Oral Answers to Questions
Duncan Baker Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Andrew Bowie
As the hon. Gentleman knows, just last week we unveiled our civil nuclear road map. I committed to meet him and, indeed, anybody else from Northern Ireland to seek to build up the manufacturing and supply chain workforce in Northern Ireland, so that all parts of our United Kingdom can benefit from the once-in-a-generation investment that we are making right now.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
The environmental impact of onshore windfarm cables is assessed through the consenting process. Minimising potential environmental impacts of new infrastructure is a Government priority. We are committed to ensuring that new electricity network projects mitigate environmental impacts at every opportunity.
Duncan Baker
Although I am a huge supporter of offshore wind, there is no doubt that the trenching through my beautiful countryside is not without its own set of problems. Flooding, agricultural run-off and pollution have all been hugely exacerbated since the summer with what has happened in North Norfolk. What measures do we really have to force wind companies to clean up and repair the countryside after the damage they cause when they trench through it?
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for persistently raising these issues to make sure that we get the transmission infrastructure that we need, but in a way that has the minimum negative impact on his constituents and others. I will follow up his question today by looking specifically at the regime, making sure that the companies concerned not only go through all the correct permissioning ahead of time, but are properly followed up to ensure that they deliver it in a way that does not leave the problems that he has itemised.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Graham Stuart
I agree with my hon. Friend and the Prime Minister on the importance of Bacton, which, like all gas terminals across the country, has the potential to play a crucial role in our energy security. The decarbonisation of these terminals is vital to delivering both economic growth and net zero. The Hewett field, 20 km offshore from Bacton, was awarded a licence for carbon sea storage by the North Sea Transition Authority in 2023. I hear his loud voice—it will be heard on the Government Benches—about its potential to be a hydrogen hub as well.
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
Duncan Baker Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Edward Miliband
I think the Climate Change Committee is actually saying that its most ambitious scenario, which we should be aiming for, is for us to cut the use of gas by 90%. Are we going to carry on using North sea oil and gas? The question for the hon. Gentleman, and for the whole House, is this: do we choose, for the future, to carry on drilling every last drop? That is the Government’s policy, in contravention of all the scientific advice, which is that we will end up in a 3° world—needing billions of pounds of taxpayer subsidy to bring about that investment through persuasion, and diverting investment from the private sector. Personally, I do not think that that is the right choice.
The lesson of this crisis is one that the Government should have learnt, and one that other countries around the world have learnt: the only way to get energy security is to sprint for clean power. That is why the Government’s onshore wind ban is such a disaster. That is why their offshore wind auction is such a disaster. That is why their energy efficiency failures are such a disaster. This Bill neither protects us on price nor gives us energy security.
Here is the thing, the Bill is not motivated by millions of people lying awake at night, worrying about the cost of living crisis; it is motivated by a Prime Minister lying awake at night, worrying about the Conservative party crisis. The interesting thing is that this Bill was planned well before the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) became Energy Secretary. It is the last desperate throw of the dice by what we might call the No. 10 galaxy brains, to use climate change as what they call a “wedge issue.” They say this to the newspapers all the time. Series 1 of this new strategy was aired in September, when the party of Churchill and Thatcher became the peddlers of wacky conspiracy theories they found on the internet: abolishing the mythical seven bins; ending the imaginary threat of compulsory car sharing; saying no to invented conspiracy theories on 15-minute cities; and fighting the fictional meat tax. And now we have a sequel. No longer a few throw-away conspiracy theories, this is now the central strategy of their legislative programme.
