Gordon Brown's dash to Jeddah to plead with oil rich sheiks to increase production – and invest billions of their windfall dollars in renewable energy – had an uncanny resemblance to Corporal Jones shouting "Don't panic, Captain Mainwaring" as the Prime Minister's pleas received a polite brush off.

The sheer lack of credibility of UK energy policy was cruelly exposed at Jeddah as the reality dawned that we don't actually have a credible energy policy.

In fact, today's headline announcement by the Prime Minister to boost the nation's use of renewables to meet our energy targets is not a plan of action, but yet another strategy document to accompany the plethora of such documents that have been excuses for inaction and incompetence.

The Energy White Paper in 2003 told the Government exactly what it knows today; namely that we would need some 25 gigawatts of new electricity generation by 2025 to replace existing, coal, gas and nuclear power stations which will have come to the end of their life by that time.

We knew then that decisions would have to be taken about our future energy mix, the place of renewable as well as carbon and nuclear fuel sources. We had clear evidence that reductions in CO2 from buildings, transport and heating would need to be dramatic.

Yet, other than adding to our carbon footprint, the seemingly endless production of reports and strategy documents has actually achieved very little.

Two coal-fired power stations, without carbon abatement, are planned, and the Government has indicated a preference for an increased new nuclear capacity, but planning permissions and contracts are a long way off.

Only now is the Government turning its attention to the use of renewable energy as a key part of the UK's response to lowering emissions and providing heat and power. Of course, we now have to take this part of our energy policy seriously because the EU has set a mandatory target (yet to be agreed) of 15 per cent of all our energy from renewables by 2020.

In reality, as all experts agree, we are unlikely to make significant advances in the use of renewables for transport and heating, therefore at least 35 per cent – and possibly 54 per cent – of all our electricity must be generated from renewable sources.

Considering that less than five per cent was produced from renewables in 2005, it is clear to see that a seven to 10 fold increase in 15 years would be utterly remarkable.

Not so, says Gordon Brown who – undaunted by a possible £100bn price tag – says the target is achievable and he has a cunning "Baldrick"-like plan to do so. He is supported in his ambitious claim by the Renewable Energy Association, the Renewable Advisory Board and in a highly critical Renewable Electricity- generation technologies report by the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee which I chair at the House of Commons.

Our report concluded "that with decisive and co-ordinated action it is feasible to meet the 2020 renewable energy targets".

We did not conclude, contrary to yesterday's Centre for Policy Studies report, that the target was "over ambitious and impractical", but we did agree that to reach the 2020 target "it is essential that any action is both considered and swift; without this we may find that the increasingly short amount of time we have to make the necessary change has run out".

In short, the time for yet more strategy documents, consultations and procrastination is over. We need action now.

Wind will be central to realising our ambitions, and this makes sense with 40 per cent of Europe's wind resources blowing around the UK. Currently 169 wind farms are operating, with seven offshore. A further 374 are in the pipeline and if installed would create an 18 GW capacity – making a significant contribution to replacement capacity and the renewable target. However, even with mature technologies like on-shore wind farms, there are some huge obstacles that Government would need to address. As one of our witnesses said deployment is "nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with our very sclerotic planning system".

There are few local communities who welcome their landscape being peppered by wind turbines but even when they reluctantly agree – inability to connect to the grid provides another huge barrier. At present 9.3GW of capacity is awaiting transmission to the grid in Scotland. In fact, access to the National Grid which was constructed in the 1950s and 1960's is arguably the biggest technological and financial challenge to the Government's ambitions.

The grid was designed to distribute electricity from a small number of large power plants. It will in future have to provide access to not only wind, but tidal and wave power, and a plethora of micro-generation systems from combined heat and power to solar cells. Both Ofgem and the National Grid assured my committee that they could provide access, but produced hardly a shred of evidence that they had actively considered the technical requirements.

The scale of the challenge ahead requires change at every level from the Government to the consumer. It will require a level of leadership that has so far been missing from both government and industry. If, as consumers we are to buy in to the renewable vision, then we need to know how and when it will happen and what it will cost.

I feel another report and another strategy document coming!

Phil Willis is MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, and chairman of the Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee