Energy Bill
Debate between Tom Greatrex and Mark Reckless
Tom Greatrex
What we have learned from the past three years, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar), is that confidence in investment in the UK among those new industries has fallen and is falling. What we have learned from what is happening now is that people are not making decisions because they are seeking clarity and certainty from the Government on a range of matters to do with the Bill, including the specific issue we are discussing. If the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about manufacturing industry, he should support the target, which will help give clarity and certainty and ensure that manufacturing jobs come to the UK.
Mark Reckless
The hon. Gentleman tells us that he has learned lessons in the past three years. Did he learn any lessons at all from the previous 13 years?
Tom Greatrex
What I learned from the time towards the end of the Labour Government is that a focus on industrial strategy is absolutely key in diversifying our economy, and that the significant increase and activity in the renewable and low-carbon industry, which were happening and are now under threat, resulted from a clear set of signals from the Government. That is what we need from the Government now, but we will not have it unless the target is included in the Bill.
I will make progress, as other hon. Members wish to contribute. Before the interventions, I was touching on some of the points implicit in remarks made by some Government Members about costs and gas. Rejecting a 2030 target will almost certainly lead us to another dash for gas. As I said in Committee and all the way through our consideration of the Bill, gas has an important place in our system. As I have made clear, I do not take an ideological position on shale gas either; it needs to be properly regulated and monitored, but we need to explore what is there before we can know what we can get out of it.
Making simplistic extrapolations from what has happened in the US indicates a bout of wishful thinking, and a hope—and risk—in respect of something that might well not turn out to be the case. We need gas and will continue to need it; it is important for our security of supply and for our being able to deal with peaks in demand. However, the combination of a failure to decarbonise our electricity sector and increased reliance on gas leaves us more exposed to the volatility of that globally traded commodity.
It is essential that there should be diversity in our energy supply even before we consider any of the impacts in relation to emissions and the climate. The danger is that we will be left open to a greater reliance on gas and consumer prices going up even further. Various hon. Members have referred to the increase in cost to consumers, but they know as well as I do that the greatest element of that cost increase in the past three years has related to wholesale energy prices.
Sometimes there are discussions about how far companies properly pass on savings when the costs fall, but over the three years wholesale prices have certainly increased and that is the greatest single part of the increase in energy bills paid by my constituents and those of the right hon. Member for Wokingham and other hon. Members. The target is also vital for that reason.
The problem is the Government’s approach to decarbonisation and how it is characterised in their amendments in Committee. The Government may or may not, at some point in the future that is yet to be defined—it may never be defined or indeed reached—set a decarbonisation target range for the carbon intensity of electricity generation in Great Britain. The definition of carbon intensity itself and the means of calculating it can be changed by the Secretary of State—and, by the way, the Secretary of State can revoke the order. That is hardly the sense of clarity that the amendment seeks.
The illogicality of the Government’s argument is summed up in amendment 52, which the Minister only barely referred to. It would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report from 2014 setting out how he had met the duty to meet a decarbonisation target. I suspect that that report would be very thin, simply reading: “A target will not be set until 2016. There is nothing more to report—move along now.”
It was not only the Secretary of State who said that he supported a target. The Minister here, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), did so in the recent Westminster Hall debate, saying:
“I see the strong merit of the argument for a decarbonisation target”—[Official Report, 17 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 124WH.]
But he also said that we should wait to set it. The Minister’s predecessor said in Committee:
“The principle, that it would be useful and of value to set such a target, is established.”––[Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 5 February 2013; c. 489.]
If that is the case, there is no reason why the Government should not at the very least support the amendments that change “may” to “must”. However, as we have heard from the tenor of the Minister’s and some other hon. Members’ remarks, that is not what the issue is about.
The issue is about a deep division in the Government and a damaging and risky outlook that a dash for gas is the best course of action for our energy policy. That is obviously what the Chancellor thinks, but it is not what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury thinks, unless he has changed his mind. The Committee on Climate Change does not think that; nor does industry or the 200 organisations that support the amendment. As I said, the Secretary of State has supported a target and he does not think that either, although he has lost out in discussions with what he referred to as “assertive colleagues”.
There is an opportunity for Parliament to be assertive this afternoon—assertive about security of supply, about jobs and growth, about investment, about clarity of purpose and in our support for the important amendments before us.
Energy Generation
Debate between Tom Greatrex and Mark RecklessWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing the debate. As is his habit, he gave a comprehensive account of the issues, many of which other hon. Members were seeking to add to the debate. He rightly made the point about the time pressure in respect of the Energy Bill. Members of the Bill Committee know that we need to return to a range of issues and it is important that we have adequate time on Report if we are ever to get to them. Even in this debate, a number of hon. Members have been unable to speak or have had to truncate their remarks on a fundamentally important issue.
It is always a pleasure to stand opposite the Minister, although I am slightly disappointed that the other, new, part-time Energy Minister—the third Energy Minister in six months—is not here, because his other part-time responsibility is in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and publications coming out of that Department have highlighted the important role that decarbonisation and the green, low-carbon economy needs to play in having a target and a direction for the future.
Tom Greatrex
I am tempted not to, because the hon. Gentleman came into the debate late, but I will. I am more generous than I should be.
Mark Reckless
Some are concerned about the extent to which decarbonisation and the green agenda are pushing up electricity prices. The shadow Minister says that he is keen to have sufficient time to discuss all the issues on Report, so would he support having two days on Report?
Tom Greatrex
I am glad that I gave way, because the hon. Gentleman is right on that point. Significant time needs to be given to these matters, because a range of issues must be discussed, and this is just one. He has talked previously about other issues covered in aspects of the Energy Bill—not directly on this point—and I am sure that he would want to contribute. I hope that the Minister and the usual channels have heard his concern.
I have mentioned the other responsibilities of the new Energy Minister. The hon. Member for St Ives rightly focused on the business case, and the jobs and growth case, for the decarbonisation target, but there are other strong arguments. My hon. Friends the Members for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) made the climate arguments. There are also important security-of-supply arguments about why this is sensible.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), the close geographical colleague of the hon. Member for St Ives, is sitting slightly apart from the rest of the Liberal Democrat Members today, and he is the only Liberal Democrat in the Chamber who had the opportunity to ensure that this target was in the Bill. We debated the matter in the Energy Bill Committee and he and another colleague chose not to vote for his party’s policy. I hope that the number of Liberal Democrats who are here this afternoon is indicative of the fact that those who are not encumbered by ministerial or Parliamentary Private Secretary posts will support that policy when the opportunity to support the cross-party amendment comes in due course, although their party’s policy was not in the manifesto, but was agreed at their party conference in October, when the Bill was under way and under discussion in pre-legislative scrutiny.