I am perplexed over the debate about Ed Miliband's assertion that, should the Labour party win the next General Election, it would freeze the price of energy for 20 months.

If he really wishes to help the British public with regards to the cost of energy he should ensure his party formulates a cohesive and sensible energy policy.

No party in government, of whatever persuasion, for the past few decades has done more than bow down to unfair EU carbon policies and try to placate environmentalists in an effort to win more votes. We are sitting on top of billions of tons of coal and we have missed the opportunity to invest in the research and development to ascertain the means to burn this energy source cleanly and safely.

We are closing down several old-fashioned, highly polluting coal-fired power stations, which is excellent, but we are not replacing them with sufficient gas-fired, combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) stations to make up for the lost generation capacity. Those CCGT stations depend on gas that we will have to import from Russia and other foreign sources.

It is time our politicians looked at the size of the UK on the globe and considered what difference a few new, cleaner, coal-fired power stations would make to the carbon dioxide output compared with the USA, China, India and Russia. We have energy in abundance under our feet. We have excellent engineers developing tidal and wave energy sources, which are dependable and predictable, yet our leaders insist on subsidising unreliable, unpredictable windmills and are committed to purchasing gas from foreign sources.

Due to the reduction in our power-generation capacity it is already too late to prevent the blackouts that will take place in 2015/16, should we experience a severe winter. However we should be investing heavily in the energy sources that we have so we will have clean, reliable and affordable energy for future generations.

Moray P Deane,

Greenshieldhouse Farm,

Carnwath, Lanark.