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National Policy Statements (Energy)

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's interest and expertise in these matters. As he knows, we took on some of the work of his Administration by allocating an extra £1 billion for the first full-scale CCS project—the largest amount any Government anywhere in the world had given to a single project. Over recent weeks, we have been negotiating very carefully with the interested parties about how we can deliver what we want in terms of the knowledge transfer and output for the CCS project, based on what they believe is achievable for the funding. Those discussions are ongoing, and we hope that they will be brought to a conclusion with the first plant being operational by 2015. We have also said there will be three other projects, and we have evolved the policy we inherited from the previous Administration by saying that one of them should be on gas, in recognition of the long-term role gas is likely to play and the significant interest in this country in developing gas technologies. At a time when other Governments are slipping back their time scales for CCS, it is encouraging that the UK programme has been moving forward. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will warmly welcome that.