Huw Irranca-Davies
Main Page: Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour - Ogmore)National Policy Statements (Energy)
Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I am pleased we are debating the national policy statements after we discussed them in draft form in December. Our debate then was short and our debate today will be even shorter—I hope the Minister joins me in deeply regretting that fact. We cannot do justice to the number of national policy statements and to the Members present in the Chamber, who will, I suspect, have roughly an hour and a half for debate once I have concluded my remarks, and that is terrible.
The final national policy statements, if they are approved by the House, will be critical in achieving a green, affordable, secure and diverse energy future. The building blocks for that future were, as the Minister suggested, shaped under Labour and we want them to be put in place without any further delay. Much has happened since our debate in December. We watched the terrible incidents in Fukushima unfold and, rightly, across the globe, across Europe and across the UK, we sought to see what lessons we needed to learn. The Minister is right to say that in the UK we did not rush to judge but carefully examined our sites, a process that is ongoing under Dr Weightman, while all countries across the EU carried out their own stress tests. Understandably, and with our support, the Minister delayed the NPSs, including the one on nuclear, to allow proper consideration to be given to those events.
We agree firmly with the conclusions reached in EN-1 and EN-6: nuclear, as a low-carbon proven technology, could play a key role in diversifying and decarbonising our energy and in meeting our climate change objectives. It is a proven low-carbon technology that can be deployed on a large scale and could complement carbon capture and storage, if it is successful, renewables and fossil fuels as part of the mix. The eight identified sites in EN-6 are potentially—I stress potentially—capable of development by 2025. Many in the green movement, although not all of them, now recognise these and other benefits of nuclear generation, although those who have long been opposed to the technology should be respected for their views, too.
Paul Flynn
My hon. Friend will know that there are plans in the document to build new nuclear power stations at Oldbury and Hinkley Point. If those power stations are built, large areas of Wales will fall within the diameter that has been set for the no-go area at Fukushima. Should not the people of Wales be fully consulted on those plans, in the interest of localism, before they go ahead?
Huw Irranca-Davies
I would expect the people of Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly for Wales to have a full input and I am sure that the Minister, when he concludes, will be able to confirm that that is exactly what would happen. My hon. Friend’s point is very well made: such a decision cannot be made unilaterally and there has to be input from across the regions, too.
I said that those who doubt the technology should be respected, and not long ago the Secretary of State was one of those doubters. Confronted with the evidence and, I guess, with office, he has changed his tune. I must tell the Minister that the manic contortions of the Secretary of State over the financial support for nuclear have surpassed those of a Chinese acrobat in recent weeks. Last week, during the electricity market reform statement, when challenged by his party colleagues, he laid out three financial mechanisms that could support the development of new nuclear facilities alongside other low-carbon technologies. He did that to explain to the House that there was no subsidy for nuclear.
As the Secretary of State has come out of the closet on nuclear, he ought to stop trying to hide his embarrassment. The expansion of low-carbon technologies does not come free and they will all—onshore and offshore wind, biomass, future wave and tidal, CCS and nuclear—require some support and market intervention to drive in the levels of capital required. The medium to long-term protection that that gives through the diversity of energy security is in the interests of UK plc and we support it.
We do not, however, support sleight of hand or the appearance of double dealing. The carbon floor price announced in the recent Budget is a pretty poor way of generating the new low-carbon investment that the documents envisage. It was, in fact, a back-door windfall for existing nuclear and renewables to the tune of £1 billion and a far from stealthy Treasury tax grab of £740 million in 2013-14 rising to £1.4 billion in 2015-16. That decision shook confidence in DECC’s grasp of electricity market reform, shocked some of the big six utilities on which the Minister explicitly depends for the level of new investment required and it hammered the energy-intensive users, risking exports of jobs abroad along with carbon leakage. It gives carbon tax a bad name and shows who is in charge of DECC policy: the Chancellor.
On EN-6, although it is good to see the groundwork physically being dug for the first of the new generation of stations at Hinkley Point, will the Minister tell us when he anticipates that the first such station will be completed and online? Can he give us an indication of the dates for bringing the others online? Will he please not say that it is entirely up to the market, as that would suggest that he has not met any nuclear operators over the past year? He has, as I have, and I am sure he will have some idea of when that will happen.
John Robertson
Is my hon. Friend concerned, as I am, about the grid for some of the new power stations and, for that matter, renewables and about how the energy will get into the system for people to use?
Huw Irranca-Davies
Very much so. That is the benefit of having the package of NPSs to consider tonight, as we need to deal with the grid connectivity, too, to which I shall return in a moment. My hon. Friend makes a good point.
We are also considering EN-3 on renewable energy. Since we last debated the draft NPS on renewables, we have learned that the UK has dropped out of the top 10 global league tables for investment in renewables. That is quite a feat for the greenest Government ever. We have not just slipped out; we have bombed out. We have crashed out from having the fifth highest inward investment according to global rankings at the end of Labour’s Administration to having the 13th, according to the Pew report, in just one year. Today’s NPSs, including that on renewables, are part of the end-of-term report for the greenest Government ever, which states: “Must do better. After early promise, fails to live up to expectations and has gone backwards in many areas.”
