Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
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“Countries with a clear policy framework are the ones that attract investment. Countries with a stable policy framework attract investment. The UK has had neither over the past few years. On solar, the Government plan this month to hike the tax on businesses with rooftop solar installations through a six to eight times increase in business rates. In 2015, they cut all solar subsidy for commercial installations of over 5 MW and reduced the subsidy for the rest by 65%. The Government’s own figures show that that has resulted in a 93% fall in UK solar deployment and the loss of more than 12,000 jobs in the industry. On wind power, the Government decided to end all subsidy for onshore wind farms despite them being the cheapest source of renewable power.”
“I was of course referring to the hon. Gentleman being a denier of anthropogenic climate change, and he knows that. However, there are sane heads who understand that when the world’s largest superpowers ratify a climate change treaty that commits the world to a net carbon future by the second half of this century, it is time to do what President Obama said last week and “put your money where your mouth is.” Last year, global investment in low-carbon technology was $286 billion. The problem is that investment in developing countries outpaced that in richer nations. We are locked in a low-carbon race and we are losing. The reason I want us to get on and ratify is not because Paris is some sort of totemic environmental symbol, but because political leadership sends a strong signal to attract investment.”
“The hon. Lady is right to say that we have had an enviable track record on the amount of our renewables and way in which they have been built up. But of course the statistics she referred to were created by the policies that previously allowed the subsidy into the renewable industry. The points that I have just been making show clearly how the Government, in the past 18 months to two years, have withdrawn those subsidies. As I said, the effect on the solar industry was a 93% cut in the projects that are now going ahead—in the panels and the capacity now being installed.”
“The Paris agreement demands that we move to a net zero-carbon future in the second half of this century. That requires courage and imagination. It requires a coherent low-carbon investment plan. Today should have been a day when all parties came together to piece together that future in optimism and hope. By turning their back on that opportunity, the Government must explain when they will ratify the Paris agreement and when they will publish the carbon plan to show the British public how they will deliver on that promise.”
“It is by properly insulating millions of homes in the UK to increase energy-efficiency and, where that is not viable—with older, single-skin properties—by ensuring that they have access to low-carbon renewable community sources of energy, so that we are not burning fossil fuels to see the heat escape through draughty walls and windows. It is by transforming our transport system with electric vehicles whose battery capacity can double up as storage facility and fill that space that intermittent renewable technologies require. Later today, the leader of the Labour party will set out his ambitious vision for our environmental and energy policy, creating 300,000 jobs in low-carbon industries and using a new national investment bank to invest in public and community-owned renewable energy projects.”
“Instead of using our time today to take a bold step forward, seeking Commons approval for the UK to join the founder parties of the historic Paris climate deal, we have had to hold the Government to account for just how far the UK’s leadership on climate change has fallen on their watch. Leapfrogged by the world’s biggest polluters, we have gone from the world-leading Climate Change Act to where we now sit: with a 47% gap in meeting our target, which we simply do not know how to fill—we have not yet even given a date for the publication of the plan as to when we will fill it. I will rephrase that, because we do know how to fill it.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. I had not referred to it in my speech, so I am glad he has drawn the House’s attention to it, because interconnection with Europe is vital for our energy security. It would be a very positive move if the Minister were to talk about the future of energy infrastructure and of energy interconnection with the continent. As I understand it, there is no reason why coming out of the European Union should mean we are not part of the single energy market—that can stand separately. I would very much like confirmation from the Minister that the Government intend to make sure that that is safeguarded, because it is an important way of managing our energy supply.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene. He has just said that it was never the intention that the EU would ratify the treaty as one of the founder members, but in March this year, the EU Council underlined “the need for the European Union and its Member States to be able to ratify the Paris Agreement as soon as possible and on time so as to be Parties as of its entry into force.” The conclusion of the March Council, therefore, was that we would be founder members and that we would enter the agreement. However, because it is now clear that that final ratification with the Secretary-General will be in December of this year, it is vital that EU member states now take early action. We should be taking even earlier action to push other member states to fulfil what the European Council statement said.”
