New Clause
15
Extension
of Marine Renewables Deployment
Fund
‘The Secretary of State
shall make regulations to extend the remit of the Marine Renewables
Deployment Fund to include support for the early development of wave
and tidal technologies that need to complete pre-competitive research
and development through deployment and
demonstration.’.—[Steve
Webb.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Motion
made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second
time:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
10.
Division
No.
9
]
Question
accordingly negatived.
5.45
pm
New
Clause
25
Energy
usage in homes and
businesses
‘The Secretary of
State shall, in each calendar year following that in which this Act is
passed, lay before Parliament a report
on—
(a) total energy
consumption in domestic
housing,
(b) total energy
consumption by businesses,
and
(c) the impact of
government measures to assist energy
efficiency.’.—[Charles
Hendry.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Motion
made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second
time:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
10.
Division
No.
10
]
Question
accordingly negatived.
Ordered,
That certain written evidence
already reported to the House be appended to the proceedings of the
Committee.—[Malcolm
Wicks.]
Question
proposed, That the Chairman do report the Bill, as amended, to the
House.
Malcolm
Wicks:
This is an exciting and useful moment, and I will
now have to fill my days with other tasks. As I am flying to Tokyo
tomorrow for a Gleneagles follow-up meeting of Energy and Environment
Ministers, I do not think that I will not have too much time on my
hands.
May I first
thank you, Mrs. Humble, and your colleague, Mr.
Amess, for the way in which you have presided over the Committee? You
have done so most effectively, with the appropriate combination of
sensitivity when we have strayed and iron discipline.
I would also like to thank our
Clerks, those who work for Hansard and the police, who have not
been overburdened with disciplinary problems. In particular, I would
like to thank fellow members of the Committee, as proceedings have been
an efficient, well-informed, and at times, highly intellectual. I
noticed that The Guardian reported a little discussion that we
had about the beautiful island of Alderney, which several of us took
part in. I think that it was suggesting that that discussion did not
show a high intellectual content for the Committee. I do not think that
it reported anything else we said, which might say more about The
Guardian than it does about the Committee.
I think that there has been a
great deal of decency in the Committee and a great deal of give and
take, if I can put it that
way.
Charles
Hendry:
What
give?
Malcolm
Wicks:
I have taken a great deal of understanding and
patience from all members of the Committee and given away as little as
possible, which was entirely satisfactory from my point of
view.
I would like
to thank my civil servants and officials, who from time to time have
been useful on those rare occasions when the immediate answer was not
to hand, and I also thank those in my private office for all their
help.
I would like
to highlight the fact that we have had a wide-ranging discussion on the
topics and clauses and how thoroughly we have discussed the clauses to
ensure that all the key issues and policies were debated, so that the
Bill was scrutinised most thoroughly. I now look forward to further
discussion on the Bill on Report. That might be a short discussion, but
if I have not entirely satisfied Opposition Members or Members on my
own side, it might be a lengthy discussion, which I certainly look
forward to. Once again, Mrs. Humble, I thank
you.
Charles
Hendry:
I shall echo many of the comments that the
Minister has made. I obviously differ with him on the concept of give
and take, as his is not quite the concept of give and take that I have
been familiar with—the giving was not as evident as one might
have thought it should be.
I also echo the
Minister’s thanks to you, Mrs. Humble, and to
Mr. Amess, for the way in which you have chaired our
proceedings. You have been very generous. There have been occasions
when we have erred and strayed a little from the direct content of the
Bill, and you were very kind at times in allowing us to go as far as we
did. That enabled us to address some of the wider issues connected with
energy that were not directly included in the
Bill.
I also thank
the Minister for the way in which he has responded on most occasions.
Not a single comma has been changed in the Bill as a result of the
amendments put forward by the Opposition, but nevertheless he has
always told us how grateful he has been for our contributions. He even
said on one occasion that it was a genuinely interesting and useful
debate, which I imagine meant that all the rest were not. He has been
good humoured and very well supported. Perhaps I can go further than he
has done in expressing gratitude to his officials. I just hope that he
is there the next time a note comes from them saying,
“I’m damned if I know. You’re on your own now,
matey.” He will remember that particular moment for the way in
which he put his thoughts to them.
I would like to pay particular
thanks to the Clerk as well. We turned up in his office with a range of
ideas that he had to phrase in an appropriate way to include in the
Bill. Any mistakes can be blamed on our concepts or our way of
presenting them. We are very grateful to the Clerk and his team for
their work. He has been unfailingly helpful and good natured. At times,
he was probably despairing, feeling that we should know more about
parliamentary procedure than we did.
