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UK Government's Energy Policy

I am going to make progress by not taking any more interventions. There is a big difference between the enthusiastic backing that I gave the project and the lukewarm and mean-minded ““if somebody comes forward”” attitude of the Secretary of State. The barrage is a unique opportunity to produce green energy and tackle climate change, create employment, safeguard people’s homes from rising water levels, and protect and promote indigenous wildlife and biodiversity. I ask the Secretary of State to lead within Government on the case for them to change their stance and back the barrage. Sadly, the Government’s commitment to combating climate change has also been discredited by a series of decisions to review or cancel existing schemes that were working effectively and successfully. For example, as has been mentioned, the Secretary of State for Environment and Climate Change recently announced a review of the feed-in tariff system introduced by our Labour Government, even though it has resulted in 21,000 new solar energy installations throughout the UK—14,000 of them in individual homes—because people are rightly concerned about the enormous dangers of climate change and want to do their bit, which brings the big society to mind. This was an industry that was beginning to thrive. It is estimated that more than 17,000 jobs will be created in the solar installation sector in 2011, including in Wales, but only if the feed-in tariff system is not cut. Howard Johns, chairman of the Solar Trade Association says that this is ““threatening investment and jobs in the sector””. Solarcentury executive chairman Jeremy Leggett agrees, and he condemned the review as ““the very worst kind of knee-jerk policy response”” that ““has done enormous damage to our trust in the new Government and its ability to work with this sector constructively to deliver a positive way forward””. That deterioration in trust is already affecting investment and staff recruitment decisions by companies in the sector, yet it is exactly such investment in the new jobs of the future that will help to turn around this Government’s dismal growth record, reduce the deficit and help to generate new growth on a sustainable basis. The Energy Island project in Anglesey is in the same position. The potential of the island’s tidal power has been explored, along with the land that is available for the manufacture and maintenance of wind turbines offshore in the Irish sea. With some UK Government investment in new infrastructure, as Labour was planning with our £60 million fund, Anglesey could becoming a leading force in renewable energy production and servicing, attracting thousands of new jobs for the future, as I saw early last year on a visit, as Secretary of State for Wales, to Bremerhaven in northern Germany—an old and declining port that has been turned into a thriving hub for the new, huge, multibillion-euro offshore wind industry, with new jobs and prosperity, backed by the Government, not ignored by the Government, as is happening here. It is high time that the Government got real on green energy and abandoned their anti-jobs, anti-growth dogma by investing for the future.