Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fourth sitting)

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. In the last sitting, we discussed the various clauses and Government amendments in this group, and I thank hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for their considered engagement with them. The proposed changes we are considering are, without question, a significant evolution of the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime, and it is entirely right and proper that they are subject to intensive scrutiny.

As the Committee is aware, I set out the Government’s position on this matter in considerable detail in my written ministerial statement from 23 April. I therefore intend to focus my remarks on providing useful further points of clarification about the rationale for the proposed reforms and how we see the system operating once they have been made.

In her remarks, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire conceded that the NSIP process can take a long time, but she implied that the problem was merely confined to individual applications. The Government disagree. From our perspective, the problem that these and other changes in this chapter are intended to remedy are systemic. The status quo is not working, and all too often it is burdensome to applicants and consultees alike.

We know that the performance of the NSIP regime as a whole has deteriorated sharply over recent years. We know that pre-application periods have, on average, nearly doubled since 2013, increasing from over 14 months to nearly 28 months in 2021. As much as Labour Members welcome any and every reminder of the chaos unleashed under recent Conservative Administrations, I do not believe that the deterioration we are discussing can be attributed to the uncertainty that the post-2016 period engendered.

The evidence clearly points to the fact that inefficiencies in the NSIP system, both structural and cultural, are driving delays and high costs. We heard examples this morning of the fact that the documentation underpinning consents has been getting longer, and in too many instances now runs to tens of thousands of pages. Part of the reason is that the statutory and prescriptive nature of the pre-application requirements—I again remind the Committee that they are absent from other planning regimes, including those used for applications for new housing—are driving perverse outcomes.

It is precisely because the requirements are statutory that applicants fear that falling short of them will see their project rejected further down the line, or leave them exposed to judicial review. As we have discussed, the result is that projects are slowed down as developers undertake ever more rounds of consultation and produce greater amounts of documentation to ensure that the requirements are met. Sensible improvements are deterred because applicants worry that they will require further rounds of consultation to insulate them from challenge.

In short, as I argued in the previous sitting, the dynamics of the system are actively encouraging risk aversion and gold-plating and are compelling applicants to go above and beyond what may be required in law, rather than merely ensuring that an application is acceptable in planning terms. Because the root of the problem is the statutory nature of the requirements, it is worth noting that the same behavioural incentives would be in play if we reinserted into the Bill precise statutory criteria for what constitutes effective consultation, as the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington suggested we should.

In his contribution, the shadow Minister argued that we should focus on improving rather than removing the statutory requirements in question. However, he overlooked the fact that the NSIP action plan, published by the previous Government in February 2023, contained a range of reforms designed to drive more effective and proportionate approaches to consultation and engagement, including new cost-recoverable pre-application services for applicants at the Planning Inspectorate, and revised and strengthened pre-application guidance.

While those steps were welcome, and this Government are seeking to embed new services and cost-recovery mechanisms, the feedback we have received from a wide range of stakeholders suggests that they will not deliver the necessary step change needed to tackle risk aversion and gold-plating. It is the dynamic that has arisen as a result of the very existence of the statutory pre-application requirements in question that is hampering their nominal purpose of producing better outcomes, and the present arrangements are driving up costs not only for developers, but for the bill payers and taxpayers we all represent.

The Government are in complete agreement with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire that early, meaningful and constructive engagement with those affected, including local authorities, statutory consultees, landowners and local communities, often leads to better schemes, greater local benefits and improved mitigation. We still want and expect the NSIP regime to function on the basis of a front-loaded approach in which development proposals are thoroughly scoped and refined prior to being submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. As part of that process, we still want and expect high-quality, early, meaningful and constructive engagement to take place and for positive changes to be made to applications. However, we want and expect it to take place without the downsides that the current statutory requirements are causing.

Removing the statutory requirements in question does not signify that pre-submission consultation and high-quality engagement is no longer important. Statutory guidance that the Government will be required to produce will encourage such pre-application engagement and consultation, but with applicants given the flexibility to carry it out in the way that they consider best for their proposed development, in accordance with that guidance.

Equally as importantly, the system will still reward high-quality engagement and consultation. The Planning Inspectorate will continue to assess whether applications are suitable to proceed to examination. We expect guidance to emphasise that without adequate engagement and consultation, applications are unlikely to be able to do so. Guidance and advice from the Planning Inspectorate will be aimed at helping applicants demonstrate that they are of a satisfactory standard in terms of meeting that process.

Ultimately, all communities will still be able to have their voices heard, whether that is through objecting outright to applications or providing evidence of adverse impacts through the post-submission examination process, which all applications obviously still need to go through.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I do not demur from much of what the Minister says about the provisions. To go back to his remarks about the delays not being caused solely by the chaos under the previous Government, is it not a fact that during the last few years of the Conservative Government, the delays at the decision stage, which is meant to be three months, rocketed?

The regime, which began as one in which every section of it respected the deadlines, became one in which every section respected the deadlines with the exception of the Secretary of State. The intention of those drafting the Planning Act 2008 was that, in such circumstances, a report to Parliament by the Secretary of State when delaying the decision would serve as a disincentive on the Secretary of State for doing so. That clearly has not happened. Will the Minister reflect on whether any other measures could be taken to eliminate the delays caused by Secretaries of State making decisions on NSIPs in future?

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is certainly the case that it is not only in the pre-submission phase where slippages in timeframes have occurred. The hon. Member makes a valid point about the fact that we have seen a pattern in some Departments of Secretaries of State not making timely decisions. This Government have sought to improve upon the past performance. We are already doing so, but I am open to ideas on how we might tighten the process. The Government are giving further thought to the general matter of how consents are taken through Departments.

