Climate Change: Progress

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, first, on the substantive point that the noble Lord makes about progress, he will know that we are not yet halfway through the national adaptation programme 3. Therefore, the response to the Climate Change Committee, which is due by October, will very much reflect the work in progress in terms of what we need to do to beef up the current plan and implementation and to look forward to the NAP4, which starts in 2028. We are not complacent; we take the committee’s report very seriously, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and her committee for the work they have done. On the noble Lord’s substantive point on the issue of objectives, I very much accept that that is one of the matters we will be considering over the next few months. Secondly, on flooding, of course the report of the committee and the prediction it has made about the 8 million properties that are at risk of flooding by 2050 is something that no Government could take complacently. He will know that we have already committed £2.65 billion to repair or build flood defences, and of course we will look further into this matter in light of the committee’s report.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will the Government rule out any new development on functional flood plains, particularly in zone B, which is the most at risk of flooding? If the Minister rules that out, he has a good chance of having more resilient houses in other places. Will the Government undertake not to build on functional flood plains?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not going to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that we are going to rule this out completely. The noble Baroness will know that flood-plain building is possible in the UK at the moment. It is a heavily regulated process with significant planning requirements. We will obviously continue to look very carefully at these issues and whether the requirements are sufficient, but we do not think that a blanket ban is appropriate.

Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)]

My Lords, this instrument, which was laid before the House on 10 March 2025, is another important step in supporting the deployment of onshore wind and solar, which are critical in achieving the Government’s clean energy superpower mission, including clean power by 2030. An effective planning system is key to unlocking the new infrastructure that our country needs to underpin our energy security and resilience. It is important that planning applications are determined through an appropriate planning route that reflects a project’s size, impact and complexity and in which potential issues are identified and mitigated as necessary.

The nationally significant infrastructure projects—NSIP—regime is governed by the Planning Act 2008, where decisions on development consent are made by the Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. The NSIP regime applies to larger projects, with a megawatt threshold determining which energy-generating projects are deemed nationally significant. The NSIP regime provides the largest, most important projects of strategic importance with a single unified approach to seeking development consent, where applications are determined by Ministers balancing local impacts against the wider national benefits. Following submission, an extensive examination period will commence whereby interested parties, including local authorities, people of office and the general public, can make written or oral representations to the examination. This ensures that the voices of communities are heard during the decision-making process.

Until recently, a de facto ban on onshore wind generation in England severely limited deployment. Changes introduced in 2015 saw stringent tests introduced into planning policy alongside the removal of onshore wind generation from the NSIP regime in 2016. These changes set an almost impossible bar to meet, resulting in the pipeline of projects sinking by more than 90%, with only 40 megawatts of onshore wind generation consented and becoming operational in the intervening period.

In July 2024, this Government disapplied those planning policy tests and committed to reintroducing onshore wind into the NSIP regime, reversing the damaging policies of the past decade and placing onshore wind on the same footing as solar, offshore wind and nuclear power stations. As such, through this instrument, onshore wind projects with a generating capacity of more than 100 megawatts in England will be consented under the NSIP regime. The 100-megawatt threshold reflects the advances in turbine technology over the past decade, with modern turbines being larger and more powerful. Reintroducing onshore wind into the NSIP regime will provide an appropriate route for nationally significant projects to seek planning consent where they are of a scale and complexity that can carefully balance local impacts against national benefits and meet the UK’s wider decarbonisation goals. This will provide greater confidence for developers and incentivise bringing forward projects.

Solar has been subject to a 50-megawatt NSIP threshold since it was originally set in the Planning Act 2008. However, much like onshore wind, solar panel technology has seen significant advances in efficiency, enabling a greater megawatt yield per site. Evidence suggests that the 50-megawatt threshold is now causing market distortion. With modern technology, mid-sized generating stations now have a generating capacity greater than 50 megawatts and therefore fall within the NSIP regime. We think this is likely to be disproportionate to their size, scale and impact, and it has resulted in a large amount of ground-mounted solar projects entering the planning system and artificially capping their capacity at just below the 50-megawatt threshold, leading to the potentially inefficient use of sites and grid connections. Therefore, this instrument raises the NSIP threshold from 50 megawatts to 100 megawatts for solar to ensure that mid-sized projects have access to a more proportionate planning route via planning authorities, which should incentivise those projects that would otherwise have capped their capacity to develop to a more optimal and efficient scale.

The Government are also mindful that mid and large-scale solar and onshore wind projects are preparing to enter the planning system and may have already invested and undertaken preparatory steps with the expectation of entering a specific regime. Changing the NSIP at short notice could result in projects entering a different regime than expected, with the potential to increase costs to developers or cause delays.

Therefore, the instrument also makes transitional provisions for onshore wind and solar projects that are already in the planning process when this order comes into force. These provisions will ensure that projects already progressing under one legislative regime will not be required to move to a different regime as a result of the order.

Through consultation, the Government sought views and supporting evidence on reintroducing onshore wind into the NSIP regime at an appropriate threshold and revising the existing threshold for solar. We received a range of responses; most respondents agreed with the proposed approach of reintroducing onshore wind into the NSIP regime, with a majority in favour of a 100-megawatt threshold. While we initially consulted on a 150-megawatt threshold for solar, based on further assessment and analysis of consultation responses, we concluded a 100-megawatt threshold would be more appropriate and better reflect modern technology.

In conclusion, we see this instrument as being another important step in delivering clean power, supporting the deployment of onshore wind and solar and establishing the UK as a clean energy superpower. It supports an effective planning system that will ensure that applications are processed efficiently through the appropriate regime and will avoid distortionary effects on deployment. These measures ultimately aim to support future energy security and resilience alongside our 2030 goals and wider decarbonisation targets. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the contents and the wishes of the department in this document. Personally, I am very disappointed that we are where we are. I am a veteran of pylon applications; I was fortunate enough to be elected to the Vale of York in 1997, where there was already a long line of pylons going through the heart of the Vale of York to be joined by another, even bigger, line of pylons within a matter of months of my election. We were promised that the original line of pylons would be removed because it was thought that both would not be needed and they are, of course, unsightly.

