Energy: Renewables

asked Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to develop the production of renewable energy in the United Kingdom so as to reduce the United Kingdom’s vulnerability to global gas and oil price fluctuations. The noble Lord said: The provision of affordable local and renewable energy is needed by everyone in this country today, and the question is whether this Government are doing enough to that end. The most obvious answer is that they are not doing enough, that there is real fuel poverty in the country and that people are suffering through the inability to access renewable energy supplies on good financial terms. At the moment it is being suggested that if you want renewable energy, you have to have vast wind farms operating on a very large scale. That is not necessary. Local energy is available at a low price for those who take the trouble to seek it out, and here I pay considerable tribute to the London Borough of Merton on its initiative to provide its residents with as much locally available energy as possible. It is no credit to this Government that it has been left to Merton to develop an initiative in this way, and that the borough had to live with considerable insecurity before it realised that it was acting inter vires, which a local authority should not have to do. The good thing is that Merton is now able to carry on with its initiative, helped by a Private Member’s Bill which is going through Parliament at the moment. Local renewable energy supplies are desperately needed because without them the country will not be able to survive the challenges from abroad. Germany, for instance, has an immense amount of renewable energy, a large quantity of which it relies on, and a very small amount of non-renewable energy. Other countries in Europe and elsewhere also do better than we do. Only two or three very minor countries in Europe do less well than we do in producing renewable energy. It is therefore with great interest and genuine curiosity that I seek to learn what the Government think that they are doing in this field and how they will be able to meet the needs that are very real and widespread.