Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew George Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman, above all, knew that where there’s muck, there’s brass. It just goes to show that the face of old Labour is not green—they do not understand new technology. The first whiff of any environmental problem and they want to go back to old coal—I guess that that is the hon. Gentleman’s solution. However, I assure him that we are committed to new, decentralised technologies, working with communities, and getting the technologies operational as soon as possible. He can live in the past, but we are fast-forwarding to the future.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Community organisations and charities that invested in renewable technologies have found themselves significantly disadvantaged through unexpected changes in the feed-in tariff. Will Ministers look into that and ascertain whether charities and community organisations that found themselves with a significant shortfall could be assisted?

[Chris Huhne]

I am very happy to deal with any specific cases that my hon. Friend raises. I ask him to write to me, please, and I shall ensure that officials advise and that we come back to him. As a ministerial team, one of the things that we are determined to do is try to ensure that we have a framework, so that when we make an offer to provide an incentive for renewable energy, investors can rely on it. We are determined to avoid some of the criticism that has been made of our EU partners, who have changed the arrangements with retrospective effect.