New Pylons: East Anglia

Debate between James Cartlidge and Jerome Mayhew

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew]

Of course, Ofgem would say, “Well, we’ve done the calculations. We know that there isn’t going to be any more offshore wind, and we think this is going to be enough.” But in 2015, when it last looked at this subject and was asked to assess whether an offshore transition network would provide value for the money to the consumer, its advice to the Government was, “No, it would not, because we will never have enough offshore wind to justify it.” Well, how wrong it was. Just seven years later, here we are bitterly ruing that short-sighted failure to make anticipatory infrastructure decisions. We could have avoided all these arguments and be leading Europe in the development of this innovative design, which now is absolutely technically possible. In fact, I have spoken, with others, to the managing director of Hitachi, who told us that this is off-the-shelf technology now.

We come back to the consultation, which has just been closed, and the position of the regulators and National Grid. Their argument is essentially that it is too late to change the decision about connection points. We already have radial connections coming into Norfolk. Given that the power is being delivered to south Norfolk, the network has to be reinforced to draw the electricity south, hence East Anglia GREEN and 112 miles of pylons. However, I invite the Minister to take a step back and look at the rationale behind the decision to write contracts to allow the offshore wind farms to connect to Norwich south. All those offers must have been subject to planning permission, because the regulator knew, or ought to have known, that the connection point did not have sufficient capacity to deal with the anticipated measures.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent, highly technical and very important speech. Is it not true that in our recent discussions with Ofgem, National Grid and others that officials from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy confirmed on the call that none of the current contracts could in any way predetermine the planning application? Therefore, the question of how the electricity is ultimately shifted through the onshore grid is still open.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a question of law, it must be open because it is subject to planning.

The Minister has a great opportunity not to make the errors that we made in 2015 and to be bold about the anticipatory infrastructure that is required, which is being implemented for the holistic network design elsewhere in the country. It is ironic that the only part of the country that is not part of the holistic network design is East Anglia, given that East Anglian MPs pushed the Government into adopting the policy.

We have an opportunity to create the infrastructure that will allow us to connect without more devastating impacts on our environment and communities; to save money in the medium term, as pointed out by the National Grid ESO position paper; and to accelerate the early adoption of additional wind farms, because once the offshore transmission network in place, the connection process will actually be quicker and easier. Additionally, if we take the offshore route via “Sea Link 2” down to the Isle of Grain, there will potentially be additional benefits in relation to international interconnectors.

I question the rationale behind the assumptions that went into the consultation paper, and I make this one further request. In the very constructive call that a number of us had with National Grid Electricity Transmission Operator yesterday, it committed to generating a like-for-like offshore replacement for East Anglia GREEN, but I have one concern about that. If we literally have a like-for-like replacement, we would be taking energy from Norwich South to Tilbury. That is not the question that should be asked. The question that should be asked is what is the cost of taking advantage of an offshore route to deliver electricity to the Greater London area? It is not an exact like-for-like comparison with Dunstan in south Norfolk to Tilbury. How do we take advantage of the benefits that National Grid ESO identified in its position paper to maximise the dynamism of our electricity provision while minimising the cost to the taxpayer and to the constituents of our three counties?

Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims

Debate between James Cartlidge and Jerome Mayhew

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I was pleased earlier, when I intervened on the Lord Chancellor on the matter of pet theft, that he gave such a positive response about the intentions of the taskforce that is looking at that terrible crime and what measures can be put forward to deter it. I declare an interest: as someone who had never previously owned a dog, I was fortunate that my family took ownership of a beautiful chocolate-brown sprocker spaniel from Norfolk in February, just before lockdown. Obviously, we did not know that lockdown was coming, but I have huge sympathy with the many families who, in lockdown, desperately tried to get a pet and often had to pay over the odds. Of course, prices surged, which in turn inevitably attracted those with nefarious motives.

To give an idea of the scale, not only did the number of dog thefts in Suffolk double in the last 12 months, but a single raid by the police in Ipswich, on a Traveller site, resulted in the discovery of 83 stolen dogs. I believe that most of them have been returned to their owners, so there is a good news story there. However, my main point is that, to most people, their pet is a family member, and I hope that whatever measures we bring forward, we recognise that this is a traumatic crime, not just for the animal itself but for the family concerned. From social media and speaking to people in my constituency, I can say that the threat of dog theft has caused massive anxiety, and I hope that we strengthen the law so that we deter this heinous crime.

Another crime that is particularly relevant in rural constituencies such as South Suffolk is hare coursing. I received an update earlier from the wildlife team at Suffolk police, and I was struck by a fact that I hope the Justice Minister takes into account, because this is very much an MOJ issue. There were six convictions for hare coursing in the last year in Suffolk and the average penalty was a fine of £142. The key point is that, with hare coursing nowadays, we are talking about organised crime gambling many thousands of pounds. One hundred and forty-two quid is not going to stop organised criminals gambling thousands of pounds.

As I am sure the Minister knows, the problem is that hare coursing is not a minor matter anymore. It can often lead to violence, and certainly the threat of violence. Our farming and rural communities feel very, very intimidated by this crime and they are spending huge amounts of money protecting their land, protecting their sheds and so on. At the same time, it is inevitable that those caught up in this crime may well be the same sort of people who are robbing their farms of vehicles, robbing their GPS systems from their tractors, and so on.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Is my hon. Friend aware that farmers in his constituency are so concerned about the risk of hare coursing that they are taking the step of shooting their hares to prevent it becoming an attractive destination?

