Electricity and Gas Transmission (Compensation) Bill

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.

I thank the right hon. Member for North Somerset for introducing and sponsoring the Bill, which has my support. However, I have a question for the Minister about clause 2 and the territorial extent of the Bill; it is probably an obvious question. Like most Bills in the House, whenever devolution was working, the usual clause states that the Act will apply to England, Wales and—on occasion—Scotland. Of course, the words “Northern Ireland” are left out, but with the failure of devolution the Minister does have responsibility.

I hope that the Bill will be reported today, but will the Minister take it away, look at the issue of territorial extent to see whether there is a gap that needs to be filled with regard to compensation claims in Northern Ireland, and ascertain whether that should be applied to and included in the Bill?

[The Minister for Energy and Climate (Graham Stuart)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset, and I am sure that Members across the Committee congratulate him. He probably snapped into it pretty easily; not only did he have the great success of the Down Syndrome Act but, as my former boss at the Department for International Trade for some time, seeking to command me was something that came naturally to him. Perhaps I have an overly built-in response, which is of course to try to do whatever he wants.

We have made tremendous progress. I am pleased that the Bill gained the support of Members of the House, passing Second Reading on 25 November last year. On Second Reading, my colleague the Minister for Industry and Investment Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), agreed that the Government would work with my right hon. Friend on the Bill.

The electricity network is fundamental to accelerate our ambitions for net zero and energy security. Since taking on my role and seeing the vast amount of technology we need to deploy, I return again and again to the same point: if we do not get the grid right, whatever we do is affected, whether that is space energy; small modular nuclear reactors; hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage; or floating offshore wind. Whatever it is, without the grid we will not have a transformation, which we have to do at a most remarkable pace.

The president of the National Grid has said there will be six-and-a-half times more investment in the grid over the next seven years than in the previous 30. That is a massive deployment, supply chain and financing challenge, but it is also a political challenge, because of unprecedented imposition of necessary infrastructure on communities up and down the land. Ensuring that we have a system that is fit for purpose and does not roll communities over—but rolls with communities and their grain—is fundamental. That is why I am so grateful for the Bill. I do not believe it will slow down that tremendously required acceleration of deployment, but it will help to build a system that is better able to listen to the communities we represent and ensure that they feel part of the solution, not just subject to it.

As I said, the network needs to be transformed at an unprecedented scale and pace, and it needs to accommodate an expected doubling in overall electricity demand by 2050, as we electrify sectors including transport, heat and industry. In order to achieve that, we committed in the British energy security strategy to accelerate the timescale for delivering new onshore transmission network infrastructure.

We recognise that in cases where land or land rights have been acquired and a settlement is not agreed between landowners and the transmission owner, challenging that via the upper tribunal can be expensive—a point made strongly by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset. The Bill presents an opportunity to address the issue by ensuring access to alternative dispute resolution processes, which can play such a crucial role in offering a quicker and more affordable route to the resolution of disputes.

We believe that the Bill can support the transformation needed so that we can have clean, secure and resilient energy for the Great British people. Landowners should have access to a clear, fair, affordable and enforceable system for dispute resolution, and I am pleased to say that we have worked closely with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset since Second Reading and support his amendments.

I will now touch on those amendments, which I encourage the Committee to accept. Amendment 1 will remove clause 1, which will be replaced by new clause 1. The new clause focuses the proposals on electricity-related cases rather than gas-related cases. We support that change, as the examples raised by my right hon. Friend have related only to electricity network infrastructure and we are not aware of issues for gas infrastructure. It seems too early to include gas infrastructure definitively. However, the Secretary of State has the option to expand the scope if needed. Hon. Members have raised this issue in previous stages.

The new clause moves from establishing a new mechanism to encouraging the use of alternative dispute resolution processes instead of immediately resorting to the upper tribunal. It means that we can therefore consider existing practices, whether they can be strengthened to meet the aims of the Bill, and whether new processes and mechanisms may be required. The new clause retains the key factors that the proposals must consider, which my right hon. Friend set out: ensuring that decisions are enforceable, and that the process is affordable and accessible. He also mentioned independence, which is another important aspect.

Amendment 2 simply replaces “applies” with “extends” in clause 2(1), which deals with territorial extent. It is a minor technical amendment to reflect more appropriate terminology. Amendment 3 changes commencement to two months after Royal Assent to bring the Bill in line with standard commencement procedure for primary legislation. Amendment 4 removes gas from the Bill’s short title in clause 2, in line with the focus on electricity transmission infrastructure that I have already discussed. Finally, amendment 5 edits the Bill’s long title to reflect its contents in new clause 1. New clause 1 should be added to the Bill, and clause 2, as amended, should stand part of the Bill.

