Business Rate Appeals

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, no Question is complete without a contribution from the noble Lord. This is one of the many areas where we are making good progress—as we are on Brexit too.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister dismissed the idea of land value taxation. Is he aware that it operates in many countries entirely successfully, so it is not something that does not work?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I did not dismiss it; I just added a note of caution, saying that we should not rush into these things. From memory, I think that was the position of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition years. These things have to be thought through.

Growth Deals: North of Tyne and Borderlands

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I am very happy to join those congratulations. It is absolutely right, and certainly the north-east is far from being all doom and gloom. There is very good progress in the north-east on a number of fronts, not least on developing the mayoral deals and business growth, as can be seen.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, has the Minister read reports in recent days that the A1 from London to Edinburgh is the most dangerous road in the country? Does he agree that, if we are serious about growth in north Northumberland, we need to get on and dual the A1 north of Alnwick and across the border in Scotland?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right about the need for investment on the A1. I think that in 2014 we committed funds for improvements on the A1 from Newcastle to Berwick, from memory, but she is absolutely right that it is work in progress and it is important that we bear that in mind.

Housebuilders

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for enabling us to debate this very important issue today. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, a president of the National Home Improvement Council and a vice-president of National Energy Action, which is a fuel poverty charity. I am also grateful for briefings from the Federation of Master Builders, Shelter and, of course, the House of Lords Library.

In preparing for our debate today, the issue that stood out to me most, and shocked me most, was our inability to increase the number of new-build homes in the past five years when, at the same time, the major housebuilding firms saw their profits increase by nearly 500%. The situation is obviously very satisfactory for the housebuilding companies and so there is little incentive for them to do anything other than trade as they have been doing for some time now. But the market is clearly not producing the quantity of new homes we need, the type of homes we need or the quality we need. We have heard about that today. We have also heard that the rise of the big companies has often been at the expense of many of our small builders.

As other noble Lords have outlined, the speculative development model drives down affordable housing and infrastructure provision and results in slow build-out rates which keep up unit prices. In addition, it is an incentive for high prices to be paid for land, resulting in high-density housing, high unit prices and few affordable units. Other noble Lords have mentioned the issue of affordable units on sites, and I am grateful to a colleague of many years ago who now lives in Rugby who has provided me with a couple of instances of what is happening there. The Rugby Gateway site has 1,000 houses planned with only 10% of them being affordable. On the Rugby radio mast site, 6,000 houses are planned with only 3% of them being affordable. As others have said, it is quite clear that a major hurdle when building more homes is the structure of the housing market, which works mainly in the interests of the volume housebuilders.

Several noble Lords have mentioned quality. In his introductory speech, the noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about the quality of new build, but I am particularly interested in energy efficiency, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown. Between 2006 and 2009, Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes carried out a survey of building control officers and, somewhat shockingly, it discovered that most of them considered energy efficiency only a medium to low priority as it was not life-threatening and hence not something on which to focus limited resources. The officers also considered that non-compliance with Part L of the building regulations was too trivial either to withhold a completion certificate or to instigate court proceedings. I suggest that that is still a problem for us in local government.

Other noble Lords have already mentioned part of the answer to the quality issue, namely our method of construction. We continue to use the same methods that we have used for more than a century. Houses made from modules built in factories have high standards of finish and are much more energy efficient. In addition, they are much more environmentally friendly—during construction there is less waste and there are fewer vehicle movements on and off sites. We know that we lack a skilled building workforce and that we need to train more people in construction techniques. This is an ideal time to introduce new ways of working, and I hope the Government will continue to encourage homes built in this way. This week I read that Low Carbon Construction is trying to develop this by having temporary modular factories near the sites on which it is building.

Lastly, I turn to small builders. The Federation of Master Builders has sent me a very good briefing which I probably need to give to the Minister as I do not have time to talk about it now. However, it cites four reasons why small builders have problems, including: access to land and planning for small sites, cited by 62% of members; access to finance, with 45% of respondents saying they were involved with sites stalled for financial reasons, up from 35% the year before; and the planning application process being strongly linked to planning resources. We have debated that issue before in this House and I am disappointed that the Government are taking so long to implement provisions that this House has passed.

Like other noble Lords, I have been involved in housing over the years. I have always thought that, given that housing affects every other area, we should have a Minister at the Cabinet table. I have been saying that for 24 years, and the Government have now half-done it. I hope that something will come of it, because we owe it to the people who cannot afford a home or have no home at all.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Lords Chamber

I hope that the Minister will look at planning enforcement in the way he looked at planning fees to strengthen that area of local government planning departments and see whether planning enforcement could be reinforced. Every time an individual takes a punt against planning legislation and going through the proper routes and gets away with it, it undermines everything that we have discussed in this and the previous planning Bill. Most people do the right thing; those who do not and get away with it seriously undermine that level of community responsibility that enables us to have planning policies and rules that help everybody. That is my plea, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for raising this issue.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, having listened to the debate, I will intervene briefly because this issue goes back a long way. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA and many years ago I was a councillor.

