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Mr. Baker: That is an ingenious suggestion, but one that I shall probably ignore when the time--fast approaching--comes to sort out a name.

I could not miss the opportunity to return for the debate on Government amendment No. 3. I am at a loss to know what to make of it. The Government's policy is set out in "New and Renewable Energy: Prospects for the 21st Century: Conclusions in response to the public consultation", which states:

5 per cent. of UK electricity requirements should be met from renewables by the end of the year 2003 and 10 per cent. by 2010.

That relates closely to the amendment that was tabled in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) and me. We were trying to be helpful to the Government by inserting in the Bill a Labour party policy that had obviously been omitted by mistake during the process of getting the Bill up and running.

I thought that our help had been acknowledged because, when it came to the vote in Committee, the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope), was so keen to support the amendment that he added his voice to mine. Such was the force of the argument and the fact that the amendment indisputably represented Labour party policy, that not a murmur of opposition was heard--the amendment was passed nem con. Both Ministers now present acceded to the amendment, and I was pleased to see that they accepted the policy of their own party.

Therefore, I am at a loss to know why the Government are attempting to reverse my amendment--I can think of no explanation other than that it must be a mistake. It is certainly a slap in the face for the Labour Whip--a free-thinking, sensible person and a paid-up member of the human race who is much too good for the Whips Office--and for the Ministers who were present in Committee and implicitly acknowledged that my arguments had force and that my amendment should be accepted. It is extremely odd that it required a Liberal Democrat to introduce a Labour party policy whose removal requires Labour party action now.

I wonder whether anything occurred between Committee and Report to justify such action. Nothing has changed, so the only explanation that I can offer is that

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Ministers have been leaned on by forces higher up in the Government than they are. I cannot believe that the Labour Whip in Committee made a mistake and all the Labour members of the Committee were asleep when my amendment was voted on.

Mr. Ian Bruce: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that he congratulated Government Front Benchers on their actions in Committee and that they did nothing to disavow his congratulations--in fact, they appeared pleased?

Mr. Baker: I remember that well. Ministers and Government Back Benchers present on that occasion appeared happy with the amendment when it was made, so I cannot understand why it is now to be reversed.

If the Government intend to pursue that action, it calls into question their commitment to renewable energy. This week, £100 million was plucked out of nowhere for the coal industry, despite the fact that, as the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) says, that is hardly picking a winner. A parliamentary answer I received on 24 March tells me that £9.6 million was spent by the Government on research, development, dissemination and demonstration for the renewable energy programme in 1998-99, which is the most recent year for which figures are available. That is less than the sums spent by the Conservative Government, who regularly spent between £20 million and £25 million each year. The Labour Government have drastically cut the amount of money put into renewable energy. In fact, spending for 1998-99 was the lowest in the 10-year period covered by my question, and it was the first time that spending dropped below £10 million a year. A question mark hangs over the Government's commitment to renewable energy.

Mr. Bruce: The hon. Gentleman might be surprised to learn the contents of a message that I have just received about the European Commission's renewables directive. Our friends in Friends of the Earth tell me that it was released on 10 April and widely reported. Therefore, there must be an EU directive. Does the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe recognise that Friends of the Earth was right and the Government were wrong?

Mr. Baker: I draw two conclusions from that intervention. First, that the hon. Gentleman is closer to Friends of the Earth than he sometimes appears to be, which is a good thing, and secondly, that the Minister appears to have been briefed badly, which has not been unusual during proceedings on the Bill.

Let me return to the question of the right hon. Lady's commitment to renewable energy. In Committee, she told me that if I read "New and Renewable Energy: Prospects for the 21st Century: Conclusions in response to the public consultation", I would see

the extent to which we are moving towards fulfilling our manifesto commitments, and our commitment to ensuring a proper foundation and strong future for the renewable energy industry.

Who can complain about that? Later, she told me:

The Government have every intention of using the new powers to meet the declared target of 10 per cent. of renewables by 2010--

but if the Government have every intention of following their own policy and doing that, what can be the objection to writing that into the Bill? That is all that we did in

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Committee. Is it not the truth that the Government are not really committed to that target? I ask that because the right hon. Lady added the proviso,

provided that the cost to consumers--

no doubt, widely drawn--

"is acceptable."--[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 30 March 2000; c. 580.]

I suggest that the Government are only superficially committed to renewables. They are committed to sending the right message to environmental groups, to saying the right things, and to writing nice words that can be trailed out when they meet representatives of Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace, but they are not committed to delivering on the policy--quite the reverse. If they were committed to that, they would be happy for it to be written into the Bill, but they are not. The Government want to tell the green groups that they are committed to wonderful renewable energy, but they also want to be able to tell industry not to worry because there is no real target, and to give some sort of reason for reducing their commitment even further. That is a slightly dishonest position for the Government to have adopted.

The other relevant point about renewables is that, in Committee, the Government refused to accept the EU definition of renewable energy as excluding the incineration of waste. In response to a question from me, the Minister declared that a substantial amount of the renewable energy generation target--loosely defined--would be met from incineration capacity. That is the basis not for an argument for or against incineration, but for the argument that waste which is incinerated is not a renewable energy source. That is clear.

It was all very well for the Minister to criticise the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), saying that combined heat and power was not renewable energy, but the Government are perfectly happy to describe incineration capacity and waste burned in that way as renewable energy, which it patently is not--not least because it encourages the production of waste in the first place, which is not environmental, and because it leaves a huge toxic deposit to be disposed of. Bottom ash and fly ash are highly toxic. How can something be declared renewable when it produces such toxic waste? The Minister is all at sixes and sevens on the issue.

The reality is that the Government got it wrong and there was a mix-up in Committee. Such things happen, but the measure introduced by my amendment was directly in line with Labour party policy and with the Government's stated intentions in their own documents. We must now ask why they are removing it. I have had no proper explanation for that. Unless they can give one today, the only conclusion that any fair-minded Member can reach is that they are not really committed to that renewable target.

6 pm

Mrs. Liddell: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) on the birth of his daughter. May I suggest the name Anita, after NETA--new electricity trading arrangements? Having gone through the experience that the hon. Gentleman and his wife are now going through, and knowing that they will probably have many sleepless nights, I commend to the hon. Gentleman

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the speeches of the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce). I am sure that they will be a superb antidote to insomnia.

Mr. Ian Bruce: I thought that the right hon. Lady was about to say that I sounded so sweet that the child would not cry when listening to one of my speeches.

Mrs. Liddell: Perhaps it is the obsession with marble pillars. That is an in-joke for Committee members.

It is not often that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) gets something right, and he has got it wrong again. New clause 2 concerns the publication of information. My Department already has annual and monthly energy publications that contain the information that the new clause seeks to have published, and a great deal more beside. I commend those publications to the House. The Government will continue to communicate their energy policy through clear and timely announcements.

Is it not a measure of the bitterness among Opposition Members about the coal industry that we heard such bile about the Secretary of State's statement on Monday? It is the Government's duty, and my specific duty as the Minister with responsibility for energy, to ensure security and diversity of supply. That was something to which the previous Government paid little attention in their vendetta against the coal industry. The move that my right hon. Friend made on Monday to ensure that the management of change in the coal industry--which has gone to great lengths to improve its effectiveness and efficiency--will allow a future for an industry that the Opposition sought to destroy.

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