Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson
Mr Davey
Let me give a statistic to the hon. Lady: the annual rate of renewable energy investment in this Parliament is more than double the rate that it was in the previous Parliament. From 2010 to 2014, low-carbon investment has amounted to more than £40 billion. That is a record of which we are very proud.
Mr Hanson
What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact on employment in the onshore wind industry from the effective moratorium on onshore wind? He will probably know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and I recently visited West Coast Energy in my constituency, which employs many people developing onshore wind. The organisation is now threatened by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is blocking wind farms. Surely the right hon. Gentleman does not support him in that.
Mr Davey
The right hon. Gentleman will know that onshore wind has boomed under this Government. There is no moratorium, so what he said was wrong, but it is true that there are Conservative colleagues who do not share my enthusiasm for onshore wind. I recently opened the largest onshore wind farm in England, at Keadby, and I was able to grant, after the recent very successful first auction of contracts for difference, 15 out of 27 contracts to new onshore wind farms. That sounds to me like we are going ahead fast.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Davey
I certainly agree with Which?, which has welcomed the referral of the energy market to the Competition and Markets Authority—something that we have backed. The Leader of the Opposition, when he was doing my job, failed to back such a referral on three occasions. It is vital that the cuts in wholesale costs are passed to consumers, and we are on it.
Mr Hanson
The Children’s Society tells me that there are 3,300 children in families that are in energy debt in my constituency, yet only last week, Ofgem estimated that household bills could be cut by £114 because of the cost of energy. Why will the Secretary of State not give Ofgem the power to cut bills when they are that high?
Mr Davey
The problem with the Opposition’s policy is that if we had listened to them and frozen bills, people would now have even higher bills and would be in even more debt. We are not going to listen to the Opposition’s failed energy policy. Our policy has seen bills come down, not just frozen. People can get some of the best deals by switching to the independents that we have encouraged into the market.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson(9 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Davey
First, let me say how delighted I am that we are consulting on new regulations to require private landlords to improve the energy efficiency of the homes they rent to tenants, which is an important move. I hope that Members of all parties will participate in that consultation. The hon. Gentleman raises an important and serious issue. I hope he will participate in the conversation, which is intended to give people the chance to consider the very issue he raises.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
What is the Secretary of State’s assessment of the likelihood of coal gasification progressing in areas such as the River Dee in north Wales?
Mr Davey
I do not know about the proposal relating to the River Dee in north Wales. Coal gasification is one of the many technologies that we look at in the Department. It is not one at the forefront of our thinking at the moment, but if the right hon. Gentleman would care to write about the specific scheme he mentions, I should be pleased to receive a letter from him.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson
Mr Davey
My right hon. Friend will know that our policies are playing a big role in that. Three years ago, the Renewable Energy Association calculated that more than 18,000 people were employed in renewable energy in the Greater London area alone. That represented 19% of the share and was a bigger share than any other region had, and we expect that to grow. Across the UK we expect green jobs to be a very important part of the boost that our energy investment restructure will give. The House may wish to know that earlier today we granted planning consent to what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm off the Lincolnshire-Norfolk coast, with £3.6 billion of investment and 1,130 new jobs created.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Can the Minister give some comfort to the green deal installers in my constituency by telling me how many installations he expects this year rather than how many assessments he expects?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and has been a champion of the offshore wind industry. I congratulate him on that. The draft energy Bill has been widely welcomed by many people in the offshore wind industry because they see that it contains the instruments needed. We are pressing ahead with the timetable in the White Paper that we published last July. I am grateful to the Energy and Climate Change Committee for how it has gone about is rapid pre-legislative scrutiny. We will look carefully at its report, and we hope to publish the full Bill in the autumn.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Will the Minister welcome the creation of more than 100 jobs at Mostyn docks in my constituency, based on the development at Gwynt y Môr offshore wind farm off the north Wales coast, which was supported by the previous Labour Government? Will he recognise that wind farms and wind generation are not just about cheap electricity but about economic development? Will he therefore heed what my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said about supporting the wind industry both onshore and offshore?
