The Government doesn’t have the right policies on renewable energy, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd says

The Cabinet minister has called for a change of course on transport and heating policy

The Energy Secretary insisted cuts to renewables subsidies were not to blame

The Government does not have the right policies on renewable energy and needs to change them to hit its own targets in the area, the Energy Secretary has said.

Amber Rudd told MPs that the target of 15 per cent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020 was likely to be missed unless policies in transport and heating were changed.

“It is my aim that we should meet the 2020 target. I recognise that we don’t have the right policies, particularly in transport and heat to make those 2020 targets,” she told a hearing of the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee.

“We need to make policy choices in order to address heat and I’ll be engaging with Transport.”

The statement comes after a leaked letter from Ms Rudd, revealed by The Ecologist magazine, showed the Energy Secretary believed the targets were on course to be missed.

The internal memo, to ministerial colleagues, said the UK’s current “trajectory” was on course to miss the targets.

But she stressed to the MPs that the target was “cross-Government” and ought not only be achieved by her department alone.

Outside the Energy Secretary’s department, she pointed the finger at transport for not pulling its weight.

The transport department, like the energy department, is unprotected in terms of cuts and will face steep reductions to its budget – meaning resources there are also over-stretched.

Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary (Crown copyright)

Despite the admission that the Government was failing in its renewable targets, the Energy Secretary was unrepentant over cuts to renewable energy support.

She insisted that a target to generate 30 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by the same date – a component of the wider energy target – was on course to be met despite the steep cuts.

Ms Rudd claimed it would be wrong to make up for weaknesses in transport and heat by having a more advanced policy on renewable electricity.

“[Heat and transport] need to make their contribution in terms of the renewable targets. It’s not the answer to just do more electricity,” she said.

The cuts have already seen some community energy projects announce their closure, including one high-profile solar array in Balcombe, Sussex.

Other renewable firms have also warned that they could go bust.

The row over energy policy comes as new figures released by the World Meteorological Organisation show the planet heading towards uncharted territory on climate change at “frightening speed”.