My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his reply and I certainly appreciate his offer to discuss this. I very much hope it will be a productive discussion.
There are things here which merit further discussion. In particular, Scottish Renewables does not feel that the Bill has met the Smith commission proposal on consultation on Ofgem’s energy strategy and policy statement. Legislation might not be necessary, and I would be interested to pursue that with the Minister. Obviously, the Smith commission included the Deputy First Minister, who had overall ministerial responsibility for these matters during part of his time in office, so one assumes he felt that there was a need to go further than the Energy Act 2013.
I cannot say that I am surprised by the Minister’s response to the new clause proposed by Amendment 73A, but it is unfortunate because this is an opportunity to build on the Smith commission in the light of developments that have taken place since. I will take one point of issue with the Minister. He talked about the importance of the integrated UK market and I entirely agree—indeed, I made that point myself. He seemed to indicate that there was no room within that for regional variations. Perhaps he should get those who prepared his brief to ask what has been going on for the past seven, eight or nine years. The renewables obligations have been dealt with on a separate Scottish basis under executive devolution, and this has worked very well. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Stephen and I, and our successors in office, have been able to do some innovative and imaginative things with the ROCs, so the system would not fall apart if there was regional variation. I am disappointed, and perhaps on reflection, the Minister may think there is still a case for that.
I thank the Minister for his offer of a meeting, which I will certainly take up. I am appreciative of that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.