Fourth Carbon Budget
Debate between Chris Huhne and Michael Meacher
Chris Huhne
I can assure my hon. Friend that we in the ministerial team are absolutely committed to low-cost, affordable electricity. The last assessment the Department made—at the time of the annual energy statement, and we will make another at the next such statement—is that the overall impact of our policies, including energy saving and the effects that my hon. Friend mentioned, will add 1% to the cost of household energy bills in 2020. As it happens, that was posited on a world oil price of $80 a barrel. As he knows, the oil price has moved substantially beyond that. With oil prices and associated gas prices higher than $100 a barrel, our estimate is that our policies will save money for the British household. I am not saying that British households will not face increases in the cost of gas and electricity in future; what I am saying is that the policy mix of energy saving and low-carbon electricity generation will give a better deal to British households than would reliance on imports of variable fossil fuels from volatile parts of the world.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State accept that purchasing carbon offsets abroad as a means of meeting carbon emission reduction targets in the UK is deeply flawed on grounds of additionality, leakage and uncertain duration and that, in any case, they do not achieve the ostensible objective of decarbonising Britain? What precise proportion of the 29% cut in carbon emissions planned between now and 2027 do the Government intend or expect to be achieved via carbon offsets?
Chris Huhne
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we intend to try to meet all the reductions we have set out from our domestic activity. That is the clear intention of setting out the fourth carbon budget as we have. However, given the enormous uncertainties of making projections so far in advance, it would not be sensible for us to rule out the flexibility afforded by carbon trading at the relevant time.
Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between Chris Huhne and Michael Meacher
Chris Huhne
I absolutely sympathise with the hon. Lady’s question—I spent a number of years on the board of the Consumers Association, and I am a firm believer in the need for good consumer protection. There are several layers of protection, and the first line of defence for the consumer is competition. The inability of householders to get an assessment and an alternative quote—such competition keeps suppliers lean and mean—is perhaps what went wrong with the Warm Front scheme.
In addition, we will have all of the usual protections. I mentioned the Consumer Credit Act 2006 in respect of finance, but there is also the accreditation scheme for assessors, so we will know that assessors are properly trained to assess what people need in their homes to meet that golden rule. We will have properly qualified installers, so avoiding the problems that occurred, for example, in Australia, where untrained people crawled through people’s lofts, banging nails into wires and setting fire to homes. The whole Australian energy efficiency industry was given a bad name for many years because of that, but we are avoiding those problems. The hon. Lady will see in Committee that we have delivered a lot on consumer protection.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has concentrated on the benefits of the Bill, which of course depend on whether there is high take-up, which in turn depends on the interest rates on loans under the green deal. Will he give us some idea of what he intends the interest rate to be? Most expect that it will be of the order of 8% to 10% over a 25-year period, which will rule out very large numbers of people, particularly the poorest.
Chris Huhne
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the interest rate is important. However, it is up to competing businesses to arrange that finance. I also very much hope and trust that finance houses will make pools available for the small businesses of which my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) spoke, so that providers other than the B&Qs and the Scottish and Southerns—the big providers—can get involved. The key point is that the securitisation market is opening up for such businesses, and the finance available is at a reasonable level, which I believe will ensure that we have take-off. However, the right hon. Gentleman is right that that is a market decision.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Debate between Chris Huhne and Michael Meacher
Chris Huhne
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. When I was studying politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford somewhat before the hon. Gentleman, I was told that socialism involved the language of priorities. On the basis of the public expenditure commitments undertaken by the Government in the past six months, including in respect of Sheffield Forgemasters, I do not recognise a Government who were making choices about hard-earned taxpayers’ cash. As we have just heard from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Treasury had pencilled in £44 billion worth of cuts without finding a single one. It is inevitable that, having inherited the legacy that we have and the scale of the Budget deficit, this Government have to review our priorities and identify crucial projects to go ahead with and those that are less important. That is a process that we continue to undertake.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
Given that we are at or very near peak oil annual capacity, that conventional oil will increasingly be available only from very deep sites that are extremely risky such as the gulf of Mexico, and that unconventional oil such as Canadian tar sands involves unacceptable economic and climate change costs, what plans does the Secretary of State have to move the process forward, as I am sure he wants to do, to diminish oil consumption drastically before there is another horrendous catastrophe or the price of oil spikes uncontrollably?
Chris Huhne
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who has a long and honourable record of interest in these issues. We share many instincts in our approach to them. We will present a series of proposals over the next year, which will attempt to accelerate the process of moving to a low-carbon economy. For my Department, the centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech is the energy saving Bill, which will attempt to put forward a comprehensive solution for retro-fitting in our existing housing stock. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, saving energy is by far the most low-cost means of closing the gap as regards our energy use and energy production. We also intend to accelerate the production of low-carbon sources of energy, including renewables, on which we will introduce measures. This is a time of transition, and nothing can be done overnight. We are talking about enormous investments that cannot suddenly be switched off; others cannot be suddenly switched on. We need a clear route map to a low-carbon economy which reduces our carbon emissions by the amount called for by the Climate Change Act 2008—80%—and we intend to make sure that we have a credible route for getting there.