Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Yvette Cooper at a press gallery hustings and the report on the whether MPs need to leave parliament for a £3bn restoration
Results of select committee chair elections announced
Select committee chair elections - Analysis of key results
Lunchtime summary
1.09pm BST
You can read the full report on the options for the restoration of parliament here.
1.05pm BST
They are two politicians that come to these issues from different perspectives and differing views but there was clearly an appetite on both sides on how you can work together to solve this.
On issues around free movement and welfare, the president came to that with an understanding of some of the challenges that can be presented by free movement across the EU after his time as a mayor in Germany, where he spoke of facing some of these challenges. He is very clear that you must respect the principle of free movement, which the prime minister has himself been clear he supports, but there are issues that should be looked at here and further discussions needed.
12.48pm BST
Tom Greatrex, Labour’s former UK energy spokesman, said there were still significant unanswered questions about the actual number of onshore projects that will be hit by the UK government decision to stop renewables obligation funding a year early.
Greatrex, who lost his seat to the Scottish National party at the general election, said he suspects not many schemes will stop as a result, but the policy would still have a significant political impact – helping the Tories and the Scottish National party, he added. He said:
The significant question which hasn’t been answered yet is how many of the onshore wind projects currently in planning were likely to reach the April 2017 cut off date for the closure of the renewables obligation and won’t reach 1 April 2016 or the grace period arrangements.
It suits both the Tories, who need to keep their anti-onshore awkward backbenchers on board, and the SNP who get a new front of constitutional outrage rather more. With Scotland receiving around a third of renewables support payments with less than a tenth of the consumer base, simply passing a population share of the budget to Holyrood does not provide a solution.
12.41pm BST
All candidates standing for election as a select committee chair had the chance to produce a mini “manifesto”. You can read Frank Field’s here and although, as he says, it will be for the new work and pensions committee to decide its agenda, he has already identified four areas that he wants to focus on. They are:
1 - Getting the Department for Work and Pensions to pay benefits more effectively and making sanctions fairer.
The committee must therefore seek to work with the Department for Work and Pensions to yield improvements in the delivery of benefits. Indeed, if the Department could set itself the goal of delivering benefits promptly, and move toward a fairer system of applying sanctions, then the numbers of people needing to go to food banks would be halved. The gains to poorer people from making progress on this front are therefore huge
The reform allowing people to draw down safely their pension capital has at last been delivered. But there is now a real danger that groups, similar to those who have already ripped off pension savers so consistently over the latter post-war years, will be at it again.
12.25pm BST
The new chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, Crispin Blunt, has not wasted any time setting his agenda, according to the BBC’s Ross Hawkins.
Chilcot cd face MPs' enquiry. New foreign affairs cttee chair Blunt tells me he's sure new ctte will want to pursue issue urgently.
12.21pm BST
David Cameron met Martin Schulz, president of the European parliament, at Number 10 this morning. Afterwards Schulz said that Cameron would have to compromise over his demands for EU reform. He said:
Dialogue is necessary. Solutions are always coming via dialogue and at the end via compromise. There is a long list of common interests and I think common ground could be found by analysing and discussing content. That is what we did.
There were some controversial items and it is not surprising that in the European Parliament some views are different than here in London.
I think that these discussions have got off to a good start. We have got a long way to go in this reform and renegotiation, a lot of difficult issues to discuss, things that I believe fundamentally need to change, but it has been good to start these discussions today.
11.51am BST
The Department of Energy and Climate Change is rejecting claims that its decision today to abolish wind farm subsidies will lead to prices going up for consumers, as RenewableUK (see 9.20am) and Greenpeace (see 10.25am). This is from a DECC spokesman.
We have a cap on the cost of renewables to consumers, so this won’t push up bills. We have enough onshore wind now – including projects that have planning permission, we have as much as we’d projected. If we’d allowed the RO [renewables obligation] to stay open longer, we could have ended up with more projects than we can afford – which would have led to either higher bills, or other renewable technologies losing out on support.
11.30am BST
Culture committee: Jesse Norman, the Conservative Edmund Burke biographer and critic of “crony capitalism”, saw off four rivals to win this post. The biggest threat came from Graham Stuart, who chaired the education committee in the last parliament but who, unusually, tried to switch to another committee. On the first ballot Norman got 221 votes and Stuart 157 but, after the votes of the other three candidates were redistributed, Norman won with 319 votes to Stuart’s 211.
10.58am BST
Some 621 MPs voted in the select committee chair elections.
Until relatively recently, the whips got to choose which MPs would chair Commons select committees. As a result, the committees were not always as robust and independent as they might have been.
10.40am BST
John Bercow has just announced the winners of the elections to Commons select committees.
Here they are:
10.30am BST
The main industry body for wind energy in Scotland, Scottish Renewables, has warned that the cancellation of onshore wind subsidies could cause huge damage to future investment, cutting spending on new projects by £3bn and thwarting efforts to speed up the shift to low carbon energy.
