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Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2011

My Lords, we have heard two very eloquent extremes of attitude. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, as always, comes from a standpoint of his concern about onshore wind, which obviously we respect. It is very much for the local communities themselves to establish whether this is the right option for them. Clearly, in Cornwall, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, with two stoves in his home—I think he will be known as ““two-stoves Teverson”” from now on—would obviously welcome onshore wind in the neighbourhood. I can only imagine that up on the Solway Firth, that glorious Turner landscape, the noble Lord, Lord Reay, would not. The principle point here in terms of wind and alternative energy sources is that we have to deliver energy security for this country. I do not think anyone would doubt that, given the fluctuation in oil prices at the moment and the reduction in our North Sea capability. Renewables have to play a fundamental part if we are to achieve our 2050 pathway, which shows that, for more than double the amount of electricity required, we need energy and electricity from all sources. That is what the Government are setting out to do. The ROC programme pump-primes the renewable generation which is so important. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, asked some extremely valuable questions: for example, what is the present installed capacity for accredited offshore wind turbines? I can confirm to him that it is 1.32 gigawatts of offshore, which is the amount accredited under the RO. ROCs are eligible on generation only when the turbine is generating, which is when they are paid. We hope that that is good news and that we are not just throwing money at them, particularly, as the noble Lord points out, when they are not generating. In terms of the aggregate subsidy that is guaranteed over the next 20 years, that requires quite a lot of predictive analysis which we are working on as a department, as the noble Lord would expect. I would like to provide him with that information later, if he does not mind, but the current cost of the ROC system of subsidy for 2009-10 was in fact £1.1 billion—I think that the noble Lord said £1.4 billion—of which £142 million rather than £200 million was provided for offshore. The figures are not readily available for future years. Another question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, was: what percentage of electricity was generated at present by offshore wind? I cannot tell him what it is at present, but in 2009 it was 0.5 per cent and that is going up exponentially as a number of offshore wind turbines are installed. As an aside to the excellent defensive points made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, it is quite interesting that in our manifesto document, for example, we were against the importation of wood for these purposes but were told by the World Trade Organisation that we could not possibly do that. I know that the Liberal Democrat manifesto differed from ours, so we can see immediately the benefits of this great coalition. I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, supports this order. He asked whether we should be extending it to wave and other forms of marine activity. We should of course be reviewing that and I am grateful that he pointed that out. A lot of the work we are doing here is building on some of the activity that the previous Government carried out. He asked about the devolved Administrations and, as noble Lords would expect, we are on a very similar footing with them. As I pointed out, they make independent decisions but we have very good relationships across the piece, for which I am grateful to our officials. There is very little that can be put between us. The noble Lord also asked who was in favour and who wanted us to go further, or not as far. It would be wrong to go through the list of people on one side or the other, so suffice to say that, as with most of us in this Room, broad agreement was achieved in getting to this. Clearly, some would have wanted us to go much further and others would not but that is what is done in consultation. We are permanently consulting in our department on the activity that goes on. We seem to be doing it every day. The certainty of the sustainability criteria is absolutely fundamental and I am so grateful to the noble Lord for bringing up that point. I hope that that deals with the substance of the questions and that this statutory instrument finds favour with the Committee. Motion agreed.