To conclude, the changes proposed will make a significant contribution to speeding up and streamlining the consenting process for critical infrastructure, and we are convinced that in many cases they will produce better outcomes than the status quo. I therefore urge the Committee to support them.

Amendment 57 agreed to.

Amendment made: 58, in clause 4, page 8, line 32, leave out subsection (3).—(Matthew Pennycook.)

This amendment is consequential on NC44.

Clause 4, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered,

That clause 4 be transferred to the end of line 32 on page 12. —(Matthew Pennycook.)

Clause 5 disagreed to.

Clause 6

Applications for development consent: acceptance stage

Amendments made: 60, in clause 6, page 10, line 4, leave out “follows” and insert

“set out in subsections (2) to (13)”.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 68.

Amendment 61, in clause 6, page 10, line 25, after “Secretary of State” insert “and others”.

This amendment is consequential on subsection (5)(d) of NC45.

Amendment 62, in clause 6, page 11, line 4, leave out from “satisfying” to “and” in line 6 and insert

“section 48 (duty to publicise),”.

This amendment is consequential on NC44.

Amendment 63, in clause 6, page 11, leave out lines 12 to 14.

This amendment is consequential on NC44.

Amendment 64, in clause 6, page 11, line 16, leave out “50” and insert “50(1)”.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 63.

Amendment 65, in clause 6, page 11, leave out lines 17 to 20.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 63.

Amendment 66, in clause 6, page 11, line 21, leave out subsection (9) and insert—

“(9) Omit subsection (5).”

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 64.

Amendment 67, in clause 6, page 12, line 32, at end insert—

“(14) In consequence of the amendments in subsections (7)(c) and (10), omit section 137(3) and (4) of the Localism Act 2011.”—(Matthew Pennycook.)

This technical amendment omits provisions of the Localism Act 2011 that are no longer required (because of changes made by clause 6 of the Bill).

Clause 6, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Planning Act 2008: legal challenges

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

We are straying far from new clause 19, which I am keen to return to, but the hon. Gentleman is simply wrong on that point. Gas traded on the international market is exactly why all our constituents pay more on their energy bills. The answer is to get off gas as the marginal price setter, not to have even more of it.

The hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington made a helpful speech, although I will resist his new clause. We are in agreement about the issue of connection delays and the first come, first served process not working, and it is important that we reform that. We are of the view that our proposals do that, and the National Energy System Operator has worked with Ofgem and is of the view they are sufficient to do that.

The question of local power and local grids is an interesting approach that we are looking at. We take seriously the role of community-owned power—it is in the Great British Energy Bill, recognising our commitment to it—but we do not see it in itself as a barrier to what we are trying to do here. The infrastructure, including for local networks, that incorporates generation and demand is already permitted under the existing system. It can be constructed and operated by distribution network operators, by independent network operators or by a private wire under a statutory licence exemption provision.

We agree about the importance of community energy and are looking at a range of things, in particular at how communities might to sell power locally. They are all important points, and all this is how we will unlock the social and economic benefits of the clean power transition. For the reasons I have outlined, and because we think it is already entirely possible, we will resist new clause 19.

[Gideon Amos]

People in Taunton and Wellington are four-square behind new clause 19, but it was my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage who spoke to it.

[Michael Shanks]

I betray my lack of English geography. I am sorry, but I assume that the hon. Members for Taunton and Wellington and for Didcot and Wantage are both in complete agreement with new clause 19. In any event, I thank them, but disagree with them both, instead of just one of them. I commend Government amendments 36 to 40 and clauses 9 to 11 to the Committee.

Amendment 36 agreed to.

Amendments made: 37, in clause 9, page 14, line 8, at end insert—

“(3A) The Secretary of State may exercise the power under subsection (3) only for the purpose mentioned in subsection (2).”

The amendment makes it clear that the power of the Secretary of State to direct the GEMA to modify a licence or agreement may only be exercised for the purpose of improving the purpose of managing connections to the transmission or distribution system.

Amendment 38, in clause 9, page 14, line 15, at end insert—

“(5A) A relevant authority may under subsection (1) modify an agreement mentioned in subsection (1)(e) or a qualifying distribution agreement even if the effect of the modification might amount to a repudiation of the agreement.”

This amendment ensures consistency with clause 12(8) in clarifying that modifications made to a particular connection or distribution agreement under clause 9(1) may be made even if the effect of the modification might amount to the repudiation of that agreement.

Amendment 39, in clause 9, page 14, line 16, leave out subsection (6).

This amendment, together with amendment 40 moves the definition of “qualifying distribution agreement” into subsection (7); this change is consequential on amendment 38.

Amendment 40, in clause 9, page 14, line 27, at end insert—

“‘qualifying distribution agreement’ means—

(a) the terms subject to which a connection is made by an electricity distributor in pursuance of section 16(1) of the Electricity Act 1989, or

(b) a special connection agreement as defined by section 22(1) of that Act;”.—(Michael Shanks.)

See the explanatory statement for amendment 39.

Clause 9, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 10 and 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Directions to modify connection agreements

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

The Minister has been clear in outlining how the clause relates to the previous clauses, and how he wants to overwhelmingly reform the electricity system. I do not see the clause as particularly controversial; it moves on from what he has previously described. Despite my previous speech—I have nothing against the Minister—the Opposition obviously want to be constructive where we possibly can be. The clause is simple and enables the process to carry on, and we will not contest it.

