I should remind your Lordships of my registered interest as a director of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. I am not going
to debate with the noble Lord the benefits or otherwise of offshore wind, other than to say that it is not a brand-new technology. I can remember something like 20 years ago inaugurating the first offshore wind farm at Blyth in Northumberland. The technology in its basic form is tried and tested, and is another bit of our armoury. Those of us who, like me, are in our prime, remember the six-day war and the consequences of not having a wide basket of energy sources available to us.
I am not 100% certain that I agree with my noble friend that we should be talking about contracts of a length of 30 years. However, we are talking here about a probing amendment and the uncertainties. We are coming into a big part of the Bill, where we are going to talk about uncertainty for investors. It is about how you secure a rate of return and mitigate risk. That is what was in my noble friend’s mind when he tabled his amendment, and on Thursday we will come to an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Roper, which also brings us back to the issue of uncertainty.
I support what my noble friend is trying to do. There is a bit of a debate on the length of time, but the key to this aspect of the debate is to remove uncertainty. When the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was speaking, I came across a good analogy. When you get on a plane, after take-off the pilot comes on and says, “Don’t worry, I’ve never flown this plane before, but I’ll have read the manual before it’s time to land”. We have a wee bit of a feeling like that about this Bill.