My Lords, when we discuss a group of amendments, the majority of which are government ones, one of the difficulties at Report is that we will not have heard the Minister talk to those government amendments. However, I expect that my noble friend will talk to them and I should like to ask her to take a little time to explain why we have the date 31 December 2027 in Amendment 73B.
Carbon capture and storage was one of the areas highlighted in the report of Sub-Committee D, which I referred to last week. I think we were all saddened that so little progress had been made on it. Therefore, I should also like my noble friend to say how she anticipates an increase in the use, and perhaps even the commercialisation, of carbon capture and storage, particularly when Germany has turned its back on it and apparently does not want to take any active part in it.
Turning to Amendment 73 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I understood that in any case the Government were going to review the EPS on a three-yearly basis. The Bill states that it will be statutorily reviewed every fifth year in accordance with the 2010 Act, but I understood that they were going to do so on a three-yearly basis as well. I wonder whether my noble friend could confirm that.
With regard to Amendment 74, which is obviously the key amendment here, I, like my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, am torn. I have certainly received representations from people saying that this would be a disastrous way to go. The noble Lord, Lord Stern, made a very powerful case, as would be expected, but that is only one side of the argument. There is, of course, the trilemma, which we are all very much aware of: it is not just a question of decarbonisation and the removal of bad pollutants; there is also affordability of supply and continuity of supply. Like my noble friend Lord Jenkin, I have received representations that Amendment 74 would, if passed, jeopardise our security of supply.
I believe, too, that it puts us out of kilter with the rest of Europe. There is only a limited amount that we can do as an individual country. I was grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Stern, said that our voice is still heard; but we live in a nasty, tough, commercial world. If others can import cheap American coal and keep their energy prices lower as a result, and we prohibit ourselves from doing so, we put our businesses at risk. We make it more difficult to get the growth that this country so badly needs; and it is through that growth that we will be able to implement the reduction in carbonisation that we all want.
I am therefore unable to support my noble friend Lord Teverson on this—it takes us too far. It tilts the trilemma too much towards the green agenda and does not take enough account of the other important issues.
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