Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I think it would be helpful to the House if I explain this Motion and, for those noble Lords who were not in your Lordships’ House at 10 pm last night, the circumstances that give rise to it.

The Great British Energy Bill is an eight-clause Bill that provides a statutory basis for Great British Energy as a publicly owned company to become operationally independent and start delivering benefits for the UK. This includes driving clean energy deployment and boosting energy independence so we can enjoy the benefits of clean, secure, homegrown energy. It was in the Government’s manifesto, it was one of the first Bills to be introduced following the general election and it has been through all its Commons stages.

The Bill was initially scheduled for two days of Committee of the whole House. Progress in Committee has been, shall we say, somewhat slow. In total, 153 amendments have been tabled, which is around 19 amendments for every clause of the Bill. Last night, it was the Government’s intent to finish Committee, but at five minutes past 10 the Opposition Chief Whip moved the adjournment of the House, which was successful.

Report has been agreed for 11 February. Noble Lords will have noted that, over the next two weeks, the House will be heavily engaged in this Chamber with the Mental Health Bill and Martyn’s law. So, noting the request from the Official Opposition for more time to scrutinise the Bill, my noble friend the Chief Whip has kindly arranged for it to be considered in Grand Committee on Wednesday 15 January and 22 January if required, and noble Lords will be able to table further amendments today. If the Motion is agreed to, the groupings will be circulated to those who have tabled amendments as soon as possible, with a deadline for changes at 8 pm. I hope this will allow further debate on the Bill, which indeed is what the Official Opposition requested, and I very much hope that the whole House will support the Motion. I beg to move.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, last night this House voted to adjourn the House at a conventional time of 10 pm to stop the Government rushing through the Great British Energy Bill—on which the Government intend to spend £8.3 billion of taxpayers’ money. Today, after two and a half days of scrutiny in this Chamber, the Government are seeking to finish the Bill away from the Floor of your Lordships’ House in Grand Committee. As far as I recall, where the Official Opposition object, this is quite an unprecedented move. Before we adjourned last night, we completed nine groups and started a 10th. In all the years that I was a Minister, I would have been delighted to have completed and made so much progress on a Bill in a day. Ten groups is not a filibuster; it is reasonable progress in anybody’s books.

I note the Government’s new habit of labelling groups “degrouped” despite us providing reasoned titles for them. So, for the benefit of the House, I will very briefly run through the groups that we debated yesterday, and then perhaps the Minister, if he wishes, can tell us which of these did not deserve to be debated: directions to GB Energy on consumer energy bills, new jobs, developing supply chains, the cost of fulfilling strategic priorities, national grid infrastructure, carbon emissions, imported energy, UK manufacturers and financial returns; the impact of GB Energy investments on electricity prices, returns, employment and the environment; consultation and oversight; the inappropriate use of prime agricultural land; a large miscellaneous group—actually intended to be helpful to the Government—which included mandatory reinvestment of profits, exclusion of investments to projects with government subsidies, independent evaluation of investments, limitation of investments to UK-registered companies, limitations on money spent on travel to conferences, and support for companies and universities; nuclear energy; curtailment of renewable energy; energy storage; renewable energy generation; and reporting, accounts and auditing.

Which of those topics did not deserve fair and proper scrutiny? Energy security, energy storage and the environment? Just this weekend, we have read reports of the Chancellor of the Exchequer negotiating closer ties with China and of fuel reserves reaching critical lows in the very cold spell. It is very important and topical business. If there is a group of amendments that did not deserve to be debated, I should be very grateful to be enlightened.

Every noble Lord in this House has a right to be heard, and yesterday we heard from Members with widespread experience and expertise. I challenge any noble Lord to read back through Hansard and find me one speech that they consider inappropriate. All of them were informed and insightful, and within the advisory speaking times set out in the Companion.

The job of the Opposition is to scrutinise the work of the Government and hold the Government to account. This is nothing personal; it is simply the proper functioning of our Parliament. When the tables were turned and it was the Labour Party occupying these Benches, we had 13 Bills which took more than 10 days in Committee. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and the Welfare Reform Act 2012 took 17 days, and the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 each took 15 days. We debated thousands upon thousands of amendments. I was often the Minister on those Bills. Since 2015, the most amendments tabled to a Bill has been 1,249, but there have been 51 Bills which had more than 200 amendments tabled to them, 23 Bills that had more than 400 and 16 that had more than 500.