My right hon. Friend raised some questions. He rightly said that retrospective law is typically abhorrent, but asked whether current disputes could be resolved through whatever proposals come forward. We would certainly want current ongoing disputes to be covered once proposals are implemented, but, of course, we do not yet know what those proposals are. Our intention is to establish an alternative dispute resolution taskforce—very grandly named—which will be responsible for putting forward proposals, and we will have to see what ideas are generated by that taskforce. If a dispute is still unresolved by the time that any proposals are implemented, such cases should be able to use any alternative dispute resolution options that result from the Bill, if they are appropriate. If the dispute, of course, is resolved before the proposals are implemented, any options resulting from the Bill will not be required.

[Dr Fox]

Will my right hon. Friend tell us give us a timescale for the setting up of the taskforce?

[Graham Stuart]

As I have said, we will establish an alternative dispute resolution taskforce to develop the proposals. We will ensure that there is independent and balanced representation among members—for example, by including landowner representatives alongside electricity network operators. As I am sure this Committee will be pleased to hear, we will also look to engage closely with my right hon. Friend to ensure that he is happy with the make-up of the taskforce. By establishing that taskforce, we can ensure that the right expertise and balance of views is available to consider carefully the processes and options that will work best for landowners and electricity network operators.

We expect to establish the taskforce in 2023. I would like to see it sooner rather than later, and have already asked—for my purposes, which I may or may not make public—for a timeline for that process. Having come so far, I hope my right hon. Friend can trust in me to ensure that we move this forward with suitable rapidity, but if he lacks that trust I think he can trust his own use of the mechanisms of this House to ensure that the Government are kept honest and move in an expedited way to set up this taskforce.

One of the first tasks of the group will be setting a scope, a work plan and a timeframe. My right hon. Friend asked whether the Bill applies to Scotland, and in which circumstances. The Bill does extend to Scotland, but as currently drafted it applies strictly to cases where a development consent order has been granted for electricity transmission infrastructure under the Planning Act 2008. The development consent order process does not apply in Scotland, except under limited circumstances that do not relate to electricity transmission. While electricity transmission is reserved, dispute resolution and other things are devolved, so in Scotland, there would be an interplay between the various responsibilities of the different Governments. It will be the role of the taskforce to develop the full scope of the proposals.

The hon. Member for North Antrim asked about the Bill’s application in Northern Ireland. As he said, energy transmission is devolved in Northern Ireland, as is energy generally, and notwithstanding the failure so far to convene the Executive in Northern Ireland, the devolution settlement stays in place. We only step in reluctantly, when there is no other choice; we have successfully done so, and I am pleased to see people in Northern Ireland receiving their energy bills support scheme payments and their alternative fuel payments this week, either directly into their bank accounts or through voucher provision.

My Department did a lot of work to ensure we could serve the people of Northern Ireland, because we could not leave them without that support this winter, but that is not an indication that I or the Government have any appetite to fulfil a function that is properly devolved in Northern Ireland. We respect that, and we want to see those institutions restored as soon as possible, because people in Northern Ireland deserve to have the people they elect delivering the things that have rightly been devolved for them to deliver for the good of people in Northern Ireland. I recognise that we would swiftly move from people welcoming the Minister stepping into a gap to them asking, “What’s your status? How are you making these rules for us?” That is why we really want to see the restitution of people in Northern Ireland determining what happens there.

[Ian Paisley]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

I am going to close; I have probably been overly provocative and overly long on Northern Ireland. Suffice it to say that the Bill does not apply there, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate the Minister’s point of view, but on a practical level, if at some point there is not a devolved Government operating in Northern Ireland, will the Minister extend the Bill so that compensation payments can be properly covered? The Minister has the right to do so; he represents the Government of the United Kingdom.

[Graham Stuart]

I am a Minister in the Government of the United Kingdom, and we have devolution and have devolved certain bits away. I might be part of the Government of the United Kingdom, but I cannot go in and take over the function of local planning from democratically elected local authorities, because they have that function, not me. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it would be for others to decide.

I am straying into Northern Irish politics, which I am told is a difficult thing to do unless one is deeply well informed, so I will stop there. I have talked enough about it already, so I will back off swiftly. The main point is that the Government support the Bill, which will ensure access to alternative dispute resolution for landowners when land is acquired by transmission owners. I therefore look forward to working with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset to support the passage of the Bill.

I thank you, Mr Hosie, for your excellent chairmanship, and my civil servants for their hard work. They have not only been working with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset; as we know, so much of the work is done by his office, so it is through the work of my officials and my right hon. Friend’s office, as well as the occasional appearance by the two of us, that we have been able to make such progress.

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for clarifying those points. We all accept the need to upgrade the electricity transmission network, and those Members who have not yet seen what the new electricity pylons look like are welcome to come down to the south-west and see for themselves. I find them incredibly visibly intrusive up close, although not un-aesthetically pleasing in themselves; how much one objects to them really depends on how close one is to them.