I prefer the situation we had under the outgoing Conservative Government.There was virtually a moratorium on onshore windfarms for a number of reasons. The Minister is potentially going to see a great deal of discontent from residents and communities along the route of the overhead pylons will inevitably follow, particularly onshore windfarms. To take the example of offshore windfarms, there are three stages to the application process. When there is an application for an offshore windfarm, everyone thinks, “Oh great, that won’t affect me out there at sea”. Then the second stage of the application is for a massive substation to bring the electricity on land. The third, and completely separate, stage of the application is that suddenly—hey presto—we are going to have overhead pylons to feed the electricity into the national grid. How many applications does the Minister think will fall under this new decision-making regime where onshore windfarms will be decided by the Secretary of State? How many lines of pylons does he envisage will follow on from the applications? Will his department come forward and dictate that these overhead wires should be converted to underground wires?

Alternatively, does he accept—he knows that this is a theme I have pursued quite religiously with him over the past few months—that, if an onshore wind farm is built in, say, the north of England, or in Yorkshire more specifically, the electricity generated will serve the local community? It is colder in North Yorkshire than in many parts of the rest of the country, and we have a distinct lack of electric vehicle charging points. If an onshore wind farm will be built, I see absolutely no reason why the electricity generated cannot serve the population living locally.

I regret the statutory instrument in the department’s name that the Government feel is appropriate or necessary. Solar farms of the size that the Minister is talking about—those of 100 megawatts—will take the decision out of local communities. Again, I would be interested to know how many he envisages there will be. His department, DESNZ, will not lead to many des reses. We will not have many desirable residences along the routes of these overhead pylons. In the case of the solar farms, how will the electricity generated—presumably in the gift of the Government—enter the national grid to feed into the hungry south, leaving the rest of us in heat poverty in the north?

With those few remarks, I regret that the statutory instrument was brought before us. If we learn one thing from the massive outage in Spain, Portugal and parts of France last week, it is that we are becoming completely too reliant on very unreliable sources of energy—sunshine and wind—because the sun does not always shine, and the wind does not always blow.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. I, too, am a veteran of this debate, but I take a different view from that of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

In 2020, I first had a Private Member’s Bill on the inequity of how planning applications for onshore wind development were treated compared with all other infrastructure. It was a simple point: the self-imposed moratorium that the previous Government had put on the development of onshore wind was done on a completely blanket basis. They took onshore wind developments out of the normal level playing field of planning applications and treated them as some sort of pariah developments that should not be used. That is completely incorrect. As part of the move towards renewables and safe, clean and cheap power, we should exploit those opportunities.

We all know that the wind does not always blow and that the sun does not always shine. After six years on this topic, I do not need to be told that any more. We all know that we have to have base capacity, that we need variety and that you cannot transition overnight, but that does not take away the argument that there was a basic inequity in how these developments were treated.

I tabled the original Bill that I mentioned. I then had another Bill the next year. We then put in amendments on a number of pieces of legislation that were going through. We even won one of them; the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Deben, and the then Opposition Front Bench supported an amendment that had remarkably similar language to this statutory instrument. We won it on the Floor of your Lordships’ House, but it was reversed in the House of Commons, so it is an enormous pleasure to welcome this SI as an example of common sense breaking out on the issue of onshore wind developmentand of the benefit and reward of not taking “no” for an answer in politics.

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[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I think I am right in saying that the seat that my noble friend represented is now represented by a different party from ours. We need the electricity in the north—I cannot speak for Suffolk—and it would be much better to keep that source of energy close to where it is produced, rather than having pylons criss-crossing and destroying the countryside.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I am quite sure that nobody takes electricity more distantly than they need to if it is going to be used locally. In my constituency—which was indeed one of the seats lost at the last election—the issue is not a question of pylons. The issues were very different and not really to do with this at all. I come back to the point that it is not sensible constantly to refer to things that are not connected with this. I repeat that there is no connection between the outages in Portugal and Spain and the issue before us.

Transport Decarbonisation Plan

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to refer the noble Earl’s comments to the department. I repeat that, while in the main battery electric remains the dominant zero-emission technology for cars and vans, we think that hydrogen has a role in relation to heavy goods vehicles. I am certainly happy to refer his point to the department.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, in his original Answer, the noble Lord referred to rolling out electric vehicles. Will he look at the situation in rural areas, where there is a dearth of electric charging points, with a view to mandating them going forward to ensure that there is a bigger take-up of EV vehicles with access to these charging points in rural areas?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, in relation to charge points, the reckoning at 1 April 2025 is that there are over 76,500 public charge points in the UK. There has been considerable progress in the last few months and years. The recent National Audit Office report on the state of the charge point rollout found that we are on track to deliver the 300,000 charge points that we anticipate we will need by 2030. In relation to rurality, there was strong growth in rural areas in 2024, where charge point numbers increased by 45%. I know that the noble Baroness thinks that we need to go further, and I take the point. We are making considerable progress now.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I welcome the government amendment and the way in which the Government have listened to your Lordships’ House on this Bill and overseen considerable improvements. One was the inclusion, finally, of community energy, something your Lordships’ House has been fighting for through two Governments and several energy Bills.