Members should not take my word for it. It is what the Prime Minister’s advisers brief to the papers day after day. One paper I read on Monday reported that the Prime Minister wants to “weaponise climate change” as a wedge issue. Where the British people see an energy crisis forcing up their bills, the Government see a wedge issue. Where the British people ask how they can have liveable towns and cities with good transport, the Government see a wedge issue. Where the British people worry about the effect of the climate crisis on their kids and grandkids, the Government see a wedge issue. The point is that the Government cannot really deny it, because they know this is what they are saying every day. “We think there is a big opportunity for the Conservative party to try to create division on climate change.” That is why the Prime Minister uses words like “eco-zealots.” It is all very transparent. They are locked in the boot of a strategy. Whether they agree with it or not, that is what is happening.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
This is the problem. The right hon. Gentleman calls it a wedge issue but, in his own language, he boils it down to a binary issue. It is not a binary question of whether we have oil and gas or whether we have renewables; it is about an energy mix. Does he realise that, last year, there were 260 days—by my maths, that is getting on for nearly three quarters of the year—when there was not enough wind to generate enough power for this nation’s needs? Whether he likes it or not, we will need to have an energy mix. It is something that he just does not seem to understand.
Edward Miliband
I am afraid that all the hon. Gentleman is pointing out is the Government’s failure to go fast enough in driving towards renewables. Of course we need a mix of energy, but this is the question for the House and the country: do we decide that drilling every last drop, which is the Government’s position and which would be a climate disaster, is the right strategy? Or do we decide that the right way to go is home-grown clean power? We say it is home-grown clean power.
The problem is that all the nonsense the Government are coming out with really matters, and it worries me. By the way, I think it will be an electoral disaster for them, and we already see that because the intelligent Conservatives are asking, “Why are we doing all this?” Members on both sides of the House did this together. We built a consensus on climate over the past 20 years, to work across parties and not to weaponise it. People look at America and say. “Well, America has a culture war on climate. Thank goodness we do not have that in Britain.” That was the case until this Prime Minister—not the previous Prime Minister, or the Prime Minister before her—decided to do it.
On the day of the Prime Minister’s climate U-turns, the Home Secretary had a licence to go out and say that the danger of climate action is that it will “bankrupt” the country. The Home Secretary freelances on most issues, but on this issue she is actually speaking for the Prime Minister, because it is echoed by other Cabinet Ministers. This is a massive retreat from the position of both parties for two decades, that leadership on climate is not somehow a danger to our economy but is the way to seize and build our economic future. They have opened the door to the old, discredited idea that we can choose either our economy or the climate, but not both.
It is not just a retreat from the consensus; it is a retreat from reality. The reality is that there is a global race, with countries seeking to go further and faster to create the jobs of the future. No wonder business is horrified. Just last Monday, Amanda Blanc, the chief executive of Aviva, warned about the Government’s commitment to unlimited oil and gas drilling. She said that our climate goals as a country are “under threat”, which
“puts at clear risk the jobs, growth and the additional investment the UK requires”.
The Government try to claim that this is somehow consistent with climate leadership. I mean, come off it!
Seven hundred British climate scientists oppose the changes, and so do the International Energy Agency and the Climate Change Committee, which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) quoted:
“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”
The Government’s own net zero tsar, the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who is in his place, also opposes them. They appointed him to advise them on climate and energy. They said how brilliant he is, and I agree—sorry to ruin his career even further. He is a very intelligent guy. [Interruption.] He is denying it. He has great ideas, and what did he say?
“There is no such thing as a new net zero oilfield.”
Those are not my words, and they are not the words of eco-zealots or Just Stop Oil; they are the words of the right hon. Gentleman, who sits on the Government Benches. He signed the net zero target into law, for goodness’ sake. We have to grow up.
In contrast to the right hon. Gentleman, we have the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, whom I like —[Interruption.] I do. We have worked together on climate, but I will now say something not so nice about him. This is what he said yesterday:
“There is nothing fundamentally wrong with oil and gas, it’s emissions from oil and gas that are the problem”.
For goodness’ sake—what does that even mean? Here we are: the people who know what they are talking about do not speak for the Conservative party, and the people who speak for the Conservative party do not know what they are talking about.
I can tell the Secretary of State and her colleagues that this strategy is doomed to fail. The British people do not want a Government who say, “We are going to weaponise the climate crisis.” They do not want a Government who say, “We are desperate. We are behind in the polls”—I remember that feeling—“and we therefore have to turn this into a wedge issue.” They want a Government who will cut bills and tackle the climate crisis. All the Government are doing day after day with all this nonsense is proving that they are not the answer.