[Gideon Amos]

I endorse the clause on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, given that it lays out plans rather than an unplanned approach. Provided that interested parties have an opportunity to scrutinise those plans and be involved in them, we also support the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14

Consents for generating stations and overhead lines: applications

[Paul Holmes]

I beg to move amendment 80, in clause 14, page 18, line 36, after “application.” insert—

“(4) Any fees received by the Scottish Ministers under sub-paragraph (2)(d) may only be used to fund—

(a) consumer benefits packages, or

(b) local planning authorities.”

This amendment would ensure that fees collected by Scottish Ministers through applications can only be used for connected purposes, namely for consumer benefits or to support local authority planning departments.

The amendment was tabled in the name of the shadow Scotland Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). The Opposition absolutely understand the provisions of clause 14, and we broadly agree with it, but we think it could be strengthened to allow added scrutiny and consultation among those who will be most affected by some of the changes in the Bill, including members of the public and interested parties who will be affected by applications that go forward.

I have had a number of interactions with the Minister for Housing and Planning in Delegated Legislation Committees and on the Floor of the House about the Government’s moves towards planning fee reform. I know we are currently scrutinising the Minister from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but we support planning fee reform and the Government’s move to ringfence fees within local authorities. Amendment 80 seeks to do something along those lines with regard to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Scottish Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes]

My contribution will be very short, because the Opposition agree with what the Minister said. It seems perfectly reasonable to amend section 36D of the Electricity Act 1989, which allows anybody aggrieved by the process to appeal. That is a welcome step that meets some of our challenges in other areas of the Bill—not those for which this Minister is responsible—in relation to people being intimately involved in some of these decisions. If people are not happy with what is happening in their local communities, they should be able to challenge it. I welcome the clause, and we will not press it to a vote.

[Gideon Amos]

We do not object to the clause either. The date of the judicial review challenge being six weeks from the issue of the decision in writing is consistent with the approach under the Town and Country Planning Act, and therefore does not reduce or change people’s right to judicial review. We are content to support the clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17

Applications for necessary wayleaves: fees

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Michael Shanks]

Clause 17 will confer a power on Scottish Ministers to make regulations to set and charge fees to electricity network operators for processing necessary wayleave applications that they should make in Scotland. Necessary wayleaves are statutory rights that allow electricity licence holders to install and access their overhead electricity lines and associated infrastructure on land owned by others, and in Scotland they are processed and granted by Scottish Ministers.

The objective of the change is to better resource the processing of necessary wayleave applications by the Scottish Government. It is important to act now.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting)

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I am a Hertfordshire county councillor until 1 May.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I was a planning consultant until the general election, but not any more. I am a chartered town planner member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a chartered architect member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I am a vice president of the Town and Country Planning Association, but that is an honorary position, so I have no pecuniary interest.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Until the election I was a commercial property solicitor acting for a number of residential and commercial property developers. I was also a North Warwickshire borough councillor until I resigned a couple of months ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gideon Amos]

I am also a member of the National Infrastructure Planning Association.

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

I was a local councillor until I resigned last May, but I am not sure whether I need to declare that. I am a vice president of the Local Government Association, which will be relevant for the panel this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I remind everybody that we only have another 15 minutes for this panel, so please be as succinct as possible.

[Gideon Amos]

Q Thank you, gentlemen, for the work you are doing. My question is around the balance of community engagement with affected communities. There is a lot of attention on that in the Bill. Could you comment on planning committees themselves? You have observed that they are a particular problem in the national infrastructure regime, as a minor point. More generally, there is a lot of attention and discussion about the pre-application process being one of the lengthiest stages. Do you have any observations on that? Where does the delay really sit in the national infrastructure regime?

Sir John Armitt: I would argue that local planning committees are not really professionally equipped to deal with NSIPs. As I said at the beginning, these are very significant projects. They are likely to be in the interests of a much broader area than that which any single planning committee is going to be taking an opinion from. The planning committee inevitably finishes up looking at things through a local lens, and I would argue that that is not really appropriate for projects of national significance. Clearly, their views can be taken, but one should recognise that local interest when doing so, and that should be set alongside the much broader considerations, recommendations and advice that could sometimes be received from much larger statutory bodies that clearly have a much more national interest.

Robbie Owen: Certainly, I do not see local planning committees as being particularly problematic so far as responding to proposals for national infrastructure projects is concerned. That is a segue into a broader point: improved guidance could be given by Ministers, not just to applicants about how they should go about their pre-application consultation and engagement, but to local authorities and other public bodies about how they should respond to proposals for national infrastructure.

Response performances, if I can put it that way, from local authorities differ markedly across the country. More uniform guidance would be really helpful there. The changes that the Government heralded yesterday in terms of pre-application consultation pave the way for a new set of guidance dealing with the pre-application period, because that is where most of the delay rests at the moment. As the Government said, and I agree with them, yesterday’s changes should really help to about halve the pre-application period, and that would be very welcome.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

Q I thank our witnesses for coming. My question concerns growth and the timeline of the NSIP regime. We know there was a significant deterioration, as the Minister said, between 2012 and 2021, and the time taken to get development consent almost doubled. From 2.6 years in 2012, it rose to 4.2 years. Is there a target timeframe or average we should be getting to that you would like to see? One of the things my constituents will be most focused on is what this will do to growth in the economy. What impact do you think the Bill will have on overall economic growth?

Sir John Armitt: There are two things there: what should the target be, and will the Bill deliver it? I think the target clearly should be to try to get back to what we were handling and seeing back in 2010 to 2012. That was just over a two-year period. These projects are getting more complex and getting a lot larger—there are some very big ones coming down the line in the next 10 years—but if we could get back to that sort of level, clearly that would be welcome. Would the Bill deliver that degree of improvement? Frankly, I would be surprised.

