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Proceeding contribution from Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 1 December 2010. It occurred during Debate on National Policy Statements.


National Policy Statements

I can give the hon. Gentleman a guarantee that we are committed to assisting the Government to deliver this, but to ignore the potential scenarios of not making good in any one of these areas would be to bury our head in the sand. There are real concerns that there could be delays in one of these areas, and if that were to happen, we, as a constructive Opposition would have to work jointly with the Government to fathom a way in which we could still deliver de-carbonised energy, hit our carbon reduction targets and deliver energy security and affordable energy. I have not even touched on the issues of the green deal and the green investment bank that were raised by other Members earlier. That is why we need to see the Government's working assumptions, the detail behind the Minister's development of these NPSs and, as soon as possible, the proposals for electricity market reform. I am pleased that the Minister is talking a lot about the intentions behind the NPSs, but we are really up against time. I know that he will once again stand up and say that that is all the fault of the previous Administration, but actually it was the previous Administration who put in the foundations for what the coalition Government are now rightly taking forward. We will look to the Government to make good, and we will be constructive in helping them, but the House and the Energy and Climate Change Committee need to be able to wrestle with the facts as well as with the broad thrust of the statements. I have spoken longer than I intended to, and I look forward to hearing the comments of other Members.


Secondary information

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
519 c913-4 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Consumption Energy Electricity generation Energy supply Infrastructure Heating Oil Planning Natural gas Nuclear power Power stations Pollution control Policy Renewable energy National policy statements Sheffield Forgemasters
Link
View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk