Climate Change and SustainableEnergy Bill

The right hon. Gentleman makes avalid point. However, the targets for cutting carbon emissions are still there and the Government are doing all that they can to reach them. The Committee found that electricity losses on the UK grid system are in the order of 10 per cent., while the efficiency of coal power stations can be as low as 35 per cent. We suggested that there should be more intelligent solutions. Flows of electricity could be in both directions, depending on local demand. The Committee suggested that microgeneration offered potentially huge improvements in energy efficiency, particularly in the case of combined heat and power. Another recent report by the Sustainable Consumption Round Table produced some pertinent findings. For example, microgeneration vastly increases people’s awareness of the entire energy production and consumption chain. The result of that awareness is that people tend to become much more concerned not only with the production of energy, but with the conservational aspects, and that is surely a good thing. It would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of those educational side effects of microgeneration. It is surely a regret of many hon. Members that successive Governments have been unable to instil into the public consciousness the urgent need for energy conservation, and the fact that individuals really can make a difference. I acknowledge the significant contribution ofthe co-operative movement to developing and implementing the technology in many innovative ways that will surely benefit our society as we learn more about the potential of those systems. Micro-generation eradicates the gulf between energy producers and consumers, and that can only be a good thing, as today most people have no idea at all where their energy comes from. In an age when Governments around the world and every significant scientific body are urging a shift in energy production techniques to safeguard our very existence, that is simply unacceptable. Given all those benefits, the Committee came to the conclusion that support from the Government was not overwhelming. We found that the technology was reasonably well developed and only needed to be scaled up to industrial production in order to reduce unit costs. Investment was needed, as well as physical and regulatory issues surrounding installation. Yes, there has been progress: the Energy Act 2004 put an obligation on the Government to come up with a microgeneration strategy. The Department of Trade and Industry published a microgeneration strategy a few weeks ago. In his Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer committed a further£50 million to the low carbon building programme for offices and social housing. Obviously, I welcome those initiatives as good steps in the right direction, but there is still a lot more to be done, and I have to agree with my colleagues on the Committee who complained about a lack of urgency on the Government’s side, especially when it comes to private housing. The Bill’s provisions for national microgeneration targets are therefore the best way forward. I am not a great fan of targets, but in this case I see no alternative that would provoke the scale and swiftness of response—