Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Ravensdale

Report stage
Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a project director and engineer working for Atkins in the nuclear industry. I also chair the cross-party group Legislators for Nuclear.

In Committee, my previous amendments in this area—they were originally put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, before she joined the Front Bench—aimed to define nuclear as taxonomy-aligned within the UK’s green taxonomy. Naturally, I was delighted to see the Government commit to this in the Spring Budget, pending a consultation,. I shall speak briefly to my resulting Amendment 137.

Following the green taxonomy announcement and progress on the renewable transport fuel obligation, there remains one glaring aberration in the treatment of nuclear in the Government’s financing frameworks: the current exclusion of nuclear from the UK green financing framework, which describes how the UK Government plan to finance expenditures through the issuance of green gilts and the retail green savings bonds. Now that nuclear is due to be specified as taxonomy-aligned, I am sure that the Minister would agree, for consistency if nothing else, that it should also now be eligible under the green financing framework. This would have many benefits in ensuring the availability of vital extra funding for nuclear projects to enable the decarbonisation of our energy system.

I would be grateful if, in summing up, the Minister could state when the Government intend to address this issue.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 68 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to which I have attached my name. I will also make a couple of other comments on this group.

I can probably predict some of what the Minister will say about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I note, as I am sure all Members of the House have, that, three days ago, the Government announced £30 million for experimental or first-stage renewable storage projects. We have pump thermal, thermal and compressed air, and a number of other schemes. What is really important about this amendment is the context of the report to Parliament in six months. This is something that is absolutely crucial to the renewables transition, and we really need to see democratic oversight of where it is going.

I particularly make the point that this must be a strategy. Instead of one-off projects here and there, we need a whole integrated system. One thing that is really unconsidered is vehicle-to-grid storage. As we have more and more electric cars, if we have innovation in management we can use those cars as storage when people do not need them for transport. This is a way in which we would need much less resources—the Government are themselves saying that we could save £10 billion by 2050 by reducing our need to generate electricity.

I have just a couple of comments to make on the other amendments in the group. It will not surprise anyone in your Lordships’ House to hear that I oppose Amendment 137 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. However, its very existence is a demonstration of the way in which new nuclear can be a distraction from the renewables investment that is our energy future.

On the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on electrifying and decarbonising oil and gas facilities, I am afraid that the term “greenwash” has to appear at this point. I have an amendment in a later group asking for no new oil, gas or coal. Any reduction in energy use on a new oil rig because it has some solar panels on top of it does not take us anywhere like where we need to go in this climate emergency.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Ravensdale

Committee stage
Monday 19th December 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, first, I declare my interests as a project director working in the energy industry for Atkins and as a director of Peers for the Planet. I will speak to Amendment 162 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, who cannot be here today.

To give some context to this amendment, I welcome paragraph 14(3) of Schedule 15, in that it provides for all the conditions which may be attached to a heat network authorisation. All of this is welcome—in particular, paragraph 14(3)(f) refers to

“conditions about limiting emissions of targeted greenhouse gases in relation to relevant heat networks”.

However, it is noteworthy that the schedule does not include any conditions about the actual heat source for the emissions, and that is what Amendment 162 focuses on. It is a probing amendment, seeking to determine whether the Secretary of State or Ofgem already have the power to control the heat source using the heat networks and whether they are minded to use them.

There are some fuels which it may be in the public interest to restrict using in a heat network. For example, the UK Government are currently establishing carefully controlled trials for hydrogen for heating. Presumably, the Government would not want to be powerless to prevent a heat network provider using green hydrogen for heating if they had concerns about, for example, safety or the cost effectiveness of hydrogen as a power source. If the hydrogen trials are not taken forward, the Government may not want someone to use hydrogen in a heat network without effective oversight from Ofgem.

In another example, it may be appropriate to restrict the use of biomass, which is ostensibly low or zero-carbon. However, the Minister will have heard concerns from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and other Peers last week, and there are concerns about whether the Government would have the powers to restrict biomass for local heat networks to the sustainable practices the Minister outlined in his response to that question. Can the Minister confirm in his summing up whether the Government have powers to restrict the source of heat input as applied to heat networks? If so, where? If not, would he consider taking these powers?

