My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, cites as his authority the Financial Times. I want to address the question of energy prices by turning to the authority of the statutory committee set up by this Parliament, the Committee on Climate Change. I declare an interest as a member of that committee. Through rigorous detailed economic analysis it has uncovered the facts. Between 2004 and 2012 the average household energy bill for a dual-fuel household that uses electricity and gas increased by £520, from £610 to £1,130. How much of that was caused by green, low-carbon measures? The answer is that £30, or 6%, of the energy price increases over that period was due to investment in low-carbon energy generation. Another £45 was due to investment in energy efficiency to help with the affordability of energy for vulnerable consumers, and the rest was largely due to increases in the price of gas.
Turning to the present, 2013-14, the climate change committee has calculated that the increases due to the renewables obligation, the feed-in tariff, the energy company obligation and the carbon-price underpin between them amount to 1% of household energy bills. Let us look forward to 2020. The climate change committee estimates that household energy bills will be 10% higher due to low-carbon investment but—and this is an important but—that 10%, which is small in relation to the overall increase, could easily be offset by investment in energy efficiency such as the installation of new boilers and energy-efficient lighting, appliances, heating and insulation in homes. It is therefore a complete canard to claim that investment in low-carbon energy is the cause, and will be the cause, of increases in energy prices. It is simply not true. What about the commercial sector? The climate change committee estimates that by 2020 1p in every £10 will be added to consumer prices as a result of investment in low-carbon energy.
We should not get confused in this debate by the arguments about energy prices. We should also remind ourselves, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has said, that this country is by no means the only one to be taking serious steps to transition to a low-carbon economy. China, Germany, South Korea, Mexico and many others are taking steps, just as we are. We are not leading alone but should be among the leading nations that are setting an example to the rest of the world.
The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that if we take no action we are likely to see global warming of between 3.2 and 5.4 degrees by the end of this century, which could be disastrous for our descendants, and that we should take action now. In that context, I commend the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, and hope that this House will support it.