Government lodges appeal over High Court feed-in tariffs ruling
The government has launched an appeal over last month’s High Court ruling that its approach to implementing controversial cuts to feed-in tariffs was unlawful.
Mr Justice Mitting ruled against ministers after they imposed an ‘effective date’ for the cuts of 12 December, two weeks before the end of the FIT review consultation period on 23 December.
The judicial review challenge had been brought by campaign group Friends of the Earth and two solar energy companies, Solarcentury and Homesun.
A spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change confirmed that it had lodged grounds of appeal with the Court of Appeal.
“We hope that permission will be granted for an appeal and that we can secure a hearing as soon as possible so that we can provide clarity for consumers and industry on the way forward following the consultation,” he said.
The DECC spokesman added: “The High Court’s decision was based on the view that the proposed approach to implementing new tariffs for solar PV is inconsistent with the FIT scheme’s statutory purpose of encouraging small-scale low-carbon electricity generation.
“We disagree with this for a number of reasons. The overriding aim of the proposed reduction in tariffs for solar PV (as set out in the recent consultation) is to ensure that over the long term as many people as possible are encouraged to install small scale low-carbon generation (including other technologies as well as solar PV) and benefit from the funding available for the FIT scheme.”
The spokesman claimed that without an urgent reduction in the current tariffs, “which give a very generous return”, the budget for the scheme would be severely depleted and there would be very little available for future solar PV generators, or for other technologies.
“Our view is that the urgent steps we have proposed to protect the scheme for the future are fully consistent with the scheme’s statutory purpose,” he said. “We have also made the point that the judicial review was premature as no decision has yet been taken, and a decision will only be taken after a full analysis of the responses to the consultation.”
Friends of the Earth said it believed that an appeal would be an expensive waste of taxpayers’ money, and called for ministers to focus instead on putting the solar industry back on a stable footing.
“An appeal also means solar businesses can't be sure what tariff payment solar projects installed now will receive,” it added. “The uncertainty is crippling businesses and costing jobs.”
The campaign group urged the government to reduce tariffs in a planned way from February 2012 to protect jobs, and to increase the budget for solar so that more people – including householders and disadvantaged communities – can benefit from the technology.
Andrew Pendleton, Friends of the Earth's Head of Campaigns, said: “The Government must expand the scheme - with all the tax revenue the scheme generates, this can be done at no extra cost to bill payers."
DECC’s proposals would see subsidies for FIT rates cut by more than 50%. The planned reductions for owners of multiple installations are even greater.
A number of local authority and housing association projects have been postponed or abandoned as a result.
In November the Local Government Association warned that councils had been forced to “pull the plug” on thousands of panel installations. It urged Energy Secretary Chris Huhne to delay the proposed cuts until the end of the financial year.
Philip Hoult
