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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) because, apart from the fact that I have no confidence in the Government, his speech contained little of substance with which I disagree. The Government's attitude to new clauses 10 and 11 demonstrates their attitude to the Bill. They resolve to be good, but not yet. We must therefore consider the direction of travel on the consumption of fossil fuels, of which the three main ones are gas, coal and oil. The Government clearly want more oil burned every year. The Prime Minister said that—at column 33 of last Monday's Hansard. Tonight, we had confirmation that the Government's objective is to build some nice new coal power stations. The second law of thermodynamics constrains the energy efficiency, but the Government are saying that the power stations will not be carbon capture systems and that we will simply emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Those power stations may be more efficient because the engines are better designed, but the Government do not intend to try to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted. That leaves gas. If we are going to burn more oil, more coal and, one therefore presumes, more gas, we are not going in the direction of reducing carbon emissions. The reality is that we have to start somewhere. At some point, we have to say, ““We're going to reduce carbon emissions, so we don't need more oil, more coal or more gas,”” and we should have a strategy for that. It may take time to change direction, but we cannot have constant increases in oil supplies, which is what the Prime Minister says we require. All our constituents are crying out about the increasing costs of energy. I happen to take the view that the UK has gone far too far down the free market route and that the European model is far better, which is not necessarily something on which I am 100 per cent. aligned with my party. The green new deal is an option. We have managed to find £50 billion for the banks, but what about £50 billion to sort out the energy intensity of gross domestic product? That should not necessarily be the precise figure of course, but the principle that we should invest in energy efficiency to reduce the amount of energy used and, by reducing demand, thus reduce prices must be the way forward. New clause 10 basically says, ““Let's get on with it and do something,”” but the Government do not want to know, while new clause 11 would introduce a permissive power. I accept that ““may”” in new clause 11 should be ““shall””, but the Government do not even want that. They have therefore taken a very clear view: they are in favour of being good, but not yet.