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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

Once again, my right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am always very sceptical about what comes from quangos. However, I also believe that it is important that we listen and then, having listened to whatever outside parties are involved, we reach our own conclusions and judgments. So having listened and read probably in a far more limited way than my right hon. Friend—I am sure that, as a much more learned Member, he has done much more work on this—I have reached my own conclusions, which I am presenting to the House today. We must be conscious that not all fiscal incentives are so easy to understand. Clause 3 will require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to publish a strategy for fiscal and economic measures that will assist micro-generation and energy efficiency. The concern must be that the Chancellor’s fascination with Gordian taxation schemes will run amok once again. An incentive is of no use if it cannot be readily appreciated as such by those people whom it exists to try to benefit. The danger is surely that the Bill will be railroaded into becoming yet another excuse for increased regulatory burdens in return for obscure tax credits.