Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will apply the same criteria for industries which qualify for relief under the Climate Change Agreement to the industries eligible for relief from the indirect costs of renewables.

The Government has acted to provide relief for energy intensive industries and is targeting its limited resources at those energy intensive products that are exposed to competition in the international markets.

However, we are bound by the European Commission’s state aid rules in this regard and cannot, therefore, simply use climate change agreements as the basis for eligibility for these schemes.

We have issued a consultation on a proposed methodology and are currently analysing the results. We expect to publish a Government response to the consultation shortly and final conclusions on which sectors will be eligible once we have state aid approval, which we expect to receive by summer 2015.