What would a Labour King’s Speech have done? Today, every family is paying £180 more on their bill as a result of the onshore wind ban that has been in place since 2015. The Government could have lifted the ban but, two months ago, they did not. They offered a weak, half-hearted compromise that will make no difference. As RenewableUK says,
“the planning system is still stacked against onshore wind”.
Why not lift the onshore wind ban? Why is it harder to build an onshore wind farm than an incinerator? The Government had to shell out billions of pounds in subsidies when the energy crisis hit. I think those subsidies would have been something like £5 billion less if we had not had the onshore wind ban. Then we have offshore wind and the disastrous auction, which added £2 billion to bills, according to the industry.
A Labour King’s Speech would legislate to lift the ban on onshore wind, to speed up the planning process and to sort out the grid, so we can decarbonise our power system by 2030. Clean power is the foundation, and next comes energy efficiency. I am afraid that here the Government have utterly failed, and their complacency is extraordinary. This is what the Climate Change Committee said about the whole sector:
“since 2010 progress has stalled, with no further substantive reductions in emissions.”
It has been a shambolic 13 years. We all know the litany: the disaster of the green deal, the green homes grant, David Cameron’s “cut the green crap”. Insulation measures were running at 1.6 million in 2010, and last year—any offers?—they were running at 78,000, which is 20 times lower. A Labour Government would do what the country is crying out for and have a proper plan, funded by public investment, ramping up to £6 billion a year to provide support for home insulation and low-carbon heating.
Next, let us talk about the green economy and building our economic future. The Government are never short of boasting about their record, but we are actually eighth out of eight major countries in Energy UK’s projections for renewable investment up to 2030. And get this: in the seven months after the passage of the US Inflation Reduction Act, which the Government do not like, the US created almost 10 times more green jobs than the UK created in the previous seven years. So in seven months, the US created 10 times more jobs than we did in seven years. What is the Government’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act? They say it is “dangerous”, “distortive” and “protectionist”. This is not some accident; they do believe that this is a role Government. I am afraid to say that that is a recipe for Britain losing the global race.
What would Labour do differently? We would have a national wealth fund, not with one-off, ad-hoc investments, but a proper plan. We would be investing in ports, our steel industry and electric battery factories. We would also have a new publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, which I am glad the Secretary of State mentioned. It would be partnering the private sector in the industries of the future. The Government object to GB Energy, because they say that we do not need public ownership of energy in Britain. I have to say to the House that the Government may not realise it, but we already have public ownership of energy in Britain, with EDF, Vattenfall, Ørsted and Statkraft. They are all companies wholly or partly owned by states—foreign states. They own our industry. In fact, nearly half of our offshore wind industry is owned by foreign states—by state-owned foreign companies. So the Government take the extraordinary position that it is okay for state-run companies to invest in Britain, so long as they are not British state-owned companies; let French, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian citizens get the wealth from our energy industry, just not British citizens. That is the Government’s position.
This makes me a nerd, but let me say that the late Ian Gilmour wrote an autobiography—[Interruption.] It is not that that makes me a nerd. [Laughter.] He wrote an autobiography about his time in Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet, and some here will know that its title was “Dancing with Dogma”. That is what we are seeing here, because the Government are in favour of public ownership of our energy assets, so long as it is by foreign states. That does not sound very Conservative to me.
GB Energy would be investing in the industries of the future, partnering local communities to create jobs and wealth for Britain. A Labour King’s Speech would have contained an energy independence Act to make all of this possible: clean power by 2030 to cut bills; a proper energy efficiency plan; a national wealth fund; and GB Energy. That is an energy Bill equal to the scale of the crises we face.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
On Monday, the Prime Minister visited a tiny coastal village on the far extremities of north Norfolk in my constituency, just a few hundred metres from the cliffs and the North sea. Unless they have heard one of the many times I have spoken about it in the House, many people will not have heard of the village of Bacton, but it is home to one of the most important gas processing sites in the UK. As we toured the site, we were met by the CEO of National Gas.
