Wind Farm Subsidies (Abolition) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-06
Topic: Energy
Peter William Bone (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is entirely correct, including in describing it as a socialist policy, because that is precisely the direction we are moving in—we know that Labour has moved significantly to the left. The issue here is that it wants to interfere with prices using a state mechanism, and that always fails I shall return to the Bill because I want to be brief and we have a lot of Bills to get through today, and, as I said, it is uncontroversial. In July 2013, the Energy and Climate Change Committee issued its report, "Energy Prices, Profits and Poverty", which said: "The main driver behind energy prices has been wholesale gas and electricity costs, but network charges, energy and climate change policies and company costs and profits also contribute. In future, DECC estimates that its energy and climate change policies will add 33% to the average electricity price paid by UK households in 2020, in addition to any potential wholesale price rises." That is worth hearing again: "In future, DECC estimates"—it must be right, because it is a Government estimate— "that its energy and climate change policies will add 33% to the average electricity price paid by UK households in 2020, in addition to any potential wholesale price rises." It also concluded that: "The increasing use of levies on bills to fund energy and climate change policies is problematic since it is likely to hit hardest those least able to pay. We note that public funding is less regressive than levies in this respect." The subsidies paid for by consumers are clearly generous, hence the clamour from developers to access them. As long ago as October 2013, an answer to a parliamentary question identified that the Government had hit their targets of 13 GW of production capacity from onshore wind by 2020, with 6.8 GW operational, 6.4 GW consented and 6.4 GW in the planning system. Furthermore, many will question why constraint payments are being made to generators in return for reducing output, as more electricity is being generated than can be used in particular regions because a grid constraint exists. If all that was not bad enough, the subsidies have also been geared up—this is almost unbelievable—in such a way that they will be paid over 25 years, even though, as Dr Gordon Hughes has found, "few wind farms will operate for more than 12-15 years." Therefore, they will operate for 12 to 15 years, but for a further 10 years they will receive subsidies for nothing Wind turbines are an expensive way of generating electricity and are clearly bad value for money. I go back to what the Leader of the Opposition said when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the last Labour Government: "Yes, there are upward pressures on energy bills, and that makes life difficult for people, including those in fuel poverty, but it is right that we go down the low-carbon energy route." In other words, he is quite happy for poor people to pay more for their energy because he thinks there is some good in the low-carbon energy route. We should not be so complacent and dismissive of the problem, and the idea that wind turbines are somehow green is stretching it somewhat too, considering the amount of carbon burnt in producing a single turbine, not to mention the amount of concrete poured into the ground to put it up Where are we now on this issue? As has been mentioned, the Labour and Liberal Democrat positions are absolutely clear: they want more onshore wind farms wherever they can have them. In contrast, I agree squarely with the Prime Minister, who has said: "I think the public are, frankly, fed up with so many wind farms being built that won’t be necessary. Now we’ve reached some 10 per cent of our electricity by onshore wind, we don’t need to have more of these subsidised onshore. So let’s get rid of the subsidy, put them into the planning system and, if they can make their case, they can make their case. I suspect they won’t."