One thing that happens is that, if people get away with this once, they go on doing it again and again. I was once successful in persuading the planning committee to say to this man, “You must change what you have done”, to stop him in his tracks. However, there is a bit of a nasty turn to this, because I was standing at the bus stop in front of the building where he had to change the windows at the top and I heard this lady say, “Oh dear, it is a terrible waste of money doing that, isn’t it?”. That may have been the case, but this is important. I did not realise that nothing had been done in the time since I dealt with this issue years ago. The real problem is that, if nothing is done, people who do it once go on doing it again. We need to take that into account when listening to this argument.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, it is 43 years since I was on a planning committee and I am sure that the law has changed a lot. However, when I was an MP, I became involved in a case in the Lake District in which someone built a building without planning permission, and there was subsequently a row. The conclusion I drew was: “Knock it down”. The law allows too much flexibility. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned risk. People are prepared to take a risk, and the only way in which we can make this law work well is if we are far more vigorous in its application.

Immigration: Housing

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, as I have indicated, there is a massive challenge. We are in regular contact with BEIS and the Construction Leadership Council, looking at the importance of skills in this regard. The Prime Minister has indicated that, regardless of leaving the European Union, we will still have a need for the best and the brightest in terms of work and apprenticeships. I absolutely agree with the general point that the noble Lord is making about the need for that to continue.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, people will recognise that many immigrants and refugees end up living in some of the poorest parts of our country. Can the Government tell us what steps they are taking to make sure that local councils have sufficient resources to support infrastructure in their communities, and also the special resources that people need when they are trying to acclimatise to a very different environment?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness addresses a broader point. Some of that will be addressed by the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which I know she is participating in, and some will be addressed in the housing White Paper that is expected shortly. We have of course committed money to infrastructure, which she refers to, but the Controlling Migration Fund also allows money for some of the challenges that local communities face.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I declare my interests in the register. I draw particular attention to the fact that I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association, which will become apparent in my remarks today.

I realise that in November I will have been in this House for 20 years. In that time there have been many planning Bills, and all have been claimed by various Governments to herald a brave new world of a simpler, faster planning process. Clearly, though, they have not completely succeeded, which is why we are here today yet again with a planning Bill that makes similar claims. The Royal Town Planning Institute has commented on the number of Bills that we have, saying that,

“constant change—even if desirable—creates its own costs and uncertainty. In particular it makes it difficult for non-experts to engage with planning”.

Neighbourhood plans have already been mentioned today. They are a particularly concerning aspect because it is very challenging for small communities to produce neighbourhood plans and to understand the planning system.

What research has been done before bringing forward yet more changes to the planning system? The Minister alluded to some of this in his opening comments. How much work has been done on how it will affect the very different types of council and community throughout England? I wonder whether civil servants drawing up Bills such as this have the opportunity to visit a cross-section of planning departments throughout the country. I have served on a large city council, a district council and a county council, so I am very aware of the differing resources available and the differing nature of the planning applications that are put to different types of council.

I turn to some of the specifics in the Bill. I think we can all agree that we need to create the conditions where we have responsive planning services. We can all agree that such services are crucial to our economic growth and to the building of the homes we need. However, both the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Local Government Association highlight that for this to be the case, as already touched on in today’s debate, local authorities need sufficient resources, both money and manpower, if they are to carry out this important work.

Various areas of the Bill will increase pressure on local councils. One already talked about is the duty to compile a new register and the issue of permitted development. Secondly, there is compiling statistics for local plans, which the Local Government Association has described as burdensome. However, it is rather difficult to understand the full implications of the Bill, as draft regulations are yet to be published. They need to be published because they need to be scrutinised. This is not the first time that primary legislation is before us without details that need to be scrutinised.

Thirdly, there is an issue that has been touched on by other speakers, which is financial support for neighbourhood plans. Many question whether the financial support provided to communities for neighbourhood plans is sufficient. Have the Government conducted a full review? If not, I hope that they will commit to do so. I reflect on the local plan that my home town council of Berwick-upon-Tweed is consulting on at the moment. I got through the door a folded A4 piece of paper with very close script on it. I suspect that some people did not realise what it was. Small councils do not have the manpower or resources to consult effectively. An added problem in my home town is that our council has been beset by infighting and unpleasantness between councillors both in the council chamber and on social media, and a report this week has told them that they really need to pull their socks up.

The Local Government Association would like planning fees set locally, as the noble Lord, Lord Porter, said. The Royal Town Planning Institute supports that, and supports local authorities charging higher fees for planning applications, as the noble Lord said. He also pointed out that taxpayers are subsidising what goes on in local authorities. It is interesting to note that the British Property Federation found that two-thirds of people in the private sector who responded to a survey would be willing to pay increased fees for an effective and efficient service. I understand that it is estimated that 30% of the cost of providing planning applications in England is subsidised by the taxpayer. Fees are set nationally and do not cover the full cost. The Government must be aware of this. Why can they not respond to perfectly reasonable requests to do something about the situation? The evidence is there.