I made this point earlier to the shadow Secretary of State and I will repeat it, because it is a remarkable statistic. Last year, there were 260 days when there was not enough wind to generate our nation’s power. That is nearly three quarters of the year. Guess what it was that kept the lights on: gas. Whatever we think about fossil fuels, we have to recognise that renewables, at the moment, simply cannot operate solely on their own. That is why we need a pure mix of energy—a mix that will include oil and gas for the foreseeable future, as well as nuclear, alongside renewables. That is why I have spoken in this House time and again about the Bacton gas terminal.
The Bacton gas terminal is responsible for a third of the gas supply into this country, yet nobody seems to recognise how important it is. That is until Monday, when the Prime Minister saw it for himself and described it as Norfolk’s “hidden hero”—a bit of justice that puts north Norfolk on the map. For me, the Prime Minister’s recognition was just the tip of the iceberg, because of the amount of work that was done in the lead-up to his visit.
In my view, the need for an energy mix from various sources can be summed up in three words: security, employment and the economy. Clearly, the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine, but we do have our own natural resources. Instead of carting them halfway across the world, with the emissions that that leads to, it is pure common sense and practicality that we should continue to use them as part of the overall mix and for security. The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill will ensure we do exactly that for the foreseeable future.
About 200,000 jobs are clearly linked to the oil and gas industry. Opposition Members seem sometimes not to recognise the stark reality that we need taxation going into the Exchequer to pay our way and fund the public services that help this country. Money does not grow on trees. Statistically, I think £50 billion is what is raised for the Exchequer from oil and gas companies. If we were to turn that off tomorrow, where on earth would we get the money to continue to run this country? We are in a transition and that is the whole point. We have made a far greater stab at decarbonisation than virtually every other nation on earth and we will continue to do that, but we have to do it in a way that does not risk the economy and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are still dependent on that transition happening at a just rate.
Bacton epitomises all of that in miniature form. Not only does it process an enormous amount of gas through its pipelines; it is already making the transition. The site has a licence, which was given just a few months ago, to carry out carbon capture and storage. Eni was granted a licence for the depleted Hewett gas field, which is expected to be in operation in the next few years. That alone will have the capacity to store millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. But that is just the start. Monday’s visit was all about getting the Prime Minister to recognise that Bacton can also be a green energy hub for the future. For heavy machinery and industry, it is the perfect site in the east of England to be a hydrogen hub. It is the only site in the east, I believe, with an interconnector into Europe—it goes to Belgium. If we start off small with blended hydrogen, it is quite feasible that over time the operation has the capacity to be a major hydrogen hub in the east of England.
I welcome what was said in the King’s Speech about securing our energy mix and security. With gas, CCS and hydrogen production all possibly happening in my constituency, it propels a small village on the north Norfolk coast into quite possibly being a major player in energy production in the east of England. It could be an energy hub for the future and it is on a journey to securing more green jobs for an area that typically just does not have them. Agriculture and tourism are the mainstays of the economy, but the site has the ability to secure the high-quality jobs of the future.
I thank the Prime Minister for visiting. I thank the CEO of National Gas, Jon Butterworth, who helped enormously in raising Bacton to prominence and securing the success we have had in the past six months, and I thank especially Jake Tudge for all his support. The next time the Prime Minister visits Bacton, I do not want it to be described as a “hidden hero” any more. I want it to be a flagship energy hub in the east, and not hidden at all.
Energy Bill [Lords]
Duncan Baker ExcerptsTuesday 5th September 2023
(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Energy Act 2023 View all Energy Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 5 September 2023 - (5 Sep 2023)
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
I rise to support the principle of the Government lifting the ban on new onshore wind farms. I have every sympathy with new clause 43, but I want to bring some context as to why and mention the fact that public support on this topic has completely and utterly changed 180° in the last 10 or 15 years.