[James Cartlidge]

I welcome that point. It just shows how much of an impact this has had. In terms of the law, farmers in my constituency are on a WhatsApp group where they share intelligence about potential hare coursing. The police are using a drone to find the perpetrators, who are themselves increasingly sophisticated, but the law that generally covers hare coursing is the Game Act 1831. In other words, despite all this technology, the piece of legislation covering it received Royal Assent a year after the first passenger steam railway came into being, and I suspect that it may be in some need of modernisation.

We have heard about some very serious crimes and I understand why there is such concern about the issues around rape and the victims of that crime. It is incredibly difficult and it is important that the Government focus on that. There are also crimes such as dogs being stolen and the theft of farm property, which perhaps do not sound as serious but where the wider impact in rural communities is still very significant. We want to see a signal from the Government—not just in police numbers, but particularly in sentencing and punishment—that those crimes are taken seriously and that at least the guidelines, if not the law, will be toughened accordingly to protect rural communities.

Border Carbon Adjustment Tariffs and Decarbonisation

Debate between James Cartlidge and Jerome Mayhew

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. That is one of the great benefits of a border adjustment: it allows us to raise domestic costs without being unfairly undercut by international imports coming in. We can square the circle. We can support the environment by setting a carbon price that is sufficient to change people’s behaviour, to make lower-carbon products more attractive in the economy than higher-carbon products, while at the same time facilitating our domestic industry to remain competitive.

It is because we cannot price carbon emissions that our market is currently floundering. The reason is that they are an externality. When I produce a piece of paper, I take account of the cost of the ingredients for the paper, the energy I will use, my overheads, my marketing spend, my transport and distribution costs, and my profit. However, in the free market exchange with my purchaser, the cost to society of the emission of carbon through that manufacturing process is not currently accounted for, because it is dissipated into the environment and we cannot put a price on it. That is why we have market failure on the price of carbon.

So what do the Government do to try to deal with that market failure?  They are left in a very difficult position. They try to change behaviour by announcing a reduction in targets, making piecemeal regulations as and when they become available, and picking innovation winners—we have a list, most recently hydrogen and modular new nuclear, to name but two. I very much hope the Government have got those expensive choices right. Based on the available evidence I believe that they have, but that is the point: only a properly functioning market finds the best way to allocate capital, with its invisible use of the combined knowledge of the sum of all the participants in that market. No Government can match that combined wisdom.

Our current approach to carbon pricing simply does not work. If we raise the cost of energy with our higher cost of carbon, our industry simply becomes uncompetitive, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out a moment ago. Manufacturing simply moves abroad, or it goes bust and its place is taken by the raft of imports from higher-carbon countries—in addition to the very high cost of carbon in the import process and transport—like China. The result is damaging to jobs. It is, of course, damaging to our business. It is very damaging to our balance of trade. It is very damaging to our tax base and it is damaging to the climate. All in all, it is a damaging disaster.

Border carbon adjustment can transform that process: charge imports from a high- carbon economy the same carbon cost as we impose on our domestic industry via a BCA and the problem is solved. There would be no incentive for our manufacturers to base production abroad, since the costs would be equalised. Foreign companies would no longer have an unfair trade advantage. In fact, it would provide them with a direct incentive to reduce carbon usage in their domestic environment to avoid corrective tariffs. From a policy perspective—I am using China as an example—the Chinese Government would have a choice: either their exports pay a carbon price at our border and the money goes to our Exchequer; or they create a carbon price in their domestic market and they get to keep the money themselves. There is, therefore, a really positive incentive internationally for carbon reduction and the benefits to be spread. After all, climate change knows no borders. Better still, using the same calculation for border carbon adjustment but this time in reverse, our own factories would get the benefit of a carbon cost rebate at the border when they export, making their exports both cheaper and more profitable, increasing our competitiveness already on the international market.

There are many ways that you can skin this particular cat, Madam Deputy Speaker. We can either design a system whereby all products coming in or out of the United Kingdom have their carbon contribution assessed, or, if that is considered to be too complex, we can take baby steps. We can start off by applying a BCA towards the five or six most carbon-intensive industries and then take it from there. We would start with steel, fertiliser, petrochemicals, aluminium and energy. I will take two examples from that list by way of explanation.

First of all, with steel, an independent research project has been undertaken to assess the impact of a border adjustment tariff on the steel industry. Its conclusions were that were we to implement a BCA in the United Kingdom, it would increase the competitiveness of UK steel against many of its international competitors, at the same time as raising for the Treasury a tax windfall of between £270 million and £850 million if that carbon price was set at between £50 and £75 per tonne.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly sophisticated argument. On international competition, can he tell us what other countries are doing? For example, is the EU considering something along these lines?

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend has anticipated a point in my speech

that I was coming to in a few minutes. He is absolutely right that, just in July this year, the EU started a formal consultation on the implementation of the border carbon adjustment process for the entire European Union—and not just there, but he will have to wait a moment or two before I come on to the other exciting news.

Let us look at steel. We can get a huge amount of tax benefit, plus increased competition, that will give a fair, competitive advantage to our domestic steel.