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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 2)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those questions, but we are not going to cap any source of energy. That would be entirely the wrong thing to do, and completely incompatible with the fundamental features of our energy market. The question of carbon capture is especially pertinent in relation to the future of gas and coal, and all hon. Members should take some pride in the fact that the UK is the only member of the EU that is committed to a carbon capture and storage demonstration project on a commercial scale. I hope that other countries will make a similar commitment so that we can look at a range of technologies—including post-combustion, pre-combustion, oxy fuel, coal and gas—that could begin to make a significant difference. Taking CCS out of the equation would cause a problem on a global scale when it comes to dealing with climate change. Estimates made by the International Energy Agency, the Stern review and others show that as much as a third of our total global carbon mitigation strategy will depend on CCS technology. So my answer to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) is that we should not set about the problem by capping energy sources but that we should maximise the energy that we get from renewable sources, and the EU has proposals to that end. In addition, I think that we should look at nuclear, and the Government have made our position clear on that. Finally, gas and coal will be part of our energy mix for some considerable time, and CCS will be an important way to make sure that those energy sources do not make matters worse. However, I do not believe that placing caps on individual energy sources is the right thing to do.