Robbie Owen: We should not forget the role of national policy statements. They became rapidly yellowed at the edges in the late 2010s, which led to a dramatic increase in judicial review of decisions. The Bill does include a number of valuable proposals to improve how national policy statements are kept up to date. It is really important that they are, because they are the basis for decisions that are then taken on individual projects.

As a rule of thumb, we should really, at the very least, be aiming to be getting back to the performance levels in about 2015, which were approximately 12 to 18 months for pre-application and then around 15 to 18 months from application to decision. Obviously, if we could improve on that a little bit, that would be ideal, but if we could get back to that, that would be my rule of thumb.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Gideon Amos]

Q Thank you for coming and giving evidence today. Dhara, from our point of view, the compensation clause in the Bill is very welcome, but is there a case for a more standardised community benefit system across the whole industry, for people living next to wind farms, solar farms and so on? Would you like to expand on that?

Dhara Vyas: It is a fair question, but I would reiterate the point made in response to the earlier question about ensuring that community benefits are tailored to the community around the infrastructure. Different communities will want different things. In some of the conversations and in the guidance, there are explicit examples of proximity and the amount that would be paid out. The reality is that this is not a one-size-fits-all conversation, and nor should it be. We would be doing the country, and people across the country, a disservice if we took a one-size-fits-all approach to this.

It is right to have guardrails and guidance, but responding to what people need and want, and what is lacking in a community that the industry could potentially support and provide, will be the best route to bringing people with us on this fairly significant journey. In my view, it is important that there are parameters. We need the guidance from Government, and we certainly cannot do this alone—this is definitely something that we need to do in partnership—but to fully respond to and get holistic, close working with the communities that will be hosting infrastructure, we need to have that conversation. Having that conversation takes more effort from the industry, but it is the right approach.

[Gideon Amos]

Q I have a brief follow-up, if I may. Surely, the point here is a community benefit may be paid—that could be a standard—but that does not rule out or obviate the need for site-by-site, individual mitigation and discussion, does it?

Dhara Vyas: You are absolutely right, and I think that is where the guidance from the Department has been really welcome.

Marine Renewables Industry

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and to welcome you to your place. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing what we all surely agree is a really important debate.

Many people do not support renewables. I guess they are not here today but we occasionally hear them in the Chamber, saying things like, “What are you going to do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?” We see the answer when we look out to the sea: the tide rises and falls twice a day, every day, 365 days a year, so we can build a future on renewable energy. We must do that if we are to achieve net zero and protect our planet.

The Celtic sea has massive opportunities. I am going to discuss something that Members may not have expected: the maritime importance of Taunton, which is in the middle of Somerset. Taunton is the headquarters of the UK Hydrographic Office, which produces the Admiralty charts—famed throughout the world for being the biggest mapping system of the ocean floor around the world. It is the world leader and its charts are used by navies and merchant navies around the world. No one is quite sure why the office came to Taunton in Somerset, although it may be because it is not that near the coast; one story is that enemy bombers would therefore find it harder to find. We are very proud of that link, and of course we are only a few miles from the coasts to the north and to the south.

As the county town of Somerset, we are an important regional centre. Under the previous Labour Government, we hosted the regional assembly in Taunton and the Government office for the south-west was in Taunton because we have an equidistant position in the greater south-west region. Our transport links are excellent—it takes 99 minutes to get to Paddington in the heart of London or 30 minutes in either direction to get to the heart of Bristol or of Exeter. All those reasons make it the ideal location for the south-west office of Great British Energy; I am almost certain that the Minister will announce that in his summing up. Seriously, it is an excellent location for regional centres.

Taunton would be an ideal place to host many of the headquarters of the companies involved in the offshore industry. In the Celtic sea, we have the welcome 4.5 GW of offshore wind that has been announced. Sometimes people underestimate the scale of that; I always translate it into four and a half nuclear power stations being built in the Celtic sea—hopefully it will not take the 20 or 30 years that Hinkley seems to be taking. Generating that clean energy is vital.

As well as offshore wind, I want to put in a word for tidal stream, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) have talked about eloquently. Tidal stream is vital—we need energy from all these sources—but tidal range is as well: it generates, project for project, hundreds of times more electricity, as shown in northern France with La Rance in Saint-Malo. That was built by de Gaulle and is still generating around 60 MW of energy.

When I was working for the Government inspectorate, I was privileged to be the lead inspector on the Swansea tidal lagoon, which got its consent. In my view, it was a massive mistake of the previous Conservative Government not to fund that project; we could have had a new generation of tidal energy from this country. We have the second highest tidal range in the world—up and down by 9 metres at the maximum, which is second only to western Canada, where there is a thriving tidal range energy industry. We should be building on that for the future.

Tidal range, tidal stream and offshore wind bring big opportunities to the south-west of England. Although I recognise that Members from Cornwall may be at the sharper end of the Celtic sea than us in Taunton, there are important benefits for the whole south-west in terms of upskilling, investment in skills training and the construction industry. The Great South West regional development agency has identified energy as a key driver of the south-west economy. Government support for skills, training and research projects could be absolutely crucial to the economy of the whole south-west, and particularly my part of Somerset, with University Centre Somerset and the UK Hydrographic Office working together in my constituency. There could be some really exciting projects, looking at Horizon funding as well as skills investment. I hope the Government will support those kinds of projects and applications.

