Tony Lloyd
Vincent Cable: Energy plan is laudable but lacks detail
Liberal Democrat trade and industry spokesman Vincent Cable sets out his response to the government's energy white paper.
The white paper was an overdue response to an impressive analysis from the Performance and Innovation Unit of the Cabinet Office - which provided a holistic assessment of the state of the energy market, and offered the hope of a genuinely coherent energy policy for the future.
The sentiments of the white paper are welcome, and its long-term aims are laudable - but despite the fanfare, it's short of the detail of how the government's aspirations are going to be delivered.
In particular, despite their inclusion in the PIU report, there are no additional targets for the development of renewables and, despite the universal recognition of its importance, an absence of formal targets for increases in energy efficiency.
Moreover, the funding picture for these aspects of the equation is unpromising too: New money for renewables under the white paper is limited to £60 million of the £1000 million headline figure announced by the secretary of state; and the WarmFront scheme has proved highly successful in promoting domestic energy efficiency, and yet its budget is to be cut.
The delay in the production of the white paper contributed to real market uncertainty. Taking the combined heat and power market as an example, there has been a reduction of some 17 per cent in capacity, and currently about 75 per cent of remaining capacity is idle. More generally, there has been a fall of over 50 per cent in the number of proposed renewables and CHP schemes reaching formal planning stage.
For the future, therefore, the real danger is that the absence of detail in the white paper on how the government proposes to deliver its aspirations is not just a disappointment - but rather that it will continue market uncertainty and damage. For those who are suspicious of the potential of renewables, this uncertainty may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
