I do not remember the precise detail of what went in when they came forward with this proposal but I presume—I give credit to
those who were on the Smith commission, including the noble Lord’s own party members—that they did not seek to make a recommendation and that it already existed. I hope that the noble Lord would give due credit to the other members of the commission—the Labour members—that they would not have signed up to something that was already there. That is why I want the Minister to explain why he thinks that the Government’s interpretation of that recommendation is satisfied by something that was already in place. Can we not reasonably assume that those who were engaged in this were looking for something more? Indeed, Scottish Renewables is not satisfied that the legislation is sufficient. In an email to me, it said:
“If this recommendation is not to be carried forward through the Scotland Bill, we would like clarification about how any new or improved mechanism will be formalised outside of the primary legislation”.
We have to get some indication from the Government as to what more they are doing than what was already in place before the Smith commission sat.
I fully accept that Amendment 73A goes well beyond the Smith commission, so that probably bottoms it out before I even open my mouth. But there is an important point here as well. When the Smith commission was deliberating, it did not know that several months later the Government would pull the rug from under the onshore wind industry, not just in Scotland but throughout the United Kingdom, by bringing forward the date of closure of the renewables obligation. We are entitled to speculate that, if the Smith commission had deliberated after the announcement to accelerate the closure of the renewable obligation for onshore wind and solar, it may well have incorporated something along the lines of what we propose in Amendment 73A.
Amendment 73A says that:
“Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State shall publish proposals to transfer to the Scottish Ministers powers on the awarding of contracts under Contracts for Difference and the setting of electricity feed-in tariffs in respect of electricity generation from renewable sources in Scotland”.
This is quite a major step, but it is very much within the Government’s ability to shape what kind of scheme they would bring forward. We propose this because there are a number of different ways of doing it. There could be a full set of powers through a suitable adaptation of the Energy Act 2013; the Government may wish to limit it to onshore wind to encourage electricity generation by onshore wind; or it could be done by an intergovernmental agreement on budget limits and a restriction on the power to set the strike price.
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The position we have is that there is general support and broad agreement that a single electricity market and climate change policy is in the interest of both Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. All sides of your Lordships’ House argued that very forcefully during the referendum campaign. There is also agreement that Scotland should be entitled to deploy electricity capacity of its own choosing that enables the efficient functioning of the single electricity market and achieves UK-wide climate change objectives, and that the deployment of renewable technology choices by Scotland should be supported by UK-wide subsidy schemes where such subsidy is required and where Scottish
deployment choices enable an overall reduction in the level of the UK-wide subsidy to deliver climate change policies.
I was the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Minister in Scotland, and my noble friend Lord Stephen also had a big part to play in getting the offshore wind industry moving in Scotland. Many years of investment in that industry have brought about considerable advancements that have led to the generation of electricity by onshore wind being one of the cheaper forms of renewable energy. There is much scepticism in the industry as to whether the Government will do anything to support the onshore wind industry, but to give Scotland the opportunity to devise its own programme of contracts for difference and to develop the indigenous industries, skills and employment that goes with that in a way that would help to reduce the cost to the United Kingdom taxpayer seems to be, by any stretch of the imagination, a win-win situation. I accept that this goes beyond the Smith commission but as I have said, were the Smith commission deliberating today—in the light of what we have seen since the Government took office in May and brought forward their changes in the initial Energy Bill—one might expect this to be a sensible proposal to come from it. It is one that can suit the Government’s agenda, as well as giving meaningful and worthwhile powers to the Scottish Parliament. I hope that it will commend itself to the Minister and that he will see that there is merit in this somewhat different but ambitious and innovative proposal. I beg to move.