“Of course I have not dismissed the possibility that the hon. Gentleman might be right and that all the meteorological experts in the world are simply mistaken, but does he accept that if his thesis that there is natural as well as anthropogenic warming is correct, we are in a much worse position than we had thought, and therefore anything we can do to minimise the anthropogenic causes becomes all the more important, rather than less so?”
“My hon. Friend always speaks with such authority on these matters. In relation to CCS, is he as concerned as I am that the cross-Yorkshire and Humber pipeline has just had its planning deadline extended by the Secretary of State? It looks as if, yet again, these projects are being put into cold storage.”
“My hon. Friend is making such an important point about flooding. Does she recall that had the high tide and the surges been realigned by one hour, more than 10,000 homes in the Humber area would have been underwater?”
“Can the Minister adumbrate one single point that I made in my opening remarks—one single point where I criticised the Government for backsliding—on which I was wrong?”
“Finally, will he confirm that he has absolute confidence in Dr Rex Strong as head of nuclear safety at Sellafield and John Clarke, the chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority?”
“Why did the Government not insist that further resources—staffing and, of course, financial resources—be invested in the site to clean it up at that point? The Minister will know that expenditure in 2012-13 was £7,348 million, with £3,157 million from the Department of Energy and Climate Change itself. The year following that report, the figure had fallen to £5,345 million. Will he explain why, after such a damning report, the resources going into the site decreased? Will he also confirm that the cost estimates for the clean-up of the site have increased at an annual estimate from £25.2 million to £47.9 million? The programme also cited problems with alarms, and it was said that these were turned off repeatedly, without checking. Will the Minister confirm that that practice is no longer in force?”
“On minimum staffing levels, will he confirm that as recently as five days ago a formal notice was sent to the management, raising the unions’ concern about critical manning levels and the ability to comply with the appropriate procedures and practices when minimum staffing levels are not met? Will the Minister also say whether he agrees with Dr Rex Strong, the head of nuclear safety, who said in last night’s programme that not meeting the minimum safety standards or staffing levels did not mean that there was a safety risk? In 2013, the manager of the site, Nuclear Management Partners, produced its somewhat ironically entitled excellence plan, cataloguing the safety problems and the critical nature of the infrastructure with respect to both electricity and water supply on the site.”
“Yesterday evening’s television report on Sellafield was profoundly disturbing, and my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) was absolutely right to request this urgent question—I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. My hon. Friend expressed his concerns at the revelations and referred to the importance of the storage and reprocessing facility for his constituency. Of course, the House must raise such concerns on behalf of the country. I want to focus on a number of questions on which I believe the Minister should give the House either further information or reassurance, and preferably both.”
“Even though the petition is evidence that some wish to see a repeat of the referendum vote, the Government, as we know, have refused that. However, such a refusal should, at the very least, come through a parliamentary vote in the House of Commons. Then, and only then, does it make sense to trigger the UK’s departure from the EU by formally invoking article 50. Article 50 is a fuse; once it is lit it cannot be extinguished. If it is prepared for well, it may lead to an extraordinary firework display, as Britain illuminates the world stage with a renewed sense of commercial purpose, but if it is prepared for hastily and badly, the fuse will result in an explosion whose economic consequences will set back our country for a generation.”
“A UK operating under such an arrangement would in effect be a vassal state, paying tribute to the EU and meekly enacting the laws passed down by Brussels, without the right to influence or shape them that member status confers. None of those arguments are arguments for ignoring the expressed will of the British people, but they are very good reasons for saying that the Government must decide precisely what they want from any negotiation and what they are willing to pay or sacrifice to get it. It is also vital that there is real democratic oversight. That means that Parliament must be extensively involved in the process and that once the Government are clear about what their own objective is, they should then present it to the country.”
“Similarly, if a deal were concluded that allowed us to keep single market access and have no free movement of people, our financial contribution towards the EU might have to continue at an extraordinarily high level. A negotiating red line that achieved market access without free movement but at huge budgetary cost might not be acceptable to those who thought they were voting to stop paying £350 million a week to the EU so that they could spend it on the NHS instead. It might also not appeal to those who voted to leave because they wanted to reclaim the UK’s sovereignty. In return for its access to the single market, Norway is obliged to enact three quarters of all EU laws into its own domestic legislation.”
“Time is critical in negotiating trade deals; everything must come together, because the reality is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Before article 50 is invoked, the Government must set out how they intend to ensure that the promises made to those who voted to leave the EU are met. The Government must decide whether it is vital to keep passporting arrangements for our financial services sector, and if that is a red line, they must decide what price they are prepared to pay for it. If that price is the continuation of the free movement of people, many people who voted to leave the EU in the referendum might well feel that the Government are simply ignoring their concerns over immigration.”
“If their opponent yields, the other driver should not yield, but if the opponent fails to yield, the other driver certainly should give way, to avoid a head-on crash. What we know for certain is that no incumbent French or German leader can afford to be seen to be conciliatory towards the UK in negotiations before the elections in their own country. However, article 50 will not only trigger those negotiations but set a firm time limit—two years—within which they must be concluded. After that, in the absence of an agreed negotiated trade settlement, the UK would simply be ejected from the EU with no trade deal at all, unless every country in the EU separately agreed to an extension of negotiations, which could lead to the UK being held hostage to several unpalatable ransom demands.”
“That situation is not going to be made easier by the forthcoming elections in France and Germany, both of which could have new leaders by this time next year. Timing is essential in all of this, and British MPs who say the Prime Minister should trigger article 50 now and without delay, without first setting out to Parliament the terms and basis upon which the Government seek to negotiate—indeed, without even indicating the red lines that the Prime Minister should seek to protect—simply have not grasped the logic of article 50. It is the logic of the game that young, testosterone-fuelled car drivers call “chicken”. The principle of that game is that while it is beneficial for each driver that the other driver gives way, their own optimal choice depends upon what their opponent is doing.”
“In a single market, there is also policy harmonisation over what constitutes such things as fair competition or reasonable health and safety regulations. Although both sides of the referendum campaign lamentably failed to make it clear, in voting to leave the EU the British people voted to leave both the single market and the customs union. There is no smorgasbord of trade agreements laid out and waiting for the UK to choose from. The options that will be available to us will be determined just as much by what the other EU member states are prepared to give us as by what the UK wants. Currently, there is no unified view among the other 27 EU members as to what they are willing to negotiate on.”
“That is a stark measure of the level of trade integration that must now be renegotiated in the light of the referendum result. The Government must balance and recalibrate all the different elements that our membership of the EU has previously entailed. Essentially, however, there are three possible trading models: a free trade agreement, whereby member countries agree to abolish tariff barriers and quotas for goods and services between themselves; a customs union, in which member countries agree not only to reduce tariff barriers and quotas between themselves but to adopt common external tariffs towards other countries; and a single market, in which there is free movement of goods, services, capital and people, or labour.”
“Do the Government plan to remove EU nationals from the UK? Should we prepare ourselves for the repatriation of some 1.1 million British citizens who are currently living elsewhere in the EU? Those are the non-duckable questions on which the Government have a duty to provide clarity; I hope that the Minister will provide such clarity in his summing-up today. EU member states are our closest neighbours and strategic allies in matters of defence and co-operation, and the world is looking to us to set out how we will ensure that our departure from the EU does not cause instability throughout the region and— consequently—further afield. The EU is currently the destination for 45% of all the goods and services that Britain exports and the source of 53% of all our imports.”
“That indicates the extraordinary risks that investment in the UK faces if we fail to maintain the free movement of goods and services into the world’s largest consumer market. The Government must also address all the legislative gaps that will arise as a consequence of our secession from the European Union. The British people did not vote to see their workplaces made more dangerous or their maternity rights curtailed. The Government must ensure that where the basis of such rights and protections is lost because of legislation disappearing following a UK exit from the EU, new primary or secondary legislation is introduced to maintain the standards that British people have a right to expect. EU nationals living in the UK and British nationals living elsewhere in the EU are desperate for clarity about where they stand.”
“Nevertheless, they did not, nor could they have been expected to, establish what the alternative might be. That is what the Government and Parliament must now determine. What makes this process so complex is that we must seek to negotiate our exit from the EU and our future relationship with it while simultaneously forging our future bilateral trade partnerships with other countries—countries that would like to have clarity about where we stand with the EU before they conclude their own trade deals with us. Nothing could have made that clearer than the report released at the weekend by the Japanese Government, which expressed their proper concern about securing future access to Europe for Japanese companies that have invested billions of pounds in UK factories, jobs and distribution centres.”
“The referendum was certainly one of the most significant exercises in democracy that we have seen for a very long time, and it was for that reason that the Labour party tabled dozens of amendments to the European Union Referendum Bill to address the concerns that have now been raised in this petition, including provisions for electoral turnout and for a minimum threshold. Such amendments were rejected by Members of Parliament, alongside provisions that would have allowed 16 and 17-year-olds to have a say in what is probably the most important decision for their generation. However, we must be clear that the British people decided in the referendum that our relationship with the EU, and its balance of rights and responsibilities, was wrong and needed to be addressed.”
“It is always a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. For some, the referendum result represents a moment of golden opportunity; for others, it is a time of enormous economic risk. The petition we are debating today has been signed by an overwhelming number of people who believe that a second referendum should be put to the electorate. It has been signed both by people who voted to leave and by people who voted to remain. Curiously, the petition was created in advance of the referendum by somebody who supported the leave campaign and who is said to have believed that the result would be close but most likely in favour of remain. He was wrong. With a majority of just over 1.25 million votes, 51.9% of votes cast called for us to leave, compared with 48.1% of votes to remain, on a turnout of 72% of the electorate.”
“Will the Minister undertake to meet his counterpart at DWP to try to agree that co-operation—whatever is necessary—to ensure that this scheme does not reach just 15% but 100% of those who need it?”
“Will the Minister explain why the data on current recipients of cold weather payments are not shared, so that those recipients could also receive the warm home discount? Does the Minister agree that powers should be extended through legislation to enable that? These are families with children under five and people with disabilities. The data on those people should be shared with Ofgem to facilitate these schemes. Households may not even be aware at the moment that they are entitled to these rebates. The data protection issues that are often cited as the reason sharing does not happen could be overcome by a simple clause authorising data sharing being incorporated into all the benefit application forms.”
“Even though the Competition and Markets Authority said that customers were being overcharged by £1.7 billion a year over the past five years, incredibly it would appear that the Government have acquiesced in putting the blame back on to the consumer, saying that people should just shop around and switch more often, and in that way save this money. There must be a much greater burden put on the energy companies; it should not always be left to the consumer. Yet again, it is the fuel poor, such as pensioners who perhaps do not have internet access and cannot go on switching websites, who have least capacity to redress their situation in the way the Government suggest on the back of the CMA report.”
“The Minister went slightly further than that in his remarks, but we need real assurances that this is now a project for his Department, in liaison with his counterpart at the Department for Work and Pensions. For the scheme to address fuel poverty to benefit only 15% is unsustainable. The Minister has said today that he believes that it can be targeted more accurately through data sharing, and that certainly needs to be done. The Government are also letting energy companies off the hook and I would be grateful if the Minister would look at the situation.”
“If one knows that 85% of the scheme is delivering to the wrong people only to express concern about the losers—it is of course right that there is clarity, but it would appear that the Treasury was more concerned with the political impact of getting the scheme right than the health impact of targeting it correctly. That was an error and one that I am delighted to see from the Minister’s remarks that the Government are now looking to overcome. The previous Minister also stated that the Government may consult later this year on better targeting but in a written answer she said that was “subject to positive progress on data sharing legislation”.”
“Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), acknowledged in a written answer to a parliamentary question that we posed on 25 April that only 15% of those 2.38 million households receiving the discount were in fuel poverty. That was a quite startling revelation. Of course, what it shows is that the targeting of this scheme has been absolutely abysmal. We found out in April that DECC tried to redress that. In an exchange between the then Secretary of State, whose constituency I have entirely forgotten, and the Chancellor, the Treasury said that it was “unconvinced of the need to change a system that works” and that it “can’t approve changes to a successful scheme without having a clear idea of how many losers this will create and who those losers will be”.”
