Energy Bill

Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 3:45 pm on 22 January 2008.

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Photo of John Hutton John Hutton Secretary of State, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform 3:45, 22 January 2008

I shall certainly do that, and I am happy to work with my hon. Friend to bring that about. All the analysis and the discussion so far today has been about the energy implications of the things that we are talking about—security, climate change and so on—but we should not overlook the prospect that renewable technology and renewable energy sources hold out a good chance of bringing about the birth of a new generation of green-collar jobs in British manufacturing. We should focus on that, possibly not in this debate, but in the months and years ahead. I shall do all I can to work with him and hon. Members on both sides of the House to ensure that the UK extracts the maximum potential benefit from all such technology for our manufacturing base. We can, should and will do more.

I hope that this opportunity to restate the Government's ambitions for renewables is also timely for another reason. Today, I am publishing the terms of reference for the Severn tidal power feasibility study, which I announced in September. The Severn estuary has the potential to generate up to 5 per cent. of the UK's electricity, and the feasibility study is a hugely important project in ensuring that we understand all the environmental, social and economic impacts of a project of such size and scale. It is potentially another important strand of our efforts to increase renewables deployment. Earlier today, I laid a written statement before the House setting out the full details of the terms of reference, and we estimate that the study will cost about £9 million.