The point is that those pylons will be rolled out across the country. One of the roles we have in Parliament is not just to deal with issues when they reach crisis level, but to anticipate them. It is therefore important to bring in this legislation before the matter becomes an issue for most Members of Parliament, even if they do not yet understand the scale of the problem they are likely to face. It is a bizarre aspect of democratic politics that MPs get much more credit for solving a problem than for preventing one, but we try to live with that.

Electricity Transmission (Compensation) Bill

Graham Stuart Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

Once again, may I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for introducing this important legislation? I am afraid that I am not the historian of legislation that I ought to be, so I have no idea whether any Member in history has ever managed to get two private Members’ Bills in a row put into law, but my right hon. Friend is a remarkable man, and he has shown that once again by successfully steering this Bill through. The machine, as ever, always responds by trying to kill it, but such is his dexterity, insight and flexibility that no attempt to kill it is successful, and he finds a way through to deliver something that will be good for everyone. I am pleased that all the amendments were accepted in Committee on 25 January, and I am delighted to offer my support for the Bill as the Minister of State in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Although the name of my Department may have changed, the position of the Government has not, and I can confirm that the Government are fully supportive of the Bill. One key priority of the new Department is ensuring that the UK is on track to meet its legally binding net zero commitment and support economic growth by significantly speeding up delivery of electricity network infrastructure and domestic electricity generation.

The nation will have been grateful for the speech made by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), but it seemed clear from its tone that the Labour party prefers appropriation to the reasonable treatment of people in delivering this. Of course, failing to engage properly with communities will slow down the transformation we need. People thinking they can ride roughshod over communities because they scream, “Climate emergency and urgency” is not the way to do it; we have to go with the grain of communities. We have to explain the narrative. What is our narrative? As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set out, we have a vision of delivering the most competitive, lowest-cost clean energy in Europe by 2035. That will have a transformative effect, not only in terms of our leading the world in reducing emissions, as we have done to date under this Government, but in enabling the re-industrialisation of the north, Scotland and Wales, with all the economic benefits that come with that. It is this Government, not the Labour party, who have delivered. When Labour left power in 2010 only 7% of our electricity came from renewables, but now it is nearly half. We are going further and faster, but making sure we do it in a way that works with the grain of communities, because if we ride roughshod over them, they will come back and will slow us down. To answer the hon. Lady’s point, this Bill will not slow down what we are doing; it will enable us to move at the speed required and make sure that we do so in a way that retains community support.

The Bill is about the building of network infrastructure, and the planning and consenting process. I thought it would be helpful to set out the Government’s commitments in this area and the work that is already under way. It currently takes about 12 to 14 years to build or reinforce new onshore electricity transmission network infrastructure, from the initial planning to the final completion and commissioning. The development of new transmission infrastructure is often on the critical path for the connection of new generation. The wonderful and extraordinary new generation that we have helped bring about, and are going to bring about in the future, is of no use if we do not have the infrastructure to get the electrons to where they need to go. The current position offers an unacceptable timeline when the electricity network is a critical enabler of our domestic energy production targets and our decarbonisation targets. We committed in the British energy security strategy to significantly reduce the timelines by about three years for delivering onshore transmission network infrastructure. We aspire to halve this end-to-end process by the mid-2020s. So we are working with developers and supply chains to increase pipeline visibility and certainty, to help accelerate the procurement.

Work is already under way to improve the strategic planning of network infrastructure, including the holistic network design. We are also improving the planning and consenting process. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published its nationally significant infrastructure project reform action plan just yesterday, and our consultation on the revised energy national policy statements is imminent. Additionally, work is ongoing to improve work with communities and to expedite Ofgem’s regulatory approval process, but we recognise that more needs to be done. That is why in July last year my Department appointed Nick Winser CBE to the role of electricity networks commissioner. He is advising Government on how the development process for transmission infrastructure can be accelerated. He has extensive experience in electricity networks and is currently chair of the Energy Systems Catapult, which provides technical, commercial and policy expertise to drive innovation across the whole energy system. The commissioner is tasked with looking at where further improvements can be made beyond what is already in train across Government and will be looking at providing recommendations on crucial issues such as strategic network planning, planning consent and regulatory approvals. His work commenced in September and he continues to work intensively with stakeholders across the development process, within Government and across industry so that his work can deliver a valuable contribution to my Department’s aims. He hopes to submit his final recommendations to the Government for review in June. The commissioner is working in collaboration with the offshore wind champion, Tim Pick, and the offshore wind acceleration taskforce, given the importance of electricity networks to the offshore wind deployment we need. We are also working with Ofgem to speed up its regulatory approvals process. So in December, Ofgem published its decision on accelerating strategic transmission investment, which includes exempting certain strategic projects from being subject to competition. That provided greater clarity and certainty to industry on which projects should be progressed, and by whom.

