Energy Bill

I must confess to a grave feeling of personal disappointment with the Bill, because it is being published at a time when Parliament has thoroughly recognised the vital importance of combating climate change and, I hope, of promoting renewable energy, which is one of our most potent weapons for fighting climate change. I am disappointed because this legislative vehicle has nothing to promote renewable energy, with the exception of the banded renewables obligation certificates, which are welcome. However, that is only one measure, and we need a comprehensive policy framework. New clauses 4, 20 and 21 form part of a proposed comprehensive framework. Clause 19 would have been another part of it had it been selected by Mr. Speaker. I should like to express my support for new clause 4. The banding of ROCs goes some way towards doing what feed-in tariffs do in Germany. However, the ROCs are still expensive to administer and still provide uncertain value; the redemption value of a ROC is not fixed, so there is still investment uncertainty. It is still worth considering feed-in tariffs not only for microgeneration, for which they are clearly the only workable approach, but as a parallel mechanism for larger, commercial-scale generation. Existing generators could elect to stay with ROCs and new generators could have the option of going either with ROCs or a new feed-in tariff system. There is no need for conflict. Another great advantage to feed-in tariffs is that they do not cost the Treasury a bean, whereas operating the ROC system is very expensive to the public purse.