I would go further than saying that that would be useful; it is absolutely essential. It behoves a responsible Government to do that. These are not contingency plans any more; they are just the plans. There must be some sense of certainty about what is going on.
The reports from my hon. Friend’s Committee have ably demonstrated that uncertainty builds in additional cost. We have to replace a significant proportion of our electricity capacity in the next decade or so. Perhaps the cost will be greater because the pound will be weaker when we are outwith the EU. These things need to be addressed. It would be unfair to expect the Secretary of State to come out with a detailed plan now, but we need an undertaking that her Department will do the necessary work, and in short order, to deliver some form of certainty, otherwise we will be in a real pickle very soon.
The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) said that he was delighted and that the only signal we needed to give to the markets was the welcome announcement that the Government accepted the targets of the fifth carbon budget. I share his enthusiasm that the Government have done that, albeit somewhat later than was expected by many, but as the Committee on Climate Change has suggested, we need a little more of the “how”, as well as the “what”. Again, I hope that the Government will soon deliver a bit more on how we will do it. These are fundamental questions and they cannot go unanswered.
To conclude, the Government have created uncertainty in this field and that uncertainty has since been magnified. That stresses the fundamental importance of having a long-term plan that has cross-party buy-in, and that is not subject to the whims and changes of Government. The climate change legislation provides a model for how we can work collaboratively across parties and across Parliaments and Assemblies. Another model is the National Infrastructure Commission. Following the
uncertainty that the Government have created themselves and the uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote, we need a plan that we stick to and deliver.
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