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Energy: Feed-in Tariffs

As always, my noble friend Lord Teverson is well informed about these matters and I am grateful for his broadly supportive comments. I totally agree and accept that the confidence of the investor is paramount. However, put yourself in the position of the Government. We inherited a scheme of feed-in tariffs that did not consider the fact that the more solar panels that are bought, the cheaper they become, as illustrated by this argument; and that a pot of money is available to support this scheme, which becomes a scheme for which the IRR is way beyond most people’s dreams and beyond what is reasonable for consumers. At some point, a decision has to be made to say stop or pause or to take action. That is broadly the step that we have taken on this. I wholly agree that getting future investment and the infrastructure of this country right is fundamental, but we have to get that right against the backcloth of heavy lifters in the game changes for the electricity supply. As I have already indicated, I do not believe that the 0.1 per cent, or the £3.2 billion that we will have saved the consumer, is the right change of game plan for electricity in this country.