Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I want to make some progress. Many hon. Members want to speak and I have already taken several interventions. If I have time, I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman. It is not surprising that we have been in this mess over such a long period when over the past 12 years of this Government we have had 15 different Energy Ministers. If Ministers are moved every nine months, it is not surprising that they cannot get their heads around this relatively technical subject and do not get enough time to act. It is not as though the creation of the new Department has solved all these problems, although it is a step in the right direction. I discovered the other day that a shadow Department of Energy and Climate Change, if we can believe it, has been set up in Lord Mandelson's empire. Not only is there a shadow Department in the Opposition, but there is a shadow Department—shadowing everything that the Secretary of State does and presumably picking holes in it—in the Government. Not only that: I have discovered that 15 civil servants are employed to do that work. The problem has not been solved; the Government are eating themselves. We are in such a state of tailspin that the Government are setting up Departments to shadow themselves, which is a pretty poor state of affairs. We are where we are and this opportunity to achieve a degree of cross-party consensus on some of the necessary measures has arisen; in many cases, we agree on what needs to be done, but a lack of urgency has prevailed during the past 12 years and, sadly, it prevails to this day.