UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for letting me intervene; I shall not intervene again. I do not want to get in the way of the thrust of her argument, but I would ask her to say, “Well, of course, those people would say that”. There is at the end of the day a whole bargain going on here where suppliers will try to get the best deal they can, so they are bound to say things like that. The difficulty of the Government’s position is in being able to assess, as we have seen in the negotiations for the nuclear strike price for Hinkley Point, what that balance of risk and proper price is.

No other industry, not even agriculture under the common agricultural policy in the 1960s and 1970s, has offered a fixed index-linked price for 15 years. I do not in any way want to undermine the noble Baroness’s general argument, because it is an important area, but I think that we have to be really careful in our negotiations about how much we have already given within this framework, given the very large businesses that have very good negotiators. I know that the noble Baroness is one of the least naive people, but I think that we on this side have to be slightly careful about being naive in these price arguments. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the strong point at Second Reading that we are in an international market—I absolutely agree with that—but we have to keep a sense of proportion about what else is being offered. I shall not interrupt the noble Baroness again.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

746 c382GC 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee
Back to top