Greater London Authority Bill

No, I have to make this clear; the last thing that we need to do here is talk about government money. The Government have to create the climate and the market and then let the providers provide. If these things are all predicated on the basis of government grants, they will not work. It is true that we can fund research and modest plants, as has happened. The German plants came about as aresult of a long-term, 20-year commitment on some aspects of capital taxation. Also, they have planners who allowed the plants to be put on the farms. We have identified in Defra, along with our colleaguesin DCLG, that the root cause of the lack of diversification in this country is planning and business skills, and we are addressing that in a report that is about to be published. I genuinely do not think that money is the answer. The climate needs to be there and the renewables obligation has helped to create part of the market, and that is important. If one looks for money on this from the Government, nothing will happen. The fact is that there is more than one way of dealing with this, and there are a variety of technologies. There are people out there who have said to us, ““We do not want the Government on our back. We are not looking for government money, but we do not want nitpicking on waste regulations that stop us using things simply because of the way that they are being interpreted, and we do not want you to be prescriptive on the planning regs simply because this technology is virtually unknown here””. We have to be much more open. The noble Lord is taking a very centralist, old-fashioned, authoritarian view. It is almost an old-fashioned socialist view, that government money is the solution to all the problems. I have to disabuse him of that.