Written evidence to be reported to the House
Energy Bill
12:00 pm
Benet Northcote: I think that is right. The importance of heat to climate change and to our energy security cannot be underestimated. Something like 47 per cent. of our total emissions come from heat. We talk about gas security. I do not know about you, but my most immediate relationship with gas is in my boiler at home, which is where the gas is being burned. The idea that you can somehow have a coherent energy policy and not have a heat policy beggars belief. The current energy White Paper has a mere four pages on heat; I cannot remember how many pages there were, but I attempted to read them all. That is a key part of the matter, and the Bill does very little or nothing to address it.
To reiterate on feed-in tariffs, they are also tremendously important. You must look at the success of countries that have adopted feed-in tariffs, notably Germany, where they are massively outstripping our delivery of renewables in terms of solar power and wind. It is acknowledged that the changes that the Bill makes to the ROCs and the current framework will not get us to the necessary targets. The Government admit that a new renewables Bill will be needed in about 2009 to meet the EU target. There is a lot that the Bill does not do that it needs to do.