DECC launch FIT review

[TedM]

Archived Parliament.tv video from today is here: Parliamentlive.tv - Energy and Climate Change Committee

 

[Gavin A]

Amber Rudd....[h=2]Education[edit][/h]From 1974-1979, Rudd was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College,[SUP][2][/SUP] a boarding independent school in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, and from 1979-1981 at Queen's College, London,[SUP][3][/SUP] an independent day school for girls in London, followed by the University of Edinburgh.
[h=2]Business career[edit][/h]After graduating from Edinburgh University with a degree in history, Rudd joined J.P. Morgan & Co., working in both London and New York. She then worked in venture capital in London, raising funds for small businesses. After working as a financial journalist, she founded specialist executive search and human resources consultancy Lawnstone Ltd,[SUP][4][/SUP] with clients in financial services and in business media.[SUP][5][/SUP]She helped to find extras for the film Four Weddings and a Funeral for which she was credited as the "aristocracy co-ordinator", and appeared briefly in one of the church scenes in the film.[SUP][6][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP]
[h=2]Political career[edit][/h]At the 2005 general election, Rudd was the Conservative candidate for the Labour-held seat of Liverpool, Garston.
Her name was subsequently added to the Conservative A-List and selected to contest the Hastings and Rye constituency in 2006, moving to the old town in 2007.[SUP][6][/SUP] In the 2010 General Election, Rudd was elected as the MP for Hastings & Rye with a majority of 1,993 votes. Shortly afterwards, Rudd was elected to serve as a Conservative member on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.
Rudd is vice-chair of the Parliamentary committee on Female Genital Mutilation, which has campaigned against FGM and called for tougher legal penalties in the area. She has championed the cause of sex equality as chairperson of the APPG for Sex Equality,[SUP][8][/SUP] which published a report on women in work. Rudd chaired a cross-party enquiry into unplanned pregnancies which called for statutory sex and relationships education in all secondary schools.[SUP][9][/SUP] She has also called for a higher proportion of women in Cabinet.[SUP][10][/SUP]
In September 2012, she was made Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.[SUP][11][/SUP] In October 2013, she became an assistant government whip. In July 2014, Rudd was appointed Minister for the Department for Energy and Climate Change.[SUP][12][/SUP][SUP][13][/SUP]

the penny drops as to her background and allegences.

She's a JP Morgan hyper neoliberal austerity hawk, one of OSbourne's acolytes that he's obviously had placed into DECC to ensure his bidding is done.

Good to know who your enemy is. Not a single thing in her prior history that qualifies her to be in this role making these vital decisions at DECC.

 

[The Solar King]

Tweet from DECC on the subject yesterday.

"The Ecologist article is completely wrong and misleading, confusing our overall renewable target with our electricity renewable target
5:17 PM - 9 Nov 2015"

What total and utter bo***cks. Why do they think Rudd wrote the memo in the first place?

 

[The Solar King]

It is Rudd's brother or brother in law works in the nuclear industry? No connection of course.

 

[Gavin A]

he's a lobbiest, one client is a construction firm with £100 million contract for the new nuclear plant, another was involved in the cheshire salt mines gas storage facility.

 

[The Solar King]

The only thing in Rudd's favour is she is not a Climate Change denier or sceptic. Many organisations who would normally go at her hammer and tongs are treating her with kid gloves as any replacement could be far far worse.

 

[Worcester]

The question is who has the b***s and a high enough profile to really challenge her?

She needs ripping apart in the house and slating on the front page of the press as she prepares for Paris...

Need some BIG guns - Greenpeace?

 

[The Solar King]

Guys, you can all help here.

Next Thursday Energy Secretary Amber Rudd and Energy MInister Andrea Leadsom are going to be up for questioning from MPs.

The STA is therefore asking you to contact your local MP and ask them to table these suggested oral questions about solar and the FiT cuts. The deadline for MPs to table questions is Monday 16 November at 12.30pm, so you need to send it to your MP as soon as possible.

