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Energy Bill

The hon. Gentleman is right, and his comments allow me to come to the final part of my tributes to those who have brought us to our current position, by paying tribute to the new Secretary of State, because it is fair to say that the lead he has given is what has transformed the agenda. We are right to have tabled today's amendments, which require any feed-in tariff scheme to include a precise timetable for its introduction and to be precise about the technologies that will be incorporated and the different tariffs that will apply both to the technologies and the scale of the technologies. On a personal level, every time I had to bang on the Secretary of State's door about getting things right, I did not find the difficulties or hostility that we faced little more than a year ago. It is important that the House recognises the way in which the goalposts have shifted in the debate. It was not too long ago that the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform issued an internal briefing paper whose whole approach was hostile to feed-in tariffs, dogmatically repeating a mantra that the renewables obligation delivered all the answers and that feed-in tariffs would be a distraction. The Secretary of State grabbed the process by the scruff of the neck and gave it a shake. He saw that there was nothing in that argument, and he came to the House to make a commitment to introduce a feed-in tariff regime in the UK; his role that should be recognised. I am sure that the Secretary of State will not parade any of the bruises or scars that he has acquired in introducing his proposals on the threshold for feed-in tariffs. It is fair to say that behind the scenes there was enormous hostile opposition to the shift from the previous position to where the Secretary of State—and, I hope, the whole House—intends to take us.