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Energy Bill

It is exactly that side of the equation that I am asking the Secretary of State to express clearly, as it is no good having a Bill without the commercial apparatus necessary to go along with it to make it happen. That brings me to the Government's failure to take the opportunity to introduce new legislation to address the whole range of energy issues that are of paramount importance to the United Kingdom. We face an extremely difficult period both in retaining our capacity at a time when we will require a new 35 GW of electricity and in boosting our green industries in order to meet the 15 per cent. renewable energy target that the EU has imposed. The Government's refusal to take action on the less traditional approaches, particularly on feed-in tariffs, which they have just voted down for microgeneration, will only make life more difficult for them. I imagine that the issue has not gone away and that the other place will want to discuss it in detail and perhaps send the matter back to us. I am glad, however, that the Government have partly seen sense on smart metering, but they are still being timid and I simply do not understand why they wish to play it that way. By far the most glaring omission has been on energy efficiency measures to attack the scourge of fuel poverty. That, I think, will be seen in future as a great lost opportunity.