My Lords, I have hesitated to intervene in this section for some time, but I feel that I should follow my noble friend Lord Deben in this matter. The truth is that the 2050 target for the electricity generating industry is zero. That is the reality of the economy that we have to head into. To assume that we can have gas plants running at this level five years short of that is perhaps acceptable if they are constructed in the next short timescale, with a view to them going out of use in 2045, but it will not be acceptable for something constructed in 2040. It is as simple and basic as that.
The purpose of having a discussion in a Committee like this on a Bill like this is to enable Members to raise these types of inconsistencies and for the Government to say, and I hope that the Minister will: “There is actually a point here. We will go away and think very seriously about this”. If gas generation is to continue past 2050, it will have to have CCS fitted to it and will have to work pretty well perfectly. My opinion—I think I said this at Second Reading—is that we should stop messing about with CCS in coal because it is not going to get us there. It may get us there with gas, or we have to have other forms of generation. That is now the law of the land and we are not going to set that aside. Frankly, one would have to say to our noble friends speaking for the department that if they flatly reject this, they are asking for amendments to be brought forward on Report that will then have to be voted on, and I would rather they did not do that. They ought to be able to arrive at a more reasoned approach.