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak chiefly to Amendment 162. tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, although I take the opportunity to welcome the government amendment on help for micro-businesses and say that it is great to see that happening. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, has already introduced this very clearly; I shall make just one additional point and apologise to the Committee for my absence last week when a number of amendments that I had either tabled or supported were debated. I was in the Chamber with the genetic technology so-called precision breeding Bill. If we have two environment Bills running in exact parallel, it creates some difficulties. I particularly want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for some excellent support for some of my amendments last week.

On Amendment 162, I want to make the point that it is crucial here that we are talking about local networks; what may be appropriate in one place may be inappropriate in another. I am thinking, for example, of areas where air pollution is an issue and the kind of fuel used will be a particular issue in that area. It may, indeed, be appropriate for the regulator to take action on the basis of local conditions as well as of national polities, in terms of either the nature crisis or the climate emergency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 168 in my name would put a duty on the Secretary of State to

“publish guidance for local authorities on local area energy planning”

and clarify some of the criteria that should be included in the guidance. This is based on Energy Systems Catapult’s guidance and includes how local area energy plans can contribute to meeting our net-zero environmental and adaption targets.

As I said on Amendment 167, local authorities will be crucial to delivering our net-zero targets, particularly on decarbonising heat from buildings, yet the Energy Bill makes only limited reference to the vital role of local authorities in heat networks. That is a particular gap in relation to local area energy planning, which is not mentioned in the Bill, and I do not believe the Government have made a firm commitment to create this mechanism.

The Government should ensure that local authorities are given powers and mechanisms to enable local area energy planning, which is a whole-system approach and methodology to discover the locally preferred and most cost-effective means to decarbonise local transport of heat in any given place. Ofgem commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Energy Systems Catapult to develop the local area energy planning methodology and, under the pilot, local area energy plans were prepared in three areas—Newcastle, Bridgend and Bury in Manchester. Other local authorities are also in the process of developing plans, but these are piecemeal, often without funding and are taking too long.

It is worth giving a bit of context around the pilots. They divided each area into zones suitable for different types of low-carbon heating technologies. The balance of technologies across the three areas shows how different each area can be. For example, the local area energy plan in Newcastle found that roughly half the homes could be heated by a heat network, whereas it was less than 30% in Bury and only 15% in Bridgend. In Bridgend, a far higher proportion of homes would need to be heated with high-temperature heat pumps to save on the extra expense of retrofitting insulation in its poorer-quality housing stock. That illustrates how different areas can be and the benefits of this local area energy planning approach.

As I have said, local authorities have the best view of their local areas and the state of their housing stock. A joined-up, co-ordinated approach to local area energy planning, led by government and providing local authorities with the support they need could, according to the Energy Systems Catapult, save £252 billion between 2025 and 2050 compared with organic, unco-ordinated approaches to energy planning. There is real value in such an approach.

In its independent review of the heat and buildings strategy, the Climate Change Committee said that local area energy planning,

“If done well … will ensure a coordinated approach for rolling out different low-carbon heating solutions in different areas.”


It also said that,

“The government acknowledges the value of Local Area Energy Planning … but is yet to bring forwards strong policy proposals that would set a direction here.”


This is a real opportunity. My amendment is really to explore what plans the Government have to develop the institutional framework to empower and fund local authorities to roll out these plans.

As a final note, I originally considered tabling an amendment that puts a duty on local authorities to prepare a local area energy plan, but we were advised by the LGA that mandating this would be very daunting for some local authorities that may be unable to achieve this without committed government funding and support. I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on the Government’s plans to develop local area energy plans in the future. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association in offering my support for his Amendment 168, which I would have signed had I seen it. He has clearly set out the arguments for this. I just add that this would be a significant step forward for energy democracy, with decisions not being centralised in Westminster but made in local areas, by local people.

I think back to an event I attended with Gina Dowding, who was then the MEP for North West England, which dates the event rather precisely. There was work going on by a wide range of organisations in the north-west, looking at renewables across the region. With this kind of plan, different local authorities would be able to band together in different ways, according to what worked for the geography and the energy supply systems. That would be a flexible and effective way of doing that.

