New Clause 16 — Carbon emissions reduction targets

Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 8:00 pm on 28 October 2008.

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Photo of Martin Horwood Martin Horwood Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 8:00, 28 October 2008

The hon. Gentleman has introduced an unfortunately partisan tone into the debate. However, I am happy to answer him. It is wrong to say that Liberal Democrat councils are against wind power. I have plenty of examples from Orkney and Shetland downwards where Liberal Democrats at local level have supported wind power in their localities, but I would never say that every application for a wind farm is always right. We have been committed to a democratic planning system, which always gives local people the right to refuse a wind farm.

The direction of travel is more in the direction that Denmark has followed for a long time, putting great emphasis on community buy-in to wind projects and there has therefore been a very low level of opposition to wind farms in that country. That is a model that our energy companies might follow. The hon. Gentleman is right that we are against nuclear power, which we believe would leave a toxic legacy to future generations that runs the risk of leaving us with the kind of bill—the Secretary of State is smiling. I do not know whether he has done the sums, and I am not sure whether he has inherited the budget from DBERR for nuclear clean-up, which runs to some £1.4 billion a year. Fifty-six years after the first nuclear power started producing radioactive waste, we still have not found anywhere to put it. If Paddy Tipping is advocating that we make those same mistakes again, I would certainly reject the policy.

We need transitional technologies to see us through any possible energy gap while we wait for renewables to come on stream on a scale sufficient to fill the needs of the whole UK economy. We should do that partly by investing in new renewables. The Carbon Trust recently produced some encouraging figures about how offshore wind is coming on stream faster and is likely to attract more investment than was previously envisaged. Another part of the answer is, of course, energy and demand reduction and energy efficiency, which must make a big contribution.

The other key transitional technology will probably be carbon capture and storage. We need to lock in that technology, which is why it is so important to support amendments such as new clause 11 and give the clearest signal that we will not tolerate unabated coal power into the future. That would give precisely the wrong signal to the private sector and discourage investment in carbon capture and storage. As has been pointed out, that would mean that the projects would go ahead—but in Dubai, China, America and Germany, not in this country. I am happy to support new clauses 10 and 11 and the Government new clauses and amendments.