I entirely agree. Amendment 15 would give the Government a statutory duty to consult on such matters with National Grid. Assuming that the amendment is accepted, the result of such consultations might indeed be a market-led mechanism. I am not prejudging the outcome, but we need to face up to some facts. I am sure that the Minister will assure us that Her Majesty’s Government are not doing this, but for them simply to sit back and say that because of CO2 emissions and so on we want lots more people to be driving electric cars—with that already public policy, incentivised in purchase prices, with rebates and so on—and to assume that there will be sufficient electricity generation without actually talking to the National Grid about it, would be very foolish.

A regulatory solution may be required, or part of the solution may be regulatory and part not, but simply hoping, as some might do, that the market will sort it out is a triumph of hope over experience, given for example, the vast cost of nuclear reactors and the very long lead time in building them. Nuclear reactors are not the only source of new electricity generation, and there will be technological developments as well, but we need to take that factor into account, and to think about it now.