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Security of Supply

At the current time, we do not believe that it would make sense to invest in nuclear power stations, because we do not want to waste large sums of consumers’ and taxpayers’ money when there are better options. We do not want the environmental impacts, security concerns and terrorist risks that nuclear power could offer this country. A new generation of nuclear power stations is not the right solution, because we should not produce more waste when we do not have a proper solution to the current problem. The skills developed in the hostile environment of the North sea have a lot to offer the marine renewables sector. Biomass is a major renewable that also has a lot to offer: our rural economy is currently going through major change, and given what has happened to farming and forestry, the new markets that biomass could produce would benefit our rural economy, our security of supply and our environment. Gas is in the headlines but high oil prices also hit sectors of our economy that do not have access to gas. Farming, contracting, fishing and transport as well as domestic and industrial heating away from the gas main suffer from high oil prices. Perhaps the Minister could expand in his winding-up speech on how the European Union dialogue with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is progressing on tackling long-term stability through exploring and producing enough oil from OPEC to stabilise world oil prices. People say that we should not depend on the rest of the world but we cannot escape the fact that we live in an interdependent world. The Secretary of State mentioned the G8 and what we are trying to achieve at the World Trade Organisation. It is crucial that we do not allow protectionism and do not accept the argument that the national interest would be best served by cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world. The only way to protect ourselves from global forces and world markets is to ensure that they operate efficiently and effectively. We cannot run away from them; they will have an impact on us, no matter how much we try to be self sufficient. The Government need to redouble their efforts on energy liberalisation and ensure that their proposals for storage capacity stabilise the market. In the long-term, we need to use our scarce energy resources with greater efficiency, make full use of our potential to capture carbon and unlock the renewable resources that nature has given us.