Energy Bill

I could not have put it better myself, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because the question is essentially one of timing: introducing an EPS today would be premature and undermine investment; and, as we progress with CCS we will be able to judge whether we require an EPS or, possibly, another mechanism. The Independent Committee on Climate Change has said that there could be as many as four ways of making further progress on decarbonisation, of which EPS is one. My hon. Friend may be right and EPS may become the favoured means if we have to deploy other means than CCS, but at this stage it would be premature to decide that an EPS was the right instrument, because several could be used and EPS is just one of them. As a consequence of the policy of new coal, CCS and retrofitting, by 2025 all new stations would be achieving abatement well above the EPS in new clause 25. It defines the EPS as limiting carbon dioxide to 25 per cent. of the emissions that would exist if CCS were not in place, but including a specific measure in legislation now might cut across the future methods of delivering our stated policies, and as I have clearly indicated it would not add anything to decarbonisation. Even the Independent Committee on Climate Change does not recommend the introduction of an EPS now. Instead, in its report of October last year, it identified a number of options, as I just indicated, for delivering the necessary investment in low-carbon generation. They include a carbon price floor, a feed-in tariff and a low-carbon obligation, as well as a low EPS.