As always, I am grateful to the House of Lords Library for a briefing on the Bill. As has already been stated, one of the Government’s two main aims in the Bill is:

“To help identify and free up more land to build homes on to give communities as much certainty as possible about where and when development will take place”.


I read recently that five years-worth of land is already identified for houses that we would like to build. The second aim is:

“To speed up the delivery of new homes, in particular by reducing the time it takes to get from planning permission being granted to building work happening on site and new homes being delivered”.


Many planning Bills I have heard debated in this House for many years have aimed at that.

I suggest that the Bill will not be a magic bullet to produce a large number of new homes. I hope that it helps, but other factors need addressing. Some have already been suggested this afternoon. Others have suggested that one problem is that the large-volume housebuilders are rather happy with the current situation; they do quite well. However, there are problems with finding a skilled workforce. That factor hit Bovis rather publicly last week.

One way to speed up housebuilding and deal with the lack of traditional building skills is for the Government to get behind high-grade off-site construction. I was very pleased to read in Inside Housing this week that the Government have recognised that, and I hope that they will address it. I first saw this 50 years ago, when I spent three years living in Sweden. Beautifully designed and highly energy-efficient homes were manufactured off site and quickly put up on site. I understand that evidence was given on this to the CLG Select Committee yesterday. Skills shortages since the recession have forced many people out of the industry and many have not returned. They certainly have not been replaced by the younger generation. Three times more people are retiring from the housebuilding sector than joining it. I read in the Times yesterday that Mark Farmer has written a report on this. He concluded that the building sector must “modernise or die”. I think he was giving evidence yesterday to the Select Committee. He stated:

“Modular or pre-manufactured housing is a critical enabler to how we can modernise the construction industry. We need to be able to produce more with less human resources in the future and moving construction processes closer to manufacturing is the game changer”.


I have been saying that for years. I hope that at last it may become reality.

Another point that has been raised by at least two speakers this afternoon is direct commissioning of building by local and national government. As the noble Lord, Lord Porter, said, after all, that was how it was done when we built more houses in a year than we have ever managed since, shortly after the Second World War.

I hope that the Bill achieves its aims but, as I have said, other factors need to be considered if we are really to achieve the new homes that we need. I end by saying that I hope I will not be here talking to a similar Bill in a few years’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this wide-ranging and useful debate for their spirit of positive engagement. I can reassure them that I am keen to engage on how we can move in the direction of ensuring that the Bill delivers. As noble Lords—including the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor—indicated, the Bill is not only about building extra housing, and as I said in opening, I totally accept that it is not a silver bullet to solve the housing crisis. That is certainly not the case, although it will go some way to helping. The Bill is also about empowerment. We believe in empowering communities and having decisions on neighbourhood plans taken at the most appropriate level and in ensuring that they are given appropriate strength.

I thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for his participation. He encapsulated some of the key issues about the neighbourhood plans, which are intended to have an effect at an earlier stage and to have legal status. The experience of local referenda so far is that they have not delivered nimbyism. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, agreed, they have tended to identify more housing at neighbourhood level than was the case at district level. The experience so far is reassuring, notwithstanding the pews example that we do need to guard against.

We are keen to engage on pre-commencement planning conditions to ensure that there is appropriate protection for the cathedrals of the natural world—the very descriptive phrase used by the noble Baroness, Lady Young—in terms of how we provide protection for the natural world, for heritage and so on, and how we can move away from what are not appropriate pre-commencement conditions. It will be appropriate to look at them at a later stage but issues about what colour roof tiles should be or what sort of windows should go in are not appropriate as pre-commencement conditions. I am very happy to look at how we should tackle such issues going forward.

Noble Lords should have seen the link in the documents available in relation to delegated powers in the Bill but I will make sure they come round again as we have quite a lot to say on the subject. This has been such a wide-ranging discussion that I will ensure that a full letter goes to all Peers who have participated in this debate—I shall also place a copy in the Library—picking up on all the many issues in the Bill that have been touched on. Some of the points made were appropriate in relation to a general view of the waterfront on planning but were perhaps not appropriate to the Bill. For example, it was not intended to look at land tenure and so on, but I will pick up on those points and refer to them in the correspondence that will follow.

Most noble Lords who have participated have welcomed the neighbourhood aspects of the Bill, although some have reservations in certain areas, including my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Ridley. My noble friend Lady Cumberlege has spoken to me, to the Minister of State and, I suspect, to the Secretary of State about the neighbourhood plan and I understand the issues that she has raised. I will revert to that in a moment. However, noble Lords round the Chamber—including the noble Lords, Lord Cameron, Lord Thurlow and Lord Renfrew, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton—welcome the principle, with qualifications. I understand that.

