North Sea oil and gas are running out. Ageing nuclear power plants are being decommissioned. Foreign gas supplies cannot be guaranteed. And global warming is made worse by carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fuelled electricity generating stations.

All this adds up to a big headache. How do we plug the growing energy gap without damaging the environment?

Last week, my party published a sensible and balanced contribution to the debate.

We are not uncritical fans of nuclear. We recognize there may well be a place for a new generation of atomic plants, but they should only be commissioned as a last resort after cost and safety considerations have been fully explored.

Tony Blair, by contrast, is intent on reliving the troublesome nuclear dream, as we will see this week with his energy review. He has also failed to encourage renewable energy, so that the UK now generates less of its energy from renewable technologies than any country in Europe, other than Malta.

Energy security and protecting the environment are the guiding themes of our review.

We want to see a variety of energy sources so that Britain cannot be held to ransom by unfriendly states threatening to withhold supplies. This means a much bigger role for green energy such as biomass, wave and where appropriate, wind power. And we want a better system for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel plants.

Nuclear power has a role to play in helping us tackle climate change. But it must be a servant and not a master.