Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s proposed updates to the national policy statements for energy, EN-1, EN-3 and EN-5, aim to lay the legislative and planning groundwork for the clean power action plan 2030.

I endorse entirely the comments of my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford and other noble Lords in lamenting the retirement of the redoubtable noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who was such a strong supporter of nuclear power, in particular. I also endorse my noble friend Lord Howell’s critique of the choice of EPR technology for Sizewell C.

As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich observed, there is much to welcome in these documents, but ambition must be tempered by realism grounded in economic and national security. It was a Conservative Government who made the UK the first G20 country to halve carbon emissions while growing our economy. What we cannot support is a transition that forgets the people who power our industries, who pay their bills and taxes and who depend on British energy for their livelihoods.

The Government’s so-called clean power 2030 plan, now at the centre of the revised EN-1, sets a target for 95% of UK electricity generation to come from clean sources by 2030. To meet that goal, developers are now directed to bring forward enormous capacities: up to 50 gigawatts of offshore wind—let us hope that some of that may be generated by the nascent offshore floating wind industry in Wales—29 gigawatts of onshore wind and 47 gigawatts of solar. Incidentally, the technology now exists to place solar panels on reservoirs successfully, which should be explored. These are not modest targets, and the reality is that ideology without realism leads to economic harm. Just last week, we saw the impact of this Government’s choices when Lindsey oil refinery crashed into insolvency. Energy is now the single largest cost in operating a refinery—indeed, operating all heavy industry—and this Government’s failure to deliver competitive industrial energy prices is pushing UK manufacturers to the brink.

The Government should listen to the warnings of Sir Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS, who has said that the chemicals sector in this country is now “facing extinction” because of

“enormously high energy prices and crippling carbon tax bills”.

We are now looking at a situation where only four oil refineries may remain in operation. To put that in context, Britain had 17 in the late 1970s. The industry, like many others, is being driven into the ground, not by foreign competition but domestic policy failure. Our path to net zero cannot cost us jobs, close our refineries, undermine British manufacturing and leave us more dependent on foreign imports. This is not decarbonisation; it is deindustrialisation.

Since the closure of Grangemouth, we have seen no meaningful action from the Government to address the structural challenges facing heavy industry. They are failing to tackle the fundamental issue: the cost of energy for British industry is simply too high. In the long-term, nuclear power can mitigate against this. I therefore ask the Minister plainly: what will this Government do to bring energy bills down for all industrial energy consumers, not just those covered by the narrow energy-intensive industries compensation scheme? Right now, UK industry is uncompetitive, and clean power 2030 will simply make it worse.

The updated national policy statements also fail to answer how we will maintain a stable, secure and affordable power system in the face of massive intermittent generation. As Professor Dieter Helm of the University of Oxford has explained, the costs associated with addressing the problem of intermittency has been ignored by

“almost every calculation of the costs for these renewables”.

It is the total system cost that matters, not just marginal cost. Yet these statements provide no clear answers on how we will manage the added infrastructure, back-up power and storage costs that are integral to this expansion. I therefore endorse the request by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for an update on battery storage development, to which I would add pumped hydro storage.

We are investing billions into offshore and onshore wind and solar panels, while ignoring the fundamental engineering challenge of how to keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Coffey for drawing the Committee’s attention to paragraph 3.2.4 of EN-1, and the statement that it is

“not the role of the planning system”

to limit any form of infrastructure. I also agree with her commitment to HVDC cabling. Perhaps, instead of pylons of undergrounding, power generated offshore in East Anglia could be transported via a subsea HVDC cable—just a thought.

There is no clear path to long-term baseload capacity, and no competitive framework for industrial consumers. I say again that, if clean power 2030 costs us our industrial base, weakens our energy sovereignty and drives up costs for working families, it cannot be considered a success. We do not serve the national interest by being the greenest country in the world if the price is the loss of our manufacturing base and the impoverishment of hard-working British people. That is not climate leadership; it is economic self-harm, and a lesson that others will learn from.

Of course, we want to strive to achieve a clean energy system, but we also need resilient, reliable and affordable energy. That is what will keep the lights on, protect our industries and uphold our national security. I therefore urge the Minister to return to the House with a clear plan, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, suggested, for delivering security and affordability of the UK’s energy supply.