Others have extended the area to be covered. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, not only talked about the need for housing, which he accepted, but introduced the context of appropriate provision for the environment and so on. Again, I will pick that up in the correspondence. The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, who is not in his place, referred to the importance of brownfield sites, and I will also cover that in correspondence. It will be dealt with in the housing White Paper. It is a manifesto commitment and we have already done a lot in ensuring that there is a brownfield register. We expect 90% of brownfield to be appropriate for building on, but I will cover that, as I say, in the correspondence.

As to the contributions in the areas I set out initially, let me deal first with the neighbourhood planning point and the importance of tying that back with localism. I recognise the role that our colleagues in the coalition Government played in this, including the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. We strongly believe in neighbourhood planning. We very much look forward to engaging on this issue to see how we can ensure appropriate funding and strength is given to the neighbourhood plan. I acknowledge the importance of parish councils in that—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

There needs to be appropriate dialogue. The sort of situation outlined by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege should not be happening. I am very happy to continue engaging with my noble friend to see what we can do in that regard.

As has been acknowledged, neighbourhood plans have so far covered 10 million people in the country and 2,000 neighbourhood plans have been submitted. There is a long way to go, but I do not think we should beat ourselves up too much. It is progress. We believe in it; the Bill gives it added strength and we should be able to carry it forward. I welcome the general welcome in principle from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, my noble friends Lady Finn and Lord Porter, and others. Indeed the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Parminter, recognised the important role this has to play in planning decisions.

The issue of permitted development rights was touched on more in the context of pubs than offices, which may say something about the nature of the people participating in that part of the debate, I do not know. To be fair, it was a given that I would touch on offices anyway and say that we have to be careful. I come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, about his test on housing, which I will take up. The question should be whether the Bill will deliver more houses. It will. We can look at how we can provide some protections here as we move it forward, but I am keen that we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater in ensuring we keep our eye on the ball to ensure that housing is provided through this mechanism.

Pubs were touched on not just by my noble friend Lord Porter and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, but by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Indeed, he said that they can be nominated to be listed as assets of community value. Where that happens that means that planning permission is necessary for any change. That is a significant point that we need to get across to communities, because they can protect themselves in that way. There are some first-class pubs that form a massive part of community life up and down the country. As we know, the days when these were just somewhere to go for a drink are long passed. It is much more significant than that, but it is part of it. I am happy to engage on that.

To move on to pre-commencement conditions, points were made very tellingly by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, relating to woodlands. I appreciated the discussion we had on that and what we can do through the planning policy framework, which will be touched on in the White Paper. It is very significant. Ancient woodlands are rightly part of our national heritage. At the same time, there are some specious claims—I adopt the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow—relating to some preconditions that are not necessary. The point about woodlands was taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, my noble friends Lord Framlingham and Lady Hodgson, and by others. Indeed, we will want to look at that at some length.

On sustainable drainage and flooding, flood risk is an incredibly important issue and I fully understand why people are exercised about it, and about drains. Since the Government came in in April 2015, we have taken a number of steps of robust policy protection by: strengthening the policy expectation that sustainable drainage systems will be provided in major new developments, whether or not in a flood risk area; amending national planning guidance to set out the considerations and options for sustainable drainage systems; and making lead local flood authorities statutory consultees for planning applications for major developments. That is significant too. I appreciate that there was an issue there that noble Lords will want to look at.

On the third area touched on by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, the compulsory purchase element of the legislation, we have taken a pragmatic approach—as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, acknowledged—rather than an approach across the piece which tries to consolidate the whole area. That approach may be appropriate at some time, but this is targeted to ensure that we are doing what is fair in relation to the value of land and to people who have land acquired from them. I look forward to engagement on what I think was a broad welcome for that, although the devil may be in the detail.

My noble friend Lord Lansley talked about the strategic context of the housing White Paper. I quite agree with him that it is important for that reason and probably others. The intention is that it should be with us before Report stage. I will update noble Lords in the letter as to the precise position. As I speak, I think that we are confident of landing that. It will cover issues such as the fees situation, brownfield registers and many others. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked whether it would result in legislation. I suspect that there will almost inevitably be things in it that we would need to legislate on. There is competition for that, as the noble Lord knows, but that is certainly so.

Many additional issues were raised. It was great to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, who is coming up to her 21st year here.

[Baroness Maddock]

It is 20.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am running ahead of myself. I thank her for her comments and questions on highly relevant issues such as pre-builds. We are very much wedded to those and doing things on them. Perhaps I may write to her on the resourcing that we are giving to them and on the importance that we attach to them. They are very popular, even when they are called pre-fabs—which surprised me. Opinion polling suggests that they are very appropriate. As the noble Baroness indicated, the design of some of them in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe can be extremely attractive. I am sure that they are part of the solution to the housing issues that we face as a country.

I will endeavour to pick up in the write-around other issues that I have not touched on. There was a general welcome for compulsory purchase—I know that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, raised broader issues about that, which I will pick up in writing. Garden cities and villages were touched on and welcomed by the noble Lords, Lord Borwick and Lord Taylor. I know that we have been in touch with the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Best, and have tried to help with that—on setting up of corporations and so on. Again, these are part of the solution, but I appreciate that they need to be considered in the context of ancient woodlands, neighbourhood plans and so on. I will seek to do that in the write-around.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, quite rightly raised the important issue of design. I suspect that we will return to that in the debate next week. I know that she feels very strongly about it and understandably so. It is an issue that I touched on in a sense in relation to the pre-builds as well.

