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Electricity Market Reform

With your permission, Mr Havard, I will comment briefly on what has been said. As the Minister has said, it has been another debate that could easily have gone on for longer, which is a tribute to the well-informed contributions. I want to thank my Select Committee colleagues, the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) and for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), who have made useful comments this afternoon. They are also both exceptionally knowledgeable and experienced in these issues. As far as I am concerned, it makes the work of the Committee a pleasure, as well as often being intellectually stimulating. I think that we can continue to prosper together in addressing these issues. I was also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) for mentioning the position of energy-intensive industries, which is a real issue. I know that Ministers have confirmed on this and other occasions that it is very much in their minds. One of the things that we do not want to do in our determination to make Britain one of the leaders in moving towards a lower carbon economy is to destroy the competitive position of successful British businesses. That is a tricky balance to strike, and it will need continued attention. Many points have been raised, and I will not comment on them all. I fully accept what the Minister has said about the potential conflict between a long-term tightening emissions performance standard and my suggestion that we might see significant investment in gas-fired capacity in the short term. We have to find a way of doing that. Obviously, emissions performance standards, which are applied on a per plant basis, would run into that conflict. If the emissions performance standard was applied to a country's whole portfolio of generating capacity, that might offer the chance for a mix. It might also be an incentive for some companies that wanted to expand their gas-fired capacity to invest in some low-carbon alternatives. There needs to be a bit of imagination applied to how the EPSs could operate in this way, without ruling out the prospect in the near term of some new investment in gas. Of course, the pre-2015 investments will, in any case, be grandfathered for a sufficiently long period for investors to have a return. I was glad that the Minister confirmed that the Government are keen to see barriers to entry in the market minimised. That is a work in progress. We have to see how Ofgem's measures apply and whether they are successful. If they are not, we will have to return to that issue urgently, because it is one of the real difficulties, which has blind consequences for consumers as well. I accept the Minister's concern about the impact on consumer prices of the cost of various forms of incentive for low-carbon energy. Again, there is a trade-off that we have to reach the right judgment about. We all want to see a substantial, rapid increase in low-carbon electricity generation, but many of those low-carbon technologies require an incentive, which will be either at the cost of taxpayers or, in the present situation, consumers. Those categories are ones that in any case largely overlap. I want to congratulate the Minister. He has displayed a remarkable grasp of very complex issues in his period as Minister. It is a pleasure to have him before the Select Committee and to hear him on other occasions in the House. He has a real grip, and we get thoughtful and well-informed responses to the questions that we put to him. For that reason, I hope that he will remain in his job for much longer than most of his predecessors, perhaps indeed for the rest of this Parliament. That will enable the Committee to go on engaging with him and means that we can hold him to account for some of the things that he is telling us now in three and a half years' time. I am grateful to everyone who has taken part this afternoon. I hope that we have a chance to return to these issues either on the Floor of the House or in another debate in Westminster Hall. Question put and agreed to.