My Lords, I shall speak briefly because I realise that it has been a long debate. I want to make just a couple of points. First, the Government are taking the most important step in putting in place the legislative framework to allow a binding target range to be set at the right time. I understand—perhaps my noble friend the Minister will confirm this—that there is nothing in the Bill to say that if circumstances change in the next two or three years the Government could not go ahead and make that announcement. I believe that that flexibility is in the legislation. When the decision is made—whether it is 2016 or before—the fact that the legislative framework is in place will mean that it can be implemented with more speed than if we had to come back to take this matter through Parliament. That in itself is an advantage. I therefore support what the Government are proposing.
Secondly, I want to press the fact that all Governments have required flexibility in this area of policy, as was mentioned so ably by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of
Roding. I just share with the Committee a conversation that I had when I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee in 2005 with the then DTI Permanent Secretary who then had responsibility for energy policy, Sir Robin Young. During an evidence session, I pressed him on whether he would guarantee integrity of supply in the light of the Government’s failure to make an announcement on whether they would renew our nuclear plants, in particular as we were well aware at the time that the Magnox reactors were coming to the end of their life. In response to my question, he confirmed that a minimum lead time would be 15 years, so in 2005 we were getting quite anxious about where the policy was going. I asked him to guarantee integrity of supply. In his reply, he stated:
“The absolute guarantee is in the white paper”—
that was the Government’s 2003 energy White Paper—
“that a reliable competitive and affordable supply of energy is a number one priority for the government, of equal priority to the low carbon objective”.
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Whatever the circumstances, whether we were talking then of the concern about not renewing our nuclear plants, or now when the discussion has focused on some of the new forms of energy such as shale, Governments have always sought that flexibility. What applied in 2005 certainly applies now. I assume that is why my noble friend and the Government seek such flexibility in this part of the Bill.
The Government cannot consider only the carbon objective, however important it may be. They must also consider security of supply and the cost both to business and to the domestic consumer. They must balance all of that. That has been the case for as long as I can member discussing energy policy in the UK.
Mention has been made of people who are set against a belief in climate change. I have had two serious floods in my home in the past 15 years as a result of changes in the climate, so I do not need convincing that there is a need for change. However, I say to the Minister that she is right to keep that flexibility, and that the most serious thing that could happen to undermine the confidence both of domestic consumers and, in particular, of commerce and industry, would be if there were any question of a failure in the security of supply. Nobody in this room will need me to spell that out. As politicians, we all know what happens to whoever is in government at the time the lights go off. I remember when the lights went off in the 1970s—I moved house on a cold, dark, winter’s morning, running around with a baby under one arm and holding a candlestick with the other, trying to pack up my final possessions before the delivery men arrived. I would not want to go through that again, and nor would anybody who aspires to govern.