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Energy Bill

I welcome the inclusion in the Bill of the renewable heat incentive and support amendment (a), which, again, tries to set a timetable. I will not repeat all the points that were made on the timetabling of the feed-in tariff, but they apply in precisely the same way. The Minister may well say that this is a much more embryonic thing and that it has been subject to less thought, less discussion and so on. I understand that point, but an explanation would be helpful to those in the outside world who watch these debates—I imagine that someone does—and who might like to know the direction of the Government's thinking. I certainly realise that I am very hazy about what the renewable heat incentive might look like. I was trying to probe that a bit in the debate on the ways and means resolution. If I install some sort of renewable heat project, I can expect some sort of financial return. I am slightly hazy about what and how much it might be and so on. My understanding of the Government's thinking from the ways and means resolution is that the scheme will probably be funded by a levy on the energy companies and fossil fuel generators. Essentially, Ofgem would introduce a levy and take money from the generators. That money would presumably go to the Treasury and become a Government grant to renewable heat producers. If the Department already knows that that is roughly the model that it is considering, it would help those in the world outside who might be thinking of going into such things to understand what sort of support they might get, just in very broad terms. I understand that the Minister does not yet know the detail. Again, on timing, as the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) says, we are talking about something that is a huge part of our overall energy mix and that could be a big part of our renewable energy targets by 2020. According to figures from the National Grid Company which I am sure the Minister has seen, in what might be described as a ““stretch scenario””, an amount approaching 10 per cent. of our 15 per cent. target for 2020 could come from renewable heat, gas on the grid and the like. The scope for that seems enormous. Given that, as the Minister said, 2020 is only a little over 11 years away, it is worrying that Lord Hunt was so vague about how long all this would take. It would be very worrying if there were any unnecessary delay. I hope that the measure can be introduced at the earliest possible opportunity, but failing that, I hope that the Minister will paint even the most broad-brush picture showing what a scheme of this kind would look like.