However, an important issue arises at this moment relating to community energy. While the amendment that the Government have put down will help community energy to grow in the medium to long term, the sector faces an urgent short-term problem: the uncertainty of the community energy fund’s future. The fund began in January 2024 and has been very successful and heavily oversubscribed: more than 150 community energy projects have been awarded grants. More than 100 projects are ready to go and are eligible for funding, but they will not receive it because the initial £10 million is expected to run out in May. This is the only substantive mechanism helping community energy to grow, yet it has no future beyond this year.

I make no apologies at all for representing Community Energy here. Its members have asked me to say that we have seen so many times with energy policy over the years a boom-bust cycle of funding and defunding and then funding and defunding again. There is a short-term issue here, although the Government have expressed their support for the long term. So can the Minister give me a clear statement on how the Government will deal with the uncertainty over the community energy fund’s future? Can he assure me that there will be early action to deal with the enthusiasm that the fund has not been able to meet, and clear instructions on that in the statement of strategic priorities for Great British Energy, as required by Clause 5 of the Bill?

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on bringing forward the amendment.

I support the words from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and ask the Minister what the current position is on the future of the community energy fund: the Government seem to support it, but we need to know how it will proceed and when it will come into effect. How comprehensive will the review, to which the amendment refers, be? It appears to be limited to finances, but can the Minister confirm that it will also cover sustainable development?

We heard for the first time, I think, on Report about the framework document, of which the noble Lord said at col. 1204 of Hansard that it will become available only after the Bill has received Royal Assent, yet it would seem to go to the very heart of sustainability and environmental protection, which are so key to this Bill. Can the Minister explain, if the framework document will indeed cover these points, because he linked it to the sustainable definition that he was using, as recognised by the UN, why it is not part of the Bill, why we have not had the opportunity to debate it, and what the relationship will be between the framework document and the contents of the amendment that he has just put forward?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I briefly add my remarks to those of the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Bennett, about the community energy fund. I thank the Minister for responding so positively to my noble friend Lord Vaux by bringing forward this amendment on more general accountability. It is a good step forward, but will he respond on those companies—I gather there are around 150—that would have been eligible for the community energy fund but will not be able to receive funding if the money indeed runs out in May, as is forecast? On that specific point, when the £100 million runs out in May, what will be put in its place?

Energy Bill Relief Scheme and Energy Bills Discount Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)]

My Lords, these regulations, which were laid before the House on 16 December 2024, amend two schemes created by the previous Government in response to the energy crisis.

The amendments address an issue that was not considered in the rush to get the schemes into operation but which has now come to the fore as the schemes have been brought to an end. The issue is technical: both the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills discount scheme, which I shall refer to as EBRS and EBDS respectively, supported non-domestic energy users, including businesses and heat networks. EBRS supported energy bills from October 2022 to March 2023, while EBDS supported bills from April 2023 to March 2024. Both schemes operated on a “claim back” model, meaning that suppliers paid out the discount to their customers before recouping those costs from the department.

Scheme funds were paid out on estimated and actual meter readings. As actual meter readings are received by energy suppliers, they rebill their customers, replacing earlier estimated bills, and the discount paid out by the department becomes settled. The department calls this process “actualisation”. Suppliers then come back to government to recover additional discount they have paid out or to pay back any excess discount resulting from an initial overestimation of the energy. This is right: the intention behind the schemes has always been for government to fund the discount to the consumer and not the energy suppliers.

The regulations require the Secretary of State to determine when a supplier should leave the scheme, based on an assessment that there will be no further material amount owed from the department to a supplier or vice versa. One of the supporting criteria to make that assessment is that a supplier has billed customers on actual meter readings to a threshold of 95% of gas supplied and 97% of electricity supported under the scheme, wherever possible. Once a supplier has left the scheme, it is unable to claim back any further money from the department for discounts that it has paid out on behalf of the schemes.

However, as the regulations currently stand, suppliers are still required to pay out discounts on any newly billed energy supplied during the periods of either scheme, when this situation could arise through no fault of their own; for example, when customers have moved premises and failed to notify the supplier or have been tardy in allowing access to meter readers. This could result in suppliers funding government support without the ability to recoup these costs from the department. This is contrary to the intention of the schemes. As a result, suppliers have been reluctant to leave the schemes, which must come to an end in a timely manner.

The amendments in this statutory instrument remove the obligation on suppliers to provide the discounts to customers, except in instances where the consumer has lost out due to poor practices by their energy supplier. In these instances, we have provided carve-outs to balance the interests of suppliers with the support and protection of consumers.

The first consumer protection is, when a supplier is rebilling a customer, it must still apply the discount for energy which was previously billed before the discount duties, even if the newly calculated additional consumption is exempt. The second protection relates to unbilled customers. When a customer receives a bill that falls within the scheme period, a supplier would be required to pass on the appropriate discount if it has not previously provided that customer with a bill. This is to ensure that the original policy intent of providing consumer support is realised. The third and final consumer protection is when unreasonable delay, or another failure on the part of the energy supplier, has led to the energy not being billed accurately or at all when the discount duties applied. An example might be if the bill was sent unreasonably late after exit from the scheme, rather than before. In those circumstances, the customer should not and will not lose their entitlement to the discount.

There is still an obligation on suppliers to repay the Government any discount they have recovered; for example, if actual consumption was lower than the estimated consumption and a discount is clawed back. Should any dispute arise between suppliers and customers in relation to these carve-outs, the resolution mechanisms would be those normally used in the industry: via a complaint to the Energy Ombudsman, where available; investigation and potential sanction by the regulator; or court action.

The amendment applies to energy suppliers in Great Britain. Separately, the regulations also amend the Energy Prices Act 2022 to allow the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland to make amendments to address this issue in the Northern Ireland scheme. This is because their power to amend their equivalent legislation has expired.

