SDLP MP for South Down, Margaret Ritchie, has called on the Conservative-led government to rethink its Draft Energy Bill.

Speaking as the government unveiled their Draft Bill at Westminster Margaret Ritchie, criticised the ongoing commitment to fossil fuels and the nuclear industry: "It could not be clearer with current record oil and petrol prices that the reliance on imported fossil fuels is not serving consumers, businesses or the wider economy in Northern Ireland. While I commend the stated aim of decarbonising the electricity sector, the path set out in this draft legislation in no way provides the guarantees needed to encourage green energy investment and will continue to leave people vulnerable to high prices.

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"In the North of Ireland more people every year are falling into fuel poverty and this draft bill was an opportunity to make the bold changes necessary to reform the energy market with a view to the long term needs of the economy. Consumers and businesses are suffering and need a coherent strategy that delivers clean, green jobs and sustainable fuel prices.

"Instead the government seem to have delivered more of the same, especially with the continued obsession with the expensive and ultimately unsafe energy source that is nuclear power. This is even more surprising in the face of the decision by E.ON and RWE to pull out of the nuclear market. We need only look to the disastrous decommissioning of Sellafield and the continued economic failure of the MOX plant there to see the disastrous legacy of ill thought out nuclear plans. Sadly this draft bill appears to do little more than nod to the renewable industry while winking at the nuclear industry."

(CD)