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Energy Bill

May I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) on the work that he has done on this matter? The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) was completely right to draw attention to the fact that, in his very modest way, the hon. Member for Nottingham, South had left himself off the long list of people to be congratulated, but it is genuinely the case that without him and his drive, commitment and willingness to work with others we would not be where we are today. I also join the hon. Member for Nottingham, South in paying tribute to organisations such as Friends of the Earth for the very constructive way in which they have engaged in the debate. They have put a tremendous amount of work and detail into arguing the case, and it is absolutely appropriate that they should be thanked as well. I hope that the Government might be willing to go a little further than they have so far. We are very grateful indeed for their agreeing to put feed-in tariffs into the Bill, and I hope that they will find it in their heart to accept the amendments before us today. I somehow suspect that they might not, but nevertheless I hope that they can be persuaded in the course of the debate. I think that we now have 95 per cent. of what is needed, and we just need that other 5 per cent. of detail to reassure people about exactly what direction the feed-in tariffs are going in and what they will deliver. Initially, of course, the Government rejected the concept of the feed-in tariff, but they were subsequently prepared to accept it as we went into the Bill. However, it was clear all along that there was tremendous agreement and support for the principle among the non-governmental organisations, Members of Parliament on both sides of the House and their lordships. If we had had the Government's agreement earlier, we would be further down the line and it might have been possible to introduce feed-in tariffs within a year of the Bill getting Royal Assent, which I assume will be in the next few days. Some of the work could have been done earlier, but we are where we are. As I say, the Government could have done more, and we would have been willing to assist them. As far as the consultation is concerned, I think that it should be possible in some cases to lock the people involved in a room and say, ““You're not coming out till you've agreed on the terms.”” That could apply to some aspects of smart metering as well. It is all very well to say to people that we need months and months to talk through the detail, but if they realised that they were not going home to see their wives and kids at the weekend until they had worked out the detail, I think that we would have agreement on these matters pretty soon. A greater degree of urgency would be welcome.