Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The right hon. Gentleman says that he has done it, but he has not brought it to this House to be ratified. We would do that so there is proof against judicial review. We need to have diversity. Churchill said that diversity and diversity alone guaranteed energy security. We should abide by that principle. We will mandate the national grid to extend its network offshore as well as onshore, so that we can better harness the power of the waves, tides and offshore wind. We need to be able to get the benefits to consumers onshore and we need that offshore grid. We will build marine energy parks—perhaps there might be one in Cumbria—to provide the grid connections and the planning requirements necessary to allow entrepreneurs to promote new energy projects, making use of our fantastic coastal resources. We will provide those parks so that we can have that head start. Rather than hectoring communities that host wind farms, telling them that they are somehow immoral if they entertain any objection at all, we will engage them in dialogue and allow them to share in the benefits of renewable energy. We would allow every community that hosts a wind farm to keep six years' worth of business rates that arise from that investment. Why is that not in the Queen's Speech? It will be in the Queen's Speech if we are elected to government next year. We will upgrade our 50-year-old national grid to be a smart grid so that it can better balance the supply of electricity, especially from renewables, and the demands. We will speed up the deployment of smart meters. For some reason the Government have been bludgeoned into thinking that smart meters cannot be introduced until the end of 2020, 11 years away. Across the world now, communities are benefiting from the interactivity and the cost savings that come from smart meters. We need to get on with that. Why do not we have this urgent action? We need charging points for electric vehicles all around the country. We need the kind of consumer revolution that my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron)—he has momentarily left his place—talked about. We need information on bills that says not just how much the consumer has consumed—often an estimate at the moment—but how one could go to the cheapest possible tariff, with the number and the link to be able to do that immediately. We need transparency on wholesale prices. When the wholesale prices of gas are falling, consumers rightly expect that their bills will fall, too. I am not at all satisfied that the present system is clear enough as to whether the right reductions in domestic fuel bills are happening at the right pace. That needs to be investigated and acted on immediately. We will give every household in the country a green deal that would allow them to have the energy efficiency improvements that would cut our CO2 emissions, save them money and get people back to work in this country. Immediate action to keep the lights on, to create jobs, to make the UK the industrial leader that it should be in all these technologies and to safeguard our planet—that is what is needed from a Queen's Speech from a Government of this country. The only power cut that we want is an end to the power of this Government and the election of a Government who take these matters seriously. Britain will be better for it.