizens to control prices and at the same time have cleaner energy.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
It is entirely the case that not everything done by the Labour Government in this area was ineffective or poor, and I pay tribute to the things that they did. The one thing that they did not wake up to until the very last months of the Labour Administration was the need to do much more for renewable energy. Does the right hon. Lady accept that the figures when Labour left office show that of all the 27 EU countries, the UK was at the top for the amount that it still needed to do in percentage terms to reach its 2020 target of 15%? The UK had 12.8% yet to go, compared with all the other countries, which had made a much more significant change during the period of our Labour Administration.
Caroline Flint
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in acknowledging that the Labour Government achieved a number of important milestones in renewable energy, and showed leadership worldwide in setting climate change targets and targets for the reduction of carbon emissions that were and continue to be challenging. However, I do not accept the woeful description of what we did in government. We doubled renewable energy generation and established Britain as a world leader in offshore wind capacity and in the prototype development of wave and tidal technology, but our achievements are now under threat. As a result of this Government’s mixed messages and failing policies, investment in green growth in the UK is falling. For instance, investment in wind energy fell by 40% in the first year they were in power.
Caroline Flint
I was trying to be helpful in terms of where we are. When we left government, we recognised that we did need to build more nuclear power stations. I am not sure whether all the Conservative party’s coalition partners necessarily accept that. I think that they have an opt-out from any vote on the issue on the Floor of the House.
Caroline Flint
That is correct, I hear from the right hon. Gentleman.
Labour is clear that nuclear has to be part of energy provision. I am merely saying, in a constructive way, that we know from projects overseas that often such projects—63 are under way worldwide—are not delivered on time and come in over budget. We must ensure that not only our civil servants but our industrial partners are seeing what lessons can be learned to avoid our repeating some of the risks that have delayed projects elsewhere. I think that it is helpful to offer that to the debate and to assure the Government of our support for developing energy in this field as part of the diverse mix that we need.
Mr Davey
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I know the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) takes a real interest in such issues and has a good track record in speaking up for them, but I do not recognise his points. My right hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) played a fantastic leadership role as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. He set the Government’s ambitions at a far higher level than any previous Government. It is my job to deliver on those, which I intend to do.
Simon Hughes
I welcome very warmly my right hon. Friend to his new post. Will he confirm that, consistent with his past, present and vision for the future, green campaigning groups and the devolved Administrations will always be welcome to discuss with him their ambition, so that we can be a uniting coalition for a green country, to which he has always aspired?
Mr Davey
I certainly can give my right hon. Friend that commitment. I have already met many non-governmental organisations and have spoken to the devolved Administrations. It was my pleasure and privilege to work on this agenda with him over a number years. He showed fantastic leadership when this was not a popular issue. He did more than almost any other hon. Member to put this issue on to the political agenda, and I pay complete tribute to him.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I am very happy to follow the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), and I pay tribute to the opportunities and success in north Wales. I visited the area when I shadowed the energy and climate change brief in the previous Parliament, and I must say that the whole of the north Wales coast and the area off the north Wales shore is a fantastic site. It gives us not only the success we have had already, but huge potential.
I am pleased to welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to his post, to join his colleagues in the Department’s team—
Simon Hughes
Clearly, he has gone out for his tea just at the moment. I will tell him off later, but even the ever-energetic Energy Secretary has to have a cup of tea some time.
I am glad that we are having this debate, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for choosing this important issue. She knows my commitment to it and I am grateful for the acknowledgement of the work I have tried to do in this area for many years. The Labour Administration had many successes, the Climate Change Act 2008 being the biggest, and the Leader of the Opposition, as he is now, tried hugely hard at the Copenhagen summit, which I, too, attended, to rescue it, as far as was possible, from the disaster that was otherwise afflicting it. Happily, he made sure that there was good progress that could be built on in the years to come.
I have to say to the right hon. Lady that in some areas Labour clearly did not deliver. I do not wish to spend most of my time discussing the past, because we all have a duty to work together to ensure that we have the best possible present, but the renewables figures I cited were not speculation; they were the figures that are in the record. The energy figures for the EU show that we were the worst at achieving the renewable energy targets we had set. The table is commonly available and the share of renewable consumption as a proportion of our target showed us in the worst possible light. That was not acceptable and this Government will, I know, do better. It was a defeat of the Labour Government in the House of Lords that got the feed-in tariff system going and that was resisted by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Leader of the Opposition. The European common energy market was never delivered in 13 years of Labour government. On all those things, the record was not all that the right hon. Lady might wish to make us believe it was.
