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UK Government's Energy Policy

I thank you, Mr Caton, for your chairmanship this afternoon. Once again, the Welsh Grand Committee has produced a varied and interesting debate on an area—energy—which is, principally, undevolved. It serves to highlight the importance of this Committee in the public life of Wales. I can assure the Committee that under the leadership of this Secretary of State, the Welsh Grand Committee will go from strength to strength. The opening speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State highlighted not only the challenges facing Wales and the country as a whole in terms of the need to de-carbonise and to provide reliable and secure sources of generation, but the opportunity that those challenges present to Wales. I have to confess to being somewhat disappointed by the response of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Neath. I will pass briefly over his predictably curmudgeonly remarks about the announcement of the electrification of the Great Western line into south Wales, which I would have thought was, in anyone’s terms, a good news story. I must express my surprise at the degree of opportunism when he referred to the increase in road fuel prices, which was remarkable even by his own standards. Of course fuel prices are high; we know that. There are a number of reasons for that. The principal one is the underlying price of oil. This morning, the price of Brent crude was trading at something like $115 a barrel. That is an increase of something like 35% over 12 months, and that is the main reason that fuel prices are so high.