I quite agree with my hon. Friend. We want those highly skilled jobs and we want the cheaper energy that one hopes we can get from that technology. We need the Government to kick-start research and development investment to develop that technology. However, I must caution my hon. Friend. There is only so far I can go in agreeing with him. Yes, we want those jobs, and quite a lot of them will be highly skilled, but it is a dead end for us as a country always to have subsidised jobs. That is the obvious thing to say, but it is a dead end. We need a plan to get from where we are, without energy security and without technological development, to the sunlit uplands where we have that technology and development, and where they are self-sufficient and commercially viable. That will need some support from Government, and the removal under clause 45 of the CCL exemption for electricity from renewable resources used by non-doms is a step in the wrong direction.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth wrote to me on 26 August saying that the Government had committed to delivering on the national infrastructure plan published in December 2014, which contained a number of priority investments. He went on to list some of them. One is rail electrification, and we know what has happened to that—it is on pause. Another is low-carbon energy such as nuclear; we know the cost of that, which is enormous. A third is low-carbon energy such as renewables, but clause 45 is going in the wrong direction on that. Lord Bourne also cites energy efficiency measures such as smart meters, but the evidence on them is mixed, to say the least. Before Conservative Members jump up, I know that it was a Labour Government who started down that route and it struck me as a very odd thing to do at the time.
The final point that Lord Bourne mentions, which will please my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North, is carbon capture and storage. We need to go down that route, but as I say, we need a bit more help from Government, and the measure in clause 45 goes in the wrong direction—at least, we are uncertain what
direction it is going in as there has not been a whole bunch of consultation on it as far as I can tell and I am not aware of an impact assessment.
On 8 July—Budget day, I believe—HMRC put out a consultation document on the subject, which said that one of the factors being examined was the “operational impact” in pounds. It stated:
“Changes in HMRC costs are estimated to be negligible and would fall as part of the existing operational cost of administering CCL. The government will consult Ofgem and NIAUR”—
that is, the utility regulator—
“over summer/autumn 2015 to establish the costs and other impacts on the regulators of removing the exemption.”
That is a consultation, as I understand it, only on the impacts on the regulators, but that might shed some light on the impact on the industry and on employment. I hope that when he responds to the debate, the Minister can address that point.