Mr Davey
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It is very good news that jobs are being created. The story of onshore, offshore, the renewables industry and our energy policies generally is to bring forward new investment and jobs. We are proud of that, and will continue with that support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson
Mr Davey
I know that, as a former distinguished Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Gentleman wants to take evidence and science into account, and that he understands risk and probability. The case for action is overwhelming, whether it is made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the Stern review.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of the change in the number of solar panel installations since he announced changes to the feed-in tariff.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
When we announced proposals to reform the feed-in tariffs scheme for solar PV at the end of October 2011, approximately 126,000 solar PV installations were registered on the microgeneration certification scheme database. Since then, an additional 190,000 installations have been registered. In the 10 weeks since the introduction of new tariffs for small-scale installations on 3 March, more than 26,000 solar PV installations have been registered. That is equivalent to the installation rate in August last year.
Mr Hanson
I hear what the Secretary of State says, and I heard what he said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), but I can tell him that in my constituency there has been a catastrophic collapse in the demand for feed-in tariffs. It has been particularly catastrophic for small businesses which have invested many thousands of pounds of their own money in what would have been a very positive regime. Will the Secretary of State clarify, very soon, what will happen after July, so that my constituents who have invested money in this scheme can ensure that they will still have their businesses in October and at the end of the year?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The way in which this has been handled has been a bit of a disaster. I accept that the Minister has made some changes, but they have been detrimental to the overall confidence in the scheme. Putting that to one side for a moment, may I ask him to look seriously at enabling bigger entities such as community centres, schools and other community facilities to benefit from the scheme, to provide a kick-start over and above that given to the householders who participate in it?
Mr Davey
In our proposals, smaller community projects will benefit from the decision to apply only the lower aggregated tariff to generators with more than 25 installations. We are now consulting on a definition of “community” and on how that could be used, including a possible tariff guarantee process and a higher rate for community-owned multi-installations, compared with commercial ones. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that that type of community approach was not in the old scheme.
Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy
Debate between Ed Davey and David Hanson
Mr Davey
Under the scheme that the previous Government devised, there was no such system. The new scheme that we are consulting on contains proposals for a community guarantee for tariffs on which we want to hear people’s views. I hope that the right hon. Lady will engage with that consultation, because I think that that is a very positive proposal.
Following on from what I said about collective switching, I would now like to say a little more about what the coalition is doing to help, protect and empower consumers. We want to help people to heat their homes at a lower cost by improving the energy efficiency of their homes. That is why we are pioneering the green deal. We are creating a brand new market framework, designed to be driven by consumers and businesses, which will secure billions of pounds of private sector investment in Britain’s building stock. We are working with the finance industry to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of low-cost finance from day one.
The right hon. Member for Don Valley criticises a lack of progress, but we are designing an entirely new means of financing the re-fitting of Britain’s housing stock. We are the first country ever to do so, and we want to get it absolutely right. We have held in-depth discussions with a wide range of banks and other financial institutions, and established a round-table forum of key investment banks and investors. My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has stated that the green deal is a priority for the Green investment bank. We are also in discussions with the European Investment Bank to see how it can support the green deal. I believe that we have an ambitious agenda that will help consumers up and down the country as it is rolled out.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Why is it, then, that representatives of local businesses came to my constituency office last Friday to tell me that there was gross uncertainty over the future of the green deal? They told me that they could not make plans because an interest rate had not been set, and that they were worried about losing businesses and the impact on jobs. In fact, one firm, which employs 55 people, did not expect to still be in business on 31 December. Why is that the case, if everything is so wonderful, as the Secretary of State maintains?
Mr Davey
I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would know that the scheme is not going to be launched until the fourth quarter of this year, and that we will be making announcements in the run-up to the launch. I hope that he explained to his businesses that they will need to look for the Government’s announcements, and that they should feel positive about a scheme that is going to happen under this Government and that did not happen under the previous one.
Mr Davey
The problem with some of the Opposition’s criticism is that they do not seem to realise that this will be a market-based system, and that the Government will not set the interest rate. The right hon. Gentleman needs to understand that green finance companies such as those I have just been talking about will set the interest rate.