I have one more point to make on Amendment 168. Last month I was in Kyiv, talking to energy managers who had suffered as much of a shock as one could possibly imagine any energy manager having to receive, which was half of their systems being destroyed by vicious Russian attacks directed by people who had actually built the systems, so knew exactly where to hit hardest and worst. The Ukrainians were holding their system together, and one of the things they stressed to me was the importance of decentralised, local systems that were holding up and helping to support the national system because the local system was able to function effectively. So, we know we are in the age of shocks and, in terms of resilience, having that local basis is crucial.

That brings me on to my Amendments 237 and 238, which together form an attempt to deliver the potential of something that we saw flowering a decade ago but was then cut off in its prime, and that is community energy schemes, where community groups come together to provide cheaper, greener power and to distribute the benefits locally. The Government have made us all very familiar with the phrase “world-leading”, but I am afraid that when it comes to community energy, it really is impossible for the Government to claim any kind of leadership in clean, home-produced energy schemes at a local level. What we saw a decade ago was a real explosion of community-owned and run renewable energy generation projects that were driven by the feed-in tariff. Indeed, I recall visiting Berwick solar farm in Sussex with the sadly late Keith Taylor, then MEP for South East England, in 2015. They said, “This is now dead. This has been killed”, by the cutting of the feed-in tariff, which of course entirely disappeared in 2019.

These two amendments reflect what is contained within the Local Electricity Bill, started in the other place. That has the backing of 314 MPs from all the major parties and aims to help community groups sell the electricity they generate to local customers. That Bill is also supported by more than 100 principal authority councils and more than 80 national organisations, including the National Trust, WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and CPRE. These two amendments offer a chance to take that Bill forward; this is the obvious opportunity to act now. Noble Lords will note that both amendments have been kindly backed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, so it has full cross-party and indeed non-party support, and I believe we will also be hearing other noble Lords speaking in support.

Similar Amendments, Amendments 242F and 242G have, been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds. I have a list setting out the differences, but in the interests of time, I will leave it to those noble Lords to set out the details of how they differ. They are very much differences of detail, rather than of the main content and intent. The Environmental Audit Committee has looked into community energy and it says that the sector could grow between 12 and 20 times by 2030, powering 2.2 million homes and saving 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions every year. That could take community renewable energy generation to 10% of the UK’s electricity generation, around 6,000 megawatts. At the moment, however, it is less than 0.5% of total UK electricity generation capacity: 331 megawatts in 2021. It is not, of course, because of the cost of generating, which has fallen very rapidly over the past decade, but is due to insurmountable costs in selling the electricity they generate and providing the operational requirements to become a licensed energy supplier. Initial costs are put at £1 million, which of course is far beyond the scale of most community energy projects.

To make it worse, community energy schemes receive no guaranteed price certainty for the electricity they generate. They knew what they were going to get under the feed-in tariff, but that scheme closed to new applicants in April 2019, at which point many schemes that were already on the drawing board and well advanced just fell apart. It is not that the Government have not been trying to encourage community energy—that is clearly their intention. There was the Licence Lite scheme route to market, but it did not put reasonable limits on costs and there was no obligation on fully licensed energy utilities to partner with community groups. More recently, we saw the smart export guarantee. That also places a requirement on larger suppliers to purchase the power, but with no guaranteed purchase price or length of contract, again making the lack of certainty killing.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Ravensdale

Report stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 5 is in my name. I declare my interest as a project director working for Atkins and note that I am co-chair of the Midlands Engine APPG. First, I thank my supporters on this amendment; I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for all his help in crafting it, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his support. My remarks are equally applicable to Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, to which I have added my name.

To briefly reiterate the issue, the current levelling-up objective of the bank, set out in Clause 2, is not clear enough to articulate the levelling-up purpose of the bank in the Bill. Indeed, I would question what the words

“support local and regional economic growth”

really add to the Bill. Almost any conceivable infrastructure investment will meet this objective for the area in which it sits.

As the Minister has previously stated, we have the strategic steer in the form of a letter from the Chancellor, which clearly sets out levelling-up objectives. However, levelling up is a long-term, generational project—as is this bank—and the strategic steer will not bind it in the long term. Ultimately, if nothing is done because of the lack of clarity in the Bill, the bank and the Government may drift away from the levelling-up purpose expressed in the strategic steer and may not undertake the vital work of helping disadvantaged areas in the long term.

