Energy Price Freeze

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Centrica made a considered and serious decision when it abandoned the £200 million it had already invested in Hinkley Point? That meant that the serious investors had deserted, and so we now have to rely on cheap Chinese money, of which is there is an abundance. What has Hinkley Point got to do with Britain?

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

They did not have control of the asset.

[Dr Lee]

As my hon. Friend says, Centrica did not have control of the asset, because it was not allowed to buy British Energy in 2008—a decision made by the previous Government, and one which I guess the hon. Gentleman supported.

It is time for the Government to concentrate on one thing rather than on a myriad. Whenever the Department of Energy and Climate Change comes before the Select Committee it gives evidence of its lack of fitness for purpose in this area. The Select Committee has been, I think, deeply frustrated by the Department’s performances on many occasions. We should concentrate on one thing, which is energy efficiency. Fatih Birol was in front of the Select Committee the other day—he edits the “World Energy Outlook”. The conclusion of that weighty tome is that this country should concentrate on energy efficiency. We should stop subsidising energy generation and let the market deal with that.

We should concentrate on energy efficiency because the reality is that that is all we can do. Our stocks of gas are declining—they may be mitigated somewhat by shale, but let us not hold our breath or think it will be a significant bounty. This country needs to be able to deliver economic growth in the future with less energy. California has done it so I do not see why we cannot. It requires concentration purely on that one issue. We need to get away from the rather daft level of subsidy for offshore wind, for example. There is some argument for state expenditure on energy security in baseload generation, and we perhaps need to be more transparent about how we fund nuclear energy, and indeed—to refer to the contribution of the hon. Member for Newport West—marine energy projects such as that on the Severn.

My main point is that the solution is not to have yet further energy companies in the market. I believe that the retail and distribution networks should be owned by co-operatives. We only have to look at New York and Pennsylvania to see the benefits, in terms of the lower costs to the consumer and the ability to take a longer-term view about investment in infrastructure so that if there is poor weather, the distribution network does not go down. It might be counterintuitive for a Government Member to talk about co-operatives—that may be politically attractive—but ultimately there are limits to markets and I think we are approaching the limit in the energy sector.