We will not be voting against this Motion today. We made our point last night, and I had hoped that the Government might listen. I reiterate that we simply seek to subject legislation to the fullest and most appropriate scrutiny, as is our responsibly.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for not opposing the Motion that I intend to press in a moment. Of course I recognise that it is the role of the Opposition to scrutinise legislation. I would say that Grand Committee offers an opportunity for effective scrutiny, and I have no doubt that, in the two days reserved, we will see many more contributions from noble Lords—no doubt repeating the points that they have made time and time again on this Bill.

I just say to the noble Baroness that, in relation to the groups of amendments that we debated last night on directions, it is interesting that when, at the beginning of Committee and at Second Reading, noble Lords opposite seemed to accuse the Government of wishing to use the Clause 6 directions to micromanage the company, we made it abundantly clear that it is a backstop reserve which we hope will never have to be used. Noble Lords opposite then simply used the direction clause to act to come forward with a series of amendments. Many of the issues had already been debated in the first five clauses, and there was a vigorous degrouping to ensure that we had many repetitive contributions. I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for 27 years. I recognise a filibuster when I see it. Last night was a filibuster.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 90A in my name. At the time that I tabled it, it was a simple little amendment at the fag end of a Bill. Instead, it is now an amendment that threatens to be hated by my own Front Bench and is obviously getting between many Members of the Opposition and whatever they have in mind before they can execute it. But I want to speak to what I think is a very sensible little amendment. Great British Energy has an important role; it has considerable public investment behind it and there is, probably across the Committee, agreement that the reporting requirement in the Bill—that GBE would be required only to submit a normal Companies House report—is simply not enough.

With the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I tabled Amendment 116, which we discussed earlier in the course of the Bill, which gave an objective to GB Energy, as part of its strategic objectives set by Government, to help to deliver the statutory targets for both climate and biodiversity enshrined in the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act. The Minister promised to reflect further on Amendment 116 between Committee and Report—which assumes that we will eventually finish Committee, which is highly doubtful as we are progressing at the moment.

As a minimum, the Bill should require Great British Energy to report on its achievement of the Secretary of State’s strategic priorities for GBE, including the climate and biodiversity targets, as well as on the progress of community energy. It would be rather strange to determine strategic objectives for GBE without requiring it to report on progress on achieving them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it has just gone 10 pm. We are just over half way through the Government’s stated targets for this evening. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said, it is highly unlikely that we can finish another eight groups any time soon.

It is a firm convention that the House rises at 10 pm between Monday and Wednesday, and there has been no agreement to the contrary. We have had, thus far to date, one and a half days in Committee against a committed three days. This is a significant Bill; £8.3 billion worth of taxpayers’ money is going into it. We owe it the scrutiny that such public spending, rightly, should deserve. I ask the Government Chief Whip whether he will resume the House now or fairly soon after.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

Will the Opposition Chief Whip take an intervention? I just want to point out that there have been two and a half days of scrutiny and not one and a half days. She is not correct.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think that the noble Earl was not listening to me. I said that, to date, we have had one and a half days of scrutiny, and tonight would make two and a half days. The Government committed to three days. That was the point I was making.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I do not know why we could not have had those discussions in usual channels. I have been around all along today. No one has come near my office today to have this discussion—no one at all.

As I said to the noble Baroness—I spoke to her last week and at the weekend—we need to make progress on this Bill. It is an eight-clause Bill. When we started the first day in Committee, we had 13 groups of amendments. When we started today, we had 18 groups of amendments. We have seen lots of filibustering going on today. We need to make progress on the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I am sorry, but I absolutely was. Every time, we would get to Report stage and if we did not like something, we would defeat the Government, as we did many times, but we never sat there filibustering and wasting people’s time. It is not on. We need to proceed with the discussions tonight and see how much further we get.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot agree. The Chief Whip is absolutely right that we had discussions on Friday, in which we did not agree, and so no agreement was had. In light of there being no commitment from the noble Lord, I beg to move that the House do now resume.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

All I can say in response to the noble Baroness is that we have tried to get agreement on this. The House needs to continue with this important work and scrutiny. I oppose the Motion that the House should now resume.