David Cameron was today accused of causing job losses in the solar energy industry by a businesswoman who blamed his Government for forcing her to make 30 people redundant in the run-up to Christmas.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change's decision to cut subsidies for "feed-in tariff" payments to households generating electricity with solar panels was branded "unlawful" by a High Court judge last month, but ministers yesterday lodged an appeal against the ruling.
Erica Robb, boss of Solar Spirit in Reading, Berkshire, told Cameron the decision to go to appeal would cause "many more job losses". Until the Court of Appeal makes its ruling, businesses like hers cannot tell potential customers what subsidies to expect if they install panels, she said.
Robb confronted the prime minister as he answered questions from small businesses at an event in Maidenhead on Thursday.
"Before Christmas we employed 80 people. We made 30 people redundant in the week before Christmas," she told the PM.
"This was following weeks of chaos caused by the short-notice cut done by your government to the feed-in tariffs.
"The High Court has ruled that the way you did that was unlawful and (the chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, Tim) Yeo has said it has undermined confidence, which you yourself have said is fundamental.
"Yet yesterday you lodged an appeal against the High Court decision. That is set to cause weeks more uncertainty in the industry, and uncertainty is the one thing we can't cope with.
"Twenty-five thousand people's jobs rely on knowing what the feed-in tariff is. If you ring up Decc and say 'What's the feed-in tariff for a system installed today?' they don't know. They can't tell you whether it's 43p, 21p, 0p or somewhere in between.
"And yet your government has appealed this decision, which is going to cause weeks more uncertainty and many more job losses.
"How can you justify the appeal? And can you tell us what feed-in tariff we should be selling to our customers in the meantime?"
Cameron responded: "I know this has been extremely difficult. As a constituency MP, many businesses in my constituency have been affected in exactly the same way that you have.
"I'm afraid the government and the taxpayer and the bill-payer faced a really big problem which was that there was a feed-in tariff system set up under the last government that had very generous payments for people fitting solar panels to their roofs. I think that was a very good idea.
"The prices fell quite radically, in terms of the cost of solar panels, and so suddenly what was a reasonable tariff and a reasonable return for householders was looking like something that was much too generous - a 10% rate of return - and that was going to use up all the money that was set aside for years of this feed-in tariff."
The government wants to hurry in the reductions in tariffs because it believes the current subsidies are too generous and will deplete resources for future solar generation and other technologies.
But in his ruling before Christmas, Mr Justice Mitting said it would be unlawful for energy secretary Chris Huhne to carry out his plan to apply the cuts to all systems installed after a December 12 deadline.
The plans would "tend to undermine the confidence of those participating in the market for small solar systems", said the judge.
He observed that a significant capital outlay was required to install solar panels, and the payback for that investment under the tariff scheme took place over 25 years.
Speaking at today's event, Cameron said once the Government chose to slash the tariffs it was better to act quickly.
He claimed domestic solar power could still be "a successful industry" in Britain.