In very limited circumstances, it is possible that a customer could lose out on some entitlement to discount. If a supplier had already exited the schemes and had underestimated a customer’s energy consumption, the customer would not receive the discount on the additional newly billed energy unless the supplier was at fault, as I have just described. Given that the vast majority of energy supported by the schemes is based on actual meter readings, we do not expect many customers to be in this position.

Furthermore, our analysis shows that suppliers tend to slightly overestimate and that customers reduced consumption during the energy crisis, switching off non- critical operations to reduce costs. None of the suppliers that have left the scheme to date, nor any of their customers, has reported this risk materialising. We expect and hope that this amendment will give suppliers confidence to exit the scheme without the risk of ongoing financial liability through no fault of their own.

Energy prices for non-domestic consumers have dropped following record peaks, but of course we recognise that they remain high and pose issues for some businesses. We believe that our mission to deliver clean power by 2030 is the best way to break our dependence on global fossil fuel markets and permanently protect bill payers, including non-domestic consumers. In the short term, the Government are taking action to better protect businesses from being locked into unfair and expensive energy contracts. Last year, the Government launched a consultation on introducing regulation of third-party intermediaries such as energy brokers. This is aimed at enhancing consumer protection, particularly for non-domestic consumers. The consultation has now closed, and a government response will follow in due course.

The Government are also empowering businesses to challenge unfair and poor service from their suppliers. Since December last year, SMEs with fewer than 50 employees or that meet energy consumption or financial thresholds can now access free support to resolve issues with their energy supplier through the Energy Ombudsman service. This expands the service to 99% of British businesses, allowing them to access up to £20,000 in financial awards.

I propose to the Committee that this is a very sensible statutory instrument dealing with some issues that have arisen. It follows on from the previous Government’s decision and is consistent with what they sought to do. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on the stamina he has shown over the last 48 hours. I welcome these regulations; had we remained in Government, I am sure that we would have done exactly the same—as was also said in the debate in the House of Commons.

The Minister alluded to the fact that energy prices are still quite high. I understand that within one of these regulations there is provision for an off-grid payment of £150. If that is the case, will his department look favourably on charities, public sector bodies such as schools and hospitals and, as he rightly mentioned, micro-businesses of under 15 employees—or even 50—so that they might remain eligible for that?

The noble Lord referred to unfair, and what I would call sharp, practices that are perhaps still going on. This is only anecdotal, and I cannot prove it, but there was a restaurant not too far from this building which I think partly closed and changed hands because they had an unbelievably high electricity bill in January last year, so I am delighted to hear that the Government have launched this consultation with a third party. It would be interesting to hear more about how those brokers might operate. What provision will be made to ensure that the brokers are reliable and able to operate within this sphere?

With that, I pay tribute to the previous Government for their work and the protection that was given to non-domestic customers, which was very welcome at the time. I recognise that we are still in a period of high energy prices and, with those few questions, I wish the SI a safe passage.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the Minister for a pretty spectacular explanation of what is quite a complicated and technical exercise. These schemes were introduced, as was said, between October 2022 and March 2024 and, as we know, they gave much-needed assistance to non-domestic customers. We are dealing now with a small yet significant minority of consumers who have not received their finalised bills, due to ongoing delays in the actualisation process. My understanding is that these delays arise mostly from the use of estimated rather than actual meter readings, but they have created significant complexities for both suppliers and consumers, especially when one of the issues around this is the concept that the supplier can become “off-boarded” when they hit the actualisation thresholds, as mentioned by the Minister, of 95% for billed gas and 97% for billed electricity, which means they are no longer required to apply further discounts.

We agree that this is a legacy issue that needs to be dealt with. Our only issue—I am sure that the department is working on this—is the need to deal with unintended consequences, such as where a supplier is off-boarded but still has unbilled energy due to these administrative delays. The amendment allows for discounts to continue only in cases where a billing failure has occurred, but does that provide sufficient protection to the consumer if the errors are on the supplier’s part, for example?

Further issues might be that the amendment extends the rule limiting discounts on variable price contracts. Discounts can only be reduced, not increased, post off-boarding. Does that sufficiently accommodate fluctuations in wholesale energy prices that suppliers may face? Does it risk creating an imbalance in terms of supplier and consumer rights? Then there is the issue of disputes. While the original scheme allowed for disputes to be referred to the Secretary of State—a horrendous concept—the amendment seeks to close that avenue. I am sure that the department is all over this, but we need to ensure that, in the technicalities of actually making this happen, we get a fair balance between supplier and consumer rights. Otherwise, we support the passage of this SI.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

I hope that noble Lords will feel that this amendment reflects a lot of the discussions and debate we have had. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 40. I am rather disappointed that the Minister did not refer to the other amendments in this group.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

With great respect, my Lords, I think the form is that I move my own amendment and then respond to other amendments in the group when I wind up.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful for that clarification.

I welcome the government amendment in this group. However, I seek a specific assurance from the Minister as to exactly how and when the Government will ensure that the impact of GB Energy’s activities will not harm sustainable development in the United Kingdom. Why I prefer the wording of my amendment to the Minister’s, and why I regret the fact that the framework document will not be available before the passage of the Bill through Parliament, is because the Environment Act 2021 set out very clear environmental standards that have to be followed in subsequent legislation.

Amendment 40 addresses the issue of Great British Energy operating in such a way as to meet the criteria and environmental standards in the Environment Act 2021, which set out clear standards for environment and animal welfare that any project approved by GB Energy should meet. The projects we have discussed during the passage of the Bill potentially risk criss-crossing the countryside, covering the landscape with intrusive miles of pylons and overhead transmission lines, as well as massive solar farms and battery storage plants, the latter also posing a fire risk. Up to 10% of land currently farmed could be taken out of production, with a consequential effect on farming and food security to create a strand of energy which will bring no local benefits whatever but feed energy into the already well-fed National Grid.

