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Energy Bill

I would be very careful what I would ever say about our regulators; I think that the regulators that we have in this country are superb, and I am very proud of the independence that they have been able to maintain, with fights along the way at times. Our civil servants are as good as the instructions that they are given, and that has always been the case, whether it is my party, the noble Lord's party, or anyone else's in government. I apologise for not having declared an interest in that I helped to establish and served for two years on the balancing and settlement code for electricity, so I know a bit about how much the price can go up when someone gets killed on ““Coronation Street”” and you move into strike prices. The noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, has come up with the idea of capacity payments. It is another idea and another way of looking at these things. At this stage, although there is nothing else that I can do, I can at least say that I will be very keen to return to this on Report to see what the Government have come up with, having listened to the debates as we go forward. I thank all noble Lords who have given me more information to work on. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 4 [Licences]: