Photovoltaics

Part of Energy and Climate Change – in the House of Commons at 10:30 am on 26 January 2012.

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Photo of Caroline Flint Caroline Flint Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change 10:30, 26 January 2012

When the cuts to solar were announced, the Minister of State, Gregory Barker claimed that they would create jobs. Paragraph 73 of the impact assessment, signed off by the Minister on 2 November 2011, says that

“there could be around 1,000 to 10,000 gross additional jobs in this sector in the three years to 2014/15”.

Can the Secretary of State confirm today that those 1,000 to 10,000 jobs are not additional jobs, but the total number that the industry will support, which, for a sector that currently employs nearly 30,000 people, means tens of thousands of job losses?