Wave and Tidal-stream Energy Demonstration Scheme

12.02.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 15th Aug 2008

Dear Mr Khalid Mahmood MP,

I am writing to you with regard to the government's failure to spend any of the £42m budget it has allocated for the development of wave and tidal energy technologies.

As you maybe aware the entire £42m budget for the Wave and Tidal-stream Energy Demonstration Scheme - the government's measure for allowing marine technologies to progress through their early phase - has remained unspent since it was announced in 2004. While the associated £2m budget for monitoring the environmental impacts of wave and tidal projects has also remained entirely unspent and only £1.13m of a budget of £5.64m available for infrastructure support has been spent.

These figures show the yawning gulf between rhetoric and reality when it comes to this Labour government's record on renewable energy.

Britain has world leading potential when it comes to wave and tidal energy, yet this Labour government is sitting idly on the funding which the sector so desperately needs. How can this Labour government hope to meet its targets on renewable energy when it is not even capable of spending the modest funding it has set aside for wave and tidal technology?

I am sure you will agree with me that this is a vital time for the development of the renewable energy industry. I would like you to encourage the Labour government to stop spending so much time pushing its nuclear energy agenda and spend energy and time focussing on getting funding for renewable technologies to where it's needed.

Yours sincerely,

Adam Nazir Ahmed Teladia