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Energy Regulations (Consumer Prices)

That is a good point, which I intend to discuss later. There are windfall taxes, although we do not call them that any more, such as the petroleum revenue tax. Other countries are doing that. Spain is trying to retrieve some of the windfall from the European trading certificates, although I do not know what mechanism it is using. It may be similar to that which the hon. Gentleman describes. My next set of questions is about what the Government could or should be doing regarding other aspects of energy costs, starting with gas storage. An odd feature of Britain is that we have low levels of gas storage in comparison with other EU countries. I think that the figure is still five days, as opposed to more than 50, but it might have changed. We have one major storage at the Rough field, going back to the 1980s. In a world in which prices are volatile and a lot of imports are increasingly required, storage becomes important to even out booms and busts in prices, so why is ours so low? Could anything be done about it? As someone who came out of the oil industry, it puzzles me that we have a mandated strategic reserve for oil—under an international agreement, companies have to provide a strategic reserve—but none for gas. Gas affects households and industry as opposed to just transport, so it is just as strategic as oil, so why do we take a different approach to it? Is there anything stopping the Government from having such a policy? Does it have to be done internationally? Could it be done domestically? What are the practicalities of doing that? Surely, if we are interested in having greater stability of gas prices, that is one way of doing it. My second question relates specifically to diversity of supplies. A recent and, indeed, welcome development is that instead of being dependent on the end of the pipe from the interconnector, Britain now has alternative liquefied natural gas supplies coming in by boat. There have been delays—the Milford Haven problems are well known—but there is a question that I find difficult to answer. Perhaps the Minister knows the answer. Why is the existing Isle of Grain port so underutilised? Apparently, it is only about 50 per cent. utilised, yet if there were a big burst in domestic prices, one would expect, in a market, that liquid gas would come into the country. A possible explanation is that the Isle of Grain is a BP project and is therefore run in the wider interests of BP. There is nothing wrong with that, but the Government chose not to require third-party access, which would have brought in more competition, enabled more suppliers to make use of the port, and helped to stabilise the market. Why has that not happened, and is it possible to rectify the situation? Another question under this heading relates to the European Union. We know the well-rehearsed arguments about the malfunctioning of the European gas market in particular, and the link to oil prices, which is a linkage that should not occur, but the practical question is whether anything can be done about it. We all know about EU lack of liberalisation, but where are we on rectifying it? I understand that legislation has been promised by the end of next year that will, in effect, change the market for the better. Can the Minister update us on his assessment of the realism of that time horizon, and whether the legislation will actually make a difference?