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Energy Security

I can give the hon. Gentleman—my friend—an honest answer to his first question. No, I cannot explain that, and I am not going to try. It seems to me that, in retrospect if not in advance, it was clearly a good idea. I have certainly never opposed it, and nor have my colleagues on the Front Bench. We live in a changing energy world involving different sorts of imports and different sorts of access to imports, and—again, the Government have understood this—new sources are likely to come on-stream. Last Friday's announcement by the Government about offshore wind was extremely welcome, and, as has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), we have a fantastic opportunity to achieve world leadership in tidal power in the Pentland Firth. If that opportunity were developed to the full, this country could have the capacity for the most resource from tidal power anywhere in the world, not just for our own use but also for export purposes. The Liberal Democrats do not believe that we need the nuclear option as part of the energy security mix. That is a known position, although obviously there are differences of view in our party as in others. Our belief is based not least on evidence that in other countries nuclear is normally, if not always, delivered late and very expensively, and that the same would be the case if it were developed again in this country. I have to say that I still do not understand the Conservatives' position on the nuclear industry. It appears to be supportive when we listen to some Conservative Front Benchers, but entirely opposed when we listen to their environmental and energy advisers. No doubt the Conservatives' position would be equally complicated if they were to gain any form of majority after the next election. We are certain that microgeneration will also add to our capacity. It is small at the moment, but there is a consensus that it has huge potential. I believe that if the Government had an appropriate feed-in tariff they could encourage microgeneration, and we hope that that will happen. The other side of the equation is that the energy security issue would have been much better addressed had the Government succeeded in the area in which I believe they have failed most. They have not helped people to reduce their demand and need for energy. The fact is that 99 per cent. of homes are not properly insulated to independently established standards. Despite all the protestations, we do not yet have a comprehensive scheme for warm homes in our country. We know what a great difference proper insulation would make, yet the Government have failed abysmally on a measure that my party has been arguing for 25 years is the most important way in which we can become more energy efficient, because reductions in demand and consumption have as great a part to play as anything else. Gearóid Lane is managing director of British Gas communities and new energy, and the following quotation is taken from an article he wrote for this month's Parliamentary Brief:""We have just completed what we believe to be the largest ever piece of customer energy consumption research, analysing 64 million meter readings between 2006 and 2008 and correlating consumption savings with actions customers have taken to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. For example, after separating out the impact of price and weather, our data shows a reduction in gas consumption of 18 per cent. for the customers every year for whom we install insulation, and a 21 per cent. fall in gas consumption for the 100,000 customers every year for whom we install a new boiler."" The real prize in energy efficiency—and thus in reduction in consumption—will be won if all our homes, schools, hospitals and industrial and commercial buildings are properly insulated and we did not waste so much of the energy that we consume. That is where the Government have failed most, because we still have a very partial, piecemeal and inadequate programme for achieving those goals. Obviously, we are always going to be interdependent with other countries around us and throughout the rest of the world. Our energy security is dependent on what happens in the rest of the world, and, sadly, there have been some disastrous actions in recent years. The invasion of Iraq has been harmful in this regard, as it had a knock-on effect on energy supplies; oil production in Iraq is now up, but not up to pre-war levels. There is also a lack of support, certainly from the Conservative party, for a European energy policy co-ordinated in such a way as to bring us all together. From what I have heard from the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, his party's ideas are entirely inappropriate to meet the challenges of the next decades. The Liberal Democrats believe we need not only to be firm in dealing with emissions and climate change, because we must have a zero-emissions policy and a carbon neutral, or zero-carbon, future, but to have an integrated European future. If we are really going to achieve energy security, we not only have to produce as much of our own energy as possible, but we have to be enthusiastic leaders in the campaign for a European supergrid so that the energy produced throughout Europe—whether from solar power in the Mediterranean, hydroelectric power in Norway, tidal power in Scotland, or renewables throughout our country—can be shared to give us all collective security. The UK should aim to be more energy independent, but the best security for all of us is for the whole of Europe to become energy self-sufficient. That is what will give us the security we need. If the Conservative party were a bit more enthusiastic about Europe in this context, that might give consumers and industry a little more hope of the prospect of a secure future if—although I do not think this will happen—it were to form the Government in the near future.