Climate Change and SustainableEnergy Bill

I am sure that we all miss my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and wish him well in his speedy recovery. I rise to support the Bill. It is commendable and long overdue, and most people who believe in the need to address climate change can support it. I welcome the language used by the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the ““Today”” programme this morning. He said that at the heart of the Government is a series of Ministers who are all committed to addressing climate change. That is very welcome language, but the difficulty that we Opposition Members have is that such language has been used for many years—the real issue is delivery. We must focus on delivery and if the Bill goes some way toward achieving that, it will be very welcome. The truth is that that issue should have been addressed in the last energy review, some three years ago. The review was a complete cop-out, however, because the various divisions within the Labour party were unable to agree on the central issues of the day. They could see an election coming, so they parked the issue and as a result, for three years absolutely no progress has been made. I point out in particular to the Minister for Energy, who is in his place, that his energy review has to find a way to finance new power generation plants. For the first time, we will have a completely new series of power generation plants built by the private sector. Be they nuclear, gas, oil, coal or clean technology plants, the finance will have to come from the private sector. However, there is no framework in place to give the private sector the confidence to build, invest in and deliver the power generation that we want. Producing such a framework is a pressing issue for the Minister to consider in his review. So far as I can see, no new power generation is going on whatsoever outside the renewable energy sector, for the simple reason that the payback on a large power station could take 15 to 20 years to realise. An investor will not invest unless he can see that he can get a return on his money; he has to have some assurance that he will see a return before building a power station that, hopefully, will reduce emissions. That is a fundamental policy issue, and I hope that the Minister will take account of it in his energy review. My final point, which the Minister and I have discussed before, concerns co-firing. Co-firing is the process by which a biofuel is put into the mix and burned in, say, a coal-fired power station. Such biofuel qualifies as a renewable energy. Under current rules, however, co-firing is to be phased out. To be fair, the Minister has said that he will review that policy. I wish him well in doing so, because the net effect of phasing out co-firing will be an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, not a decrease, and at a time when we are all committed to reducing CO2 emissions. Moreover, I urge the Minister to restore the cap, set currently at10 per cent., to its original level of 25 per cent. That way, we can achieve a much better energy mix. All those points are important. I will not go on any longer, as there are plenty of people here today who want to put in their two penny-worth. I wish the Bill well and give it my full support.