I thank noble Lords for their positive engagement ahead of Committee stage, which I think starts in the week commencing 30 January—I think that there will be two sessions that week and two sessions the week after. Ahead of that, I will write to noble Lords picking up all the points that have been dealt with, correcting myself if I have got anything wrong—which is always possible—and adding points that I have missed. I look forward to noble Lords’ further positive engagement to ensure that we move this legislation forward with as much consensus as possible.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oxburgh (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, would like to pay tribute to the Minister himself for the courtesy and patience which he has displayed in dealing with the myriad matters that have been raised. I join the other speakers in expressing my gratitude to him. Equally I would like to offer my best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. She will certainly be missed. Her wisdom and her comments—sharp and to the point—will be missed as well.

The issues to which Amendment 3 is addressed remain important, but it is a tribute to the Minister’s persuasive legal tongue that in the time between Report and now he has persuaded me that the same objectives can be substantially achieved by a different route. Although I prefer the approach that was proposed in the amendment, I will be happy to withdraw it.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I also add my thanks to the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with us all through some tricky times, as is always the case with energy Bills in my experience. I also pass on my best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. We will certainly miss her knowledge and her boundless enthusiasm, whatever time of night we are here. We will certainly miss that.

I am really pleased, having heard the opening comments of the Minister, and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, that the Government are taking seriously the issue of carbon capture and storage. I am not sure that we felt that that was the case when we began this Bill, so I am very pleased that the Minister has been able to move other minds as well on this. I hope that we will hear in due course very good outcomes from the proposals he has made.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, I add a final word on carbon capture and storage before the amendment is withdrawn. My noble friend Lord Oxburgh has been second to none in bringing home the huge significance of commercial CCS: this would be the way in which the fossil fuels could continue to be burnt without CO₂ emissions. That would be a great reassurance. We can look forward to the affordability, reliability and decarbonisation of our energy system.

I hope I will not strike too sour a note in noting that we learned in earlier parts of the debate that the amount of taxpayers’ money being set aside by the Government for the promotion and experimentation and development of CCS was £1 billion—that is, £1,000 million. That is the most enormous sum of money. It is rather more than the entire budget of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—and all directed, not to the generality of decarbonisation, but to one technology. It is a sobering thought, if my memory serves me right, that under the Labour Government before 2010 there was an intention to make that figure £3 billion or £4 billion. These are vast sums.

All I would add is the thought, as this Bill goes on its way, that we at least should remember not only the importance of the climate problem—the importance of achieving affordable and reliable energy and electricity resilience—but we should think about cost. We should always keep in mind that the costs are there and have got to be weighed all the time against the objectives we are trying to achieve. A billion pounds is a lot of money in anybody’s currency, in any language, and at any time—particularly at times when we are struggling in several other areas of public policy to find money desperately to help extremely worthy causes.

With that marker to this discussion of CCS, about which we have learned as much as we have given in the debates—it is a fascinating subject—I would just end by saying: please let us remember costs as well as benefits.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

There are a number of conditions attached to any disclosure to ensure that information is protected. The treaty must include provisions governing information exchange, and the Secretary of State, or the Oil and Gas Authority as applicable, must be content that adequate safeguards are in place in the receiving nation to ensure that information is protected before disclosing. In addition, no onward disclosure of the information by the foreign Government is permitted without Her Majesty’s Government’s consent unless a treaty allows the production of general reports. I trust that noble Lords agree that co-operation with partner nations is vital to our exploitation of oil and gas and to our industry, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments highlights something we have already raised today: a lot are technical, they are quite long and we had very little time over the weekend to get round to looking at them in detail. It is not very satisfactory. However, we on these Benches certainly welcome consultation. It is something we have always supported. I am surprised that these amendments dealing with co-operation with other nations with regard to gas and oil were not in the Bill originally as co-operation is rather key. Earlier in the proceedings, I asked whether we are looking at the way Norway operates. I am sure that when it is looking at these matters, it takes them into consideration. I have raised this concern, as have other people, during the passage of the Bill. We find it very difficult to scrutinise properly, in the way this House should, when we get information so late. I shall probably not speak again tonight, but we have another day on Report on Wednesday, and we will be in exactly the same position.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining these amendments, which reshape disclosure into a separate chapter in the Bill. They all seem reasonable enough, but they give rise to consideration of why they are now being so adjusted. I follow the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, in her comments about the short notice and the comments made earlier by my noble friend Lady Worthington regarding the future prospects of the OGA and the Government’s intentions regarding it. One wonders whether something has happened. Can the Minister inform the House whether attention has been drawn to them so that they get consolidated? Can the Minister confirm that the Data Protection Act applies to the ODA with regard to information generally and to disclosure? Will he clarify the position and provide some assurances about questions that come to mind in relation to disclosure to third parties? We would support sharing information with other government departments and agencies, including the devolved Administrations, for the purposes of their functions, as the OGA will need to be able to work collaboratively with the different departments and the department itself.

