Energy Bill

Debate between Baroness Worthington and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for tabling these amendments, which are important and relevant at this stage of the Bill and I was pleased to add my name to them. I approach this part of the Bill with memories of the discussions that we have had in various planning Bills in recent times, particularly the Planning Act 2008. This Bill is clearly mainly about the promotion and regulation of energy, whereas from the planning perspective it was about the relationship of the town and country planning system to energy production. It is right, particularly when we are talking about high-level policy statements, that we should come to how the two systems interact, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing these amendments that allow us to do so.

The strategy and policy statement proposed in this part of the Bill is about the strategic priorities in UK energy policy, the intended policy outcomes and the roles and responsibilities of the people involved in implementing them. There has been a lot of discussion already on the Bill about environmental objectives, and the Bill is crucial, but the main debate is about the high-level environmental objectives of tackling climate change. Indeed, some noble Lords have suggested that the Government’s policy on this is unnecessary, wrong or over the top. The question that the noble Lord’s amendments raise is an important one: how far these high-level climate change environmental objectives should be at the expense of the local environment. This is a tension, it is a clash, and there is no point in running away from it. There will have to be balance and compromise, as there always has been, and it is right to discuss it now.

It is surely nonsense to sacrifice a considerable amount of local ecology and biodiversity in the interests of the global environment, but the further question that the noble Lord raised is how far we have to sacrifice the amenity aspects of the environment, as they might be called, which are far more subjective but, as I think the noble Lord said at the beginning of his speech, vital for people’s well-being—their spiritual health, I think he called it.

We are talking about landscape quality in particular and the value of that quality for scenery, recreation, ecosystems and biodiversity. We are talking specifically, though not entirely, about wild places—what might be called “wilderness”. The degree to which we have any wilderness in this country that compares with other parts of Europe or continents such as North America or Africa is arguable, but we still have places that, when you are there, certainly feel very wild indeed.

I remind the Committee of my registered interests in the British Mountaineering Council, the Friends of the Lake District, the Open Spaces Society and as a member of the John Muir Trust, to which the noble Lord referred.

These amendments raise important questions, including how far these issues of policy on what might be called the local environment—although “local” might encompass large areas—should be entrenched at the highest levels of policy-making, particularly in the strategy and policy statement, the SPS. The noble Lord went through his amendments in detail and I will not repeat what he said. However, I want specifically to refer to Amendment 49, which states that in addition to the statement and the report on the responses to consultation, which the Bill already states must be laid before Parliament, the Government must lay before Parliament,

“a statement setting out how the strategy and policy statement relates to other statements of government policy on energy, such as national policy statements and other strategic national policies including, for example, on transport and communications”.

I refer specifically to national policy statements under the Planning Act 2008, as amended by the Localism Act 2011. Six statements on energy have been approved by both Houses of Parliament. The first, EN-1, is the Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy. That alone is 115 pages long. The five further documents are on fossil fuel electricity generation, renewable energy infrastructure, gas supply infrastructure, including gas and oil pipelines, electricity networks infrastructure and a two-volume, hefty document on nuclear power. My question is: what is the relationship between these national policy statements and the new strategy and policy statement, which will all be agreed by Parliament?

The SPS is clearly intended to bring regulation of the gas and electricity market by Ofgem more closely into line with government energy policy. In November last year, we were provided by the Government with an excellent and extremely useful background note, the Energy Bill Provisions for Ofgem Strategy and Policy Statement. It states that,

“the SPS must contain: the strategic priorities and other main considerations of Government in formulating energy policy; policy outcomes to be achieved … a description of the respective roles and responsibilities of the Authority and the Government (and potentially others)”.

However, the Bill, at Clause 126(1), repeals the existing provisions concerning social and environmental guidance to which Ofgem must have regard when carrying out regulatory functions. The Ofgem review found that this provision was ineffective and we are told that it will be superseded by the SPS. The November 2012 paper states:

“The Statement replaces the previous Social and Environmental Guidance”.

That is okay, as far as it goes. The priorities and outcomes to be included in the SPS, according to the paper on the Energy Bill’s provisions, are to be,

“security of supply, affordability and low carbon”.

No one is arguing with that. It is fairly obvious that they are the basic three. The paper continues:

“As part of this, the Government will need to consider the guidance in the Social and Environmental Guidance that will be repealed by this legislation”.

I do not understand what that means. It is pretty vacuous and confusing. At the very least, a clear statement of what the Government intend as regards social and environmental guidance in the SPS is required before we allow the Bill to leave this House.

On a slightly peripheral issue, I am interested in whether the SPS might be a material consideration in planning applications, alongside all the planning guidance that is issued: the National Planning Policy Framework and the national planning statements on energy. Is it intended that the SPS will have any purchase at all on any other part of policy-making or decision-making apart from the regulatory system through Ofgem? If the answer is no, I would have to take that with a pinch of salt. If documents exist, people will use them and over a period of time they may well come to be found by a planning inquiry, for example, to have some value.

Does it also have any importance as far as licensing procedures and decisions are concerned for the approval of, for example, oil and gas exploration? Will the SPS be of any importance at all in, for example, licences for fracking for shale gas or anything else? I am trying to get at whether it is a very narrow document that is only about regulation through Ofgem, or will the Government accept that it will almost certainly be used in other areas?

Finally, I want to comment briefly on the role of the Secretary of State. I have huge admiration for the present Secretary of State for Energy, who seems to be a man of great competence and energy—if I can use that word—and is somebody I might follow into the jungle. But, the powers to be given to the Secretary of State—whoever that is—under the new system seem rather large. He will be responsible for compiling the statement of policy and strategy. He is already responsible for compiling the planning policy statements. Okay, those come through Parliament but he is still responsible for them. He is responsible for determining applications for development consent for all but the smallest energy-related planning proposals. It seems that he is the legislator, prosecutor, judge and jury, and no doubt when proposals are agreed he will be there urging them on as, I assume, not quite a clerk of works—but who knows?—and chief cook and bottle-washer. That really seems, in planning terms at least, an astonishing concentration of decision-making within one department and one Secretary of State. The checks and balances of good planning, and of good investment decisions, may be there if it all goes okay. If it does not go okay, then there may be problems to come.

Local environmental considerations are already firmly embedded in the national policy statements in the planning system. We may or may not agree with the details but they are firmly embedded there. Surely producers will make decisions—short and longer- term ones—based on regulatory regimes that they are subject to, themselves based on the SPS. Surely these environmental considerations should be embedded in the SPS as well.

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Judd and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for tabling these amendments. In terms of their underlying principle and the issues that have been raised, I have a great deal of sympathy with them. I was involved in the campaign to secure the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. I am a strong believer in the need to preserve our biodiversity and natural environment and the amenity of our unique landscapes. Both noble Lords were very eloquent in defending those unique and priceless assets, as they have been described, and raised interesting questions. I look forward to hearing the response from the Minister.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, highlighted the fact that we have considerable amounts of information in the public domain which guide where energy projects are located. Those are the national policy statements on planning, which are, as the noble Lord mentioned, considerable in their breadth and depth.