Mr Speaker

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate, I feel privileged to be able to voice my support for this bill and believe it is another piece of the jigsaw which will assist us in the development of a secure, safe and low carbon generation of electricity, and at the same time allow us to tackle the other main issues of Climate Change.

There is no doubt that the two major challenges we face not only within the UK but internationally are security of supply and climate change. Over the last few years considerable time and debate within this house and the other place has highlighted the need to tackle these issues, we have used the building block approach and we are steadily putting in place the tools to deliver both our objectives.

The tens of thousands of people who participated in the WAVE demonstrations on Saturday would all welcome the opportunity I enjoy today. Their participation in the demonstrations shows how serious and committed they feel on the need for a successful conclusion to the Copenhagen Summit, and it is essential that the international community deliver such a conclusion for the benefit of all those in this House and beyond.

The attendance of President Obama at the summit is not essential but necessary, as only with the agreement of the USA to seriously participate and tackle their pollution can a binding and effective agreement truly be found.

As the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Nuclear energy Group I obviously declare an interest in this Bill. I have long campaigned for a balanced energy policy which includes a nuclear component. I support the development of renewable energy, as considerable investment has delivered many onshore wind farms. The changes therefore to the renewable obligation will I sincerely hope ensure we continue to develop other forms of renewable energy. However, we still need a core source of generation, at present that core source can only come from gas, coal or nuclear. It is unfortunate, but absolutely true that at present wind farms can not be regarded as a core source of generation because of their intermittency.

To maintain our electricity supply in the near future it is estimated that we will need to import by 2020 some 70% of our gas supply. Until, recently we were self sufficient in gas and oil, but now we are a net importer with the uncertainty and danger that this brings. We only need to look at recent experiences to see how frightening this could be; the Ukraine is and was a wakeup call, depending on imported gas is not acceptable.

Nuclear energy is a low carbon Safe and important core source of generation, to dismiss the contribution nuclear has made to the UK is not only irresponsible but also dangerous. That is why I welcome the investment the nuclear industry will make to fund four new nuclear plants within the UK. It is unfortunate that Scotland will miss out because of the SNP administration’s stance on new build, whereas new build in England and Wales will see huge opportunities in terms of employment and economic benefits to the surrounding communities.

Electricity generation is vital to our way of life, our technological age is totally dependent on our power supply. Secure supply is much too important to become a political football we need only lose our supply for a short period of time and the population of this country would realise the importance of the legislation we are now discussing.

We, as a developed economy have long enjoyed the benefits that emanate from a secure and reasonable cheap energy supply. But, we now face the challenge that under developed countries want to have the security of supply with the consequential benefits, such as electrical generation that this brings – which for a large extent has been taken for granted in this country. This is why other developing nations such as China and India are moving forward at such an astonishing rate. However, as demand increases and new power plants are being built in these developing countries, with many of these new power plants being built being coal fired, the knock on effect will be an increase in greenhouse gases that they emit.

That is why I support this bill, although some environmentalists are against developing this technology, I believe it will make tremendous impact not only here but internationally, if we are successful. We must therefore support this bill as success will assist our two main objectives not only here but internationally as well. What a difference CCS would make in our fight against Climate Change? What business opportunities could there be in terms of exporting CCS as a viable commercial technology? We could lead the world if we are successful!

I do have some concerns however, as if we don’t grasp this opportunity we could fail to deliver on our targets on reducing emissions. In a previous white paper we have indicated we would want to prevent us reaching pollution levels of 450 parts per million. Because as Professor James Lovelock, a respected scientist and leading environmentalist, has argued that we are approaching the point of no return. He believes that about 390 parts per million was the point when climate change would become self perpetuating, I hope for our sake he is wrong!!

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