As well as getting support for skills, training and research, we need to bring the community with us. That means we need to give a lot more thought and attention to the compensation and the community support from these projects. We need reliable levels of community benefit from each project. There have been some advances on that from solar projects onshore, although my constituents in Ham would like to see more community benefit for the solar farm there.

It is less developed with wind, and we need a reliable system in which communities that will be affected by offshore wind, because of the massive onshore infrastructure, know that they will benefit in some way from that project. The industry needs to be held to account so that it clearly meets established standards of community benefits. I hope that the Minister will say something about that in his summing up.

We also need more sensible approaches to mitigation for the natural environment. Surely we cannot go on any longer with a system in which every offshore wind project comes up against a debate about whether it will kill 0.5 birds or 0.9 birds in the course of 20 years, and then people design an elaborate mitigation system for that one project. We know that we will be building offshore wind projects. We need to build them. We know what the impacts will be on wild birds and other natural species. Therefore, we need to put in the compensatory measures in advance in a strategic way. I know that the Crown Estate is beginning to look at strategic compensation, but it is far too late. We need to get on with this now. We know the impacts. We know that it is one of the biggest factors slowing down our offshore wind projects. We can look at the experience in Denmark. The Danes are building islands to support their offshore wind industry before it starts, so they know the compensation will be there.

I would like to support the points that have been made on the need for a taskforce, which would certainly be important and should encompass skills, training and research in the whole offshore energy sector, and I urge the Government to recognise the regional powerhouse that the south-west can be and is in renewable energy. We have six energy NSIP DCOs—development consent orders for nationally significant infrastructure projects —across Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire, for example. It is a vital part of the UK economy, and Taunton lies right at the heart of it.

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I call Liz Saville Roberts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and everyone who has spoken so far in the debate.

Back in 2009 I was involved in an as yet conceptual tidal project known as the reef. It was projected to stretch from Aberthaw in south Wales to Minehead in Somerset, a distance of some 17 km. It was designed by Rupert Armstrong Evans at the behest of the University of Southampton, which asked Mr Evans to design a scheme that would be environmentally benign and would generate significant energy for the UK.

You will no doubt be aware, Ms Jardine, that the tidal difference in the Bristol channel is the second largest in the world. The idea of a tidal barrage in the Bristol channel is not new, and the location of the reef on the Aberthaw to Minehead line was first suggested in the 1930s as being the best place to generate electricity and energy from the tides in the Bristol channel.

In 2010, when the current Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero was Secretary of State for the then Department of Energy and Climate Change, he announced funding for investigations of embryonic tidal technologies. Rolls-Royce and Atkins won the contract to do the study, and their work showed that a tidal scheme on the Aberthaw to Minehead route would generate per year 30.4 TW hours of electricity, significantly more than the Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare line, which was in the region of 20 TW hours per annum.

The Aberthaw to Minehead line has the added advantage that it has no mud—unlike Weston-super-Mare, as anyone who has visited Weston in the summer will know. Its seabed is rock all the way across and so has greater possibilities for locking tidal caissons holding large turbines to the sea floor. The design of the reef would allow for a maximum of 2 metres head on both the incoming and outgoing tides, which would mean that fish could safely swim through the large turbines without getting hurt. That is a big factor, and one reason for the rejection of previous tidal schemes in in the Bristol channel.

Other factors to consider are, first, that 30.4 TWh per annum is larger than the expected annual output of Hinkley Point C, which is 30.2 TWh. Secondly, a degree of energy storage from the reef would be possible.

[Gideon Amos]

I thank my hon. Friend for making an excellent point about the centrality of Somerset—in particular, the Minehead route just north of Taunton—to renewable energy. Does he accept that tidal range and tidal barrages and lagoons could make a significant contribution? As he pointed out so well, Swansea lagoon would have done up to 30 TWh, but we could do that across the UK. There could be tidal lagoons in Morecambe bay and in Cumbria, where one was proposed. That would bring investment to regions across the UK and not just benefit the south-west and Somerset.

[Brian Mathew]

I thank my hon. Friend for his points, which of course are true. This technology could be employed right across the United Kingdom and its amazing coastline.

A third advantage would be that ships could pass up and down the Bristol channel via large floating lock gates. Fourthly, the project could be upgraded over its life so that it would effectively be time-unlimited, even with sea level rises. A fifth point, which could well be applied to renewable schemes across the UK, is that the excess energy—or the energy that the grid cannot use at any particular time—could be diverted into the manufacture of synthetic fuels. That would be one way of dealing with the problem of what to do when we generate energy and there is no call for it. In short, this project is well worth further investigation.

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[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Jardine. Congratulations on your appointment to the Panel of Chairs, and I am sure that this is the first of many long sessions in the Chair in Westminster Hall.

Today’s debate on marine renewables has been fascinating, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing it. Before I go any further, I will echo his comments on EMEC, the incredibly important role it has played and Neil Kermode’s leadership over the past few years. It has delivered a world-leading technology and, indeed, makes for an inspirational visit, if anybody has the time or inclination to go north to the Orkney Islands.

It has, for the most part, been a thoroughly pleasant afternoon listening to an oral tour of some of our great coastal communities—and of Taunton and Melksham and Devizes. I have nothing against Taunton; it is just that it stood out for me. I have personal links with many of those communities, so it was a genuine pleasure to listen to the debate.

As so many people have said, the United Kingdom is uniquely placed in terms of marine energy. We are an island nation, and our history has been written by the seas. Given the potential of marine energy to help drive us towards our clean energy future, our future will be written by them too.

