Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

Debate between Richard Graham and Caroline Flint

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

I can add nothing to my right hon. Friend’s comments, except to say that there is another organisation that agrees with him—the CBI.

The Government claim, on page 2 of their impact assessment, that they can slash the solar industry by anything between 70% and 95% and still, as page 26 claims, increase the number of people working in it by up to 10,000. As someone I met at the lobby of Parliament yesterday put it, the Government may think that they can get full employment by shrinking the economy, but month after month we see that their plans are hurting but not working. We knew that the Government were out of touch, but today we see that they have lost the plot.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for eventually giving way. It was she who said only one month ago:

“The Government do not understand the reality for families who struggle to pay the bills at the end of the month”.—[Official Report, 19 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 937.]

Does she agree that today’s debate is not about whether we support solar power, which we are all in favour of, but about the cost of the subsidies for solar—a small-scale industry—which will cost families about £26 a month extra by 2020? Would that not be an unreasonable cost on hard-pressed families?

[Caroline Flint]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has neither read his brief nor sought other views. Ofgem, the independent regulator, made it absolutely clear that the feed-in tariffs cost less than £1 a year per household. The bigger problem is how prices have been put up while energy companies are making exorbitant profits, and while this Government are cutting the support available to people this winter. That is a price debate that I would like to have. The hon. Gentleman’s comments imply that he is in favour of those businesses going under, of social housing not having solar panels, and of this industry not even getting out of the cradle. That is rich coming from a party that prides itself on being the small business champion.