The renewables document, EN-3, however, will succeed because it is built on very good foundations. It is welcome that the Government have made good on Labour’s ports competition and have started to build the manufacturing, distribution and servicing base in our ports, which will see a massive boom in our offshore wind. That builds on the consenting regime for offshore that was already under way under Labour. Those measures will provide crucial green jobs in manufacturing, engineering, design and maintenance up and down hard-pressed coastal regimes and in supply chains across the country, so they are to be welcomed. With streamlined planning in place, we will have the potential to create several hundred thousand jobs and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by hundreds of millions of tonnes as we head in the direction set by the previous Government.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I understand the sentiment behind my hon. Friend’s question. The difficulty is the broad scope of the term “waste incineration”, as many different types and technologies come under that category. The issue is addressed in some of the amendments, including two tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), to which I shall return. My hon. Friend makes a very valid point and we have to be very confident that we are not going backwards by including certain things.
Let me direct Ministers’ attention to the bold statement in EN-1 that
“the Government supports a move across the EU from a 20% to a 30% emissions reduction target by 2020.”
That is very good, so can the Minister explain in his concluding remarks why his party’s Members in the European Parliament voted against those same proposals two weeks ago? It is so disappointing that wave and tidal power have taken a back seat in the Government’s plans again despite this national policy statement. Given the slashing of Labour’s marine renewables funds, the shelving of any proposals whatever—big or small—for the Severn estuary, the worrying noises from within the industry, in which people are looking to invest abroad, and the long wait for wave and tidal technologies to be properly recognised in the renewables obligation certificates fund, it is no wonder that the head of RenewableUK described the £20 million, out of a £200 million low-carbon innovation fund, that was given to the Government’s flagship marine scheme as
“a drop in the ocean”.
Albert Owen
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point about marine technologies. The Secretary of State has said that the mature technologies do not require a subsidy or any Government support, but does my hon. Friend agree that the technologies he is talking about have yet to be developed and will never become mature unless they get the Government support that is needed?
Huw Irranca-Davies
My hon. Friend makes an absolutely key point. If these technologies are to get up to large industrial and commercial scale, they need support; that cannot be done in any other way. Labour showed that with what it did with offshore wind and we need to replicate that in this regard. Hon. Members should look at the way the Scottish Government are driving ahead with these technologies in terms both of consents and of the ROC structure. Wales has immense potential but we also have potential all around the English coast.
In light of the documents, what specific plans do Ministers have to make sure that the maximum possible benefits from the huge and imminent expansion of renewables, notably in offshore wind but also in onshore wind as well as in other renewables such as biomass, large-scale wave and tidal technologies—if we get to that level—and energy from waste, stay in the UK in the form of jobs, skills, training, manufacturing, distribution and economic growth? The Secretary of State’s repeated warm words about green jobs will generate no dividend whatever if all the relevant technology and skills are imported. How will the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) help Mabey Bridge of Chepstow —a company he knows very well from his recent welcome visit to open its new turbine shaft manufacturing plant—to secure contracts from the many multinational companies that are currently sourcing many of their parts, labour and skills overseas?
The same question has to be asked in relation to the other national policy statements about nuclear, carbon capture and storage and all the other technologies in which we could be developing green jobs in manufacturing and a world-leading competitive edge in green expertise and knowledge. The purpose of our amendment (c), which was not selected—I understand why, Madam Deputy Speaker—was simply to remind the Minister to get a move on and do what he promised. We were promised the green economy road map in April, but April came and went, as did May and June, and here we are in July, with the House rising tomorrow or the day after. Did he mean April 2012, perhaps? A year that started with a tragic decision and lost jobs in relation to the Sheffield Forgemasters’ loan was depressed further by the UK’s falling out of the global top 10 for renewables investment and the unseemly mess of the feed-in-tariffs fiasco. It is now ending with the Minister having lost the green economic road map. Perhaps he is waiting for the return of a Labour Government to get us back on the road to green jobs; we would love to oblige. If not, will he just do what he said he would do and show us his road map?
Jeremy Corbyn
My hon. Friend will have heard the point I raised with the Minister about the relative weakness of the British renewables industry. Does my hon. Friend think that a lot more could be done through local planning guidelines on new buildings to ensure the generation of electricity and of course more hot water from solar methods, which would in turn generate industry in this country?
Huw Irranca-Davies
I entirely agree. I have huge support for what my hon. Friend suggests for energy generation in individual houses and on estates—driven by local authorities and with private landlords. It is also about making sure that people benefit from the measures we put in place. It should not be just a one-way channel with the big-six companies providing energy, but with energy being sent the other way.
