Energy Bill

I am so grateful, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells spoke of the UK falling behind in the race to build CCS. That could not be further from the truth. A number of other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), mentioned China, but no project in China is on the scale of any of our projects, and no construction is under way for capture, transportation and storage on the scale that our projects propose. It is therefore a complete nonsense to suggest that other countries have overtaken us. We are still in the lead. We are co-operating with other countries, which is the most reasonable thing for us to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, the acting Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, made a very thoughtful speech and we are glad that he welcomed our CCS proposals. He spoke with passion about the mining communities and the future of coal mining in this country. Of course, it is CCS that can offer a guarantee of a future for those activities. My hon. Friend spoke in more moderate and reasonable terms about a possible energy supply gap around 2016, but I must tell the House that the evidence does not support that view. It is true that 18 GW of electricity generation is due to close by 2018, but nearly 20 GW is under construction or has planning consent. Industry is responding to the signals of the need for new generation by getting on with the building. The latest analysis issued by the Government has shown that there is no gap. Ofgem's "Project Discovery" presents a wide range of scenarios and shows that electricity supplies would meet demand in almost all foreseeable situations.