Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Teverson and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Monday 19th December 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My little Amendment 177 seems to have intruded on this group of government amendments. I tabled it because I was concerned about the practical implications of the Government’s reliance on smart regulations and smart appliances. I am certainly not arguing with the technology but I am seeking to tease out exactly how this will impact on us and the people of Britain as ordinary consumers.

If you read Clause 187, you will see that it is very dictatorial and centralised in its approach. Yet if you look at paragraph 438 of the Explanatory Notes you will see that, in practice, the Government’s intentions are going to be carried out by retailers and manufacturers, and they will face penalties if they do not get it right. My concern is that one size does not fit all. For example, the noble Baroness just mentioned washing machines and so on, but my example would be electric vehicles. We are told to charge electric vehicles at times when electricity usage is low, and we are promised that this will become an automatic default position. The Government are relying on smart usage, in effect, to expand limited national grid capacity. At the weekend, when I was reading some background material, I noticed that there are only two regions where there is currently said to be any level of surplus national grid capacity. The rest of the country is in a very stretched position.

I have been asking these questions for some years. I have been asking how a reliance on telling people when they can wash their clothes or charge their cars will impact on consumers and the way we use our gadgets and run our daily lives. There is a current experiment, not using smart technology but with a voluntary agreement, to get people to opt in to using their washing machines, dishwashers and so on at low-demand periods, with a financial incentive to do that. That is great if it is convenient for these people and they are opting in to do it. I am pleased that the experiment is taking place, as I am sure it will produce some useful information, but I want to float past everyone a couple of potential issues.

First, I do not want to bore noble Lords for long with the details of my domestic life but I have solar panels and an electric car. I want to use my washing machine and dishwasher and charge my electric vehicle when the sun is out; sometimes, that is at a time of peak demand. I am saving myself money, which I regard as a good thing, but, more importantly, I am limiting the amount I draw down from the grid because my solar panels provide my electricity. I am minimising my call on the grid. There are lots of people like me with solar panels; let us hope that there are heaps more in the coming months and years. This issue needs to be taken into account.

Secondly, more importantly, there is a host of people whose working patterns require them to charge their cars and do their washing at peak times. A care worker working nights has to fit their domestic life around those daily patterns, which might be peak demand times. This is not just about just care workers; it is about health workers, district nurses or anyone working on shifts—the police, firefighters and taxi drivers. We want taxi drivers to drive electric vehicles but they are going to run out of electricity half way through the day; they must be enabled to carry on their work.

We have all, I am sure, experienced a situation where we have had to take our phone or laptop to the technical experts because it is doing something strange, behaving in a way that is beyond our understanding. We are normally told that it is the factory settings or an automatic download. I am now aware that, because they are so automated, electric vehicles adopt patterns that one might not necessarily understand fully because they have downloaded a new program and so on. As the technology becomes more sophisticated, in reality, consumers will find it more difficult to understand what it is doing, why and to override it when they need to.

My big question is that any reliance on smart charging and smart usage must be able to be adapted for that large body of people for whom it is not convenient. In days of high energy prices, most of us can probably be relied on to know what is best for us financially and, therefore, what draws least from the grid. I am concerned that the way in which this is expressed allows no latitude, judgment or option for consumers to make that decision for themselves.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 181 in my name, which follows on from what my noble friend Lady Randerson was talking about.

The whole area of smart appliances is really important. It is in fact where demand management starts to creep into this Bill; it is about the only place that it does. The popularity of their potential has, I think, been shown by National Grid’s call for people to offer to manage their energy usage over particular times in the winter; the Minister may give us the figures but I think that more than a million people have shown an interest in it. I would be interested to know where we are with that.

There is a risk here, however. We have seen it with smart meters. I will not go back to the smart meters argument but one barrier to rollout has been the fear of people sharing information. Clearly, data is core to smart technology; data is personal so there is the question of how that data will be used.

My Amendment 181 is really a probing amendment; it is not in the form that would finally go into a Bill. It seeks to understand how the Government are going to communicate what is a really important thrust in terms of demand management and the way we use dispersed energy systems in a smart grid. How are they going to explain and deliver the strategy outlined so that we do not have the consumer reaction that we have had in other areas, including smart meters—very much media-driven, I should add? I want to avoid that.

The other area on which I want to tackle the Minister is concerns Clause 187(3)(d). It is one sub-paragraph of just three lines about security of information—indeed, the whole area of security. This is a core, important area: we know that, wherever smart systems or information technology are involved, there are all sorts of threats regarding the use of personal information. There is also the threat of external hacking, with state actors or others going into these systems and making them unusable.

