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Security of Supply

I shall begin where the Secretary of State began. He pointed out that electricity generation in this country is divided among a number of diverse sources, 40 per cent. being provided by gas, 33 per cent. by coal, 20 per cent. by nuclear power, perhaps 4 per cent. by renewables and a little by oil. That diversity provides some security, which I feel should be the nub of the argument. Nevertheless, enormous pressures are building up which will have an impact on the energy market. The International Energy Agency has said that over the next 30 years the demand for energy will increase by about 1.7 per cent. per annum. That increase will bring about new build of power stations. In Europe alone we will require 130 GW of energy replacement and new energy. Let me give the House an idea of how much that is. Drax power station, which is the largest power station in Europe, is 4 GW, so we will need to build a lot of Draxes to meet an energy demand of 130 GW over the next 30-odd years. The point has been forcefully made that in moving over to gas, the threat is that we could become over-dependent on it. Gas is currently scarce, and we know that some 400 million cu m of gas is used daily. The Secretary of State said that we can meet likely demand this winter, and we know that gas supply is likely to increase when the Norwegian interconnector is through. In fact, as a result there is likely to be a 28 per cent. increase.