Energy Bill

That is exactly the point. As the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) said earlier, if the Government are making a commitment on such a scale—£9.5 billion-worth of investment support—why are we not placing performance conditions on the sector? It seems to me that if we take one step back and address the performance of the sector to date, what we have is another example of chronic market failure and a sector that is being driven by short-term calculations. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on "Channel 4 News" just a week or so ago, the profit margins that are now being enjoyed by the energy sector are at—I think that these were his words—"pretty much record levels." When such largesse is being handed out, why on earth are we afraid to place conditions on it so that the outcomes for the UK economy and the UK environment are massively and substantially enhanced? The Government should be willing to place conditions on how we support industry rather than throwing money out of the window in the hope that those companies that have held the country in this arm-lock will behave differently from how they have behaved in the past. Many in the sector are already arguing that to set conditions would be a technology driver and would force the pace of innovation and change. We should not be afraid to address that. The second argument against the introduction of EPS is that CCS is somehow the answer. CCS will be applied to four pilot projects. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) was right to say that it might have great potential, but it also carries huge uncertainties. I am not certain whether I believe that it can deliver, but, at this stage, it is an unavoidable gamble that we have to take. However, we need a plan B. To say that somehow standards of performance run counter to that process, rather than reinforcing the urgency of the upward trend, is to miss the point completely and surrenders to the notion that we are held hostage to an ever increasing set of demands for public or customer finance to try to make something work when it might well not. This is an extra safety net rather than an obstacle on the road to progress.