It is easy and right to say that personal and other data used with smart technologies are secure or otherwise protected, but who is actually going to do that? I am talking about security or communication software systems. I would like to know from the Minister who will be responsible for the protection and security of these systems. I believe that it is important from the bottom up in terms of personal information but also in terms of smart grids and external, less favourable people towards the United Kingdom intervening here. I am sure that the Government have this under control and consideration but it is a really important area. We need to understand that it is being taken seriously and that, whoever the person or authority, they are going to make sure that these particular three lines in Clause 187(3)(d) are delivered.

Connecting Europe Facility (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Teverson and Baroness Randerson

Monday 20th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for bringing this statutory instrument to my attention. It is not just about hard rail infrastructure but concerns telecommunications. The programmes of this facility particularly concern the digital economy and connectivity, and the whole area of energy, which is crucial for our development, given the problems we have with the nuclear programme at the moment.

I do not want to depress the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, by saying that the one glimmer of hope in this SI is not what it seems, but I want to explore the Government’s funding guarantee. As I read it, this goes up only to 2020; I presume it is the end of 2020. We know that the current multiannual financial framework ends in 2020, but we also know that in the European cohesion funding and all other funding programmes, expenditure does not stop at the end of 2020: it is the bids for programmes that stop at the end of 2020. In fact, there are already enough forthcoming calls in 2019 for new projects, and I suspect there will be in 2020; I am sure the Minister has looked at this already. I presume that all those, particularly in hard infrastructure—not just digital, but even in digital development—will go well beyond the 2020 MFF end of programme and the government guarantee.

Has the Minister had any feedback from British organisations that are involved in this programme? Are they concerned that, if they bid for this programme now—and I presume they are stopping doing so now—they have no guarantee that there will be any funding after 2020? The EU would continue to fund these usually for two years after the MFF ends, and these programmes can no longer be bid for. I would be very interested to understand how that will work. Indeed, if it is a 2020 guarantee, we are already handicapping UK industry and UK business in terms of our connectivity under the threat of Brexit.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, to take up the point just made by my noble friend, this SI is intended to plug any gaps that would occur if we left the EU without a deal. In that situation, it is highly likely that the EU might cease to fund projects that it has already committed to. Crucially, this 2020 date is now remarkably soon, although it might have sounded okay when the Government first dreamed it up at some point last year. Can the Government assure us that the 2020 date will be extended, for the reasons that my noble friend has outlined? That lack of certainty is behind the concerns that have been expressed by the devolved Administrations. If you think about the geography, it is the areas on the edge of the UK that are most concerned in many circumstances. In Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Devon, Cornwall and the north of England, there is, not surprisingly, a lack of confidence that the Government have sufficient commitment to the prosperity of those nations and regions. Their prosperity will be undermined if infrastructure projects of this nature are not taken forward and completed. After all, infrastructure is the key to unlocking prosperity.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Teverson and Baroness Randerson

Thursday 28th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 111A, which would amend Clause 19 by removing subsection (5) and replacing it with a new subsection. This concerns the same issue of the flat-rate levy. Clause 19(5) specifies that it should be the same for all retailers unless the Secretary of State decides otherwise and makes an order that allows it to reflect expense and time. My amendment does away with the first phase of the flat-rate levy. It is on very much the same ground as other amendments in this group. Mine would enable the Secretary of State to decide the criteria that should be applied for a variable levy.

I repeat what I said on Amendment 87C, which referred to this issue. There is a basic problem in that a flat-rate levy will not change behaviour because there will be no reward to retailers for avoiding getting into trouble and behaving well. We need to start on a strong footing and, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has just said, on an equitable footing that reflects the size of the different retailers. I am conscious that the Minister has said that she will deal with this issue when she responds to this group of amendments.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 114, which is very straightforward. Under Clause 19(5), the Secretary of State must make an order to allow the adjudicator to differentiate. My noble friend Lord Razzall and I believe that the adjudicator should have this direct ability. Again, we have this indirect method of making decisions through the Secretary of State. I am sure that the Secretary of State has far more important things to do than decide the specific division of the levy among the small population of large retailers. If we are to have a serious adjudicator, we should give that person the authority to undertake that task. If we feel that the adjudicator’s decisions are wrong, I am sure that other provisions in the Bill will ensure that that is communicated to him or her.