In 2009, which feels like a long time ago now, I was first elected as a local councillor and, in the very village I grew up in, one of the most controversial and contentious planning applications I have ever seen was put in front of us. It was for a 66-metre—you’ve guessed it—wind turbine; it was not a very big one, but it was to be built on the Cromer glacial ridge in North Norfolk. The backlash against that proposal was enormous, with 1,500—1,500—objections, genuine protests and councillors elected on the back of the stop the turbine campaign. The applicant went through three planning appeals, two High Court hearings and an application to the Court of Appeal. Finally, the planning inspector granted permission in February 2020, after over a decade of fighting. That turbine went up just a few months ago.
I am telling hon. Members this because the Mack family that went through that process for over a decade must have spent tens and tens of thousands of pounds, but now it has been built, public perception has changed and the complaints against it have been absolutely negligible. What that says, above all, is that people have now changed the general consensus on onshore wind. It has totally changed and, as parliamentarians, we should reflect public opinion. When the mood changes, we should change with it sometimes. People get it now: people get that that one turbine will power 700 homes in the local area. Of course, new applications must be designed to be sympathetic to the surrounding landscape, but people recognise that we need our own energy security, sustainable, clean and green forms of energy to decarbonise and an energy mix that will give us security as well.
Things have clearly changed, and I think this is a very sensible, pragmatic and low-cost way of the Government moving to give us more clean and green energy. That one single application I mentioned shows how public sentiment has changed, which is why I support the Bill today.
Several hon. Members rose—
Energy Bill [Lords]
Duncan Baker ExcerptsTuesday 9th May 2023
(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Energy Act 2023 View all Energy Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 86-II Second marshalled list for Report - (13 Apr 2023)
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
When Russia invaded Ukraine and the energy crisis started, nobody would have thought that a small village called Bacton on the rural North Norfolk coast would play a central role. North Norfolk is home to Bacton gas terminal, a hydrocarbon gas processing plant supplying up to one third of the UK’s gas supply. As well as importing and exporting gas from Europe, Bacton acts as an important interconnector between Belgium and the UK.
Since the start of the war, Bacton has shot to prominence and has been working overtime. I mention it this evening to place on record its importance to the UK energy revolution, and to the hydrogen sector in particular. Bacton’s potential is absolutely enormous. It plays and it will continue to play a very significant role in the future of our energy security, specifically in the future of blue and green hydrogen production.
Already there are plans to launch a £1.3 billion project by Hydrogen East to transform Bacton into a hydrogen hub of the future. That hub in that little village in my constituency has the potential to power London and all of the south-east into the future. That is how significant it is. As the Secretary of State and the Minister know, they are warmly invited to see for themselves why leaders in the sector are looking seriously at this project and the potential it offers.
We know that the Energy Bill will make provision to secure our energy production and regulation, instead of subjecting the UK to volatile international markets, but a transition to hydrogen is also estimated to deliver 12.9 million tonnes of CO2 reduction. Not only will that provide us with 25% of what is needed to reach net zero, but the economic situation must not be overlooked. Importantly, it will generate up to £11 billion in private investment and more than 12,000 new jobs by 2030.
As many have said, hydrogen production will be the backbone of our transition away from fossil fuels, and it is vital that we accelerate our move towards those greener alternatives. Bacton and its £1.3 billion project could, as a terminal into the hydrogen energy of the future, heat up to 20 million homes for decades to come, with long-lasting impacts. So what is the problem? Well, all we need now is for the Government to sit up, take notice and give us the momentum, the investment and the support. By repurposing the existing infrastructure, we could, according to many of the projections, see hydrogen production in Bacton fully up and running by 2030, putting the UK on a world-leading path.
My coast already provides some of the highest concentration of wind farms in the world. It is not too far out of the question to say that North Norfolk has the ability to do that again, and—with Bacton set for the hydrogen energy revolution—it could be one of our country’s capitals of the secure energy future. We just need the Minister to help us with that. Bacton gives us our own secure energy production facility, long-lasting security and a greener future, and it certainly enables the UK to be a main player in this market.
