Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Helen Goodman and Chris Huhne
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Earlier we heard the Secretary of State boasting about his experience of financial markets. The rules of the Office for National Statistics about how to classify things are absolutely clear. It is more than 20 years since private finance initiatives were set up, so why has he been so incompetent in the way that he has structured the green investment bank, which has been classified in the public sector, giving the Treasury the excuse to delay its borrowing powers for four years?
Chris Huhne
The hon. Lady, as a former Treasury official, knows about this from the inside. I can assure her, however, that I was not boasting of my expertise in financial markets, but drawing attention to the fact that, although I had been in those markets for a considerable period, I was completely incapable of forecasting how they would react in these particular circumstances. I do not believe that we are going to have the problems with the green investment bank that she anticipates. It is clear that this is a historic moment. For the first time, the Treasury and the whole Government are agreeing to set up an institution that will be able to borrow, in its own right, just before the point at which it will need those resources. It will be able to borrow because the offshore wind investments will be there in the second half of the decade. As an ex-Treasury official, the hon. Lady well knows that given all those years in the 1930s when we became the only industrialised country not to set up a public development bank, this is an extraordinary achievement, and I hope that Labour Members recognise it as such.
Annual Energy Statement
Debate between Helen Goodman and Chris Huhne
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. There is a clear economic reason for making a distinction between nuclear power and the other sources of energy on which we can rely in coming years. It is simply that there is a strong argument for encouraging an infant industry, at an early stage of development, from the public sector. We have seen that with onshore wind, whose cost has come down dramatically precisely because of the encouragement of the public sector. I am afraid that the same argument cannot be made for nuclear power, which has been around for a long time. It is not an infant industry, but an established and mature one and it can and should compete on that basis, along with all other comers.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Secretary of State emphasised that the Government are working as a team. Which members of the team were involved in the decision on Sheffield Forgemasters?
Chris Huhne
As the hon. Lady will know, government is a collective business. Large numbers of people were involved in the decision on Sheffield Forgemasters. At the Department, we were certainly kept informed.