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Energy Bill

The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) is right to suggest that we need leadership from the Minister and the Government, because we are simply not getting it. The Minister says that he is weighing up the costs and the benefits, but I can tell him that the costs are the subsidies involved, and that the benefit is that microproducers will be encouraged to take energy production seriously. The Government need to lead on this, because otherwise we will fall behind other countries just as we have already fallen behind Germany.