Ed Davey was up in front of the Energy and Climate Change Committee today for the committee's regular look at the department's work. Tim Yeo was back in the chair, which always adds a certain frission to events.
There was a very interesting exchange (from 15:37) when Philip Lee, who is a very perspicacious questioner of witnesses, asked the minister to comment on the big cumulative losses made by the big energy suppliers and wondered whether this was sustainable. What arrangements, Lee asked, had DECC put in place to deal with the fallout if, say, EDF went belly up.
Fair to say that Davey's response was not reassuring.
Peter Lilley stuck the boot in over the national failure to get any onshore wells fracked and worryingly Davey and his sidekicks were unable to say when any fracking would take place, a situation that Lilley suggested meant that DECC had dropped the ball.
Which is hard to argue with.
This was closely followed by a delightful skewering of Davey by Graham Stringer. Davey was essentially cornered on the issue of exported carbon emissions and had to flannel rather than admit that his policies were increasing worldwide emissions rather than decreasing them. Davey's policy is now devoid of any credibility whatsoever.
Later on (16:55), Lilley stuck the boot in again, this time over the cost of policy to households, with Davey and the civil servants trying desperately to misunderstand the question, pretending not to understand that the costs would (to the extent they were not exported) fall on households. Then, when Lilley pressed the point, Davey tried hilariously to argue that the costs would be picked up by energy company shareholders.
All in all it was fun, but rather frightening.