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Energy Bill

I thank the Minister for his efforts in putting an ““unputable”” case. It must be extremely difficult for a man like him, with his experience, to have to stand up and spout such a load of rubbish in the face of what it is patently obvious we should be doing. Of course at this stage I am going to withdraw the amendment; we are in the Moses Room and I have no choice. And of course the amendment I put down was not appropriate; I said that at the beginning and at the end. I know that the Government are worried sick about costs; of course they are. We are all worried about the costs of our energy. How did we ever get ourselves into a position where we have to buy so much of our energy from everywhere else in the world? But we are where we are, and we have to think of as many ways as we can to get ourselves going again. The Minister says we cannot ignore the cost to consumers, but the cost to consumers for our energy today is huge. It is not an easy time for any of us. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam, Lord Teverson, Lord Whitty and Lord Campbell-Savours, who have had to stand up and support a Conservative amendment. But it is not a Conservative amendment as such because a similar amendment was proposed by a Labour MP in the other place, and attracted huge support from all around that House. The Minister must know that when we come back with this, as we most surely will on Report, a great many other Peers will rally to the cause. We are looking for advantages for this country and for its citizens. We have heard some wonderful things today, such as ““masters of their own energy fate””. That is a wonderful statement. ““Mobilise the little platoons””, said the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, talked about pump-priming at microgeneration level. These are wonderful things; there is great excitement in this and great feeling that people can take part and do something for themselves and not just feel victims. Old people, going towards the winter, sitting there in the dark and not turning the fire on—we need something that will give people courage and confidence. I should like to give our Government courage and confidence, I really would. At this moment I can say only two things: first, we would like to send once again our sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord Jones. Yet again our Minister of State is not here and I understand will not be here with us again next week, for our two days of debate. I know that he is not well; it is fortunate that he is not here today, or he would be putting his head under the covers while listening to this debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Schedule 2 agreed to.