Anne Main
Main Page: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Chris Huhne
The hon. Lady is referring, I think, to the potential impact of the carbon price floor, which will of course begin in 2013 and then rise slowly. There will be no impact of the type that she is suggesting until its introduction. It must be considered alongside all the measures we are introducing to save energy and protect those in fuel poverty.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware of the amount of green tax that is already put on people’s energy bills. I am puzzled about why his Department will set aside £30 million of taxpayers’ money for a certain technology. Surely if we are encouraging the market, it should be the market that puts up the money and not the taxpayer.
Chris Huhne
There is a sound argument in economic literature for encouraging early-stage technologies. Many British Governments have done that for many years. Green taxes are much lower than the estimates that have been bandied about recently in the press. We are committed to bringing forward in the annual energy statements our estimate of the overall impact of all our policies—not only the low-carbon policies, but the energy-saving policies—on consumer bills. The last time we did that, it was estimated that in 2020 our policies would add just 1% to consumer bills, and that assumed a world in which gas prices are lower than they are today and in which oil prices are only $80 a barrel, instead of $118 a barrel. If we want to protect British consumers against the vagaries of these markets that are buffeted by events, such as those in Libya and the middle east, we have to move to low-carbon sources of electricity. That is good news for British consumers, not bad.