Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change pursuant to the oral statement of 29 November 2012, Official Report, column 389, on energy policy, what the evidential basis is for the statement that energy investment is running at a 20-year high.
[132682]
Answer
According to a recent report—‘Powering the UK’, published by Ernst and Young in July 2012—investment in the power and gas sector was £43 billion between 2007 and 2011. This rate of investment (as a proportion of total turnover for the sector) was 12%, which is a 20-year high.