Caroline Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether the definition of energy subsidies used by his Department is the same as the definition set out in the report, Subsidies and costs of EU energy: an interim report, published by the European Commission on 10 October 2014; and if he will make a statement.

Matthew Hancock

The European Commission study on Subsidies and costs of EU energy notes the OECD’s conclusion that there is “no universal definition of what constitutes a subsidy”, hence the use throughout the study of the term “public interventions.” The study was developed on the basis of information and data which has been estimated and utilised methodologies developed by the Commission’s consultants which were not endorsed or assured by Member States prior to its publication. Accordingly its approach reflects the views of those consultants, not those of the UK or Member States generally.