Fourth Carbon Budget

William Bain Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman should perhaps be aware that the intention of the feed-in tariff scheme was to encourage microgeneration. Any proposal that involves less than two tennis courts-worth of solar photovoltaic cells will be completely unchanged by the review that we have announced, so he is clearly referring to a scheme that is very much bigger than that. All I would say is that we have to look at value for money. I am surprised that Opposition Members think that that is a revolutionary concept but it is important to consider value for money. If we had not announced the review, we would have found that a very large part of some of our finest shire counties would, instead of disappearing under oil seed rape or some more conventional crop, have been disappearing under solar photovoltaics. That was not, I am sure, the intention of the Opposition. It certainly is not our intention and that is why we have acted.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State accept the commission’s finding about seeking a reduction of 44% in emissions from surface transport by 2030 in comparison with the figures for 2008? If he does, will he make representations to the Secretary of State for Transport to put right the cuts in the budgets for electric-powered and hybrid vehicles that were made in the spending review, which put the long-term viability of those industries at risk?

[Chris Huhne]

I do not think that the policies that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has introduced can be characterised in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. We recently did some calculations that suggested that, given the prices we have at the petrol pump today, it makes sense to buy an electric vehicle because of the subsidies that the Secretary of State for Transport has announced in co-operation with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. I believe that the framework has been set for very rapid growth in this area and I am confident that that is what we will see.