Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)

My Lords, I will focus on the comments in the Statement on electricity co-operation trading with the European Union. Obviously, there are millions of families in this country who are wondering still how on earth to pay to keep their house warm and feed their children during the Christmas period, and indeed in any period. That is not as it should be. We should be much more concerned than we are about this totally unacceptable situation. The Statement claims that the new co-operation plan that is being discussed will “drive down energy costs and protect consumers” and “drive up investment in the North Sea and strengthen energy security”. Can the Minister and her colleagues assure us that that really is going to happen, and that it will drive down the price from what it is now and not from the much higher price it is likely to be? This is a trick of statistics being used by the Government, which I do not like at all, and they should be much more straightforward. Is it going to make cheaper electricity for families and industry than we have now? I very much doubt it. Obviously, we want more investment in the North Sea. At the moment, we are paying the owners of wind farms literally billions of pounds not to produce electricity. The system is wrong and must be changed. I hope it will be, with the co-operation of the European market. Those are the things on which we want some reassurance because, at present, they are not desirable. It is incredible that we are not producing competitively produced energy, in this country of all countries. We have the North Sea as a huge asset that we are not using properly—indeed, the Government are trying to slow it down. It is time we faced in another direction in this whole area, and I would like to hear more about it.