Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

It is a very serious question and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pursuing it further. Some of the crude produced in this country is not suitable for use here because of the diesel demand and therefore it is exported, and the diesel fuel tends to have to be imported, which results in an imbalance. Through the downstream oil infrastructure forum we are looking at the industry’s strategy to put in place a long-term programme to assess how we can support and build up that industry, and the role of international investors is critical to that process.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

T5. Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), what estimate has the Secretary of State made of the number of wind turbines that stopped working at some point during the year, and how many of those stopped working due to too little wind and how many of them stopped working because of too much wind?

[Chris Huhne]

I will happily come back to my hon. Friend on wind turbines, but just because someone falls off a ladder does not mean that the House jumps to abolish ladders. In a similar sense, the operation of wind turbines, particularly those that are onshore, which are most economic, provides an increasingly important contribution to our energy needs, which is home-grown and not likely to be buffeted by events in the middle east.