Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I appreciate the opportunity to contribute, albeit briefly, to the debate. It would be remiss of me not to mention the bid from Southampton, which I can assure the Minister is an excellent one, to host the green investment bank.

It is striking from the Back-Bench contributions that rather than an endless drip of negativity, there is a commitment to the innovative and exciting technologies that are growing in many parts of the UK. Last week in Westminster Hall there was a debate on Government incentives for renewable energy. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) may not have been aware of it, but the focus was on the generation of energy from waste. Had any members of her party been present, they would have heard the commitment of the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) to the eight technologies in the renewable energy road map.

However, the debate is not just about solar or wind. If we are to have security of energy supply, we need a suite of technologies, which is why I shall focus briefly on the generation of energy from waste by a company in my constituency, SeAB, which has patented a method of anaerobic digestion in shipping containers. That might sound a little strange to many Members, but the method has the capacity, on a small scale, to use the waste product from farms, schools, restaurants and food production to generate the energy needs of the same organisation.

Anaerobic digestion has the potential to play a massive role in both biomass heat production and electricity generation. Every year the UK produces about 100 million tonnes of food waste, manure and sewage sludge that is suitable for such treatment. Although of course we want the amount of waste to be minimised, using waste to generate electricity is a very green way to meet some of our energy needs. The UK has long been at the forefront of designing such technology, and SeAB and other small companies operating in this sector are using Government support in order to make the difficult transition from concept to deployment. SeAB is successfully making that transition, deploying its system with commercial success, for example at Sparsholt college in Hampshire and on the Southampton university science park.

The commitment to anaerobic digestion was present in the coalition agreement, in the renewable energy road map, and in the strategy published jointly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and DECC last June, and I look forward to the publication of the annual progress report this summer. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said last week, 56 actions have been identified to tackle the key barriers to deployment. I do not pretend that it is easy or that there are not significant challenges. There are, but I welcome the inclusion of anaerobic digestion in the feed-in tariffs scheme.

There are significant employment opportunities to be had. SeAB may be a small company, but let us not forget that small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the British economy. Small can be beautiful, and can certainly provide jobs across the country.