Supermarket chief attacks "disingenuous" Energy Minister over Feed-in Tariff cuts

When asked if the current Coalition Government was living up to Prime Minister David Cameron's promise to be the "greenest ever", Justin King said they were not, adding: "Unfortunately, the words and the music don't rhyme on green issues".

He challenged Energy Secretary Chris Huhne over the Cabinet Minister's comments that the Government didn't reach conclusions until a consultation exercise was completed.

To applause from the audience Mr King, added: "But that's precisely what the Coalition has done on the issue of photovoltaic energy and Feed-in Tariffs.

"They have announced a consultation which does not conclude until after the change they are consulting on is brought into effect on the twelfth of December.

"The consequence of that is it has stopped in its tracks a massive investment in photovoltaic energy in our country, and disappointingly that has a second effect and we have seen people marching on Parliament to protest only a couple of days ago as it will probably cost around 25,000 jobs in that industry."

When asked if he approved of such measures, Mr Huhne replied: "Of course I do, I've been defending it in the House of Commons this week and for a very simple reason.

"The reason the tariff has been halved is because the prices have come down so much, we've had an enormous reduction in the cost of solar panels.

"Unfortunately because of the way the scheme was introduced by my predecessor, now the Labour leader, there was no recognition of the real world, and what happens when you have between a 30 per cent and 70 per cent reduction in the cost of solar panels is that you have to bring the solar panel subsidies down, otherwise the costs go through the roof."

Mr Huhne said it was ironic he was being attacked by the chief executive of Sainsbury's for cutting too much off the tariff and he wouldn't allow a budget overrun that could add more than £26 to customers' energy bills.

But Mr King retorted: "You are being disingenuous in what you are saying. The scheme as you well know was to finish at the end of March next year.

"What you have now done is catch a load of companies out who have already made decisions about investments by, in effect, retrospectively changing the scheme and that is the reality of what has happened."

In a fiery exchange, Mr King ignored Mr Huhne's request to move the agenda on and asked: "What would you say to the tens of thousands of householders who have paid deposits and made commitments to have these systems installed within the next six months and are not now going to get the benefit of the system that they believed existed when they made that commitment?

"What are you going to say to those households?"

Mr Huhne said the scheme would still deliver a return on investment in line with the original objective of the scheme.