News

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change v Friends of the Earth and others

DATE: 25 Jan 2012

In a widely reported judgment, the Court of Appeal has today (25th January 2012) dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal against the judgment of Mitting J concerning a proposed change in the “feed in tariffs” (FITS) when a solar panel is installed. The government had proposed that the FIT rate would be reduced in the case of solar panels installed after 12th December 2012, even though that date fell within the consultation period and long before the time any statutory instrument making the necessary modifications to the scheme could come into force. The Court held that the fact that the scheme gave a right to a payment of a FIT at a fixed rate for 25 years was a central feature of the scheme; and the government proposal was to a statutory instrument having retrospective effect that would have been unlawful, because it was not authorised by the Energy Act 2008. The citation is 2012 EWCA Civ 28.

Richard Drabble QC (leading Duncan Sinclair) appeared for Friends of the Earth.