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Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Most of the oil is coming south at the moment. If we are given all the oil, we will be delighted to take responsibility for it. A further problem relates to the five-year carbon budgets because it appears that we are missing any indication of what, if anything, will be done to get us on track if it seems that we are not making real progress towards the ultimate target. A five-year carbon budget period will last longer than one Parliament, which will make consistency much more difficult to achieve. We would have liked some more interim targets along the way. I reluctantly accept, I suppose, that strict annual targets may be too restrictive, but some mechanism is required to make sure that we are on target and can adjust if we are off-beam. Hon. Members have talked about ensuring joined-up government, and have mentioned the energy Bill. The hon. Member for Cambridge talked longingly of the Government giving up power in that area. One of the problems is that the climate change problem affects many Departments, and things are not necessarily joined-up. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) made a good point about the regulator; I have serious difficulties with the way in which Ofgem operates. The generation of electricity is obviously an important part of the climate change issue. Renewable energy will, as he rightly says, be a major issue in the coming years, in terms of combating climate change. Scotland has not only oil but massive potential for renewable energy, whether it be wind, wave, tidal, water or geothermal. You name it, Scotland has the potential for it. The problem is that it is becoming difficult for many renewable generators to get their energy to market. That is partly because there is a problem with the planning system; Scotland's system is separate from England's. There is a queue to link up to the grid, irrespective of how likely a person is to get planning permission for their development. That is one problem. Another problem is the way that Ofgem charges. I noted last week that Ofgem has issued a sustainability report and congratulates itself on its contribution to sustainability. I had to laugh a bit at that, because in Scotland the opposite is happening, as there is an unnatural obsession with locational pricing. That is undermining a great deal of potential renewable generation in north and west Scotland. I have often raised the matter in the Chamber with Department of Trade and Industry Ministers, but it is the first time that I have raised it with a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We will see whether we get a different response; I doubt it, somehow. The system is discriminatory, because it means that anyone generating electricity in the north of Scotland, far from the south of England, pays more to connect to the grid. Not content with that, Ofgem has now proposed introducing locational distribution pricing. Generators in more remote areas suffer the discrimination of paying more to link to the grid, but if the proposals go ahead, they will also face greater costs when transmitting their energy across the grid to the ultimate market, whether it be in another part of Scotland or south of the border. Frankly, that is madness, and it can only undermine the move towards cleaner and greener electricity. Rather than giving that power away to unelected quangos such as Ofgem, the Government should get a bigger grip, and make sure that we have a system that delivers the clean, green energy that we need. I have often mentioned the issue of carbon capture and storage, and the fact that a scheme was ready to go ahead in Peterhead but is basically now on hold because the Government decided to go down the road of a competition. That is missing an opportunity, and it is a pity that they did that. Time is running out, but I will make a couple of quick points about the marine Bill. We would all like a marine Bill to be introduced. There is particular interest in that in Scotland, not just from a marine environment point of view, but from a fishing point of view, as the Secretary of State may well be aware. We want to see how fishing will be treated in the Bill. A report this week showed that Scottish fishermen were the greenest in Europe. They have certainly come a long way to have a sustainable industry, and that should be reflected. There is also the issue of ship-to-ship transfers in the firth of Forth. The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment wrote to the Secretary of State about that on 7 September, and he still awaits a reply. That is an important issue concerning a practice that may endanger the natural environment in the Forth estuary. I ask the Secretary of State to consider the issue, and perhaps to take the matter up again. I have run out of time, so I shall end my remarks.