Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Annual Energy Statement.
Full text: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2011-11-23/debates/11112385000006/AnnualEnergyStatement
12:47 The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)
The ultimate goals of the Department of Energy and Climate Change are to deliver clean energy for the future and to tackle dangerous climate change. Our vision is of a thriving and globally competitive low-carbon economy with cleaner energy, more efficient homes and lower bills. Over the past 12 months, we have taken significant steps to achieve just that. On both supply and demand, we have begun to deliver key coalition commitments, starting with energy efficiency.
Each of those energy sources will be important. They will work together in concert to deliver a reliable energy system, and over the past year we have introduced a range of policies to support them. We have published the first ever renewables road map, setting out the barriers to deployment and what must be done to deploy renewable energy at scale. We have also published a consultation on the right level of subsidy to support jobs, investment and growth. Professor Weightman’s report into nuclear safety after Fukushima reassures me that nuclear can be an important and safe part of the energy mix without public subsidy. In October, as part of our work to enable new nuclear build, I published the regulatory justifications for two reactor designs. Fossil fuels will remain important. That is why we are firmly committed to carbon capture and storage, with £1 billion still available for projects in the CCS programme, despite the disappointment of the Longannet project. Promising projects have been proposed, and we are developing a streamlined selection process, which we will set out shortly. Gas will continue to feature strongly in our energy mix, and our policies are designed to allow new gas plant to be built. I welcome Ofgem’s proposals to sharpen incentives for reliable gas supply.
We are also mindful of the impact on businesses. Earlier this year we published our proposals on the simplification of the CRC—carbon reduction commitment—energy efficiency scheme and for the new climate change agreements. We are committed to simplifying the regulatory burden on industry, while driving behaviour change to improve efficiency and reduce emissions.
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Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
My right hon. Friend made the breathtaking claim that he intended to keep energy prices as low as possible. How does he square that with the Stern review, on which his policy to combat climate change is based, and which makes it clear that that policy can work only if energy prices are raised to include the external cost of global heating, and if the cost of hydrocarbon-based energy is also raised to make it more expensive than other forms of sustainable energy? In short, if his policy is not hurting, it is not working.
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Chris Huhne
The key point, however, is that a substantial part of what we need to do to tackle climate change involves measures included in our green deal legislation which pay for themselves and do not involve a cost, while those that do involve a cost—namely the raising of prices to enable us to move to a low-carbon economy when it comes to electricity generation—are offset by the reduction in energy volumes precisely because of our energy-saving measures.
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12:59 Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)
To raise the tone of this discussion, I welcome what the Secretary of State said about long-term contracts, and I would like to hear more. On carbon capture and storage, the Secretary of State knows that despite all the excitement about feed-in tariffs, renewables and nuclear, the world, including the United Kingdom, will mainly be using fossil fuels for the next few decades. What is happening in respect of CCS? There have been some disappointments in recent months. When does the Secretary of State think the first CCS plant in the UK will be operating and helping to clean up our planet?
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13:00 Chris Huhne
CCS is a key technology. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that we are going to continue to be reliant on gas and other fossil fuels. If we move to unabated gas rather than coal, that in itself will save about half the carbon emissions. For the longer term however, CCS is essential if we are going to be able to use gas, especially if we find, as I hope we will, that we have considerable exploitable reserves of shale gas under Lancashire and elsewhere.
As I have said, Longannet was a disappointment—I made a statement to the House on that—but other projects are coming forward. Peterhead is nearer the reservoirs than Longannet, so the pipeline costs are likely to be lower, and less investment will be needed to upgrade the plant in line with the large combustion plant directive. All the parties who were involved in the Longannet negotiation are confident that we can deliver a commercial-scale CCS plant for within that £1 billion budget, and we intend to do so.
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13:04 Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I understand that France has persuaded the European Commission to accept nuclear power as a renewable. Will the Secretary of State negotiate a similar deal for this country, and will he also make sure that the information on our energy bills is transparently clear, so we know how much of what we pay is subsidy for renewable energy?
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13:05 Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)
I heard the Secretary of State’s comments about the potential of the Peterhead CCS project, and I would welcome investment there. However, is it not true that the Longannet project was much more important to the country because it is a coal-powered station, as opposed to the gas-powered station at Peterhead, and coal is the main export market for CCS? Is it not also the case that Shell and Scottish Power have got their sums right, and that their assessment of the investment required for the CCS power we need is much more realistic than the Government’s? We have thrown away the great potential of a large export market.
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13:06 Chris Huhne
CCS is a catch-all for a substantial number of different types of technology designed to do the same thing: take the carbon out of the process of the combustion of fossil fuels. I disagree about gas versus coal, as I think gas, along with coal, will play a very important part in world supply for a long time, and there will be substantial CCS markets in both of them. It is important that the UK is in the lead in that.
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Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
In what was a lengthy statement, the Secretary of State made no mention of either the long-standing problem of transmission charging, which affects green energy, or Ofgem’s Project TransmiT. What progress is being made, and will he finally take action to tackle this problem?
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13:18 Chris Huhne
My hon. Friend will know that my esteemed colleague, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), was there in September. We have done considerable work to look at the experience of other countries, which is a theme that we might come back to in the debate on the solar feed-in tariff. This Government do not believe that it is sensible to sit in a room and try to develop things from scratch and a priori if other countries have already done so and we can learn the lessons from them.
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Bill Esterson (Labour)
How can the policy change on the tariff possibly be a consultation when it is already set to change on 6 December? My constituent, Keith Bonner, wanted to install solar panels and he tells me that the £12,000 investment is no longer viable because of the change in policy. How does the change in policy fit with the requirements set out in the Secretary of State’s statement of increasing renewable energy, tackling climate change and reducing emissions?
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