Electricity and Gas (Carbon Emissions Reduction) Order 2008

I had not intended to say anything—I am here to discuss the next order—but I felt that I should make a very general remark after listening to the debate. I welcome the order and anything to do with energy conservation and reducing carbon emissions. A number of years ago, we on the European Communities Committee held an inquiry into renewable energy. Of course things have moved on, but much of what the Government are doing now largely involves panic measures. Governments—previous Governments, not necessarily this one—have failed to do anything for years. The European Communities Committee visited Denmark because it has a climate extremely like our own. We found that how little we had done and are still doing was embarrassing in Denmark. At that time, the use of energy—electricity—there had not increased in the previous 20 years, although GDP had gone up as much as ours had. Why? Because Denmark had conservation measures that actually worked. We were informed that our building control regulations were miles behind those of that similar country. The opinion was offered that this was partly because of the power of the construction industry within the wheels of government and everything else. However, our regulations were miles behind for whatever reason. They are still behind those of Denmark, which is so similar to our country. Why are our building regulations not such that we are conserving more energy than we ever did? We are not up to speed with other nations. Secondly, there is all this encouragement for microgeneration, which I find rather interesting. It was introduced in Northern Ireland about six months before it was brought in here. Denmark went along that route 20 or 30 years ago, which helped it a great deal. Because of the eyesore problems, cost and so on, Denmark is now providing incentives to group microgeneration schemes together so that it is no longer for individual houses. Yet it appears that we are starting back where Denmark started, having learnt precious little from its experience. We have heard this evening that the Government have not always given a lead. Without a doubt, that was the finding of our inquiry: the Government were not giving a lead or the correct incentives to the suppliers to provide what was required to meet our targets. We are now at a stage where, although it may not appear like panic, we are rushing everything through. Although I am entirely behind nuclear, it appears that the decision on it the other day was introduced in exactly the same way. I am delighted by the decision because I believe in nuclear, although I do not have a thorough knowledge of it. A symptom of how the Government do not provide incentives is the number of projects that have failed in the past five to 10 years, whether for planning reasons or because of insufficient incentives to get the project right in the first place. I am talking about projects such as the Holsworthy biogas project in the south-west, where there was not enough incentive to get the filters right and it did not work. This Government and previous Governments are very much to blame for not giving enough of a lead. There is not enough information out there and not enough incentive for business to come to this in a major way. I hope that we achieve those targets. I welcome the order, but we need a lot more to get down to grass-roots level.