“However, that is where I and my party believe that this scheme is failing, and it would appear from what the Minister has said that he is of like mind. There are 1.3 million lower-income pensioners targeted in the core group of beneficiaries of the scheme and 800,000 low-income families are in the broader group. By my reckoning, that makes 2.1 million households and, as I have said previously, as of 2014, 2.38 million households were in fuel poverty in England and Wales, as counted using the Government’s main methodology. It might seem, therefore, that the scheme is doing well, with 2.1 million out of 2.38 million households served. However, that would be to belie the facts. The previous Minister in DECC, the right hon.”
“So the problem that we are discussing today materially affects millions of our fellow citizens and can be fatal for many, many thousands of them. I think the recent “Panorama” report on those 43,900 excess winter deaths said that 9,000 were directly related to a failure to heat homes adequately. These figures show the huge importance of this scheme and other measures to support the vulnerable. Of course, when my party was in government we legislated to make the initial voluntary scheme compulsory. It was our intention then, when the voluntary agreement came to an end in 2011, to continue the discounts through compulsory support from companies. The amount spent was to be increased, which it was, and the most vulnerable consumers were to be targeted.”
“However, there are aspects of the scheme that the Minister has alluded to that we need to probe and seek further reassurances from him about. As of 2014, the latest year for which we have official fuel poverty statistics, 2.38 million households in England were in fuel poverty, which is, of course, more than 10% of all households in England. The old Department, as we must now term it, of Energy and Climate Change estimated that across the UK, using the 10% methodology—whereby a household is in fuel poverty if it spends more than 10% of its income on fuel—an estimated 4.5 million low-income households could not adequately heat or power their homes, and that figure has grown by 500,000 over the last five years. The last recorded figures—also for 2014—show that there were 43,900 excess winter deaths in England and Wales.”
“It is a great pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. You are one of the most experienced and knowledgeable Chairs that we have in Parliament, given all your years of service. Of course, I am very grateful to the Minister for his kind remarks, which I entirely reciprocate. I said yesterday and I will reiterate today in this Delegated Legislation Committee that the new team at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is one of the most thoughtful sets of Ministers, and that has been evidenced in what the Minister has already said to us today, because some of the old shibboleths are being cast aside—we will get to that. It would be incredible if Opposition Members were to oppose the delivery of this scheme and of course that is not our intention at all; we will not be moving to a vote.”
“The Minister says it is too early to produce the long-awaited carbon plan, which has been promised for the end of the year. That may be a fair assessment, and he quoted the Act that says the Secretary of State must produce a plan showing how he intends to achieve the fifth carbon budget “as soon as is reasonably practicable”, but the fourth carbon budget was set in 2011 and we have been waiting for more than five years. That does not seem to me to be as soon as is reasonably practicable. I believe that the Minister and the Department should now bring forward that carbon plan from the end of the year to as early a date as possible, precisely to encourage the investment in our energy infrastructure that the Minister spoke of.”
“When asked whether climate change had been downgraded, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson said, “The Government will be continuing to meet our international commitments.” The Government must now press forward with the former Secretary of State’s promise to ratify the Paris agreement early, taking all necessary steps to do so this year. We are of course focused on domestic commitments here. The Government have consistently acknowledged that they do not have the policies to meet the fourth carbon budget—as the Minister said, they are 10% off target at the moment. Not only do DECC projections show that the UK will miss that target, but the CCC reported in June that the gap grows, in the fifth carbon budget, to a staggering 47% shortfall in the effort required.”
“Certainty over the UK’s continued participation in the EU emissions trading scheme would also be helpful. The EU ETS has sectoral caps that are far too lax, but the scheme itself is designed to ensure that emissions reductions occur at the least cost. The downside is that, even if the ETS had more stringent caps, it could give a falsely optimistic reading of the success of our actual emissions reductions. Clarity is paramount. Will the Minister take this opportunity to end the unnecessary inclusion of ETS credits in our net carbon account beyond 2027? That would give more confidence to the power sector and industry in the UK’s commitment to decarbonisation. I believe that was a missed opportunity in the Energy Act 2016.”
