My Lords, I thank the Minister and everybody else who has taken part in this debate.
First of all, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that where subsidy—whether it be through tax breaks, ROCs or whatever—starts to be excessive, we must cut that back. Indeed, when he was Secretary of State, Ed Davey took a number of very tough decisions around solar and wind energy that did exactly that. None of us, certainly on these Benches, want profiteering from this area. That is not really what we
are getting at in this debate. Clearly, value for money is important; the more that we can make it competitive, the better.
I press the Minister to tell us the challenge there still is to get neighbourhood plans across England, so we can understand; perhaps he will not be able to come back on it now. Whether this mechanism decided on by the Government works or not, I would still be very interested to hear where we are on it. Only by that being effective can even this system, as revised by the Government, really work. I would be pleased to get further feedback on that.
Clearly it is not appropriate to have a vote here, but I am very concerned that we have government policy going in one direction on one form of energy and in completely the opposite direction on another. That means inconsistency and a lack of confidence nationally and internationally in terms of finance. However, based on the Minister’s reply, I withdraw my opposition to the clause.