There was one area in which Labour had a clear position with which I disagreed and with which I still disagree. I am not committed—the Liberal Democrats are not committed—to nuclear power. We do not think that it is the solution—[Interruption.] There had to be negotiation for the coalition agreement but we have made it clear that it is neither necessary for the future of British energy policy nor good for investment in jobs. It creates very few jobs compared with community-based and renewable energy schemes, and the criterion negotiated, while we retained our opposition, was that it would go ahead only
“provided there is no public subsidy”.
I and colleagues will remain eternally vigilant that there will be no direct or indirect public subsidy for nuclear. It is unacceptable in any other context and we have spent and wasted far too much on nuclear power in the past.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Without nuclear, where will my right hon. Friend get the base load supply of electricity that does not depend on fluctuating winds and variable sun?
Simon Hughes
No. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) knows, we have that capacity and I have argued consistently that it is possible to have clean coal and to ensure that we use the modern technologies through carbon capture and storage to achieve it. If we have a proper energy grid across Europe, we can capitalise on the solar power from the south and the hydroelectric power from elsewhere. It is entirely possible to do that—although that is, of course, a matter of dispute.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman was very clear that there should be no subsidy for nuclear. Does he not feel, as many people do, that the carbon floor price, as it is currently constructed, acts as a subsidy for nuclear?
Simon Hughes
A very lively debate is going on about that point in the context of the European energy policy, which, as we heard the Prime Minister say earlier, will at last be delivered by 2014. We must ensure that we apply the same rules in that context as we do in all others.
When the coalition Government were formed, we set 23 objectives for energy and climate change policy. I hope that Ministers might either now or by the second anniversary put in the Library a report on how far they have gone towards achieving those objectives. Many have already been achieved and Ministers have set out down the road towards achieving the others. We already have £60 million invested in world-class offshore wind conversion in our ports to produce jobs and many people are being trained as apprentices to work on the green deal. We have a green deal energy efficiency initiative for homes across the country and a decision on the green investment bank, the location of which will be announced soon. Let me repeat what I have said publicly in the past: I do not think it should be in London. It should be elsewhere in the United Kingdom so that the benefits can be spread, and I say that as a London Member of Parliament.
We have a legally binding target for a 50% reduction in UK carbon emissions by the mid-2020s. We have the establishment of the low-carbon technology and innovation centres, a 25% improvement in energy efficiency standards for all new buildings, support for green buses, subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles, a reduction in carbon emissions from central Government buildings of an almost incredible 14% over 12 months and—I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne)—very successful participation in the climate conferences in Cancun and Durban, which has ensured that we are at last on the right road to international agreement and making up for what we did in the past.
Ministers also took difficult decisions after listening to what the public were saying about fuel costs. Fuel duty was cut last April, the automatic fuel duty escalator was scrapped, the planned rise this January was postponed to August and the next planned increase was cancelled. Petrol and diesel are, on average, 10p per litre cheaper than they would have been had the original plans gone ahead. Such decisions are always controversial in the environmental movement and the real world, and fuel prices obviously keep up with other prices, but the Government have responded to meet people’s concerns about their family budgets. The saving for the average motorist will be £144 and the average haulier will be £4,400 better off. Labour raised fuel duty 12 times while in office and planned for six further fuel duty rises after the election. We have done better than that.
I commend what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on taking office about the Government’s plan on solar power. He wants to ensure that many more people benefit so that it can continue to be rolled out as a successful project. Combined heat and power equally has a very important role to play.
In conclusion, may I give the newly led administration in DECC my shopping list? First, will they ensure that we have the skill base to deliver the green economy, which is so important? That needs apprenticeships and good training. Secondly, will they ensure that we have energy efficiency in our schools and public buildings, including converting waste to energy more efficiently? Thirdly, will they incentivise community energy? Fourthly, will they not allow themselves to be distracted by the nuclear power persuaders? And finally, will they support the biodiesel industry in the future?