This is particularly the case because the effects of agglomeration work against infrastructure spend outside the metropolis. The economic return is simply much better in areas that already perform well, so those projects have a much better chance of proceeding. Inequality becomes entrenched and self-fulfilling. That is why it is so important that, for an infrastructure bank still focused on making a return, levelling-up objectives are clear in the Bill. This can be solved via the simple amendment we have set out. It takes on board feedback from the Minister in Committee to avoid any complicated definitions of disadvantaged areas. It does this by using similar comparative wording to a recent government amendment to the Subsidy Control Act. The amendment would mean that Clause 2(3)(b) read:

“to support regional and local economic growth, with an emphasis on reducing social or economic disadvantages within the United Kingdom.”

I am very grateful to the Minister and her team for meeting me and for their efforts in investigating this issue. I know that the Minister is concerned about legal challenge and whether the wording would cause the bank to be too cautious in its approach, but this wording captures the very fundamentals of levelling up. Given the guidance for the bank in the strategic steer, all its investments should be compliant with the wording in any case, so I do not believe that this would limit the bank in any way.

Amendment 12 provides the same clarity in a slightly different way, by ensuring that the first mission in the levelling-up White Paper—the key mission of relevance for the bank—is written into the bank’s objectives. Ultimately, both amendments address the same issue: we want to be confident that there is some permanence to the bank’s objectives on levelling up and focusing on disadvantaged areas. The strategic steer and a letter to the bank do not offer this permanence, so I hope the Government will agree that something needs to be done to ensure that the bank will deliver in the long term for disadvantaged areas, deliver for the levelling-up agenda and fulfil its potential to make a real difference to the lives of people in those left behind communities all across the country.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. It was particularly useful that he spoke before me because I have taken some of the words that he and his supporters put down in their amendment but made an additional change, taking out the words “economic growth”. But I agree entirely with everything the noble Lord just said about the need to focus on reducing disparities and tackling economic and social disadvantages. As he said, that takes the wording from the Government’s own approach in another place and it would be very hard for the Government to argue against that.

I argued extensively in Committee about why economic growth as a target in its own right has failed and, indeed, is undeliverable, because you cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. I will not go over those arguments again now, but I think it is very clear from the fact that we are back here again, after an extensive debate in Committee from all sides of your Lordships’ House, simply saying that the bank will work for regional and local growth. As was said in Committee, that could be regional and local growth in Chelsea and the wealthiest 10 wards in the whole country, which is surely not the purpose, and it therefore needs to be clarified in the Bill. As was said in our earlier debate when we were talking about the environment, we have seen acknowledgement of the need to change the Bill already. This is surely another crucial change.

I was pleased to attach my name to Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and backed by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. This is again putting levelling up in the Bill. It is what the Government say the Bill is for. Surely, it has to be specified in it.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Ravensdale

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 6 in my name and start by declaring my interests as a project director and engineer with Atkins, and as a director of Peers for the Planet.

The problem we have, in my view, is that the second objective of the UK investment bank—to support local and regional economic growth—does not provide a clear policy intent for what the bank is to do in relation to levelling up. Getting these objectives right from the start is crucial. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said at Second Reading,

“the most important debates will focus on the Government’s definition of infrastructure and the scope of the two core objectives. We must get these core components right from the off”—[Official Report, 24/5/22; cols. 824-5.]

As I said at Second Reading, the current wording leaves much open to interpretation. Almost any infrastructure investment anywhere in the country could be argued to support economic growth in the region or local area in which it sits. A new transport scheme in a wealthy area of Sussex, for example, would meet this criterion by supporting local and regional economic growth. There is nothing to clarify that this refers to levelling up, or to economically disadvantaged areas. I listened carefully to what the Minister had to say in response to this at Second Reading—she stated that the policy intent is clear—but I believe the Bill would benefit from setting out in more detail exactly what this goal entails, which I will come to shortly.

I briefly remind noble Lords of the issues we are facing here. The levelling-up White Paper stated:

“The UK has larger geographical differences than many other developed countries on multiple measures, including productivity, pay, educational attainment and health.”


As the Economist put it recently:

“Britain is highly geographically unequal ... It is as if America’s rust belt or the former East Germany were home to half the population.”