Energy from the sea is not a new concept in the United Kingdom, especially not to somebody who hails from Aberdeen. The UK continental shelf and the Norwegian continental shelf have been the lifeblood of the UK’s energy industry since the 1970s. Aberdeen, in the north-east of Scotland, has been the powerhouse of the European energy sector for decades. My sincere hope is that that remains so in the decades ahead.

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair]

As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has shown this afternoon, the east coast of Scotland, and particularly his constituency, is well designed for marine energy technologies, and particularly tidal. Marine energy generation in the UK covers many technologies, some of which—such as tidal and wave generation—are not yet deployed at scale and not quite at a commercial level. That also includes offshore wind, which has successfully scaled up in the United Kingdom over the past few years.

I did not want to get drawn into yet another list—I know how much the Minister enjoys my reeling off the previous Conservative Government’s successes when it comes to investment in renewable technologies—but I was prompted into it by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young). I am very proud that we built the first to the fifth largest offshore wind farms in the world, which are delivering power into the United Kingdom right now, that we halved our emissions and that we were the fastest cutter of emissions of any country in the G7. We are very proud of what we did, which is supporting thousands of new jobs across the United Kingdom, particularly in the north-east of England, in communities such as Grimsby and around the Humber.

The UK’s seas are home to the emerging technologies we have heard about this afternoon. Many of the technologies we will employ in the energy transition might not be fully fledged, but the previous Government were proud to announce a record £650 million of investment—for example, into the development of nuclear fusion technology, in which the UK is a world leader. We support the development of fusion and the development of technologies such as tidal, because, moving forward, we need to support all energy solutions.

As I said, the previous Government did a great deal to provide an economic framework for various technologies—especially marine energy projects—and to try to attract private sector investment through the contracts for difference scheme. In 2021, we announced that £30 million per year would be ringfenced for tidal stream projects. Allocation round 4 in 2022 made allocations to four tidal stream projects, which was a first. Allocation round 5 in 2023 is often castigated as a failed round, so obsessed are some people with wind at the expense of everything else, but it made allocations to 11 tidal projects, with capacity totalling over 50 MW. Allocation round 6, which was run under the previous Government and announced by the current Government, made allocations to six tidal stream projects, with a total capacity of 28 MW.

With the CfD mechanism, the previous Government created the conditions for new technologies such as tidal to thrive. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland set out at the beginning of the debate, the world’s most powerful tidal turbine was launched off the east coast of Scotland by Orbital Marine Power, an Orkney-based company. Constructed in Dundee, the 2 MW turbine capitalises on some of the strongest currents in the world. In 2024, thanks to the dogged and determined campaigning by Neil, the right hon. Gentleman and others, the then Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—now the editor of The Spectator—and I secured £3 million of new funding for EMEC, recognising the work that it does. That was in addition to having invested over £7 million between 2016 and 2022.

The question posed by many is, why bother with marine energy when we have so many other technologies we are investing in right now? We have offshore, onshore, nuclear technologies that are coming on stream, solar power and everything else. Well, it is because we must. We need to invest in all the technologies available to us in order to drive us forward into our clean energy future, to make us more energy independent and energy secure.

Sadly, there was no mention of tidal in the “Clean Power 2030” document published by the Government. There is a perception—it might not be the reality—that tidal technology has fallen through the gap. In the rush to decarbonise the energy system, the Secretary of State seems to be putting all the eggs into two baskets. It would be good if the Minister could set out that that was not the case and that the Government were as committed to tidal and wave power as they should be. When the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, wind and solar will not keep the lights on in the United Kingdom.

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman is criticising the lack of action on tidal, so can he explain why his Government cancelled the Swansea tidal lagoon?

[Andrew Bowie]

The previous Government looked at the Swansea tidal lagoon in great detail and depth, but the decision was taken before my time in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero not to proceed with it. I am informed that it was due to a combination of the cost and the reluctance of those involved to make the case that the technology would be successful. However, if it can be presented as a viable project—if the costs can be brought down and the technology can be proved to work—of course the current Government could look at it again. We should be investing in things that work and that return a benefit to the taxpayer.

Last week, the UK learned the word “Dunkelflaute”—I have probably pronounced it terribly—which expresses what happens when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. The recent cold snap illustrated just how insecure a system reliant on intermittent renewables such as solar and wind will be, so we need to invest in new baseload generation, including gas, nuclear and tidal.

Those technologies sadly got little mention in the Secretary of State’s “Clean Power 2030” action plan. There were few words about nuclear and nothing about tidal—seemingly, no plan for future generation. It is clear that a wide mix of energies will be required to ensure our energy independence and security. Offshore wind and solar are obviously essential parts of the mix, but so too will be—or at least should be—oil and gas; nuclear, large and small, with microreactors; and new and emerging technologies such as wave and tidal. The developments happening across all those technologies in this country are great.

We should support Great British and Northern Irish scientists, innovators, engineers and technicians who have the opportunity to build on the successes of the past decade, which saw Great Britain and Northern Ireland lead the world in investing in new energy generation. To echo the sentiment of other right hon. and hon. Members, we need more direction and clarity from the Government about where we are heading on this journey to more tidal and wave investment. We fully support the calls for a road map and a taskforce to drive that forward and support the industry.

I say to the Government: please do not just put all our eggs in two baskets, but invest in and support other technologies. We need all those energy sources in future. Many of the technologies will be developed and deployed around the coast, in some of the more deprived communities in this country, so the jobs and investment that they will contribute will be massively beneficial not just for our energy security but for the wider economy. If we invest now—if we spend the time and money and expend the energy—Great Britain and Northern Ireland can yet again be the beating heart of this new global industrial revolution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Betts. I place on record that although, since the general election, I do not work in renewables, I still own shares in a company that does.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

That is not, strictly speaking, a point of order for the Chair, but it is relevant to the debate, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it and putting it on the record.

