Energy Bill

I would not go that far, but we are grateful for the way in which the Government listened to many of the discussions that took place and to the representations in Committee. Indeed, they have re-tabled some of the amendments that they voted against, and we greatly welcome that change of heart. We hope that that road to Damascus has not ended just yet, and that, on further reflection, they will continue on it. We absolutely agree with the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) about the need to act urgently. We will lose one third of our coal-fired generation plant by 2016; the remaining oil plant, which is mainly used for peaking capacity, is due to close at the same time; most of our nuclear power stations, apart from Sizewell B, are due to close by the early 2020s, and there is an urgent need to build new capacity. However, if we look at the time scale, we know that the nuclear fleet, if it goes ahead, will begin to come into play only by the end of this decade; that carbon capture with coal can be commercial, again, only by the end of this decade; and that the scale of the Government's targets and objectives on renewables pushes their introduction out towards 2020. Therefore, there is a significant need for new gas generation in the system. The reality, though, is that as a result of the delays in starting to build those plants, our energy security has been put at severe risk, which has resulted in a scramble to try to put in place the required new-generation capacity. Indeed, the Government's own documentation, including the low-carbon transition plan, referred to the risk of potential power cuts by 2017, while this morning, in evidence before the Select Committee, the regular cited his concerns and those of Ofgem about the picture in the middle and latter part of this decade. We entirely accept the role that CCS and coal can play in the mix. It is a new technology, and it is one where we absolutely should be leading the world. The Minister said that Britain remains a leader, but she must be in danger of believing some of her own rhetoric. At the evidence sessions before we started the Bill's consideration in Committee, we heard many people say that we were losing our global opportunity, and we heard companies say that they had closed down their projects in Britain because of the approach adopted to them. Jeff Chapman, who heads up the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, said that Abu Dhabi and China will probably be the first two countries in the world to have commercial CCS facilities. Britain must do much more to recapture the necessary sense of urgency, which is why we have been urging the Government to speed up the competition—a competition which the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) has described as a competition without end. Real frustration is felt about the pace of progress. The Government should have included the pre-combustion option at the outset. They should be taking a much greater strategic view about how one encourages clusters by requiring oversized pipelines to be installed from the outset. We have heard from the Government about the establishment of the office of carbon capture and storage, but, a year after its announcement, I gather it is still little more than a blank piece of paper. We urgently need to grasp the issue and to make progress if Britain is to show the leadership of which it is capable in this area. Certain aspects of new clause 8 are good. The requirement to report to Parliament is an important improvement to the process, but that should not be undertaken every three years: there should be an annual report to Parliament so that we can take account of the progress made. We all know from the evidence we gather as individual Members of Parliament that this is a fast-moving technology, and the current technology is significantly further forward than it was just a year ago. A requirement to report to Parliament only every three years does not give us the opportunity to take account of such progress.