In relation to third parties and foreign Governments, care certainly needs to be exercised and precautions taken with regard to possible unintended consequences. Will anything appear in the public domain regarding the nature and frequency of the sharing of information with foreign Governments? The Minister will be aware that there could be many agencies, especially regarding the environment, where the Government could come under scrutiny in how they handle sensitive information, and where any secrecy between Governments could be misconstrued.

On another point, is the Minister satisfied on the question of the Secretary of State undertaking a review into these matters? Will the Secretary of State have any oversight and details of the information shared by the OGA? Would there be any independent oversight of disclosures regarding legal proceedings and foreign Governments? Could the Minister give an example of the information that might be requested and then shared in relation to these amendments? That would certainly help to settle any disquiet that these powers could give rise to. Meanwhile, the amendments seem well balanced and reasonable.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Grand Committee

Many more points could be delved into in the detail, but one of our greatest concerns is that there is an information asymmetry here. We are still processing a large part of information. I am almost certain that we will return to this on Report next week with amendments. In the mean time, I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to add my voice to some of the points that have been made this afternoon. I particularly want to talk about parliamentary process. I have done this before. For the duration of the coalition Government, I was a party Whip and I am still a party Whip. We have never had to deal with the situation that we had with this Bill where we had the Second Reading on the last day of business. We had the first day of Committee when we came back for two weeks. We then went away for two weeks. We were promised that we would have the amendments to the Bill on 7 October. We got them on 8 October. They were several pages of very technical amendments.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for the Minister because it is probably not his fault that this has happened. But to have to deal with this Bill in this way? This is his first Energy Bill and I have great sympathy for him, so I am not necessarily having a go at the Minister, but at the process. We really need to get our act together.

We have heard today about how this is affecting people outside; about how important it is and how people want to talk to us. I made the point before that we are now a very big House. If we make technical changes like these at the very last minute, it is very difficult for Back-Benchers to get involved. A lot of us get bombarded by people from outside who are worried about what is going on, and what time have we had to deal with that? I would like to send the message—I am very pleased the government Chief Whip is in his place—that we try to avoid this in the future. It is not a good, efficient way to work and it is not the way the House of Lords has worked in the past.

The other point that I want to support is the issue of certainty. In the last Parliament, we had the promise made by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma—I was there, working on that Bill. We again spent hours on technical stuff, going through an Energy Bill, trying to make sure that in the future people who invest in energy across the board would have certainty about what was happening. We are already into the uncertainty around this Bill. I read with horror in one of the newspapers—I am afraid I cannot find the article again—that the funding for one of the gas turbines had been withdrawn because of the uncertainty about what the Government were doing in the whole of the energy sector. This is an important point that the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Foulkes, have also talked about.

We are where we are and the uncertainty is very difficult for industry. We have heard about businesses going under and so on. We are between a rock and a hard place on these Benches because in some ways we do not particularly like the way in which the Government have carried on, but we want to try to make sure that the amendments are as good as we can get them. My noble and learned friend, Lord Wallace, is much more able than I am and has explained them all beautifully to the Committee. I hope that the Government can respond to these, because it is important that the uncertainty does not go on any longer if we can possibly help it. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, had a wonderful phrase for the things that we are trying to sort out—examples falling the wrong side of the lines. I think that is the sort of thing that we are trying to put right. I hope that between us we can reach a reasonable conclusion and we do not have uncertainty any longer in this industry.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate and raised some salient points. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, who was good enough to take me into her confidence some time ago. I am delighted about her prospect, and we all wish her well in that new role. She will bring considerable knowledge and massive commitment to that task. We share objectives, and I wish her every success in that role. I know that she will continue to have a vital part to play in the House of Lords.

I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who is not in his place. He handled part of the Bill as well as leading for the Liberal Democrats on some of these issues. That role has been taken over, but he had tremendous brio and contributed massively to some early consideration of the Bill.

I shall deal with the point about the recommital before I move on to say something about the amendments. I listened very carefully to what the Labour Front Bench, the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and some Cross-Benchers were saying. I went to considerable lengths to get this recommital organised. The only option for doing the recommital was in the Moses Room, otherwise it would have disrupted business elsewhere in a way that noble Lords would not have wanted. There was little option for recommital other than to have it in the Moses Room. It was a genuine and considerable effort to get organised.

There is obviously a difference of opinion over the amendments that have been put forward. There is clearly a difference between noble Lords about the desirability of what we are doing. I point to the manifesto. We may have different views about whether this is desirable but there is a commitment in the manifesto in relation to onshore wind, and that is why we are pursuing it. I understand that other parties would deal with it in a different way, but there is a democratic process and there has been a general election.

