Alan Whitehead
Main Page: Alan Whitehead (Labour - Southampton, Test)(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Gregory Barker
Absolutely. We must get away from the silo culture that concentrates exclusively on solar PV, on the technological flavour of the month, or on one or two types of intervention. We need an holistic approach to energy measures, the most important of which is energy efficiency and the least important the generation of electricity. The right hierarchy consists of energy efficiency, then heat, then renewable electricity, and local authorities are key partners in that regard.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Minister said at the solar photovoltaics conference last Friday that he had not come to kill solar PV tariffs. Does he accept that these appalling policy lurches—two in the past three months—are killing the solar industry’s future, as was reflected by all those present at that conference? Will he now review the time scale for the most recent lurch, and at the very least extend it so that those who currently have contracts up to when there was originally going to be a review can carry out that work? Otherwise, no one will ever believe anything that he says about any tariffs in the future.
Gregory Barker
I am afraid the Labour party’s credibility on this issue is ripped to shreds. It said in the spring that the industry would be butchered, since when deployments per month have trebled.