Heat Batteries: Decarbonising Homes

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Deirdre Costigan]

I am sure that the Minister will have more to say on that when she responds.

Heat batteries in the UK currently face a significant disadvantage compared with heat pumps as they are not eligible for a grant under the boiler upgrade scheme. I know the Minister is continuing to look at how she can maximise the benefits of the scheme and I hope she will also look at whether new technologies such as heat batteries can also be supported.

Unlike heat pumps, heat batteries are not on the list of energy-saving materials that qualify for VAT reductions, so extending VAT relief to heat batteries would help to heat the 20% of homes currently missing out. I have written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to ask him to consider reducing VAT for heat batteries, and I hope the Minister might work with him on that.

There are barriers to installing networked ground source heat pumps that use heat batteries, including planning considerations and the need to adopt a street-by-street approach that can upgrade hundreds of homes in one go. The Minister has already committed to changing planning rules for air source heat pumps. I hope that she will consider whether changes also need to be made for networked ground source pumps and that she will include networked heat pumps allied with heat batteries in the forthcoming low-carbon flexibility road map she is working on.

To give certainty to British businesses investing in innovative technologies such as heat batteries, we need to ensure that there are consistent heating requirements for new homes being built. The Minister will shortly be bringing forward the new future homes standard to end the scandal of gas boilers still being installed in new homes. I hope the standard will include heat batteries and other emerging technologies.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way; she has been very generous and has brought a genuinely important issue to the House. She mentioned the future homes standard. According to a calculation I carried out, if every new home built since 2015, when the Conservatives cancelled the zero-carbon homes programme, had solar panels on the roof, we would have saved around 30 MW of energy—enough to obviate the need for an entire gas-fired power station. As a complement to what she is arguing for, I hope that she would support solar panels on every new house. My constituents in Taunton and Wellington cannot understand why that is not already a regulation.

[Deirdre Costigan]

We do not have solar panels feeding into our energy system to that much greater degree because of the last Government; it is as simple as that.

I will continue with the changes that I would like the Minister to consider. Lastly, I would like her to think about heat pumps and heat batteries and the way they both currently use electricity. Electricity can make them more expensive than gas boilers, which is one of the big barriers to consumers. It sounds strange, but because of the way the market works, the price of electricity depends on the price of gas. It is surely unfair that a levy is paid on the electricity used by heat batteries, but those levies are not paid back when and if they feed back into the grid.

We need to look at the electricity market to see if there are ways of splitting off the price of cheaper renewable energy from the price of gas to reflect the true value of energy storage. I hope to hear more from the Minister on that point, as part of the review on the electricity market that she has committed to undertake.

Every family and business in the country has paid the price of Britain’s dependence on foreign gas markets. Retrofitting homes with the help of heat batteries is just one of the range of actions we need to take to bring down bills and keep Britain’s leaky homes warm. In just six months, the Government have already made huge advances in increasing our energy security, and I look forward to hearing more from the Minister on her plans to harness new technologies to protect the cost of heating our homes from decisions made in other countries.

Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacDonald]

I absolutely love that—I am going to make the right hon. Lady a dame in my first honours list. It is an absolute disgrace that people in rural Britain pay a premium to get renewables, even though it is us generating the electricity. The standing charge should be the subject of our next discussion.

Those of us in the highlands, and indeed in many other parts of Britain, have long, dark, windy and cold winters. When many people open the curtains in the morning, they look out on to a wind farm selling cheap, green energy to the big cities. The remote highlands and islands, the Scottish Borders, Wales, Cumbria and the west country are among our poorest areas.

[Mr Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that community benefit and compensation for communities is important for not only the communities that experience these projects but the planning system? Take it from a former planning inspector: if we had a sensible and predictable level of community benefit, it would make granting planning permission smoother, with fewer objections.

[Mr MacDonald]

There is a recent change to planning in Scotland—I am unsure whether it extends to England—called national planning framework 4, which makes the economic benefit to the community part of the criteria for getting a plan in, so we are moving towards what my hon. Friend describes.

The areas I mentioned are among our poorest. They suffer from the highest level of fuel poverty, an older population, lack of affordable housing, poor transport infrastructure, struggling market towns, lower wages, and often worse education and health services than cities. Rural people have higher costs and lower incomes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

All the proper processes were followed by the Foreign Office, which was in charge of the appointment. I have to say that this is a very sad reflection on the Conservative party. Rachel Kyte is an esteemed person who is recognised for her leadership, and all the Conservatives can do is fling around baseless allegations.

[Mr Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

3. What steps he is taking to help increase levels of onshore wind energy production.

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)]

After nine years of the disastrous, bill-raising ban on onshore wind in England, this Government overturned the ban in our first 72 hours in office. We have also set up the onshore wind taskforce to restore the pipeline of projects destroyed by the last Government. In the recent renewables auction, almost 1 GW of onshore wind was secured at prices that make it among the lowest-cost power sources to build and operate.

[Mr Amos]

When will the Secretary of State bring forward proposals for community benefit for those living alongside wind and solar farms to greater incentivise the permitting of wind and solar farms, including Ham solar farm in my constituency? Will that include a minimum level of compensation for the communities affected?

[Ed Miliband]

I am sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says. We are working on proposals on community benefit. I believe that when communities host clean energy infrastructure, they should automatically get benefit from it. I am also sympathetic to what he said about minimum levels of support. We are discussing that with industry at the moment and will come forward with proposals soon.

