Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between Thomas Docherty and Jo Swinson(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jo Swinson
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We have spent the past two days carefully scrutinising this Bill. Right hon. and hon. Members have clearly invested a lot of time examining the detail, and rightly so. We used all of our time on the first day debating the proposed new measures, and I thank the Opposition for ensuring that they received thorough scrutiny.
Thomas Docherty
It is my understanding that it is custom and practice for the Secretary of State to move Third Reading. Where is he today?
Jo Swinson
I am sure that my colleague the Secretary of State has a very busy diary, but he may well be making an appearance—
Carbon Capture and Storage (Scotland)
Debate between Thomas Docherty and Jo Swinson(12 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Thomas Docherty
Clearly, the hon. Lady was not listening two minutes ago when I said that nuclear power was part of a balanced energy policy. In the UK, nuclear power has been delivering electricity safely and securely for nearly six decades now. When she speaks in the debate later, I would be grateful if she could say whether she thinks that having a policy of 100% renewables is a saner option than having a balanced energy policy that does not put all the eggs in one basket. Moreover, perhaps she would like to tell me how many wind farms she has supported in her own constituency. I say that because one of the things that we often see is that certain politicians make great proclamations about their support for certain types of energy but the moment that anyone tries to put those types of energy in their own backyard they suddenly seem—bizarrely enough—to oppose that particular scheme. Unlike the SNP, I have always been consistent: I have always argued that we should have a balanced energy policy; I have always argued that we should keep the lights on; and I have always spelled out how and where I would do that.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on a very important issue. Does he agree that it is important to have carbon capture and storage not only for energy security but for environmental reasons? Even if Scotland, with its renewable potential, were able to have a much greater percentage of its energy supplied by renewables, that would not be the case in the rest of the UK and in other countries around the world. Consequently, if we are to tackle carbon dioxide emissions, clean coal and carbon capture and storage have to be a part of any solution we find.
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. She is entirely correct that this issue is not only about security of supply, although that is the single most important aspect.