Power Outages: North of England

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do not have that figure to hand. The noble Lord, with his work on infrastructure, will know that the cost of putting power lines underground is much greater than that of overhead lines, and these are difficult balances that have to be struck in any particular circumstance, particularly in rural communities or if the lines are going long-distance across the countryside. To put them all underground would be immensely expensive. If my officials have access to any figures, I will certainly let him have them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the Minister said that “we” need to ensure more resilience, but of course we are talking here about private companies, whose entire focus is on private profits. Will the Government ensure that regulators force those companies to build more resilience into the system?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

They are indeed private companies, but resilience is in their interests as well as ours, and they are very tightly regulated through Ofgem. They will be seeking to learn all the lessons they can so that the system is suitably resilient in future.