UK Low Carbon Transition Plan

The Liberal spokesman asks serious questions that deserve answers. Let me try to answer them as best as I can. We had discussions with Vestas, but I want to make it clear that it never wanted grants or money to persuade it to stay in this country. The option was obviously considered with the company, but there were two factors in its decision. The first aspect is that it was making turbines for America, where it had a factory. The second aspect is related to the hon. Gentleman's point about renewables, and is a big issue for everyone in the House. It is about planning—not so much the planning rules, because we are changing them, although unfortunately the Opposition want to reverse that change, but the question of whether one can get onshore wind turbines built. Vestas' speciality is onshore wind, and that requires political persuasion—a hard job for all parts of the House. The job is to persuade people that although onshore wind turbines may be unsightly to some, the bigger threat to the countryside is not wind turbines but climate change. Of course there are areas where wind turbines would be inappropriate, and we have proposals today in our renewable energy strategy about how we can work with local people to site the turbines more sensitively, but they have to go somewhere, and we all need to focus on that necessity. We are proceeding with the investments via the European Investment Bank, the money will be going out of the door soon—in the autumn, I think—and we are going as fast as we can. If there is an issue about meetings with representatives, I am happy to address it. On fuel poverty, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we face a massive challenge. It will be an even bigger challenge in the future. I am happy to work together on the issue, but we need to find all the ways to tackle fuel poverty that we can. Reforming social tariffs is a good start, but if there are other ways we should definitely use them, because given the upward pressures on prices, fuel poverty will be a big challenge over the next decade—and, frankly, beyond that. The hon. Gentleman and I disagree about nuclear energy. I am not engaged in a love-in with the nuclear industry, but I do think that nuclear energy has an important role to play. On grid access, I said that the new plans would be in place within a year, and that that is how we will speed up the connections, because I did not want the stand-off between the industry and Ofgem to continue. The super-grid is an interesting idea, but it is expensive. None the less, we are happy to explore it, and we are doing so. I would be happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman separately about some of the other questions that he raised.