My Lords, I support Amendment 60. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I will not reiterate my earlier comments, which are that I consider this whole section of the Bill to be a sad necessity that need not have been there had the Government grasped the bigger picture of properly introducing competition during their energy market reforms. However, Amendment 60 seems to be eminently sensible. It is clear, from all the contributions we have heard today, that there is insufficient confidence among independent generators that the Government are serious about introducing something to assist them at this time. It is also quite clear that the clauses we are now debating are a last-minute addition to the Bill.
When the Government started out on this process they maintained that there was no problem and nothing to be worried about; I suspect that this was because
they paid far too much attention to what the big six were telling them and insufficient attention to what the independent generators were saying. We therefore have these four clauses, which do not go far enough in providing the detail or the certainty that investors require. Ministers should at the very least be able to concede that these arrangements will be in place in time for the awarding of the first CFDs; that would be the absolute minimum.
On the other amendments, which are slightly more detailed—I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that they may be too prescriptive for primary legislation—the regulations that flow from these clauses must be published before the Bill leaves this House, as we need to see the detail. I apologise if the draft regulations have in fact already been published; they may have been lost in the huge number of documents, for which we are grateful, that have been issued to us. However, if they have not been published, can the Minister tell us when they will be so that we can see how this policy will work and appreciate the detail? I hope that that will go some way to reassure the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate this afternoon.