I call on the Government to address offshore wind farms in a clear and pragmatic way, with one planning application for any future offshore wind farm taken at the same time as permission to build an onshore substation, to take the electricity generated and, at the same time, any proposal for onward transmission of the energy through overhead power lines and pylons.

Other damaging aspects of offshore wind farms at severe odds with sustainable development are their impact on fishers and fisheries. Wind farms damage marine life and sea mammals, and interfere with fishers going about their business. I am grateful to the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations for its briefing, which clearly highlights the threat from offshore renewables, primarily winds but also wave and tidal.

Ten per cent of UK seas will be designated as highly protected marine areas, where fishing will be banned. The worst-case scenario could result in the loss of half of the UK’s fishing waters, some 375,000 square kilometres: Scotland would lose 56% of its fishing waters and England and Wales 36% of theirs. Even if the worst-case assumptions are not realised, 38% of UK waters are likely to be lost, threatening the very existence of UK fishing businesses and causing severe harm to coastal communities.

I feel that the sentiments expressed in Amendment 40 sum up those also expressed in Amendments 47 and 48, in the name of my noble friend Lord Offord, and Amendment 51, in the name of my noble friend Lord Fuller. All I seek this evening is an assurance that farmland and residential properties will be protected from massive solar farms, battery storage plants and the like, and the impact of major substations bringing electricity onshore from these offshore wind farms. The long lines of unwelcome, intrusive overhead lines transmitting the energy to the National Grid should be removed or reduced and spatial rights for fishers should be recognised. I hope that the Minister will look kindly on the assurance that I seek.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the new clause proposed in Amendment 38 by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I thank him and his officials for the amount of time and effort that they have put into finding what is a very good resolution to the issues that we raised at earlier stages in the Bill. Obviously, in some ways, I would have preferred my own amendment as it stood in Committee, which would have put into the Bill an obligation on GBE to contribute to the targets under both the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act.

After discussion, I understand why the Minister wants to put in the phrase “Sustainable development” and to have that contribution. That is indeed the model that we adopted as a House during the passage of the Crown Estate Bill. I would not be happy with this amendment, were it not for the assurances that the Minister has just given at the Dispatch Box on what will be included in the framework document, so that we will actually see reference to contribution to achieving targets under both those Acts in the framework document. We will also see a commitment to tackling the issue of adaptation there, because none of us who has observed or experienced the weather—and the results coming out from international institutions—in the last six months will have any doubt that we have challenges already baked in by climate change and biodiversity loss that have to be met, as well as the efforts to stop things getting worse. I am very grateful for those assurances.

In some ways, a commitment to sustainable development may seem more nebulous than tying down to those particular commitments, but I believe it is really important that we acknowledge that there are differing forces—differing demands and aspirations—that have to be taken into account when we make decisions on infrastructure and investment, or whatever it is. Sustainable development, as defined by the UN, is about taking the economic, environmental and social effects of developments into account when decisions are made. Lots of difficult decisions will have to be made and there are lots of balances that have to be struck, whether about pylons or achieving net zero, and whether about growth or biodiversity and nature. We have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and to actually recognise that all those strands have to be taken into account.

If we are going to get through and make the right decisions, frankly, we will have to be, first, very smart, and secondly, very frank with people about how we assess the different pressures and how we have come to individual decisions in individual cases. I have been very impressed by the work of the Crown Estate, looking at its different drivers and objectives and how it brings those into force when it looks at decision-making for investment, and I hope that GBE will be able to do exactly the same. So once again I end by thanking the Minister for the work he has done in bringing this amendment forward.

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Moved by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

40: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty of Great British Energy to meet environmental criteriaGreat British Energy must, in the exercise of its functions, and when delivering the objects in section 3 and statement of strategic priorities in section 5 of this Act, take all reasonable steps to contribute to the achievement of environmental targets set under the Environment Act 2021.”

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I will intervene very briefly on this debate, and I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. I have just a couple of points on the issues that have been raised. First, to follow up on what the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said, the idea of ensuring that communities gain the benefits of infrastructure that is near to them applies not only to small modular reactors but to many other things. In particular, the House knows of my concern for onshore wind and an increase in onshore wind developments. We have to do that in a way so the community, first, understands why we are doing it, and secondly, sees some benefit from those projects, whether on an individual or community level.

The other thing—and I of course welcome the government amendment on community energy—is that I very much agree with the spirit of what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. Some of us get very weary trying to inject the same issues of principle into legislation after legislation. Skills and the needs of the workforce, and the way we practically turn aspirations for green growth and green jobs into satisfying, well-paid, sustainable jobs, has to be done through the nitty-gritty of skills training, passporting and making sure that the opportunities are there for transition and for young people. It is enormously important that the Government and GBE do not lose sight of that.

In exactly the same spirit, we have banged on—if that is a parliamentary phrase—about home insulation and energy efficiency on any number of Bills. If I may say so to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, it is probably slightly inelegant to put that in the Bill as a hypothetical for what GBE might want to do, but the spirit of what he is saying, and the fact that this has been such a recurring theme, is absolutely central: it has so many benefits in saving money, saving emissions, increasing health and ensuring that we lift people out of the poverty that is occasioned by the housing in which they live. I hope that the Minister can give us some encouragement that the warm homes strategy, or whatever we are calling it this time—we have called it lots of different things over the years but have not been very successful in delivering it—will be a high priority for the Government.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 22, in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I congratulate the Government on bringing forward their Amendment 8. I imagine that it will find favour with the House rather than Amendment 22, but I will take the opportunity to press the Minister on a couple of aspects, just to give me reassurance that he means more than the warm words that we see expressed in his amendment.