Communities that host network infrastructure are playing a vital role in ensuring a cheaper, cleaner and self-sufficient energy supply in Britain. It is therefore only right that they benefit from developments in their area. Although benefits to communities are already offered by industry, now is the right time, given the scale and rate of change to which hon. Members have referred, to review how community benefits are delivered. We intend to explore whether there should be a more standardised approach, or whether providing a framework or benchmark offers more flexibility that would be of benefit to the distinct needs of individual communities and projects. We will consult in the coming weeks on options for community benefits regarding onshore network infrastructure.

The Government announced a review of the energy national policy statements to ensure that they reflect the policies set out in the energy White Paper net zero strategy and the British energy security strategy, and that we continue to have a planning policy framework that can deliver the investment required to build the infrastructure needed to ensure an independent, secure energy supply as we transition to net zero. The draft energy national policy statements were subject to parliamentary scrutiny, including by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which published its report and recommendations on 25 February. When analysing the responses to that consultation, we will take account of those and of any other resolutions as we go forward.

Let me talk now about the Bill. I have set out what we are doing to accelerate the build of network infrastructure, but as I have said, new network infrastructure must be built in a way that protects the rights of local landowners and communities. That is why the Bill has the Government’s support. We believe that it can be a bulwark for the vital transformation that is needed for our electricity network.

Transmission owners need access to private land when installing network infrastructure, and in that situation, the landowner is entitled to compensation. We recognise that in cases in which the landowner and the transmission owner cannot agree on compensation, challenging through the upper tribunal can be expensive for landowners. The Bill presents an opportunity to address that by ensuring access to alternative dispute resolution processes, which can play such a crucial role in offering a quicker and cheaper route to resolving disputes.

We need the right expertise and the right balance of views to develop proposals, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset said. That is why we will establish an alternative dispute resolution taskforce to take the work forward. I have been asked repeatedly and quite rightly about timelines, and that taskforce will be taken forward this year. Its work will complement the ongoing work within my Department. We are already reviewing the land rights and consents processes for network infrastructure. We published a call for evidence in 2022 and we are reviewing the responses.

To answer my right hon. Friend’s question on whether the scope of the proposals will extend to the distribution network and to the refurbishment of existing infrastructure, the Bill sets out only which cases must be in scope of the proposals. The Secretary of State can decide whether to extend the scope to other electricity network-related cases, including the distribution network and, indeed, refurbishment where a DCO is not in place. We envisage that the taskforce will make a recommendation on scope to the Secretary of State.

Amendments have been made to the Bill since Second Reading. I will now—briefly, I hope—explain the amendments and their purpose. Amendment 1 removed clause 1, which was replaced with new clause 1. The new clause focuses the proposals on electricity-related cases rather than gas-related cases. The new clause also moves away from proposals to establish a new mechanism to proposals to encourage use of alternative dispute resolution processes. That means that we can consider existing practices and whether they can be strengthened to meet the aims of the Bill, as well as whether new mechanisms are required. The new clause retains the key factors that the proposals must consider: that decisions are enforceable and that the process is affordable and accessible, as my right hon. Friend so fluently laid out.

Amendment 2 simply replaced “applies” with “extends” for the subsection dealing with territorial extent in clause 2 —a minor technical amendment to reflect more appropriate terminology. Amendment 3 changed commencement to two months after Royal Assent, bringing the Bill in line with standard commencement procedure for primary legislation. In line with the focus on electricity transmission infrastructure, amendment 4 removed “gas” from the Bill’s short title in clause 2. Finally, amendment 5 edited the Bill’s long title to reflect its contents in clause 1.

I thank all hon. Members who have participated at the various stages of this Bill’s progress through this place. Supporting this Bill is in line with our ongoing objective of ensuring that landowners have access to a clear, fair, affordable and enforceable system for dispute resolution. I am so grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset for introducing the Bill and for working so constructively with the Government to ensure that were able to deliver on this important issue. I hope all Members will agree that the |Bill should now move to the other place, where I hope it will gain the support of peers as it has gained the cross-party support of Members here.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) talked about David and Goliath and about the need to ensure that we have a system of infrastructure that works fairly and equally for people, and reflected on his experience in his own constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith)—there is something of a Buckinghamshire massive here today— talked about solar farms and the need for infrastructure reinforcement, and pressed me on the timeline. I hope I gave a suitable answer.

I am grateful to my officials, those in the Box and those outside: Daniel Boorman, Charles Grant, Alex Chittenden, Louise Sun and Susanna Isola from my private office. I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset to support the passage of the Bill, which I am confident will not only introduce a fairer system but aid rather than break the fast change that we need to deliver in order to have the most competitive energy system in Europe in the 2030s, which I think will underpin the return of the UK—quite properly—to its position as the premier economic power in Europe. I believe that energy is often the foundation and the secret of economic success.