May I
express particular thanks to my colleagues for their interventions? We
have had a very well qualified Committee, which has shown a tremendous
understanding of the different energy issues. I also want to thank my
colleagues for making useful contributions to our proceedings. My hon.
Friend the Member for St. Albans made particularly useful contributions
in the form of Polo mints, sweeties and other things to keep us going.
When her supply ran out, we had to turn to my hon. Friend the Member
for Northampton, South for Strepsils. My hon. Friends have also brought
a great deal of knowledge and analysis to the Committee, which is what
this Bill required.
I
am grateful, too, to those from outside—the business,
environmental and consumer groups—for their help in ensuring
that we understood their concerns. I hope that we have been able to
give a fair hearing to those issues, even if the votes did not
ultimately show that. People will pore over these exchanges in years to
come—the Minister looks worried about that. They will realise
that there are other issues to which they must return. For example,
last week I made a comparison in relation to tidal power off Portugal.
I said that it was a bit like saying that the England rugby team had
beaten Andorra; hooray, I think that they would be delighted to beat
Andorra. It would be quite a breakthrough for them to be able to do so.
Perhaps some of the comments will bear revisiting in the years to
come.
The evidence
sessions were very useful and extremely constructive. It is a change in
parliamentary procedure that is useful to all of us. At the end of the
day, this Bill has sadly been unchanged. Our concern was not about the
failings within the Bill itself—it is not so much an Energy Bill
but more a Bill about facilitating nuclear power and considering
decommissioning arrangements—but about the fact that a range of
energy issues that are deeply important to our country have been left
out.
A whole range
of consultations are taking place. I am surprised that the Minister has
time to go to Tokyo when he has so many consultations. We are left with
a consultation on microgeneration, decentralised energy, feed-in
tariffs, smart meters, Ofgem and its duties, and priority access to the
grid. All those issues could have been included in the Bill, but sadly
have not been. We will have to go back to them on Report. This was a
great opportunity to address some of the wider issues but I assume that
another energy Bill will come along soon to include the things that
have not been covered in this one. However, it has been a joyful
experience to be involved in this Committee. Perhaps it has been
slightly frustrating at times, but I thank the Minister for his
approach, which has made these weeks and our discussions entertaining,
enjoyable, but not always
fulfilling.
Steve
Webb:
I very much echo the spirit of the hon.
Gentleman’s remarks. I suppose with this Department, a Public
Bill Committee has to be “BERR-able” rather than
bearable, and it certainly has been that. I reinforce the words of
thanks that have already been said to you, Mrs. Humble and
Mr. Amess, and to the other members of the Committee. I have
sat on Public Bill Committees in the past in which Labour Back Benchers
were told to sit there, shut up and stick their hands up at the
relevant moment. We have been delighted to hear the expert contribution
from those on the Labour Back Benches. They have been willing to put
their names to amendments, and we hope to see more of that in the
coming weeks. I have enjoyed the knowledgeable and humorous
contributions of the hon. Member for Wealden, who outed himself as
having read The
Guardian for 30 years. There is hope for
him yet.
I thank my
hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham for paying a very active part in
the debates, particularly on the nuclear issues, when he was not
checking his mobile phone to see who had won the 3.15 at Cheltenham. I
have to admit that he was doing that this afternoon. I thank the
Minister for the initial way in which he encouraged us to contact him
and his officials so that we could have an informed debate. I think
that his officials got their own back, because when my hon. Friend
asked for some follow-up on an issue, he was supplied with a briefing.
The purpose of that was to keep him quiet for the next few weeks, which
is a cunning new
ploy.
Malcolm
Wicks:
It is a mistake to read
it.
Steve
Webb:
As the Minister has
demonstrated.
The
most remarkable thing about this Bill is that most of the interest is
in what is not in it. We have, therefore, appreciated the selection of
amendments and
the ability to raise such important issues. Most of what we have wanted
to talk about has not been in the Bill, but perhaps should have been.
However, we appreciate almost everything that we have been able to talk
about. We look forward to renewing our debate. The Minister and the
hon. Member for Wealden have implied that there will be another energy
Bill and energy Bills are
like London buses in that more are coming. I suppose that we could say
that they are renewable. I look forward to having similar civilised but
more amending debates in the
future.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Bill, as
amended, to be
reported.
Committee
rose at four minutes to Six
o’clock.
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