In particular, how do the Government intend to deal with the current uncertainty over the community energy fund’s future? Is the Minister able to give us a guarantee of how that will pan out? Also, does he intend to take, or encourage GB Energy to take, early action to ensure that the fund will be matched by other funds, as I understand needs to be done, and that clear instructions on the above will indeed be set out in the strategic priorities for Great British Energy, as required by Clause 5?

I am not that familiar with community energy schemes, but I have seen how they operate in Denmark—I declare my interest, being half Danish and taking a great interest in Danish matters. I understand that they are so successful in Denmark because there is a system where local citizens, often organised in co-operatives, which again is very Danish—Arla is a co-operative in the milk industry that many here are familiar with—own a significant portion of renewable energy sources, such as wind farms and heat networks. Does the Minister agree that community ownership is part of the success of these schemes and that that is a path down which he would seek to go?

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 53, which seeks to ensure that the voices of local people are heard when proposals are made or encouraged by GB Energy for renewable energy projects that impact on local areas. This is a group about community involvement and consultation, and how people might have their say. I regret to say that, in so many cases, local people have been airbrushed from the debate, which has been conducted above their heads. We build resentment, scepticism and resistance when local people are denied their say. I speak with authority when I say that the NSIP system is being systematically abused by developers of solar farms, who string together otherwise stand-alone and discrete proposals for small-scale solar and aggregate them together as a device to somehow creep over the threshold. The voices of the local planning authority, locally elected representatives, local people and business are excised from the record.

The NSIP system was designed to allow truly exceptional and impactful infrastructure projects to be considered in the national context. I completely support that principle, but I see in my own area, for example, that one proposal, extending to 1,100 hectares but covering 40 square kilometres and at least a dozen separate landowners some 15 miles apart, has been cobbled together in the crudest and most cynical manner to creep over that 100-megawatt capacity line. It undermines public confidence in our planning system and acts as a recruiting sergeant for conspiracy theorists and their superficial, fundamentalist views. We will all become tainted and tarred by their brush while we deny the public due process and a proper say on these schemes, which should be decided locally but are not.

Later, on Amendments 50 and 52, I will say that solar should not be permitted on the best and most versatile land—grades 1 to 3A. I recognise that other land could be used for large-scale renewables, but we need to exercise care and caution. Even grade 4 or grade 5 land has a value, but that is more likely to include amenity value, outstanding landscape contribution or wider social benefit, perhaps in areas of outstanding natural beauty or other designations. It is for that reason that, for all land—even in cases where land may be at the poorer end of agricultural quality—changes in use to renewables more widely should be consulted on for residents within a 20-mile buffer of the widest proposed land extent. My amendment provides for this stipulation.

It is because the NSIP system is being abused and has fallen into disrepute that I have brought this amendment to repair the damage and indignation that local people rightly feel. We are storing up some terrible problems if the political class structurally sidelines views in an unthinking dash for renewables and fails to consider those wider impacts.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Grand Committee

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Offord’s Amendments 111 and 112, to which I have added my name. It has become increasingly apparent, from many points of view, that impact assessments are necessary. In particular, in exercising its functions, GBE should be required to consider the environmental impact and the effect on sea-birds and marine life of its installation of offshore wind facilities, as well as of its decommissioning of oil and gas structures.

I also support my noble friend Lord Fuller’s Amendment 113, which seeks to place the same obligation on GBE with reference to tidal energy projects. I have looked for information on both the Sound of Islay project and the Bristol Channel project, both of which I was reasonably familiar with some years ago but about which I have heard nothing in recent years. I am heartened by my noble friend’s enthusiasm for the sector and look forward to hearing whether the Minister expects that GBE will be encouraged to make investments in it. As my noble friend Lord Fuller said, this is a slim Bill with fat consequences. We have to make sure that GBE will act in the public interest.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Offord and Lord Fuller for tabling the three amendments in this group, all of which I support. I want to address a few remarks to Amendment 111.

I had not realised that we are the second-largest renewable energy market in the world. Most of the equipment is made outside the UK; I hope this is something we will do better on in future. I do not think my noble friend referred to the position of porpoises and dolphins, which have been causing me great concern over the past few years for the same reasons that my noble friend Lord Offord gave. We took evidence on this from the RSPB and from the department of ocean systems—I think it was called that—at the University of Plymouth in 2020-21.

Two issues arose from that which I would like to put to the Minister. The first, from the RSPB, said that “substantial sums” are being made, which really should be

“reinvested back into the natural environment from which”

these sums are derived. Is that something the Government are keen to do? The reason I ask is simple: I asked for a moratorium at that time, when we were under a Conservative Administration, until we had established what the impact was on birds and other marine life, such as whales, porpoises and dolphins. Over the last five years, we have had a number of inexplicable bankings of whales in particular but also of dolphins and porpoises. It is up to the industry to fund this work, so that we better understand why this is happening. If, as my noble friend Lord Offord argued, there is interference with the sonar of marine life, that should be established before we build the next stage of these massive developments at sea.

Clean Heat Market Mechanism Regulations 2024

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, here we have it: 32 pages of regulation to introduce something that some would consider a mere mouse in terms of its impact on this market. After all, it introduces a £500 fine for selling each excess gas boiler, relative to the proportion that is prescribed in the regulation. That £500 is actually quite big relative to the cost of a gas boiler, which is typically around a couple of thousand pounds, even though it is relatively small relative to the cost of a heat pump. None the less, I ask the Minister this: will that £500 fine, which then becomes a marketable instrument, be available to importers? If I have correctly understood how the system will work, someone who exports to this country heat pumps from abroad could sell the certificate that this measure will give them to a domestic producer who has not sold enough electric heat pumps for up to £500—that is a jolly nice subsidy for importers of heat pumps into this country, even if it is not massive.