As an example, I took a walk through central Derby on Sunday and asked my sons to count the number of empty shop units. We counted 14 over a 200-metre stretch in the city centre, from Iron Gate to Corn Market. The only retail outlets that seemed to be thriving were betting shops—I counted five. This issue is repeated right across the Midlands region. Walking around comparable stretches in London, I see one or two empty units at most. I know the Government get this, and I am looking forward to seeing the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill come before this House, but it emphasises that we need to make clear what is meant by levelling up in this vital legislation. Although the intent is clear from the Chancellor on his strategic steer to the bank, it needs also to be clear in the legislation. Levelling up is a long-term, generational project, so legislation supporting it must be crystal clear as to what needs to be accomplished. The strategic steer will not set policy intent over the long term; having this clear on the face of the Bill will, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, powerfully argued.

My amendment is straightforward, and I also support Amendment 9 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to which I would have added my name had I spotted them in time; they get at the same issues as my amendment. My amendment would strengthen the current wording by referring specifically to reducing

“geographical inequality through supporting regional and local economic growth in areas of economic disadvantage”.

This, I believe, clearly captures the Government’s policy intent for this objective and ensures that the legislation will deliver in the long term for disadvantaged areas, will deliver for the levelling-up agenda, and will make a real difference to the lives of people in those left-behind communities. I would be grateful if the Minister, in her summing up, could expand on how she believes the current wording provides a clear policy intent.

I also strongly support Amendment 4 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As an example, the UN has called for climate finance to be split equally between efforts to curb and adapt to climate change, but most goes towards mitigation. However, I cannot beat the Cinderella analogy from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. Therefore, it is right that adaption should be split out from the core emissions targets as a specific aim, and I support the words of other noble Lords on why biodiversity should be placed on an equal stature with climate change within the objectives of the bank.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, whom I thank for his expression of support for Amendment 7.

This is quite a large group of amendments addressing quite a narrow area of the Bill, but clearly this is crucially important. We are talking about the objectives of the bank. It is interesting that it has two objectives listed, one of which, looking at the amendments tabled by your Lordships, we clearly feel is too narrow, and the other of which is insufficiently clear. I will not speak at length to the many amendments here addressing and tackling adaptation, biodiversity and the nature crisis, because, as a Green, I do not need to; it has already been so clearly and explicitly said from all sides of the House that it does not need to come from me. We talk about tackling the climate emergency, but we must also tackle the nature crisis. It is a related and equal threat to the security of us all and it must be in the Bill. Also, the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to the circular economy is interesting. I get at this in a different way, in terms of demand reduction and resource-use reduction, in the next group, so I will not go into that in depth now.

As the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, made clear, the second objective, to support regional and local economic growth, could mean local growth in Kensington and Chelsea or in the Sheffield constituency of Hallam, which a few years ago had the lowest rate of free school meals of any constituency in the country. The Government’s rhetoric and the discussion around this Bill says that this is supposed to be targeting disadvantaged areas, but there is nothing in the Bill which says that. Both our amendments, and the amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, seek to address this. However, mine also has an extra, intentionally radical element in that it takes out “economic growth”. Your Lordships’ House has heard me say before that we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet and that chasing after growth is a problem. So, even if we target this on the most disadvantaged areas, which certainly need development, is it economic growth per se that they need? Who is the advantage of that growth and wealth going to?

I quote the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who pointed out that if our measures tell us that everything is fine when really it is not, we will become complacent. Despite the increases in GDP, and despite the 2008 crisis being well behind us, everything is not fine. Growth on its own will not solve the problem of levelling up—even growth directed to those areas. We are seeing considerable moves in parts of government towards recognising this.

I note that the Office for National Statistics has a national well-being programme that has 10 broad dimensions which have been shown to matter to people. They are the natural environment; personal well-being; our relationships; health; what we do; where we live; personal finance; the economy; education and skills; and governance. Looking around the world, the EU Council has defined the economy of well-being as putting people and their well-being at the centre of policy and decision-making. I have referred before in your Lordships’ House to the New Zealand Treasury having produced well-being budgets, which operate by guidance under the living standards framework. It is about improving people’s lives, which is what so many areas of our country desperately need.