“The Government should also explain why they did not follow the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendations to include shipping emissions in the fifth carbon budget. In 2012, the Government deferred a decision to include international aviation and shipping emissions in the net carbon account, but said: “we will revisit the issue... when we come to set the fifth carbon budget”. That is what the Government said, on the record, but the fifth carbon budget contains no provision for shipping emissions. The talks at the International Maritime Organisation earlier this year were perhaps less than satisfactory, but the Minister must tackle the issue urgently. The UK and the EU should take a much stronger line in insisting that those emissions are accounted for.”
“More than that, we need an explanation of the legal implications of having failed to set the order by affirmative resolution by the date contained in the Act because it could mean that the order, even though we set it today, is open to legal challenge at a future date. It would be helpful if the Minister—if not now, at least in writing—set out clearly what he understands the legal implications of that failure to be. Clearly, the date was set in law for a purpose. If that purpose is not met, we need to know the effect if there were a legal challenge to the budget that we are setting. I would be grateful if the Minister made available the legal advice obtained by his Department, establishing its view of the possible ramifications and whether it believes that any such legal challenge would be successful.”
“One thing that he and the new Department will have to explain is why the previous Ministers in the former Department failed to comply with their statutory obligation to set the fifth carbon budget by the deadline set out in section 4 of the Climate Change Act. Under section 8 of the Act, tabling the draft order containing the intended budget does not suffice to set that budget. The Act required that the order be set by Parliament following the affirmative procedure by 30 June 2016. It is now 18 July, so the statutory duty rests on the Secretary of State to explain why the order was not set in conformity with the 2008 Act.”
“The Minister also mentioned the European Union, and I think he understands that that situation has exacerbated the uncertainty around investment in our energy future. The Government have insisted that they remain committed to delivering the secure, affordable, clean energy that families and business need. Of course, the Minister is right that I welcomed the proposal to set the fifth carbon budget at the level of an average 57% reduction in emissions. That is the most cost-effective pathway to our long-term 2050 goal, and for that reason we will not oppose the order; but he will appreciate that the Government are not judged on words alone.”
“He will know that the analysis not only of the financial industries and the investment banks but of the Select Committee was clear that the Government had damaged investor confidence across the whole of the clean energy sector, putting energy security and the costs of decarbonising under great pressure. They in fact said that after reversing their own manifesto commitment to develop CCS, removing all support for the cheapest form of clean energy and failing to provide any visibility on clean energy investment beyond 2021, the UK is facing an investment hiatus. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues in the new Department will put a particular focus on that, because if we lose investor confidence, the £100 billion of investment that this country needs in its energy infrastructure before 2020 will be extremely difficult to deliver.”
“I think that the Minister must accept that it was a poor signal to remove the words “Climate Change” from the name of the Department. Many of the concerned parties were deeply antagonised by the fact that the Department of Energy and Climate Change had been taken away, lock, stock and barrel; then to drop the words “Climate Change” from the name was, I think, a tactical error. However, the Minister has reassured the Committee today that there is to be no slackening of effort, and that of course is to be welcomed. The Minister talked of investor confidence, which is indeed critical.”
“It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. On this occasion, I am very pleased to welcome the Minister to his new post. It appears that the new Secretary of State has surrounded himself with a posse of very thoughtful Ministers in both the Commons and in the Lords, and I welcome that. I want to pick up on a number of the points the Minister made. I appreciate what he said about this being his first day in the job and about having to deal with a statutory instrument of this nature, so if there are questions that he does not feel able to respond to immediately and he is prepared to write to me and perhaps also to the Committee, that would provide helpful clarification for everyone.”
“The Minister may be aware of the Ernst & Young report on the index of the best countries in the world for renewable energy investment. We never used to be out of the top 10, but in the past two years we have fallen from eighth to 11th to 13th, so there is an independent scale showing that we are going in the wrong direction. He may also be aware that Vattenfall said that in the light of Brexit it was reviewing all its renewable energy investments in the UK, including its £5.5 billion array off the east coast of England. I am not accusing the Minister of complacency, but he must take this seriously.”