Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-14
Topic: Energy
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for moving the amendment, but perhaps I may turn first to the opening comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. Although I am, as she will know, her great admirer in the area of climate change, I cannot allow the allegation to go unchecked and unanswered that we are in the business of nationalising the energy supply. It shows considerable chutzpah to come up with such an argument in view of what happened at the weekend. It is far from the truth. The area is certainly highly regulated but I make no apology for that. It needs to be so We are committed to ensuring that the United Kingdom continues to do its part to tackle climate change in line with the Climate Change Act, which, of course, has legal backing and legal obligations. As I indicated earlier, we will respond to the progress report; as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, mentioned, we will do so by 15 October, as we do annually Decarbonisation remains a clear goal of the Government. Emissions from carbon intensity fell by 12% in 2014, according to the Committee on Climate Change, and we are very much wedded to that. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to the commitment of the Prime Minister and our obligations in relation to unabated coal. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, when she said that there is a part for all forms of energy except unabated coal. That is certainly right and I would not dissent from it. We must do this as cost effectively as possible to ensure that our energy is secure and affordable as well as low carbon, as I indicated previously Locking ourselves into an expensive and inflexible target for the power sector is not the way to do that. There are just too many things that we cannot predict about how the energy system will develop up to 2030. The costs of getting it wrong would be picked up by consumers for decades to come. The amendment as set out would, in effect, require the Government to introduce an additional power sector target, in the form of an obligation on electricity suppliers in England and Wales. The manifesto on which the Government were elected clearly stated that we will not support additional power sector targets Noble Lords will know that the subject of setting a decarbonisation target has previously been debated in this House, as has been indicated, on at least two occasions: during the passage of the Energy Bill in 2013 and of the Infrastructure Bill in 2015. I therefore know that noble Lords will be familiar with the arguments against setting a target such as this. I agree that investors want to know that we have clear, credible and affordable plans. However, the CBI has said that clarity on future financial support for low-carbon electricity will be more important in driving investment than targets. That is why we have said that we will set out totals for the levy control framework beyond 2020, providing a basis for electricity investment into the next decade. That is why we have also said that we will set out plans in the autumn on future contracts for difference allocation rounds For those reasons I cannot accept the amendment. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw it.