In view of what has been said today in this Committee, I am minded to withdraw these amendments to represent them next week, having considered very carefully some good points, particularly from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, which were echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. There are some very serious points that I would like to look at. Some of them clearly merit looking at in the way that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, approached them in terms of improving what the Government are committed to doing. Others do not like what we are doing. As far as I am concerned, that matter was settled in broad terms by the general election. There are going to be democratic differences between the parties. This is the way things happen. However, I am very happy to go away and reflect on the points that have been made. We have come a long way and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and my noble friends Lord Howell and Lord Deben for what they said about the amendments. I agree with the commitment to renewables that was put very forcefully by my noble friend Lord Deben. They are vital and are something we are pledged to, as we are pledged to the climate change negotiations that are going on in Paris and are moving at great speed, with 149 countries yesterday, and probably more now, having made commitments regarding their contribution. There is a great prize there internationally.

I will reflect on what was said today and, having considered the points that have been made, will bring these amendments back on Report. I hope that in the light of what was said by some noble Lords that that is considered a reasonable approach.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, following the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, perhaps I may take the opportunity of this amendment to thank my noble friend the Minister for circulating overnight the impact assessment, which we have all read with interest. It does seem to have a discouragingly large number of “Not availables” in various boxes throughout, which rather puts one off. However, I can see that my noble friend has made a considerable effort and I am grateful to him.

The impact assessment states that last January the Oil and Gas Authority began to undertake an urgent piece of work involving industry to come up with practical measures to mitigate the immediate risks that the downturn in oil and gas prices present. That is a high ambition, but we open the papers each morning and read of thousands of redundancies, talk of fields closing down and a real sense of crisis beginning to envelope the industry, as the oil price for Brent crude remains resolutely down at around $50 and much lower for West Texas Intermediate. Can we be assured that as we go through this stage and the Report stage that we have a little more meat on the description of what these practical measures are and how, as the sense of crisis develops, it is going to be mitigated by the work and the powers we are assigning to the Oil and Gas Authority? I think that a new sense of urgency is coming to the debate which may not have been the case in January or when the new authority was set up, but we now need to incorporate that as we handle the legislation that is necessary to send the authority on its way.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to hear that some noble Lords have received the impact assessment, but I wonder if the Minister can tell me how it was distributed, because it has not come my way yet.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may deal with the last point first. I certainly gave instructions that the impact assessment should be sent out in hard copy form and by email. I take the inference from what the noble Baroness says that she has not received a copy in one of those two ways. She should have done so, and I can only apologise for that. I hope that no one else is in that position.

I shall now deal with the issue of impact assessments. I apologised on Monday for the fact that the impact assessment had not been circulated earlier. It was held up through processes in government—documents are cleared by a particular Minister, but that is not the end of the process, as I am sure the noble Baroness is aware. I can only confirm that it is the case that the assessment was not cleared until Monday. I think I indicated then that that was when it was cleared, and it was only then that we were in a position to notify noble Lords. I hope that I can offer some reassurance because all morning I have been chasing the remaining impact assessments, and indeed a note was passed to me just as the debate opened that they have now been cleared and will be circulated, it is hoped, by the end of the day. However, I will add a word of caution by saying that we will ensure that they are sent around by tomorrow. Once again, I apologise.

I will focus on the general points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, in relation to carbon capture and storage. I thought, as she did, that on Monday we made considerable progress on this issue. There is a shared feeling across the parties that these issues are important and on Monday I gave an undertaking that we would be looking at them between Committee and Report. Letters are going out today to noble Lords who spoke on Monday, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who indicated that he could not be here. I have asked that he should be sent a letter. Moreover, anyone who speaks today but who did not speak on Monday will also receive a letter asking about their availability between now and when the House returns on 12 October so that we are able to call a meeting, or potentially a series of meetings. We will ask everyone to the same meetings so that we can thrash these issues out.

My own feeling is that we want to do something; I have not changed my view and I hope that noble Lords will accept my good will on this matter. I am keen that we should move forward, but I do not think that this is the stage at which to talk about exactly how that is going to happen because it is not something that can easily be done. Carbon capture and storage is important to the Government. We committed a significant sum of money to it in our manifesto and that remains very much government policy. We have a good story to tell in that as a country we have the important potential of the North Sea for carbon capture and storage, so I am keen that it should be incorporated in the Bill in a way that it is not at the moment.

My next point will, I hope, address points quite rightly made by my noble friend Lord Howell, and I thank him for his thanks in relation to the impact assessment. Work has started but, in relation to the focus of the Oil and Gas Authority, it is important that we do not load too much work on the authority and diffuse what it seeks to do. There is a balancing act: we are very keen to ensure maximising economic recovery from the North Sea at the same time as realising the great potential that we have from carbon capture and storage. They remain very much our objectives.

