---

Energy Security

Of course I will not apologise. I think that if there is one significant threat to the country's energy security, it is the possibility that the complacent approach of the hon. Gentleman's party will be adopted by others. I think he should listen to the counsel of his colleague the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), who has taken a long-standing interest in this problem and has repeatedly urged us to act on it. As he believes this is an urgent issue, I assume he thinks we should increase the amount of capacity we have. The fact is that, at the best of times, we currently have 16 days' worth of storage capacity, whereas France has 120 and Germany has 100. Therefore, apart from the Liberal Democrats, I do not think anyone believes the amount that we have is adequate; and, of course, when we have high winter demand, such as we saw recently, that maximum level of 16 days becomes much less. One problem is that the concentration of our storage capacity at present means that it is difficult to withdraw it from storage at the rate that we could use it in cold snaps such as the current one. Therefore, as well as a greater increase in the number of days of storage, we need greater diversity so we can get it into the system more quickly.