David Chappell addresses Lib Dem Conference at Liverpool

3.15.00pm GMT Sat 22nd Mar 2008

Local Councillor and Parliamentary Candidate David Chappell address a packed conference of 2100 delegates on the last day of the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference during the policy debate on Rising Energy Prices and called for more home, business and office generated electricity as an alternative to paying higher energy prices. His speech follows:

"I can remember a time when my parents used to put me in a tin bath in front of a coal fire. We used to wonder if we if we could ever afford one of those new fangled televisions - black and white of course!

How much the world has changed, and how much further will it change in the next forty years? Our demand for energy continues to rise.

What can we do to address energy prices? Especially when the Government is focused on the taxes it gets from energy, rather than energy reduction.

We can start by building zero carbon homes. By building offices, business, and homes that generate their own electricity.

We should be planning a future when you can retire and never pay another energy bill! Retire and not worry about the cost of petrol because you can plug your car in at home and use the surplus electricity to fuel your car.

This is not Tomorrow's World, it is Today' World. We have the technology. It is proven and reliable.

What we need to do is create the market that drives the production. We need to give employers a skilled workforce to install the systems.

We need to sit down with planning officers and policy officers and drive into your local development frameworks the policies and guidelines that will make this work.

We can do this now, not some time in the future!

David congratulates Nick Clegg on his becoming party leader

Defeat rising energy prices by removing the demand to draw electricity off the National Grid, and we will have solved the problem of high energy prices."