If you can do also ask them at the same time to submit an application for a Westminster Hall debate on "The future of solar power in Britain". The more MPs we get to do this the more likely we are to get a debate.

If you don't have much time, tweeting is a quick and easy way of getting through to your MP. You can find your local MP and his or her twitter handle . Do use #SaveOurSolar #KeepFiTs #solar and mention @thesolartrade and @AmberRudd_MP. Ask them to table a question in DECC Orals next week.

Suggested questions below. Last time round we managed to get every question asked one suggested by the industry. Please help us do this again. Thanks in anticipation of your support.




​

 

[Somecamel]

Just had this emailed to me which might be of interest.

Hi Everyone
[FONT=arial, helvetica neue, helvetica, sans-serif]I emailed DECC this morning to ask if the FiT for solar was definitely going down on the 1st January 2016 and this is the response I got:

Dear Ms Rutter,
Thank you for your enquiry. It is very unlikely the solar PV tariffs will change dramatically on 1[SUP]st[/SUP] January. Ofgem have just published the new tariff tables on its website, which shows a 3.5% degression to 12.03p/kWh.

Please see the footnote in capitals at the bottom of the tariff table page. This means that the tariffs could change again to reflect the proposals in the FIT Review consultation, during the first quarter of 2016.

The exact level and timing of the cuts is yet to be determined. We expect to publish the Government Response to the consultation before Christmas, and this will contain the new tariffs. At the same time we will lay the legislation to implement the changes in Parliament, but this has to wait 21 sitting days or 40 continuous days before it can come into force, provided there are no objections from MPs or Lords. It is therefore unlikely that the cuts will come in until end Jan/beg. Feb.

I hope this is reassuring.

Regards

James Marsh
FITs Policy teamLooks like things might not be happening as quickly as expected.
[/FONT]
Kind regards

 

[Gavin A]

IS that actually an email to you from the FITs team, or been copied to you?

Good to have some level of confirmation - though I'm not sure where this '21 sitting days' thing has come from, afaik it has to be 40 days excluding any time that parliament is off for more than 4 days.

 

[TedM]

There is a '21 day rule' for Statutory Instruments outlined in the Statutory Instrument Practice Manual section 4.13 but AFAIK this cannot be applied to Feed-in Tariffs as they were introduced under The Energy Act 2008 which specified that 40 days were required for scrutiny of any amendments to FiTs under Article 42 of that Act and this over-rides any other provision.

42 Power to amend licence conditions etc: procedure

(1)Before making a modification, the Secretary of State must consult—

(a)the holder of any licence being modified,

(b)the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, and

(c)such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(2)Subsection (1) may be satisfied by consultation before, as well as by consultation after, the passing of this Act.

(3)Before making modifications, the Secretary of State must lay a draft of the modifications before Parliament.

(4)If, within the 40-day period, either House of Parliament resolves not to approve the draft, the Secretary of State may not take any further steps in relation to the proposed modifications.

(8)In this section, “40-day period”, in relation to a draft of proposed modifications, means the period of 40 days beginning with the day on which the draft is laid before Parliament (or, if it is not laid before each House of Parliament on the same day, the later of the 2 days on which it is laid).

(9)For the purposes of calculating the 40-day period, no account is to be taken of any period during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than 4 days.

 

[Gavin A]

Thanks Ted, I knew I'd seen that somewhere but attempting to remember where from 4 years ago was stretching my brain a bit.

So DECC don't even know what the timescales are themselves, that maybe explains why they thought they'd be able to carry this out on the original timescales.

 

[The Solar King]

Arses and elbows spring to mind.........

 

[TedM]

Well, this government do seem to have the ability to re-write the rules so anything could still happen.

 

[Gavin A]

Well, this government do seem to have the ability to re-write the rules so anything could still happen.

rewrite the rules, then be taken to court and lose in court.