My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the general support of the noble Baroness for the regulations. She is right that we did discuss it at great length at various stages of what became the Energy Act and within the Infrastructure Bill—so the debate has been well aired. It is an important backstop measure that complements the wider range of interventions that act to secure and decarbonise our electricity supplies as we work towards a low-carbon future.
The noble Baroness touched on a number of issues and I shall try to go through them—but, as with all things, if I feel when reading Hansard that I have missed something out I undertake to write to her. She asked about the capacity markets and felt that the market had squeezed out gas. We have always made it clear that the capacity markets would be technology neutral and that we needed to make sure that there is competition built in, so that we get best value for the consumer. We project that coal will eventually come off and that we will have far less dependency on it, given that we have the potential for the exploitation of shale and other technologies. We see coal playing less of a role going forward. However, it is important to ensure through the measures we are taking that we do not put such a cost pressure on the consumer and that we have security of supply because it is so necessary for us to demonstrate to the public that the Government have taken all precautions to ensure that the lights stay on. So I think that the noble Baroness was being slightly unfair The capacity market brought on a lot of different technologies at a cost that was driven by competition, which gives the consumer better value for money.
The noble Baroness also asked us to look at the future of coal. I have just touched on that. Our analysis is very much in league with a lot of other analysis that has been given to us, which suggests that unabated is expected to account for only 1% of total electricity generation in Great Britain by 2025, and will decline even further.