Clearly not, because in the case of onshore wind, for example, there are many competitive developers developing different varieties of technology. It is a competitive market still, in a way that nuclear, as I shall explain, is not.
The goal, of course, is to provide clean, sustainable and cheap energy while meeting challenging but critically important greenhouse gas reduction targets. Do these contracts for difference represent a subsidy? Well, as the Treasury has confirmed to me in a written answer; yes, of course they do. Every energy bill payer is a taxpayer in their time off; but subsidy is justified for renewables, for all the reasons I have given. However, would it not be extraordinary if into this exciting, young, diverse and competitive energy market, a 56-year-old freeloader—a tailgater, a leftover from another era—tried to slip in unnoticed and pick up all the same kinds of advantages and support? Would it not be even more extraordinary if that old freeloader was not even represented by a diversity of competitive companies, but just one or two; and more extraordinary still if the most significant of those turned out to be the state-nationalised energy supplier of another country, already subsidised by its own taxpayers?
That is precisely what is happening with the nuclear industry, and what is more, the level of support—the precise contract for difference and the strike price for specific energy sources—is being negotiated behind closed doors as we speak, before the relevant legislation has even passed through this House. The details are set to be revealed to us only after the event—after the deal has been sealed.