Energy Security

The national grid needs to be able to take the energy that is ready to come on, rather than take it from power stations in the order in which planning was applied for. It is not easy, and I suspect that there will be a shift from onshore wind, which represents most of the energy that the hon. Gentleman identifies, to greater input from offshore wind. I shall come to that in a moment, because I wish to talk briefly about the renewables obligation. What would we do? First, we need to kick-start a renewables revolution in the UK. At the moment, that is proceeding at a snail's pace and a lot of targets have been missed. The UK has 40 per cent. of Europe's wind resources, but just one tenth of Germany's 20 GW of wind capacity. That is related to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) made a moment ago. The current renewables obligation has skewed investment heavily in favour of onshore wind and methane, so we support the Government's decision to band the obligation and clear the path for the necessary massive expansion of offshore wind.