In a statement, Scottish Renewables’ chief executive Niall Stuart said they saw no justifiable rationale for scrapping the renewables obligation.
10.28am BST
And this is from Patrick Harvie, the co-convenor of the Scottish Greens.
The Conservative government is far too willing to appease the irrational climate deniers on its backbenches, and this can be the only rationale for pulling the plug on the renewable energy industry.
To do so while committing to decades of funding for nuclear energy, giving the green light to new fossil fuel extraction and dragging their feet on demand management shows that their energy policy is stuck in the 20th century and failing to grasp the challenges and opportunities facing us today.
10.25am BST
Greenpeace UK is also saying that the government’s decision to abolish wind farm subsidies will lead to bills going up for consumers. This is from Daisy Sands, a Greenpeace energy campaigner.
Ministers have just moved to raise everyone’s energy bills by blocking the cheapest form of clean power, whilst continuing to back the impossibly expensive Hinkley C and going ‘all out’ for unpopular, risky, and unproven fracking. Even if this omnishambles of an energy policy survives the many legal challenges threatened against it, it will send a clear message to international investors that the UK government is willing to wreck our power sector to please their most ideological backbenchers. This mistake will cost the UK dearly.
10.05am BST
Here’s Caroline Flint, the shadow energy secretary, responding to the government’s announcement.
Renewable energy investment was undermined by the mixed messages of David Cameron’s last government and sadly that looks set to continue.
Onshore wind is the cheapest and most developed form of clean energy and there are 1,000 projects whose investment plans could be affected by the latest moving of the goalposts. Ministers need to make clear which projects exactly the grace period will apply to.
9.42am BST
Adam Vaughan is the Guardian’s environment site editor. Here’s his take on today’s announcement.
Last night energy and climate secretary Amber Rudd told an audience in London how important she thought climate change is. This morning she has, as heavily trailed, cut subsidies for onshore wind power a year earlier than expected. There’s an obvious tension between her claim to be “keep[ing] bills as low as possible for hard-working families” and the fact that onshore wind is the cheapest form of renewable power. By contrast the offshore wind that the Tories have promised to prioritise instead is around twice as expensive.
9.39am BST
In its announcement about the abolition of wind farm subsidies, the government says there will be a grace period for projects that already have planning permission. (See 9am.) Emily Gosden, the Telegraph’s energy editor, says she think in practice this will make little difference.
Govt finally announces onshore wind subsidy axe by closing RO scheme early. Devil in detail; 'grace period' could mean it makes little diff
Govt plans 'grace period' for consented wind farms-most farms that don't yet have planning consent wouldn't have qualified for scheme anyway
Most wind farms now seeking planning permission are hoping for subsidies from a new scheme. Govt says nothing on that in announcement today.
Curious: gov't says wind farm subsidy axe will be brought in through primary legislation. Previous changes were secondary.
Having said devil in detail...there basically is no detail yet. Apparently as primary legislation, a brief press notice is all we get today.
9.31am BST
The Scottish government said this morning that it may use judicial review to try to block the UK government’s decision to end wind farm subsidies early. In a lengthy statement Fergus Ewing, the Scottish energy minister, said this would have a disproportionate impact on Scotland because 70% of UK onshore wind projects in the planning system are based there.
This announcement goes further than what had been previously indicated. It is not the scrapping of a ‘new’ subsidy that was promised but a reduction of an existing regime - and one under which companies and communities have already planned investment.
Onshore wind is already the lowest cost of all low carbon options, as well the vital contribution it makes towards tackling climate change, which means it should be the last one to be scrapped, curtailed or restricted.
9.20am BST
RenewableUK, which represents the renewable energy industry, says today’s announcement from the government will lead to bills going up for consumers. This is from its chief executive, Maria McCaffery.
The government’s decision to end prematurely financial support for onshore wind sends a chilling signal not just to the renewable energy industry, but to all investors right across the UK’s infrastructure sectors.
It means this government is quite prepared to pull the rug from under the feet of investors even when this country desperately needs to clean up the way we generate electricity at the lowest possible cost - which is onshore wind.
9.07am BST
Here’s the statement from Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, about her plans to end wind farm subsidies early.
We have a long-term plan to keep the lights on and our homes warm, power the economy with cleaner energy, and keep bills as low as possible for hard-working families.
As part of our plan, we are committed to cutting our carbon emissions by fostering enterprise, competition, opportunity and growth. We want to help technologies stand on their own two feet, not encourage a reliance on public subsidies.
9.00am BST
At the election the Conservatives said they would end new subsidies for wind farms. But it is going to happen earlier than expected, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced today.
Here is the DECC press release.
The government is to end new subsidies for onshore wind farms by closing the existing payments schemes a year early, it has announced.
The move aims to fulfil a Conservative promise ahead of the election on ending new public subsidies for onshore wind farms and changing the law so local people have the final say on them.
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