I turn to the more technical points, quite validly raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, as to what this clause does and what these amendments seek to do to the clauses in the Bill. Although I am a lawyer, that does not mean that I perhaps have any greater insight. Therefore, I tread with trepidation and have spent some time on this. I believe these provisions seek to ensure that, on an assignment of ownership or rights by a party, there is no delay in them being able to take up the rights that were previously enjoyed by the transferor, if I can put it that way. We will have a look at that and I will write to noble Lords on this issue to ensure that it is not any more complicated than that and that it does not prejudice the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raised. That is certainly not the intention and I do not believe that it creates difficulties in the way that they indicated might be the case. But I will certainly confirm that.

I hope that that answers the points raised by noble Lords and therefore ask noble Lords to support these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

I do not disagree—I was simply picking up on a couple of points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. I will wrap up my remarks very soon, but let me point out that the only scenario that the IPCC considered in its models that gets us to 4 degrees by 2100 is RCP 8.5, which assumes that the world will be burning 10 times as much coal in 2100 as we are today. That is not very realistic, and it also assumes that by then, we will be getting our motor fuel from coal. Nobody thinks that is going to happen, so one has to be careful about which of the IPCC scenarios one looks at. That one is not very plausible.

Anyway, I think we agree that this is an excellent amendment, and I will leave it at that.

[Baroness Maddock]

I was going to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, on introducing an amendment that has actually brought together both sides of the climate change argument. Unfortunately, that was rather spoilt by the latest comment of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. We were spared that on Monday, when we debated carbon capture and storage. However, I do hope that the Minister will take this proposal and this amendment seriously.

The final point I want to make, which I made on Monday, is that I am concerned that, in our rush to make sure that we keep the oil and gas industry as profitable as it can be in the circumstances, we do not put anything in the Bill that will prevent us developing carbon capture and storage. We have heard how slow and difficult progress has been, so I welcome these proposals, which we should look at. I hope we can have a good discussion of the issue, but I point out that, other than next week, it is very difficult for me to get together here in London to discuss it before we return in October.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, we have been treated to a veritable tour d’horizon on this amendment, going far beyond the amendment itself. I certainly do not criticise that; I think that in a sense it is important, and it has been a very good debate. I shall try to pick up the points that were made.

To echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, has just said, there is an attraction in getting everybody on the same side, including my noble friend Lord Deben, who is not in his place today—he is just in his place; I am sorry. Getting everybody on the same side of the argument as my noble friend Lord Ridley in relation to CCS is indeed seductive, if for no other reason than that this matter certainly demands close attention, although it demands close attention for many other reasons.

The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, introduced his amendment with great authority. He spoke widely about something being in the air and the challenges that we are facing as a global community, as well as the Conference of the Parties that is taking place in Paris at the end of this year. I associate myself entirely with what he says about the challenge there and the fact that there are positive moves and ambition in the air. However, I would not want anybody to think that this is a done deal. There is a lot of hard work going on. Our own Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Amber Rudd, is spending most of her time on this, working around the clock. She has been given a major role on finance by the French President to try to bring countries together. That, again, is a good thing for us as a country and for all concerned, as she is the right person to do that. It is important to try to keep the 2 degrees centigrade increase in sight, and that is a real challenge. However, it is right that there is ambition in the air and many positive things are happening.

The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, was right when he said that this is a germ of an idea, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said that it was the start of an idea. I agree with that. This is very much a nascent amendment and it certainly deserves attention in the broader context of looking at carbon capture and storage, which, I repeat, we are very happy to do within the context of this Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, spoke with great passion—and understandably so—about the narrow focus of this legislation. It is narrow in many ways but I understand that we have the support of the Opposition in ensuring that the Wood review becomes law. That is important. I am very aware that we do not want to lose sight of the central focus, which I think my noble friend Lord Howell referred to with words of caution. The jobs are important, as is gas, in our move to a carbon-free environment. Maximising the economic return in getting gas and oil from the North Sea is vital and we do not want to lose sight of that.

That said, we are very keen to ensure that CCS features centrally within the legislation. The Government have in place one of the most comprehensive programmes in the world on CCS, as recognised recently by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. This includes a carbon capture and storage competition, with up to £1 billion capital, plus operational support for up to two commercial-scale carbon capture support projects and a £125 million research, development and innovation programme. That said, my noble friend Lord Ridley is absolutely right that it is only Canada that we can look to as somewhere where this is working commercially. DECC officials have spent a lot of time looking at that. They have visited Canada on many occasions and will continue to do so.

I am keen that CCS remains very central to what we are thinking about. I repeat the undertaking that all Peers are invited to join in this process, and all Peers who have spoken will receive a letter inviting them to indicate their availability. If it is difficult to get one meeting because of lack of availability then we will put on two, but we will not be splitting them on a party basis, because I think that there is a genuine cross-party feel on this issue. I do not think that there is any real difference between people on this, which is a very good thing.

I am very keen that we should move forward in relation to this carbon capture and storage issue. I appreciate the debate that we have just had. It has been very helpful, although, as I said, it was much more wide-ranging than the amendment. However, I respectfully ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment on the basis that the Government have given an undertaking to look at carbon capture and storage in relation to the Oil and Gas Authority and to do so between Committee and Report.