I tabled a reasoned amendment to decline giving the Bill a Second Reading. I do not do that lightly, and I recognise that there are some small steps forward, including the £7.6 billion for low-carbon energy to 2020, but overall the Bill fails miserably when compared with the scale of the challenges we face. It fails, first, on energy bills and the scandal of 6 million households in fuel poverty; secondly, on the scale and pace of carbon reduction needed; thirdly, because it does not fully recognise the huge potential of energy efficiency and renewable energy, including community renewables, to meet energy needs and create thousands of jobs now and into the future; and finally, because it locks us into a centralised fossil fuel and nuclear energy system at exactly the time when we need more decentralised energy.
Lack of time means that I can focus on only a few aspects. I agree with everything that the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) said about nuclear. Let me say a few words about energy efficiency and fuel poverty. It is extremely disappointing that the Bill overlooks the huge potential of energy efficiency and demand reduction, despite widespread consensus that they are the cheapest, quickest, most effective ways to protect householders and businesses against high energy bills and to cut emissions.
The Government’s record is dismal. Ministers have slashed overall funding for fuel-poor households by 26% and cut energy efficiency funding for fuel-poor households by almost a half. I very much hope the Government will table amendments on demand reduction when the last-minute consultation is complete, and that they are commensurate with their own analysis, which shows that demand for electricity could be cut by at least 40% by 2030. Unfortunately, current policies would achieve at most about a third of that potential. It is crucial that any such demand-side incentives do not compete with renewable energy, and I hope Ministers will today confirm that demand-side measures will not be funded by the levy control framework.
It is worth reiterating that whether we see proposals for an energy efficiency feed-in tariff or other mechanisms, they must be additional to wider measures, including high efficiency standards for buildings and the recycling of revenue from carbon taxes and the EU emissions trading system to invest in a nationwide housing retrofit to ensure that all our homes need far less energy in order to keep warm.
On renewables, I welcome the announcement last month that the Government will provide sufficient funds through the levy control framework to ensure that the UK meets its legally binding renewables target by 2020. I sincerely hope that that will help reverse the current situation in which the UK is falling miserably behind other EU countries. The UK languishes at third from the bottom of the league table, on just 3.3% in 2011, a quarter of the EU average.
I am worried also about the future of community energy, on which Ministers deliver platitudes and promises but no policy. As a result, the Bill prolongs the uncertainty faced by small electricity generators, including community-owned renewables. What we need is a radical change in ownership—a move towards many more independent
generators, smaller companies located in the UK, and community and co-operatively owned energy generation. Many hon. Members will have in their constituencies projects similar to Brighton energy co-operative that offer a real alternative.
I hope we can work together to change the Bill so that it does not disadvantage such schemes, by supporting, for example, the creation of a purchaser of first option to provide a guaranteed market for community energy schemes and other smaller generation projects; an increase in the fixed feed-in tariff threshold to allow funding certainty for community projects; and a minimum annual target for new generation capacity from community renewables schemes.
I will not go into detail—the House can imagine why—on the many reasons why I am a supporter of putting a decarbonisation target in the Bill, but at the risk of sounding just like the Prime Minister did two years ago, I will quote him. He said:
“If we don’t decarbonise electricity, we’ve got no hope of meeting the targets that we’re all committed to.”
That means at the very least a 2030 target of 50g of CO2 per kilowatt hour by 2030. If the scientific evidence shows that we should have more ambitious targets, however, for either power sector or economy-wide decarbonisation, it is crucial that the Bill provides a mechanism to ensure that that can happen in a timely manner.