Energy Bill

That is an interesting comment. I am not so concerned by the ownership of the CCS technology as by the scope that the Government are giving for all such possible technologies to flourish. It is natural that a company that extracts oil and gas happens to own the porous rock into which the CO2 can then be put. I am worried that the Government have narrowed the options for CCS when they should have been widened to the maximum. As the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) realised, I was turning to renewables. Let me first welcome the feasibility study on the Severn barrage, which we have been calling for. We might as well know the facts, know them properly and have a serious study of what the options are, given that the Severn barrage is potentially such an enormous contributor to our generated electricity. The issue of renewables is covered in part 2. Our understanding is that the Bill aims to improve the effectiveness of the renewables obligation by banding the technologies depending on the level of investment that each technology requires. At the moment, the RO requires electricity suppliers to source a specific and annually increasing percentage of the electricity that they supply from renewable sources. Generators can claim one renewables obligation certificate for every 1 MW per hour of renewable electricity generated. Suppliers present their certificates, pay into the central fund, or both. The scheme has had some success—since it was introduced, there has been a definite upsurge in renewables development—but it also has some serious flaws. Over 50 per cent. of renewables electricity sourced under the RO has been from biofuels, while almost 30 per cent. has been from onshore wind. The RO would have had a much greater impact on UK renewables capacity if it did better in supporting technologies for which a great deal of public resistance did not exist and for systems with fewer perverse outcomes. We welcome the Government's introduction of banding technologies, which we hope will remove that undue bias. We also acknowledge, given the recent report on biofuels by the Environmental Audit Committee, that the Bill appears to include proposals to ensure that the Government will keep a close eye on biomass operators to ensure that their activities are sustainable. However, there is a central problem with this part of the Bill. Tomorrow's announcement from Brussels is expected to set a renewables target for the UK of at least 15 per cent. by 2020. As we heard earlier, the current approach will not get us there. We will certainly not reach 15 per cent. even with the Government's shiny new Bill. The whole country is looking for a step change, and on that step the Government have stumbled. We have consistently spoken in favour of feed-in tariffs—““familiar arguments””, the Secretary of State said when we last met him at the Dispatch Box and basically repeated today. It is familiar because we think that it is the right policy and that now is the right time to implement it. It was particularly promoted by the Prime Minister's own climate change policy guru, Sir Nicholas Stern, in his report published in 2006, which stated:"““Comparisons between deployment support through tradable quotas and feed-in tariff price support suggest that feed-in mechanisms achieve larger deployment at lower costs.””" The economics of feed-in tariffs is proven; the ethics of feed-in tariffs is certain. We must begin to make that move towards decentralised energy and microgeneration, not only to help to address our energy challenges but to stoke people's imaginations and to increase their awareness of energy consumption and generation. The current policy is not ambitious enough. The renewables obligation excludes microgeneration technologies and, crucially, excludes heat; it also excludes any reward of energy efficiency in the home. Feed-in tariffs provide a potent response to those challenges, so we will fight for their inclusion in the final version of the Bill. On 10 January, we heard the Secretary of State's statement to the House on nuclear power, which formally gave the Government's approval for a third generation of reactors to be built in the UK. We welcomed that, but with the provisions that there should be absolutely no subsidies for the nuclear industry and that there must be a clear statement from the Government on radioactive waste. Responding to our concerns, the Secretary of State said that he thought the policy was clear—that energy companies must set aside funds to cover the full costs of decommissioning and their full share of waste management and disposal costs. He added that the economic modelling of new build had proceeded on a ““prudent, conservative basis””. I have looked through the Bill, the explanatory notes and the new White Paper, and I am disappointed to observe that there is still no clear statement on waste disposal. Such an approach is irresponsible. It risks jeopardising future investment and, just as importantly, it risks jeopardising public confidence.