It is expected that this measure will raise the number of heat pumps sold from roughly 40,500 last year, nearly 3% of the boiler market, to 77,000 pumps—6% of the expected market this year. That is not a huge increase. The Minister said that last year, without the benefit of this measure, the number of heat pumps sold increased substantially. So it will not be a huge increase in the coming year. Why do we think this measure is necessary if these things are proving so attractive and the market is growing anyway? Can the Minister confirm that the 6% target is what is introduced, and that it will continue and persist unless and until he introduces, via further legislation—I also ask him to confirm that this will require further legislation—a higher target?

Failing the introduction of a higher target, any future growth in the market will depend on hopes on the cost of heat pumps coming down as manufacturers find more efficient ways of making them. When I was still in the House of Commons I had a meeting with Octopus Energy, which reckoned that the materials involved in making a heat pump cost about £2,000. Obviously, a huge amount of processing goes into making a heat pump, but it suggested that the potential for bringing down the cost over time was significant. One hopes that will happen. Failing that, the only other thing—we are stuck with the 6% target and this £500 fine—will be the lure of subsidies for consumers to buy heat pumps instead of fossil fuel boilers.

The costs and benefits of the whole procedure are spelled out in the impact assessment. It says the net present value of the costs involved is £195 million. The benefits were put at £220 million, of which those that result from the main purpose of the operation, to reduce carbon, were less than the costs. The total benefit is above the costs only if you allow for the impact it will have on cleaner air. As well as reducing the amount of CO₂, which is a very clean thing that we breathe all the time, the reduction in the other impurities put in the air by fossil fuels just about brings it to a net benefit. We are talking about the costs and benefits being roughly the same order of magnitude. Once again, an almost religious fanaticism, which does not take the costs and benefits into account, is driving this policy.

I will make a few observations about the situation in France, because I have a house in France and I observe what is happening there. Two of my French neighbours have installed heat pumps. One in a comparatively small cottage cost over €20,000—not for the pump but for the insulation—all paid by the French taxpayer. Bully for him. Another friend has a rather more substantial old house. It cost the French taxpayer €100,000 to install the heat pump and the necessary insulation. In his case, it would not work for a year because the installers were so busy—because it is free to users—that they would not come back and tell him how to make it work. It took him a long time to find anyone who would. I noticed, when I went round to enjoy his hospitality over the new year, that he had wood fires burning as well.

I sincerely hope that we do not go down the path of subsidising something at the huge costs that the French taxpayer is having to absorb, when the costs and benefits of the whole process, even without subsidies, are so marginal. We do not want to put ourselves as near bankruptcy as the French state is.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the contents of the regulations before us. I am afraid that I share some of the scepticism of my noble friend Lord Lilley. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for referring to the warm homes scheme. He is aware of my disappointment that the discount is not going to be revisited, and I say that as honorary president of National Energy Action.

My understanding is that the heat pumps that are the subject of this measure simply are not as efficient as oil-fired central heating. I say that as where I live in the north of England, it is all oil-fired central heating; we are off grid and we cannot use gas. I walked past a surgery in the north of England that did not have just one heat pump; it had fitted three heat pumps, which probably means that one heat pump was not sufficient to generate the heat required.

My understanding—and I would be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, could confirm this—is that, without log fires or some other secondary heating, heat pumps heat only to a top temperature of about 16 degrees. If you are retrofitting an existing building, as many of the windows may not be able to accommodate the size of the heat pump or the radiators that connect to it, substantial renovation may be required.

Furthermore, I am grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which highlighted that the starting point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, of around 40,500 installations per year is—in its word, at paragraph 56 of its 10th report—“ambitious”. The department expects the scheme to help ensure the installation of at least 77,000 heat pumps a year in existing homes between 2024-25 and 2028-29. I ask the Minister a simple question: is that feasible and realistic?

My noble friend Lord Lilley quoted £2,000 as the cost of an ordinary boiler. I recently got two quotes for a boiler. The boiler itself was not the issue. For the fitting, even that of an oil-fired boiler, you are looking at something in the region of £8,000 to £10,000. I repeat: if you live off-grid in a very rural area, it would be nice to think that heat pumps were an alternative, but, given the state of the current market, I just do not see them as feasible if they heat up to only 16 degrees when, in just the past two weeks, we have regularly had temperatures of freezing or down to minus 10. With those few remarks, I press the Minister to comment on these queries.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we are supportive of these regulations and the other actions that this Government have already taken—particularly in removing the outdated 1-metre rule on the requirement for planning permission—since coming into office. We are hopeful that, taken together with the other measures that the Government talk about, these measures will help us begin to make progress towards the target of 600,000 heat pumps by 2028 and help us to fulfil the need to meet these same figures every year going forward.

There are both supply-side actions and demand-side actions in this SI. We feel that the combination makes some valuable reforms. Most of all we welcome the work that has been done with industry after listening to concerns, making some much-needed reforms and finding ways forward on these issues. Our worry, though, is that, as welcome as these changes in the regulations are, they may not be sufficient in and of themselves to deal with the scale of the problem. In making this point, I quote the conclusion of the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has already been mentioned:

“The DESNZ expects the scheme to help ensure the installation of at least 77,000 heat pumps a year in existing homes between 2024/25 and 2028/29. We consider this, from a starting point of around 40,500 installations per year, to be ambitious”.


Before I turn to the SI, judging by the debate on this measure in the other House, a little background information would be useful.

These regulations amend and reform a system that the Conservative Government brought in but mainly failed to make work in practice. The last Government compounded these problems by failing to work alongside and with industry and others in order to find amendments to the proposals, such that industry itself was prepared fully to support them and get behind them. These problems then led to further internal discussions about the policy itself, which further derailed progress. This problem meant that the implementation never really got resolved and, as a result, we are a long way behind on these targets. In short, the Conservatives had clear targets for the installation of heat pumps but failed to deliver them.

