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Energy Security

No, I will not give way. According to a recent written answer, the Government expect to build another 500 million cubic metres of capacity by 2012—another two days' worth of additional storage. Will the Secretary of State stand up in the House and claim that that is an adequate rate of increase? Perhaps we should all cross our fingers and hope that we will not have another winter like this one. I want to give time for my hon. Friends and hon. Members from all parties to contribute to this debate. Making up for the lost opportunities of a wasted decade will take some time. However, we must move forward with a sense of urgency. The issue is about not only catching up with the past but getting ready for a future in which the global production of fossil fuels—especially oil production, on which our transport systems are almost entirely dependent—will come under increasing strain. Mainstream voices, including oil industry chief executives, and even Ministers from nations belonging to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, have already warned that the age of easy oil is over. The International Energy Agency has said that it expects crude oil production to level off by 2030. In Britain, the UK Energy Research Centre, a joint initiative of the leading research councils, with which the Secretary of State will be familiar, has said that we could hit that limit by 2020. When asked what contingency plans they had for such an eventuality, the UK Government said that they did not have any because they did not think the situation was that urgent. That answer should fill us with dread, but it is one that we have heard time after time. It is symptomatic of an attitude that in the past has been complacent and has not involved the action that we could have foreseen was needed. It explains, among other things, why we do not have enough gas storage capacity. It also explains why we do not have an adequate margin of generating capacity for electricity in this country and why we have not made sufficient progress on carbon capture and storage, nuclear and renewable energy. It is why we are wasting the chance to insulate our homes and stop wasting energy; we may discuss that issue later in the debate. We need a policy for generating energy, not excuses. We need to rebuild the security of our energy systems and infrastructure with significantly higher levels of gas storage. On electricity generation, the Government must make it crystal clear that a collapsing margin of supply over demand is in no way acceptable. If current trading arrangements cannot guarantee that the lights will stay on, those arrangements must be reformed. That means unblocking progress across the broadest possible spectrum of energy uses. That is why we welcome the Government's national planning statements on nuclear, renewables and other key technologies, but it is also why we believe that they should be ratified by a vote of Parliament, to protect them against the threat of judicial review, which could delay progress for even more years. We also, of course, need to build the enabling infrastructure for those technologies—for instance, the smart meters in our homes, an offshore grid for renewables and pipelines for carbon capture and storage. Continued delay and uncertainty on these vital networks will cost us dear as investors turn to other countries while Britain is left behind. Finally, if we are serious about reducing demand, we must act to make sure that, as we go further into a winter during which fuel poverty is rising, we make it easy for people to find ways to make fuel consumption in their homes more modest and efficient. In place of unwanted light bulbs, we need a green deal to make a real difference to our energy bills and a real contribution to our energy security. The solutions to our energy crisis are within our reach. All that we need is a Government with the vision, the will and, dare I say it, the energy to make things happen.