Great British Energy Bill

Gideon Amos Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse]

As I progress with my speech, my hon. Friend will hear that our focus on local authorities, local decision making and local involvement is crucial. Let us ensure that our emerging technologies, which have the potential to be hugely valuable, are not overlooked or forced to seek support from abroad.

[Mr Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State should take on board one of the emerging technologies that could deliver the most for Great British Energy: the potential for tidal range energy? In a previous life, I was responsible for the consenting of the Swansea tidal lagoon, which unfortunately the previous Government failed to fund. It is the second biggest tidal range in the world and could be a massive success story for Great British Energy and the UK. Does she agree that the Secretary of State should take that on board as a key objective of Great British Energy?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I totally agree, and I am sure that the Government will agree too. A lot of these decisions are ultimately about value for money; as these tidal range technologies come on board, they can become cheaper. I hear the Government are saying that this is exactly the plan: that, where it is currently expensive, Great British Energy can come in and provide support. We understand and support that principle.

This new Government must ensure that they have clear and consistent messages. Delays to the phase-out dates of fossil-fuel vehicles and boilers, as we saw under the last Government, have sent mixed signals to investors, businesses and consumers. We hope that GB Energy will go some way in providing confidence to other investment bodies and the wider industry that Britain’s green economy is open for business.

We Liberal Democrats realise the importance of community buy-in. The new Government must put local voices at the centre of the journey to deliver net zero. We need to win hearts and minds to persuade people that net zero projects are good for their communities, for their pockets and for our future national economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The Minister shakes his head, but if we have shut down all that capacity—if we cannot generate the electricity ourselves—we will have to get it from other places. There are phenomena called wind droughts, which can go on for very long periods. What are we going to do when the wind turbines are not turning and the sun is not shining during a very cold spell in the middle of winter? We had one or two close scares this winter. The generating margin that we used to enjoy has gone. The great risk of accelerating the decarbonisation of the electricity system is that there will be more appeals for voluntary or compulsory restraint from industry, because industry is the hidden customer that is shut off when we are short of electricity, or we risk more brownouts or even blackouts. That not impossible, so where is the data that the Minister is placing so much confidence in that shows these forecasts to be wrong? I am not making them off my own bat—there are plenty of people out there making them.

That brings me to the final brief point I want to make. I understand the logic that the Minister explained in his letter to me.

[Mr Amos]

I am sure that a Member with the experience of the hon. Gentleman will know that Britain returned to being a net exporter of electricity last year, so assuming that there will be additional costs from importing electricity due to the transition to renewables simply does not stack up. Does he also recognise that when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, the tide still rises and falls twice a day, 365 days a year? A future resting on renewable energy is possible, and we need to have that ambition for the United Kingdom.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I absolutely share that ambition, but the question is how quickly we can get there. At the moment, tidal power produces almost nothing as a proportion of our electricity requirement. It is also intermittent, by the way: four times a day, there is a period during which it does not generate anything and we need to replace that supply with other things. The real challenge is how we get to the objective that the hon. Gentleman and I share in a rational way that carries the British public with us. It is noticeable that what people are complaining about most is the price on their electricity bills. Today, the constraint costs, balancing costs, infrastructure costs and import costs that I mentioned make up perhaps 50% of domestic electricity bills. If that figure is wrong, let the Minister produce some figures of his own that explain what proportion of consumers’ bills arises from all those factors, because it is not explained. There is no transparency on our electricity bills.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the objective of decarbonisation, we are not going to get there at all if we lose the public—if the lights start browning out or going out, and we find that we cannot meet demand. To some extent, we are piling up that demand by decarbonising transport and other parts of the system, including decarbonising building heating through heat pumps. The demand for electricity will rise, but our capacity to produce it reliably at all hours and in all conditions is being reduced.

On the question of imports and exports, we might become a net exporter of electricity, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain how the price at which we are exporting compares with the price at which we are importing. The difficulty is that we will be importing when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, and it is likely that the wind will not be blowing across the entirety of the North sea, so we will be importing fossil fuel-generated power at a very high cost to compensate for the fact that we have got rid of our own gas production and gas-fired power stations. I am not sure that situation will be very good.

If the hon. Gentleman would look at the Arup report on the Tarchon interconnector, which will come into my constituency under the present plans, he will see that that interconnector will not actually contribute very much to security of supply, but will be used almost entirely to export when there is too much wind. It will export at below the strike price because there is too much wind and it will export at a loss, and the cost will finish up on the bills of the British consumer. So the British consumer is paying for all the investment, paying for the strike prices, paying for the infrastructure and then paying to subsidise the exports to the Germans, who will be the beneficiaries of all this investment.

I appeal to the Minister to just read the Arup report and look at this. That is why I asked about the offshore co-ordination support scheme work that has been done. I am not going to ask for the impossible and ask him to revive the OCSS, but I would like from him an assurance that the work ESO has done will not simply be thrown away and wasted. Please can he assure the House that that work will be incorporated into the spatial plan that ESO says it wants to produce? Some very interesting innovations came out of that work, but there was also a lot of work discrediting the long-term viability of Norwich to Tilbury and, looking on a different timeframe—in the longer term—that could produce a much more viable alternative than is currently on the table. There is still work to be done on that, but I have no doubt that Fintan Slye will want to do that work as part of his project for the Government.

I would like to know that the Minister is going to support the holistic approach to which the Secretary of State referred, because Norwich to Tilbury is certainly not the product of a strategic approach to electricity grid upgrading. We need a much more strategic approach, and I am looking for that from this Government, but it certainly will not come from this Bill.