Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Can I dissent from the amendment? I think that it goes against the whole point of the legislation. Indeed, it goes against the whole point of the Green Investment Bank, which is to stand in the gap of market failure within the capital markets in order to get projects up and running and off the ground. Where that is not possible, it provides a bridge or an intervention, but only so that private sector capital can come in. As an example of that, I mentioned earlier the first investment that had come in to Earthly Energy, the anaerobic digestion plant in Teesside. As I recall, the Green Investment Bank invested £8 million there. Immediately that attracted matched private sector investment of £8 million. The total value of the project is £100 million. That seems to be a classic example. To go from zero to £100 million, clearly they would not have been able to get the project off the ground, but that measured intervention of £8 million unlocked a project worth £100 million, which is exactly what the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is trying to achieve. I am simply saying that it is already happening under the present regime.