On carbon capture and storage and carbon capture readiness, the EN-2 document is good as far as it goes, but what is less good is the Government’s progress to match ambition to reality. As the document notes, CCS could potentially scrub as much as 90% of carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power generation. It gives us a real chance to bolster our energy security by maintaining wider diversity in the energy mix. Labour recognised that: as the Minister said, we ran the competition for the first large-scale CCS demonstration project. We also identified £l billion-worth of funding on which the Minister is following through. He is to be commended for holding his Treasury colleagues’ feet to the fire and keeping the £l billion at the ready. We had the announcement on the first CCS project this time last year, early on in the coalition. It was repeated in the emergency Budget, then in the comprehensive spending review and again in the recent Budget statement—it has been announced more times than the spring, summer and autumn sales at DFS—but what have we actually had? What money has been spent or work carried out? The answer is zero, zilch, nowt.
Charles Hendry
Let me give the hon. Gentleman a chance to put the record straight. Will he confirm that under the last Labour Budget there was no funding whatever for the CCS project and that it was only when we came to power that we gave real money to it— £1 billion, which is more than any other Government anywhere in the world have given to this sort of work?
Huw Irranca-Davies
I can put the record straight: not only had we identified the project but we had pledged the money for it.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Indeed we had: the CCS competition was up and running. Instead of having a delay of a year and waiting for some announcement, we would have been getting on with it now.
That is just the first project. We have also, as we have heard tonight, been promised projects 2, 3 and 4, depending, of course, on Mr Chancellor being his usual generous self and/or on European new entrant reserve funding—or perhaps on the tooth fairy at some point. If our amendment on CCS had been selected, we would simply have been asking the Minister to put our money—taxpayers’ money—where his mouth is.
If CCS is successful on an industrial scale, it will help with diversity and security of energy by making gas and coal part of our low-carbon future. Without it, the energy sources in these national policy statements—coal imminently and gas very soon after—are doomed in the UK. It has to work. Without it, the opportunity for Britain to lead the way in research, development and industrial application and to develop a world-lead in the export market will be missed. More to the point, we have a moral responsibility to do this. To all the people who argue that no fossil fuel can ever be clean, I say, “Look at China’s increased generation of energy every year, which is equal to total UK energy capacity. Look at China building one traditional ‘dirty’ coal-generating plant every single week,” because if we are serious about our intent to tackle international climate change, what greater opportunity is there to help others tackle their and our addiction to traditional, wasteful fossil fuel burning and create opportunities to lead in this innovation?
EN-5 deals with electricity networks infrastructure and the multibillion pound investment required. The whole House will want to wish National Grid a happy 75th birthday, but when you are 75, things start to creak a little and things fall off—present company excluded, Madam Deputy Speaker, including yourself. We not only need the investment in maintenance, but we need to link up parts of the country that are currently energy deserts. We need to develop more two-way connectivity to allow the generation that was mentioned to and from new locations, to develop a smart grid over time, and to deal with the potential doubling of electricity demand.
EN-4 anticipates the need for new gas import infrastructure and storage capacity to help avoid the volatility in prices to which we are now subjected and to provide gas security. The national policy statements that we have not touched on cover environmental and other planning issues exhaustively. The Minister’s officials are to be congratulated on their hard work across the board.
Underpinning all the welcome NPSs before us, the EMR last week, the new energy Bill, which we anticipate some time in the coming parliamentary Session, and the current Energy Bill, which seems to have been lost in action temporarily, is the need not only to tackle our energy consumption by demand-side measures and energy efficiency and to have new energy production that is low carbon and increasingly renewables-based, but to resolve the most complex of energy conundrums in the most cost-effective way possible. The Minister and his Secretary of State are in danger of losing the argument for new generation energy before they have even begun. They have lost focus on the need for affordability, for UK plc to remain competitive internationally, and for people to be able to pay their bills without making the choice between eating and heating.
Two of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) have also been tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. I have spoken to my hon. Friend about my worries that at this late stage, with the need to get the national policy statements completed, any of the amendments could add further delay to the already delayed NPSs. However, I have great sympathy with his desire to see that the waste hierarchy is effectively applied to all energy waste. Although I cannot support his amendments if they cause delay, I join his call for the Minister, perhaps in his concluding remarks, to make it clear that outside the NPSs, the IPC will have to take account of the waste hierarchy and make the right decisions.
I think the Minister will agree that, as I said at the outset, it is disappointing that these national policy statements, which will underpin our energy future in the UK, have so little time to be debated today, but it is good that they exist. As so many hon. Members wish to speak and so little time is available, I simply say to the Minister well done on getting to this point. It has been long awaited and we understand why. We can afford no more delay, dither or uncertainty. Ernst and Young’s recent report stated baldly:
“Compared with the level of ambition, clarity of policy direction and scale of investment being delivered by a number of other countries, the UK is in danger of being left behind.”
The Secretary of State needs to put a bit more of his energy into delivering our energy future.