Select Committee on Trade and Industry First Report


ENERGY POLICY

  192. In response to suggestions from some witnesses that there was no Government policy on energy,[462] the Minister outlined the Government's energy policy to us as allowing "the disciplines of the marketplace to have a far more significant effect" than there had been before privatisation.[463] He added that the Government's energy policy also had environmental and social features and involved the promotion of competition in the domestic market and the promotion of greater liberalisation across European energy markets.[464]

  193. We do not accept the proposition that the Government does not have an energy policy. Clearly it does. However the Royal Academy of Engineering told us it is "important that Government does not abdicate its responsibility for national planning and overseeing energy supply to support long-term economic development" and that "strategic policy is naturally the province of Government".[465] We agree. Therefore the question which needs to be asked is whether the Government's policy is detailed enough to prevent regulators crossing the boundary between policy-making and implementation. Several witnesses expressed sentiments similar to those of the GCC who told us that "there is a concern that Parliament has entrusted complete responsibility for what are, in effect, public policy decisions to the regulators".[466] We recognise that the Government will need to review its energy policy, from time to time, especially in the light of international environmental obligations.


462  Mem. p.82. Back

463  Q. 1180. Back

464  Q. 1180. Back

465  Mem. p.102. Back

466  Ev. p.94; See also Mem. pp.42, 82, 102; Ev. p.175. Back


 
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Prepared 18 March 1997