Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nigel Adams and Albert Owen(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I join the Minister in congratulating the Welsh rugby team on their excellent victory. They are on course for the grand slam this year. The Minister will be aware that REHAU plastics in my constituency, which has traded internationally for more than 40 years, has announced its closure. It will now concentrate its business on the European mainland. Will his Department work with the Welsh Government, myself and local government to try to retain those important trading jobs? They are international jobs, and we need them on Anglesey.
Nigel Adams
Absolutely. I have a sneaking feeling that rugby might be a running theme throughout these questions. We recognise the importance of REHAU as an employer in the region and on Anglesey, and we will work closely with the hon. Gentleman and with the company to achieve the best possible outcome, most importantly for the important staff who work there.
Shared Prosperity Fund: Wales
Debate between Nigel Adams and Albert Owen(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Albert Owen
I am not criticising the Minister, because he has only been in the job a short time, but it is the duty of Wales Office Ministers to stand up for Wales. We are having this debate to put pressure on him, so that the Welsh voice is heard loud and clear in this debate. It is not for others to decide; it is for Government to decide, and he is our voice in that Government.
Nigel Adams
I completely agree. I see myself as a champion for Wales in Westminster. That is incredibly important and must be my priority. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman the exact date, but I can say that it will be this year, which indicates that it will be incredibly soon. I hope he takes me at my word when I say that the consultation is about to start.
Given the significance of the shared prosperity fund, it is right that questions about the size, structure and priorities for investment develop as we approach next year’s spending review, which will determine the amount of money that will be discussed.
Biomass Energy
Debate between Nigel Adams and Albert Owen(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Albert Owen
He has it three times on the record—that’s important.
Along with the hon. Gentleman, I share a constituency interest in biomass and a general interest in energy. It is important to have the debate at this time, because we need to get a proper energy mix back on the agenda. We need that balanced agenda and I disagreed with the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks when he talked about intermittent wind, because we need wind as part of the mix.
We have had this debate before, but we need to have periods when we have to switch some of our generation off. Although I hope for a long, hot summer with no wind, which many of us want for the tourism industry and everything else, one of the best ways to do things is to have wind as an intermittent back-up system, because it is cheaper to switch wind generation off than it is to switch off gas, biomass or nuclear-powered power stations. We need to start talking, and to build a consensus on a balance of energy sources for the country. We had such a consensus in the 1990s and right through until recently.
I worry about that, and the Minister knows my views, because I genuinely want to achieve the Government’s goal of an affordable, secure and low-carbon energy economy. To achieve it we need the broadest suite of energy sources. Biomass has huge potential to be part of that mix, and that is what I will talk about. There has been uncertainty with solar and uncertainty created on onshore wind, which damages not only energy production but the supply chain in the country. We need a forthright debate on the long term, yes, but we still need long-term policies for the renewables sector.
I am by choice pro-nuclear, pro-renewables and pro energy efficiency. I see no contradiction in that, because we need the three of them. One of the reasons why Scotland is reaching its low-carbon renewables target was not mentioned by our colleague from Scotland who spoke before me—I did not catch his constituency either, so he might want to intervene to name it—and that is that nuclear back-up and the extension of nuclear are helping to get emissions down.
Nuclear is an important part of the mix. In my constituency we have had 44 years of safe nuclear generation, although it has now come to an end, with high-quality jobs and a helpful contribution to the country’s energy security. With Hitachi and the Horizon project, we are proceeding with a new nuclear build in my constituency. I hope that that, too, will provide decades of quality jobs and of help to the country’s energy security.
I am disappointed that carbon capture and storage is off the agenda, because clean coal and gas could also play their part in the transition to a fully low-carbon economy. However, CCS is not on the agenda. What is on the agenda is the opportunity to have co-firing biomass plants for the future and I very much support that.
My constituency has been dubbed the energy island, a concept that I support, because we had early prototypes of onshore wind—they were much smaller than is proposed now. We have also had safe nuclear generation for 40 years, and we have projects in the pipeline for tidal power as well as the biomass project that I will talk about in my remaining time. It is a £1 billion project for not just a biomass station but an eco-park. Under the proposal we will have 299 MW produced from biomass and linked to that will be aquaculture, with a large fish farm and the opportunity to produce fertiliser at the farm for use in food production. It is a very forward-thinking project, so when we talk about building power stations in our areas, we should build eco-parks and link them into district heating systems in the future, so that there is no waste. Such areas really would be low carbon, with heat retained in them, which limits the effects of climate change.
The food part is important. There will also be research and development at the eco-park and it is important that we do the R and D in this country and do not just import that from other countries. We need to work at the cutting edge of new technologies, and biomass and eco-parks are one way forward.
The 299 MW plant—a very large plant—will be five 60 MW units in a module form that will be gasified on site. I understand that biomass sourcing is controversial. Orthios is working with DECC, which has already given consent for the project, which is under way—I was there at the launch of the site. In his opening remarks the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty talked about using existing infrastructure. The project is on the site of a former large Anglesey aluminium smelter, so it is an industrial site that is linked to a jetty that can bring in the biomass from abroad, but I am told that it will use locally sourced biomass from the UK as well. The biomass to be brought in will be managed waste from forests and other areas, which is less controversial than just cutting down trees and burning them. Biomass must be managed. I understand that the opponents of biomass feel that it causes deforestation, but there are ways of using waste materials that can be converted into biomass.
I realise that there is a time constraint, and that another hon. Member wants to speak, but there is the jobs aspect, which was touched on. New green energy jobs can be created if we go forward with biomass technology, many of which can be for retrained people as well as for apprentices. As I said, they can be in research and development. In the construction phase of the Orthios project in my constituency there will be 1,200 construction jobs and then 550 permanent jobs.
I was at the launch a couple of weeks ago with apprentices who have already been taken on, and with young people from the schools. We must say to the young people that climate change is real—they get it even if many other generations do not—and there is a future for them in producing green, low-carbon energy. The United Kingdom can be world leaders, and Wales and my island of Anglesey in particular can pioneer many of the technologies.
I commend what the Scottish Government have done in wind because that project was not popular, but I would add that the renewables obligation allows the Scottish Government to top up renewables funding. They have done that as a way to entice companies in the first place.
Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between Nigel Adams and Albert Owen
Nigel Adams
I am in a century that backs our constituents and wants an effective energy sector that produces power when we actually need it.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about renewables, but is he not really making a case for a balanced energy policy? In the summer, there is a need to switch off some generation because of low demand. It is very expensive to do that for gas or nuclear power stations and then to bring them back online. Wind is actually cheapest, and we need such an intermittent energy source as part of the mix.
Nigel Adams
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, or at least it would be fair if it was accurate, which unfortunately it is not. Wind has to be backed up by fossil fuels, which makes no sense whatsoever. We must take into consideration the full system cost of wind.
Such payments, which are described as constraint payments, ultimately end up on consumer bills, meaning that the public are in effect subsidising the UK wind industry not to produce electricity. One really could not make it up.