Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Duke of Montrose

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am very happy to include the noble Lord in the list, unless he tells me otherwise. However, the point is valid. The checks are being done now but the police are clear that there are cases where they have felt obliged to issue a licence although the evidence has told them that they should not. On the issue of subsidy—

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, I am not quite clear about whether the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is not trying to tackle two problems in her amendment—the question of the police’s powers to refuse licences, and fees. Is she trying to do too many things? We might not agree on all these things.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

Perhaps I am trying to do too much in one amendment. I have included the fees issue in the amendment—and I am surprised that the Minister defended the £18 million with which the public are subsidising firearms licences—because there will be an extra cost for the additional checks that the police may need to undertake in these cases.

As I said to the Minister, I was happy to come back and specifically discuss with him a way that we could ensure that people with a history of violence are unable to get a firearms licence. He has rejected that offer. In the interests of public safety, there is no alternative but to press the amendment and test the will of the House.

Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Inspections etc.) Regulations 2012

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Duke of Montrose

Monday 23rd January 2012 Grand Committee

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask a further question of my noble friend. Will he ensure that the Scottish Executive is up to speed? Presumably they will have to pass similar regulations for their area. On inspections, the areas that he outlined were mainly to do with the injection of carbon dioxide. Will the regime also look at leakage from the storage site, or is that not a worry?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, like other noble Lords I have a few questions and points of clarification. First, I welcome the Minister’s opening comments on CCS. He is looking puzzled and I am wondering what on earth I said. He reaffirmed the Government's commitment to a CCS project. He is nodding now, so I must be correct on that. Perhaps he could say something further. My concern is how, when the budget has been raided by the Chancellor and £1 million taken from it, the Government can fulfil that pledge. As the Minister has renewed the pledge, will he give us an idea of the timescale? We know that because Longannet was pulled there have been changes. Does the Minister have any idea of a timescale for when we will see the start of the first CCS project?

I will not labour the points on Scotland because they have been better made by other noble Lords. Have the Government given any consideration to the impact that a referendum on independence would have, and to whether the legislation would have to come back to this House or whether further legislation would have to be put in place? Do the Government have a plan B should that scenario come into effect?

The order distinguishes between routine and non-routine inspections. There will be regular, routine inspections, and if the regulatory authorities are made aware of potential problems, there will be non-routine inspections. I am not clear whether there will be a facility for spot checks: that is, unannounced inspections. If all inspections are announced, there will be time for facilities to get their house in order and make changes, whereas an inspector needs to see what is normal custom and practice in the association or organisation. If they are not aware of any specific problem and there is no routine inspection scheduled, can they make an unannounced spot check to ensure there are no problems?

The order talks about how an inspector would make a report and it would be made publicly available—in what format? Would local authorities in that area be informed that an inspection had taken place and what the results were? Would it be given to Ministers? How would we make the information about that inspection publicly available?

The order does not make clear how long it should take a company to comply with any requirement the inspector has made following an inspection. This is not an operation that can be shut down if there are any safety issues, so it seems very important that if requirements are placed on the operator, they should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. However, it does not say anywhere in the order what the timescale should be or if indeed the inspector would make a recommendation on the timescale. Given that the original inspection report would be made publicly available, would the requirement for compliance be made publicly available as well? If there were requirements made of a company and it had to fulfil certain conditions within a certain period of time, would that information be available in the same way—whether or not they had complied?

Finally, the bit that slightly puzzled me was under new Regulation 20, “Offences”, which says:

“It is an offence for a person … without reasonable excuse to fail to comply with a requirement imposed under Schedule 3”.

What is a reasonable excuse? How dangerous will it be not to comply with any requirements that are made? Should it therefore be an offence with strict liability; that is, whether somebody is mad, bad, ignorant or careless, it is still an offence not to comply with any requirement? I cannot think what would be a reasonable excuse not to comply with a requirement made following an inspection. If the Minister can say something on those points, it would help me to understand the order better.

Renewable Heat Incentive (Amendment to the Energy Act 2008) Regulations 2011

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Duke of Montrose

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Duke of Montrose]

My Lords, after the description given by the Minister I almost think that I need to declare an interest, if for no other reason than that I have a livestock production business. I thought that the present measures were largely to do with commercial production. I also have a small restaurant which, as he said, is possibly in line for a renewable heat incentive grant.

I was reassured by what the Minister said about peat. When I saw that peat was mentioned in the second instrument, I thought that the Government were going to bring it into the definition of biomass. However, it is excluded, which fits in with the other measures that people have taken regarding peat.

