Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Quin and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not spoken before on the Bill but have followed the proceedings closely, particularly as I live in Northumberland, the county that has had more onshore wind farms installed than any other county in England. I know that many people have made the point during debates that Scotland is the part of the UK that feels the major effect of both the previous policy and what is now being proposed, and I accept that completely, but in England Northumberland has a key role and a key interest both in the policy and in the changes that are proposed to it.

I speak as someone who is strongly supportive of the renewable energy sector generally, and indeed I was concerned today at what seems to be the direction that the Government seem to be taking over solar energy. None the less, I have a problem with onshore wind installations in my part of the country, which probably relates more to the planning process than to anything else simply because in Northumberland so many applications were approved in the face of not just the majority of the local people affected opposing them but an overwhelming majority. In many cases it seemed to those residents as though those investing in and pushing for such schemes had little connection with the local area, and little commitment to it other than making a financial gain with generous public support. For that reason, I am glad that the Government started to listen.

I know that comments have been made during the proceedings about the role of Conservative Back-Bench MPs. Having been a long-standing Labour Member in another place over many years, this is perhaps the first time that I might be saying something kind about Conservative Back-Bench MPs. I assume that they were opposing onshore wind not because they suddenly felt like it but in response to constituents’ concerns, which is what MPs of all parties can and should do. In my area, plenty of people who are not Conservative supporters were concerned about some of the inappropriate intrusive wind farm schemes that, for example, led to very familiar views of our iconic coastal castles disappearing behind a circle of turbines, or, in another case, threatened to overshadow ancient standing stones that had stood proudly amid beautiful countryside for thousands of years.

Organisations that are normally very concerned about environmental issues and about climate change, such as the Northumberland and Newcastle Society or the Northumberland branch of the Council to Protect Rural England, have expressed their concerns very loudly about this. I should declare a non-financial interest as president of the Northumberland National Park Foundation. I have a lot of links with those who are concerned to protect and enhance the Northumbrian countryside and ensure its continued attraction to tourists and residents alike.

I should like the Government to give us some more information about the effect of what they are now proposing for areas such as Northumberland. A lot of very reasonable questions have just been asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, which obviously need addressing. But a breakdown as to how different parts of the UK will be affected by the changes that the Government are proposing would be welcome to all of us, whatever views we take of onshore wind and its future.

I also understand some of the points about investor confidence that have been made by my noble friends. As I said, I also understand what has been said by my honourable friends about the situation in Scotland and ensuring that there is proper and meaningful consultation with the Scottish devolved authority on these issues. However, I support local people wherever they are in the UK having their strong views taken into account. In many areas and in many cases there is strong public support for the renewable energy sector, whether in onshore or offshore development. I believe that we can meet our targets. But at the same time we need to be determined to conserve and enhance our precious national landscapes and countryside, not least in Northumberland.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I understand that we are dealing with all the amendments grouped together, so we can discuss aspects of any of them. Amendment 18, which I tabled, is really a technical amendment given to me as a way of tidying up the amendments that the Government have proposed. I will not speak to it today but I am happy to table it again on Report and speak to it on that occasion if necessary.

I fully understand what my noble friend Lady Quin just said. She and I were together in the other place, along with the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Howell, and others, and we know the importance of representing constituents and making sure that their views are represented in relation to major planning issues such as wind farms. In my old constituency of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley—I never had to explain to anyone that that was in Scotland; they knew straightaway once I had pronounced it—we had a number of wind farms and they were welcomed locally. We did not have the kinds of objections that my noble friend obviously experienced in Northumberland, but I understand that and she made her points very well.

I was tremendously impressed by the explanations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, of his own amendments—they were detailed and forensic—and by his clear knowledge and understanding of them. I noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, was, like me, slightly perplexed on one or two occasions, but he managed to explain them to us. As I whispered to my noble friend Lady Quin at the time, “You can easily tell that he is a very good lawyer by the way he takes a brief and manages to explain it to lesser mortals like me and others”. I was very impressed by that.

However, I am not as equable and relaxed about what the Government are proposing as some of my colleagues in this Grand Committee appear to be. People in Whitehall and Westminster sometimes do not understand what is going on in the real world outside. I wish that the Minister had experienced the kind of anger, fury and despair that I have experienced in the representations made to me about what the Government have done and are doing on this. I am astonished that they are pursuing this and treating it with such equanimity.

