Feed-in Tariffs

Tim Yeo Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

I am sorry that the right hon. Lady constantly sees the glass as being half empty, and carps at a very ambitious scheme that will be very good news for the industry. She clearly wants to invest her political capital in failure. If she looks at the consultation, she will see that we are proposing a further cut in the tariff for solar power. She mentioned one of the options, but there are actually three. The proposals for smaller schemes, which typically involve installations on the roofs of average homes, include the options for 16.5p, 15.7p and 13.6p. We will consult on those options. She clearly does not understand the big dynamic that is driving down costs. We welcome the fact that costs are coming down, and we are determined to ensure that tariffs come down with them. If she wants to stick to, and defend, the old scheme, she is welcome to do so.

I welcome the right hon. Lady’s acknowledgement that we listened to the consultation—that rarely happened under her Government—and that we are going for band D. More than 50% of homes in Britain already meet the band D criteria, and, when the green deal is launched in the last quarter of this year, everyone in the country will be able to access measures to improve their home at no up-front cost. We have also announced today that we are going to consult on a community scheme, which the Labour Government failed to introduce when they launched this programme. For us, communities are at the heart of the renewable energy revolution, and we want to do far more to encourage and enable communities to come together to generate low-carbon and renewable energy. We expect to be able to achieve exactly that under this scheme, which will be bigger and deployed to give better value for consumers and householders.

[Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)]

The Minister’s statement is welcome in that it restores a degree of order to a situation that had become increasingly chaotic. I am afraid that the chaos was aggravated by the nature of the consultation process on solar feed-in tariffs before Christmas. Does he agree that the new package will be judged on whether it offers more predictability for investors, thus bringing down the capital costs, and on whether it will give value for money to the consumers who are required to contribute to the development of the renewables industry?

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those two things are right at the heart of this new scheme: better value for money and greater predictability, with a regular, predictable degression, particularly for solar PV, allowing us to anticipate, and take advantage of, the falling costs of this exciting technology. I think he will see that industry broadly welcomes these measures.