Chris Huhne's Written Statement To Parliament

As the House will be aware, the
Government's proposed changes to the Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) scheme are the
subject of a judicial review. 
Specifically, the Government has been challenged regarding its proposal
to apply new tariffs for solar photovoltaics (PV) from 1 April 2012 to all new
installations with an eligibility date on or after an earlier "reference date",
which we proposed should be 12 December 2011.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal handed down
a negative judgment on the Government's appeal against an earlier decision by
the High Court. We respectfully disagree with the judgment and are seeking
permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. In the light of that, we cannot rule
out the possibility that lower tariffs could be applied to installations which
became eligible for FITs on or after the proposed reference date.  It is important that consumers are aware of
this. 

The reason for appealing is that we want to
maximise the number of installations that are possible within the available
budget for FITs, rather than use available money to pay a higher tariff to half
the number of installations. Solar PV can have strong and vibrant future in UK and we want
a lasting FITs scheme to support that future and jobs in the industry.

We have already put before Parliament draft
licence modifications that (subject to the Parliamentary process) would bring a
21p rate into effect from April for solar PV installations which become
eligible for FITs on or after 3 March,
to help reduce the pressure on the budget and provide as much certainty as we
can for consumers and industry.

In the meantime, we want as far as possible
to minimise the uncertainty for PV and other technologies eligible for support
under FITs.  We are therefore still
intending to publish the phase 2 consultation by 9 February. This will include
proposed tariffs for other FITs technologies and a set of reform proposals for
the scheme. We are also intending to publish the Government's response to the
other aspects of the phase 1 consultation that are not affected by the Judicial
Review (namely the proposals on energy efficiency and for multi-installation
tariff rates).