UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Bill

I follow on from my noble friend’s remark and say that Amendment 51N is pretty vacuous. It is giving us the excuse to have a debate, but it will not come to anything. It is certainly the case that the Government have been reasonably successful in demand reduction because of their economic incompetence over the past three years. We have been in recession, we have seen emissions fall and we have seen the demand for electricity change. That is the first point which has to be made.

Sooner or later, we will come out of this recession—and when we do, we are going to need far more than Amendment 51N would do regarding capacity changes. We are, I hope, going to have an economy growing in a manner which, in its early stages, will probably not be the most attractive for energy efficiency. In some respects, we want to get out of the recession as quickly as possible. Having to chase around for the most energy-efficient way of doing that when we are trying to find economic prosperity for our people would be questionable in the eyes of the public and their sense of priorities. Frankly, the quicker we move on from this amendment the better, because it is a waste of time, although the other amendment has a degree of merit. I am also always dubious about split infinitives in law at the best of times.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
747 c331GC 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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