Amber Rudd has confirmed the UK Government will push ahead with plans to scrap subsidies for new onshore wind farms, placing ministers on a potential collision course with the House of Lords.
The government’s original Energy Bill set out provisions to get rid of the subsidies from April – a year earlier than planned.
However, that element of the proposed legislation was successfully scrapped by peers.
But introducing the bill’s second reading in the Commons, the energy secretary said it will be put back in.
Ms Rudd said: “There is no ambiguity on this. This is a manifesto commitment.
“We signalled our thinking before the last election and we put it before the British people in black and white to end new public subsidies for onshore wind.
“There are long established conventions with regard to manifesto commitments that are well understood and we will stand firm on this.”
She said the move would save between £20million and £200million every year.
The government’s decision to pursue the policy risks starting a game of parliamentary ping pong as peers could try to remove it again at a later stage of the Bill.
Shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy criticised the government for trying to reinsert the policy. She said: “Windfarms are already providing power to more than eight million homes in Britain and once again it will be energy bill payers who pay the price for this short-term decision.”
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