Energy Bill

Let me finish my little opening rant first. In response to those who say that setting standards would somehow deter investment, I would refer to a fascinating seminar held this morning by the all-party group on social science and policy. It was addressed by the head of Deutsche Bank's global climate change research unit, who said that if we put together transparency, certainty and longevity, we provide what investors are looking for. He went on to say that investors in renewable energy ought to be differentiated from energy companies, and it is worth noting that many energy companies have said, "We don't like transparency. We like to do deals behind closed doors. That is how we can get the greatest arm-lock to lever resources out of Governments, taxpayers or customers." Transparency is not the flavour of the month for existing energy companies, so it does not surprise me that they would not welcome the introduction of an emissions performance standard. For everyone else, however, from citizens to Government to investors, it is a no-brainer that that is a good idea. That is why we should address this issue within a framework that requires the Government of the day to come back within a 12-month period with a scheme that sets out the details of where we go from wherever we are, so that this would not be the end of the game. The people from Deutsche Bank said to us this morning, "Look at the object lessons to be learned from Germany, where the introduction of feed-in tariffs has been followed by a series of reviews. That has happened because the regulatory framework drove the agenda for change." It drove the investments and innovation processes, and that is why they were able to go through a series of review processes that pushed way ahead of where the initial framework had envisaged that they could get to when they started out. It seems to me that we get in a panic about power stations. The reason for that might be that when the energy sector was deregulated we gave it the powers to create the current oligopoly, which sees itself as beyond public control and accountability.