Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party, and Caroline Flint, the Shadow Energy Secretary, have both expressed their concerns regarding the FiT review following a recent visit to Solarcentury.
Ed Miliband has labelled the decision to slash back the incentives for people to produce their own green energy as the latest example of “short-sighted policies from a short term Tory-led Government”.
Caroline Flint, who will lead the debate against the Government's cuts to solar power in the Commons on Wednesday, said:
“The Government's cuts to feed-in tariffs will hit families, put thousands of jobs and firms at risk and destroy the solar industry. They must think again, revise their scheme and extend their tariff deadline.
“On Wednesday MPs will have the chance to vote on the Government’s plans. Every part of the country will be hit if these proposals go ahead – so I’m calling on all MPs to put aside party loyalties, stand up for their constituents and get behind Labour’s ‘Save our Solar’ campaign.
“How will the Government be able to encourage investors to support green policies in the future, when a growing sector, built on a flagship policy that had cross-party support, has been cut off at the knees with just six weeks’ notice?
“The decision will exclude nine out of ten families from having solar power. It cannot be right that the Government is hitting people who are trying to green their homes and cut their energy bills. Instead, it will mean only the privileged few can use solar.”
Ed Miliband added: “Solarcentury is a company doing the right thing. It has invested, innovated, researched, exported, manufactured, and created jobs. Now this productive job–creating and wealth-creating business is being strangled at birth because of the rank hypocrisy of this Government.
“For all our other differences it appeared there was genuine cross-party consensus on the need to green our economy and create new industries and jobs. That consensus has now been broken.
“David Cameron’s decision to cut the feed-in tariff scheme shows the claims he made during his husky-hugging phase were about nothing more than re-branding the Conservative Party. Those who ‘voted blue to go green’ are rightly angry that we have a Tory government that is breaking more of its promises by the day.”
Ed Miliband, who introduced the feed-in tariff system in 2010 when he was Climate Change Secretary, will table an Opposition Day motion in the House of Commons to save the feed-in tariff scheme in support of the industry's 'Cut, don't Kill Campaign'.