Noble Lords will be aware that renewable energy was the subject of a statutory instrument early on in the sequence of devolution legislation for Scotland. The term at that point largely meant wind, solar and marine energy. The Minister described all the other forms of renewable energy that this measure covers. One can presume only that we are now into a further application of renewable energy. Taking the definition used of necessity, renewable heat is now part of the devolution arrangements. All the production systems benefit from financial subsidy. I hope that the Minister will confirm that renewable heat will also receive incentives from Her Majesty's Treasury, even when it is north of the border. This will be a great help to the Scottish Administration's ambition to replace all their atomic power generation with renewable energy sources.

Further to that, and in parallel with the regulation that brings the construction of plants and facilities for coal production within the powers of the planning regulations of the Scottish Government, even though coal is not a devolved matter, I presume that the construction and provision of plant for the production of renewable heat will be subject to Scottish control, even though the measures in the Bill are retained within the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I was relieved when the Minister came into the Room. Noble Lords of my age may recall a private detective on television called Eddie Shoestring, played by Trevor Eve. Just before he retreated to his programme, he slunk into his chair just in time. I congratulate the Minister on slinking into his chair just in time, given that we have some interesting business for his department before us today. I see that nobody remembers Eddie Shoestring except me.

I was encouraged by the Minister’s enthusiasm for these regulations. We share that support. I will raise three issues of which I have already given him notice. I have some questions and queries on which he may be able to satisfy me. First, on cost control, the Minister mentioned the level of budget. That is subdivided over four years: namely, £56 million in 2011-12, the first year, of which £15 million is, I understand, through renewable premium payments; then £133 million; then £251 million, rising to £424 million in the fourth and final year of 2014-15. Given that the renewable heat incentive is the policy to deliver 12 per cent of heat in the UK being renewable by 2010, will the Minister give an assurance that he considers that this budget is adequate to meet the target?

My main point is the lack of flexibility between those years. Am I correct in thinking that any money unspent or unallocated in one year cannot be rolled over into the next year but will be lost to the programme? It is quite a tall order, particularly for a programme of this kind, for any department to hit the exact budget year on year. Do the Government intend to install some kind of capped grant scheme with all the stop-go inability that that brings with it to plan ahead for a growing industry which the RHI was trying to avoid in the first place?

My worry is that not allowing some flexibility between the years will increase the difficulty of implementing a cost-control mechanism for the programme. It also creates considerable pressures regarding the accuracy of DECC’s modelling of the programme. We have seen already how the modelling on feed-in tariffs was said not to be accurate, and the same could occur in relation to this order. My biggest worry is that it would undermine industry confidence in the scheme. I have two requests for the Minister. First, will he consider allowing full flexibility between the years, although I appreciate that he may not get Treasury support in that? Or perhaps he could allow flexibility in terms of a percentage by which the budget has been underspent or overspent in one year. The budget could vary from year to year while keeping to the overall four-year budget.

Secondly, will he look at amalgamating the budget for the first two years into a single spending period? There is a strong case for that. When the CSR was published in October 2010, the renewable heat incentive was intended to start in June 2011. That start date has already slipped three months. It would be helpful if, alongside the Treasury, DECC could look again at how that money has been allocated between the financial years. The renewable heat premium payments that I mentioned—the interim payments keeping things going until the RHI is in place—are also included in that year one budget. So we can take out £15 million from that £56 million.

An announcement on that was due in May, which we still have not had, so there is less time available to spend the money. In his opening comments the Minister confirmed that the scheme will not start until 30 September—so it will not be for 12 months, but for six. Payments are made quarterly in arrears, which means that only projects that have been accredited by Ofgem by Christmas 2011 will be paid out of the year one budget—so we are now down to three months of the year one budget.

In addition, on a point that might not be quite so serious, and given that it will be the first application, where an application for accreditation to Ofgem does not have all the required information and has to go back again, the start date for the project will be the day on which the further details, not the initial details, were submitted. Projects of any complexity may not complete the process in time even if their first application is made before the end of December. If there is any minor error or mistake or information is left out, it will have to go through again. I think that the Minister will appreciate the problem and agree that that is not an unreasonable request if the scheme is to succeed and achieve its objectives. I have given the Minister notice but, if he wants to consider it further, I would be more than happy for him to come back to me in writing, rather than to rule it out now.

On a further matter, if I understand this issue correctly, the restriction is that the eligible waste is municipal waste only. Page 35 of the March 2011 policy document refers to using municipal waste, but it does not explain why it does not include commercial or industrial waste. I am aware of the balances between higher biomass—I am talking about waste with a biomass content of between 50 per cent and 89 per cent—but can he give me a reason for that exclusion? It would be helpful because Regulation 28(9) states:

“The participant may not generate heat using solid biomass contained in any waste other than municipal waste”.