I give this background only because the Conservative Opposition spokesperson appeared to disown or not acknowledge that this is a reform of their policy. It may be that the Conservative policy has changed. If that is the case, I hope that the Conservative spokesman can make that clear.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

Such is the great lack of clarity in how GBE will operate that I believe there is even justification for Amendment 87, in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, to which I have added my name. This would require a Motion for resolution in both Houses before the Secretary of State could issue any directions. I look forward to hearing my noble friend introduce her amendment. I expect that the Minister will not be inclined to accept it in its present form, but I certainly look forward to hearing from him about how he proposes to ensure that GBE is more accountable and more transparent in pursuing its objectives and believe that the Government need to bring forward their own amendments on Report.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 87 in my name and to take this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord Trenchard for lending his most welcome support to the amendment and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for introducing this little group so eloquently and strategically. He is absolutely right to point out that the difference between his amendment and the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Trenchard is the difference between an Oral Statement which can just be debated and, in our case, the need for a Motion of resolution in each House of Parliament. To put his mind at rest, I cannot believe that that would need to delay the process at all. It could be called in exactly the same amount of time—probably half a day, an Oral Statement possibly taking an hour, or 30 minutes in each House.

The Minister, who I do not think is replying to this group, said in response to the first group that he believes and hopes that Clause 6 will never be used. But the very fact that it is in the Bill means that it is there to be used should the circumstances arise and I believe that the magnitude is such that it is important to debate it and to carry each House with the Government. I cannot believe that that would be a delaying tactic; I think it is absolutely essential. The noble Lord also, in reference to the question of giving directions, equated the situation to that of the National Health Service. It is clear to me that, were such a direction to be given to the National Health Service, that would be debated in each House of Parliament as well, particularly in the circumstances that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, related of a potentially dangerous one-off situation which we understand Clause 6 envisages.

Words were said earlier about Drax and I do not wish to dwell on that, but Drax is a major contributor to the whole of the Yorkshire and Humberside regional economy. I believe that we should go back to growing the fast-growing willow coppice and—a name I can never pronounce—miscanthus, as that would help Drax to have a local source of produce on which to rely. It would also help the farmers at this very difficult time for them.

On the question of directions and consultation raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and others such as my noble friend Lord Trenchard, it is important for it to be in the Bill that, before giving a direction, the Secretary of State must consult. Clause 6(3)(b) simply says

“such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.

Well, it would be helpful, if there were a situation of some danger, for local authorities to be consulted, because they are the first responders in many cases. I am slightly baffled that they have not been mentioned so far. Do the Government intend to consult them? In previous debates it was also raised by the Association of British Insurers that, in these circumstances, potential and actual investors may need to be consulted if such an emergency were to arise. I do not think they have been mentioned so far. Again, is that something the Government have in mind?

I want to sound fairly relaxed about this, but I do believe that the amendment in the names of myself and my noble friend Lord Trenchard is preferable to the wording of the noble Earl’s Amendment 66 and I hope that the Government will respond favourably to our very modest request that a resolution should be debated in each House of Parliament and potentially voted on before the directions are adopted. I hope the Minister will also respond to my queries about who is to be consulted and why there are not more of them listed in the Bill. With those few remarks, I commend my amendment.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it must be maddening for the Minister that a Bill specifically designed to exclude investment in the nuclear sector keeps on dragging back to the nuclear sector. This is for the obvious reason that these issues are completely and utterly inseparable. Investment in the energy sector generally has got to take account of all the different aspects, and nuclear is obviously one of them.

The Minister raised the question yet again of Sizewell C being a replica, and obviously he thinks I am being very boring on this, but can I plead with him to go back to his department and point out the obvious fallacies in the whole replica concept? If Sizewell C were to go ahead, it would be being constructed in the late 2020s and the early 2030s, probably for completion and producing kilowatts in the late 2030s or later. That will be approximately 25 years beyond the original design of Hinkley C, which was originally conceived under the Blair/Brown Government in the late 2010s.

Everyone in the civil nuclear sector knows that this is a highly fluid situation in which technology is rapidly developing and is going to create, along with the arrival of new things such as AI, a completely new set of designs, which will mean that by the late 2020s the Hinkley design will be frankly out of date. The idea that something that is 20 years old should be replicated is absurd in any advanced technology, and particularly absurd when it comes to electricity generation and civil nuclear power. If one just thinks about it for a moment, one will realise the replica argument carries absolutely no weight at all. I very much hope that any new nuclear installations—whether 300, 500 or gigawatt size—are definitely not going to be a replica of what has occurred at Hinkley C.

This is a view that is held very widely in France, where they say this design is unbuildable and should never be repeated, and it is the view of many other technicians involved in new nuclear development, which I strongly welcome in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but the idea that we should build a replica 20 years after the last one is frankly absurd. Please would the Minister go back to his department and point this out?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I lend my support to my noble friend and congratulate him on moving his first amendment. As in Norfolk, there is a huge problem across North and East Yorkshire, where tenant farmers face being bounced off the land that they currently farm for solar panels. I hope that the Minister responding to this little group of amendments will use their good offices to ensure that solar panels are best built in more appropriate places. I say that as honorary president of the UK Warehousing Association, which has a campaign—of which the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is aware and, I hope, supportive—to ensure that we can get solar panels off the ground, particularly in productive grade 1, 2 and 3 agricultural land, while also helping warehouses to create more of their own energy.

I believe this is a debate to be had. I support those who say that it is perhaps not the role of Great British Energy to do this, but we have to raise this at every turn. If we run out of productive farmland on which to grow food—and to allow tenant farmers of every generation, including new entrants, to enter the market—it would be a very sorry state indeed.