Energy Bill

I absolutely agree, and I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I do not mind whether the measure in question is called a feed-in tariff, a multiple ROC or a special levy, as long as it does the job. Obviously, it would be temporary and tied to the state of development of a given technology. If we do not do that, however, we run the risk of losing an industry that this country could have—it is on the point of development—and that could produce gigawatts of power that could, in turn, produce great industrial benefit. If that does not happen, we will still want to deploy tidal stream power in this country, because we have so much of it, but instead of being the manufacturer and getting 100 per cent. of the added value of deploying the technology, we would get very little—perhaps about 10 per cent. We would be a client. We would be importing machines made abroad that could have been made in Britain, and we would lose a potentially huge export industry as well. I therefore make the following serious plea: we should examine the possibility of incorporating in the Bill a new support mechanism for emerging technologies, so that we no longer have to try desperately to get the Treasury to agree to tweaking the existing mechanisms. That just is not happening, and that is extremely frustrating for those in the industry, those who want to see it develop, and all of us who want this country to have the low-carbon electricity it can produce for us and the contribution it can make towards our climate change efforts. I think we have now had enough of that whinge, although it is intended to be a very constructive whinge. It is inevitable that energy prices will increase. I cannot think of a single factor that would bring them down. Oil and gas prices are going up and the recession will not counter that. The general trend is inexorably upwards, just as the general trend in climate change is of global warming and temperatures moving inexorably upwards. It is vital that the increased burden of decarbonising energy is shared reasonably and that it does not fall on the poorest sections of the community, so I very much welcome the social tariff provisions of the Bill. I think that they are long overdue. We need to ensure that they bite the energy companies. It means that the rest of us have to pay, but I personally have no objection to that. Some of us accept that principle with taxation, although I cannot say that everybody does. That is vital, but the tariff is not the only thing. Quite a lot has been said already about energy efficiency, and a social tariff regime needs to go hand in hand with increased energy efficiency. Whatever financial difficulties there are, we need to explore alternative mechanisms of ensuring that those people at the lower end of the income spectrum who will benefit from the social tariffs can also benefit from support for increasing the energy efficiency of their homes. That is the other gap in the Bill as I see it. Such an approach will not necessarily involve great expenditure on the part of the Treasury and it can be done by manipulation of the market. I would like to see that explored. Finally, we come to my concerns about Ofgem. Those who are easily bored might remember that I have been having a pop at Ofgem for many years now, trying to get some responsibility for sustainability into its mandate. Ofgem has resisted that quite strongly. However, my efforts achieved something in 2004, when sustainability was added to the secondary responsibilities of Ofgem—I cannot remember the list of them now, but it was quite long. There it stayed, but it made very little difference to Ofgem's behaviour in practice because Ofgem has focused almost entirely on competition and security of supply up until now. I am very pleased that the Bill puts sustainability and climate change at the top of Ofgem's primary responsibilities. It will be extremely interesting to watch the behaviour of Ofgem when it has to consider such matters as its primary remit, with everything else following them. That should produce a culture change that is long overdue. Ofgem's role is central to all energy policy, so if it is singing from the climate change hymn sheet, we might see some real progress towards large-scale deployment of renewable energy.