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Department of Energy and Climate Change

I warmly welcome the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and welcome him personally—along with his ministerial colleagues—to the Front Bench. I also welcome him to the Dispatch Box, where he appears for the first time in his new post. The Secretary of State is widely regarded as one of the most personable, thoughtful and respected members of the Government. Our debates have always been civilised and productive, and it is certainly my intention that our exchanges on this most important issue for our country's future should remain so. I thank him for allowing early sight of his statement—although not quite as early as that secured by The Guardian and the Politics Home website, which published most of the statement this morning. I remind him that the true home of politics in this country is Parliament, and that it should have been through Parliament that the statement was first released. But, for all that, we welcome it. Conservative Members agree that the choice between ambitious and progressive action on carbon reduction and a successful, powerful economy is, in fact, not a choice at all—they are one and the same. Without decisive action, there is a risk that climate change will leach away huge resources from this country and every other nation on earth. The economic events of recent days have proved that catastrophic risk must be acted on rather than wished away. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge, however, that we start from a position of disadvantage? There has been a decade-long void in the Government's policy on energy, in which successive Ministers have looked the other way rather than addressing the issue of our future energy needs. Does the Secretary of State accept that to the intrinsic difficulties of making choices on energy have been added the consequences of a decade of indecision? It was Conservative Members who first called on the Government to publish the Climate Change Bill, which we have sought to strengthen through scrutiny in this and another place. We have been called here today for the Secretary of State to announce a new target, but does he share his predecessor's view that the Government are unlikely to meet their 2010 target of a 20 per cent. cut in emissions, despite three successive manifesto pledges? We support his acceptance of the Climate Change Committee's target of 80 per cent.—we have always said that we should be guided by the science on that—but, as he knows, eight years ago 60 per cent. was considered to be the right target. Does he agree that the committee should keep the target under constant review, and that if the advice changes, so must the target? Does the Secretary of State share our view that the move to decarbonise our economy should involve leading the way in new technology and practices at home, rather than simply buying in permits from other countries? If he agrees with that, does he also agree that the Climate Change Committee should advise on the right balance between domestic and traded reductions? Does he accept that his predecessors have been paying lip service to carbon capture and storage without decisive action? Will he commit himself to our policy of funding at least three CCS demonstration projects, so that Britain can lead the world in this vital technology? If the Secretary of State is serious about decarbonising our economy, will he give us a guarantee by adopting our emissions performance standard, whereby no plant will be licensed if its emissions are worse than those of a modern gas-powered station? Will he acknowledge that decentralised generation offers a vital way for our citizens to cut their fuel bills and emissions, and inject greater resilience into our energy supply? I welcome his belated acceptance of our case for feed-in tariffs for micro and small-scale generation; however, it is regrettable that his statement appeared to contain nothing about tariffs for renewable heat and gas. Will he also now recognise the case for smart metering, which will enable customers to profit from microgeneration? Finally, will he tell us how many vulnerable people he now expects to be in fuel poverty by 2010, the date by which the Government have committed themselves to eradicating it? Gas customers without pre-payment meters pay up to 40 per cent. more than those using online direct debits and, according to Ofgem, the cheapest online offers may be below cost—in other words, the poorest are subsidising the well-off. We look to the Secretary of State to act through his conversations with Ofgem and the companies, so that the poorest get the most help, not the least. We welcome the measures that the Secretary of State has proposed today but, as with our public finances and our financial system, on energy and climate change, we are hobbled by—how would his friend the Prime Minister put it?—a decade of irresponsibility. Britain cannot afford the years ahead to be wasted like the years that have passed. ...Both.