I have taken two interventions and time is not on our side.
The two Opposition parties want to ignore the fact that what the world desperately needs—this might be a point on which the hon. Lady would agree—is a cost of carbon in the system somewhere. If there was a cost of carbon, the investment decisions right across the world would be affected in the same way—that is what the ETS was supposed to deliver—and we would be in better shape. It is little odd that the Opposition take that view.
I shall not speak at length on the wind point. Others in the House feel more strongly about it than I do and I have spoken about it previously. It is clear that it was in
the manifesto and we need to do what we are committed to do. The wind point goes to the core of one of the issues in the climate change debate—the continuing confusion between renewables and decarbonisation. I have heard speeches today in which Members said that other countries are building renewables more quickly than we are, even though their carbon output is vastly more than ours. Germany is an example, but there are many others. We need to be focused with laser-like efficiency on decarbonisation. That brings in CCS, nuclear and other technologies which the focus on renewables has damaged.
On Paris, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who is no longer in his place, made a speech that I found strange in parts. I say to the whole house—I make this point every time—that the European commitment on the rate of decarbonisation, which it put forward in Paris in its intended nationally determined contribution, and of which we were a part, implies a rate of decarbonisation that is half that which the Climate Change Act 2008 requires us to achieve. Now, it may well be that those countries do not yet realise that we are leading them. It may well be that they have not yet cottoned on to the fact that they are slower than us. Or it may be that they desperately want to protect their Port Talbots, their Motherwells and their Redcars, in a way that has not reached the consciousness of this House to the same extent.
I will finish with a point about jobs. We often hear how many jobs are at risk in solar and wind as a result of changing subsidy regimes, and of course that is regrettable, although I do not know the extent to which those numbers are true. However, it is wrong to say that higher electricity prices do not also cost jobs. It is not just about giving relief to energy-intensive industries. If we in this country expect to have a march of the makers—to use that phrase—and for that to be based on an energy regime in which our manufacturers are paying up to 50% more than manufacturers not in China, or even in the US and Singapore, but in France, Germany and Holland, it is going to be tough. I think that Members of this House need to respect the Government’s duty to balance cost with decarbonisation and all that goes with it.