This has been an exercise of the greatest incredible incompetence and betrayal that I have known for a long time and I have seen some degree of incompetence and a lot of betrayal from time to time. I want to go through that statement and explain it, even in terms of the procedure. I tabled my Amendment 18 with the very helpful clerks in the Public Bill Office upstairs. I asked how frequently Governments have to resort to this astonishing procedure of re-commitment. Apparently, it is a very infrequent procedure and it is astonishing that the department has had to resort to it. It is a procedure where we are dealing with 12 pages of detailed amendments which have a huge effect, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has pointed out, on investors, consumers, producers and everyone, and we are trying to rush them through in this way. Next week, we have two days of Report, when we are supposed to deal with the whole Bill yet again. This is an astonishingly incompetent way of dealing with legislation.

I want to turn to the betrayal and the reneging on promises that have been made. I took part in a referendum in Scotland and went on platforms—much to my disadvantage, I may say—with Conservative spokespersons. It was a bit easier with the Liberal Democrat spokespersons. The SNP and others have taken us to task—to some extent understandably—for appearing shoulder to shoulder with Tory spokespersons. I feel really annoyed now that some of the things that were said on behalf of all of us, but put into government documents, are now being reneged on by the Conservative Government. Perhaps if it had been a coalition, they would not have been reneged on.

I will give two examples of the documents that went out to electors in the referendum. One said:

“The UK Government is now introducing the Contracts for Difference scheme, which will provide long term support for all forms of low-carbon electricity generation. These contracts provide industry with the long-term framework to make further large scale energy investments at least cost to the consumer.”

Does not that ring hollow in the light of what the Government are now doing? It continues:

“Whilst the Renewables Obligation has been successful in incentivising renewable electricity deployment, a new market mechanism is now required to provide industry with the framework to make further large scale energy investments at least cost to the consumer. Therefore in its place, the UK Government is introducing the Contracts for Difference mechanism, which will provide long term support for all forms of low-carbon electricity generation—including nuclear, renewables and carbon capture and storage. Such contracts will allow investors to be confident about the returns on their capital in advance of investing billions”—

this is in a government document—

“into new infrastructure, remove exposure to volatile wholesale electricity prices and produce a more competitive market; therefore ensuring electricity remains affordable.”

That is really astonishing. This pledge in a government document to electors in the Scottish referendum was totally reneged on by the new Conservative Government.

Let us take the second betrayal by the Government. I will quote the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, who in the Chamber on 4 November 2013 said:

“My Lords, Amendment 66 provides the Government with the power to close the renewables obligation to new capacity. As noble Lords know, this closure is planned for 31 March 2017 as part of the transition to contracts for difference. We had previously considered that the renewables obligation could be closed using existing powers within the Electricity Act 1989. However, we have now concluded that a specific power in this Bill will put the closure arrangements on a more reliable and transparent legislative basis”.—[Official Report, 4 November 2013; col. 28.]

That enabled the power, which had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, to be brought back here on the pretence that all this would be done on a proper, comprehensive, United Kingdom basis. The Scottish Government were betrayed on that promise, too, made by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma.

The third betrayal relates to the Conservative Party 2015 manifesto, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said, explicitly committed to ensuring that,

“local people have the final say on windfarm applications”.

Independent generators, as other Members will have seen from their paper, are concerned that the Government’s proposed grace period for the early closure of the RO unfairly excludes projects with democratic local planning consent, contradicting that manifesto commitment to give local people the final say. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, they give examples of that. I will not go into the full details, except to say that the Section 75 agreement was made on 2 July 2015, which of course was after the cut-off date, because of a technical delay. That means that the will of local people, contrary to what the Government say, will not be taken into account. We keep being told that we should all abide by the Salisbury convention, but the Government are betraying their own manifesto. Those are the three betrayals.

We are told that all this is being done to keep prices down, but Bloomberg has just produced a report, which says, according to the Guardian—I know that not all Members like the Guardian, but I am sure that they like Bloomberg more:

“New onshore windfarms are now the cheapest way for a power company to produce electricity in Britain, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance … Costs have dropped to $85 … per megawatt hour … compared with the current costs of about $115 for constructing coal or gas-fired plants”.

The costs for nuclear are assessed by Bloomberg at $190. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, said earlier in the Chamber that he was looking forward to the day when we do not have to subsidise renewables such as wind, but he should perhaps think about how much subsidy is going into Hinkley Point and look forward to the day when we do not have to subsidise nuclear.

These matters go beyond the terms of today’s debate, of course, but it is clear that, if we are to help consumers and keep our pledge to them to provide the cheapest form of electricity, using onshore windfarms is one way of doing that, according to the Bloomberg report. It is most unfortunate that we are dealing with this matter in this way.

I do not know who is going to the climate change conference in Paris in December. I once went to a climate change meeting that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in his previous capacity, chaired—in a brilliant way, by the way—with everyone discussing the issues rather than reading out reports prepared by civil servants back home. It was a very good and constructive debate.