It is a pleasure to listen to a message from the other place and to disagree with it wholeheartedly. A few hours ago the German Government decided that they want to withdraw subsidy from onshore wind schemes, for exactly the same reasons that we in this country are doing so. In previous debates and in Committee, I described my campaign to get this clear manifesto pledge from my party. I will not go through that again—I had only half an hour last time to describe the process and some of the things that I was after, and we are time-limited today—but it all stemmed from the Kelmarsh decision in my constituency.
Members in this place understand how important it is to represent their constituents, but I wish to tell some of those in the other place that it was not only one small village in my constituency that was affected by an onshore wind decision—Hanging Houghton, Brixworth, Draughton, Maidwell, Hazelbeach, Kelmarsh, Yelvertoft, Winwick, Crick, Lilbourne, Badby, Kislingbury, Guilsborough, Watford, West Haddon, East Haddon, Ravensthorpe, Great Oxendon and many more villages in my constituency were all affected by proposals for unwanted onshore wind farms. That is why at the end of
the previous Parliament, a letter to the Prime Minister was signed by 101 Members of Parliament in order to get this change. There was a long battle across the Floor of the House about whether we should be subsidising onshore wind, and a clear manifesto pledge by the Conservative party to stop funding it.
The hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) have highlighted small factors within the grace period, but this is a clear manifesto pledge and principle that people in my constituency wanted and expected me to fight for. I will not listen to those in the other House who are determined to bring party politics into this.
There are no Lib Dems in the Chamber today—there are too many anyway, but none of them is here today. Those Lib Dems who fought to reform and get an elected Chamber up the other end of the corridor are now using that Chamber to abuse the democratic process of this country. They know full well what they are doing. When Lord Wallace of Tankerness decided that he wanted to interpret the Conservative party manifesto, it was interesting that many Liberal Democrats who supported him had been defeated by people who supported that manifesto. They lost their seats partly because in their communities they could not defend the onshore wind turbines that the Conservative party had made a clear commitment to get rid of.