Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Lords Hansard - part three
Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 47. This is the last amendment to be debated and I call it the lifebelt amendment. Since 4 pm—with a couple of breaks in between, but nearly seven hours ago—the Government have heard of all the things that are possibly wrong with this Bill. There are problems with the terms of reference; problems with the setting up of the committee; and the abdication of power by the Government to the committee. My noble friend on the Front Bench has heard expert opinions from both the legal and the veterinary side about the difficulties that this Bill could pose. The zoologists are equally concerned that the terminology in the Bill is so wishy-washy that it will be very hard for some decisions to be made accurately.

I drafted this lifebelt amendment, which proposes to give the Government time for considered thought about the Bill. Yes, my noble friend has got his Bill; he has fulfilled his instructions from on high and defeated every amendment. But having got his Bill, would this not be a sensible time to set up a committee to look at the unintended consequences, of which so many have been raised, before the Bill is enacted? This would give the Government a chance to have a look again if they were persuaded, on the evidence of the committee, that the Bill ought to be redrafted in a different way. I totally applaud the sentiment behind the Bill. We want it, but we also want one that is right, so I offer my noble friend a lifebelt at the last moment. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, this seems quite novel as an amendment—to try, once a Bill has gone through Parliament and become an Act, to judge it afterwards. It is a novelty that I find perhaps rather difficult. I share the noble Earl’s thoughts about some of the issues around the Bill, but this is probably overly bureaucratic and, if we believe in Parliament, probably not the best way to move forward on this occasion—despite the great respect I have for him.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I support the comments of my noble friend Lord Lucas in moving the amendment. I also listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden. I hope the Minister will read his speech with care, because what he said was hugely important to the proper functioning of our aims.

I turn Amendment 48, in my name, which would amend Clause 6, entitled “Environmental targets: review. I wish to amend subsection (3), which relates to the “significant improvement test.” The clause says the test ticks the boxes if it

“would significantly improve the natural environment in England.”

I do not think “improvement” is good enough. It is not sufficient, as it provides no condition or basis by which to judge the improvement. I take it for granted that my noble friend does not want to encourage a “trash and improve” system, but that is what is going to happen unless this amendment is accepted. An approach like that would be detrimental to biodiversity and the natural environment. Therefore, I have proposed what I think is a much more sensible and appropriate wording. Instead of “improve the natural environment,” I want to insert

“improve the maintenance, restoration or enhancement of the natural environment.”

There are many places where the natural environment is in very good condition at the moment. No significant improvement test will be met when it is in good condition now. But if it is maintained in an excellent and pristine condition, it should meet the significant improvement test.

I hope my noble friend will give more consideration to this amendment than he gave to my comments on the last amendment.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who is dedicated to these issues. I want to speak to Amendment 34, which I put my name to. First, I offer my support to my noble friend Lord Addington, who constantly fights against silo management within government and makes sure that the health aspect is always included in these debates. I also want to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, whose comments I found particularly interesting. As he so eloquently said, the recent meeting between the secretariats of the United Nations climate change organisation and the biodiversity secretariats was a landmark one from which very important lessons can be learned.

Environment Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I think we can count that as the best joke of the Environment Bill Committee so far, so I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for that. I had not intended to speak on this amendment, so all I shall say is that this is a very important issue. It is probably dealt with more specifically and better later in the Bill, but I very much support the thoughts of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the late Lord Ridley of Liddesdale would be as disappointed as I am that, last year, no English river met the highest chemical standards and only 15% of UK rivers were rated as having good ecological status. That was not the intention when we privatised the water companies in the 1980s. But the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, was absolutely right to say, notwithstanding what I have just said, that the rivers are in a great deal better condition now than they were 30 years ago—and the water Act of the mid-1980s was responsible for that. The rivers would be of better quality now if the National Rivers Authority had continued in existence by itself and not been merged with the Environment Agency. That part of the Environment Agency has not been nearly as effective as it was when it was a single authority.

This is a hugely important issue, and we shall come to it in some more detail. I totally agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said. The issue of water is much wider than just water quality; it includes the whole water environment, abstraction and pollution. To prioritise water, as this Bill does, and then to talk particularly about water quality, defeats the object that the Government are trying to achieve, which is to raise the quality of water across the board. Therefore, although I support the principle of what the noble Duke is trying to do, I hope that it will be dealt with at a later stage rather than at this stage.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure and a bit of luck for me to follow two such powerful speeches from my noble friend Lord Blencathra and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I agree very much with what they said. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, that this is a devolved matter. For the UK Ministers to consult but then set regulations in this Parliament would be quite contrary to any devolution settlement. I was very surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, did not pick that up as she is a stalwart defender of the rights of Northern Ireland.

I agree with my noble and learned friend about the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, that this is merely consultation. It is not—this is hard regulation. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the fishers in Wick 110 years ago remember Grimsby and Yarmouth without much pleasure, as they suddenly introduced bigger and faster boats than the Wickers had. The fishing industry in Wick suffered horribly from the activities of Yarmouth and Grimsby, but that is history.

The noble Baroness who moved the amendment, which has good intentions but is very faulty, gave no real justification for why 65% should be the figure. I think she woke up one morning and thought, “That’s a good idea; we’ll try that one.” There is no justification for 65%. It made me wonder what I would I do if I were the French Fisheries Minister. I see that the Brits are now getting very protectionist; they want 65% of their catch. How would it affect our fishing fleets if the Europeans said to all their boats, “You can land your catches only in EU ports—you can’t land them in UK ports”? That would do huge damage to our fisheries, reducing their flexibility and the economic benefits that they currently produce for all our coastal towns, which we all want to see improve and provide better economic opportunities than they currently do. It is quite clear in Clause 16(1), covered by this amendment, that this relates to non-UK boats.

Another thought that struck me was: if this clause comes in, will we return to something like the klondykers of the 1980s and 1990s? When I was Fisheries Minister, I remember going up to Ullapool and seeing those big Russian klondyke boats in Loch Broom. We would potentially return to a situation where you have one big British fishing tanker taking fish from all the smaller boats, bringing that back to the UK and claiming it as the landing of the catch. That would be a retrograde step.

All my other points have been covered, but I want to stress one briefly mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. She said that, besides the 50% landing at the moment, there are other economic links. This amendment does not cover any other economic links. It takes out just one of the economic links that currently exist and distorts it. Huge difficulties could result from that. It is worth remembering that the vast majority of UK vessels already meet the landing requirements; I think the current figure is 99%. But, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said, it is so variable; it depends on weather conditions and on the sea—and the fishermen require that flexibility. I cannot support the amendment.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, what interesting speeches. I get the impression that almost all those who supported us leaving the European fisheries policy would have had their speeches applauded by Michel Barnier, a previous French fisheries Minister, whom we spoke to in the European Union Committee, particularly the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I do not want to take away the fire of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on some of this, but let us go through some of the points.

First, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, asked in Committee about facilities: could we actually cope with landing more fish in UK ports? What a question. During Committee stage, one of the people I spoke to—I did not know he was coming but he happened to be here—was the chairman of the harbour commissioners of Newlyn, one of the largest fishing ports in England, although still dwarfed by the Scottish ports. He said to me, “If I had just one or two more of these foreign-owned, British-flagged vessels into my port, it would make a huge difference to me and what I am trying to achieve”. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that if we could give the UK fishing ports, particularly the English ports, that challenge, they would love to have those vessels here.

The point was made about this Bill being a framework Bill. I am sorry, but it does not say that. Surely, as parliamentarians we want to be able to affect the key issues, to make changes and to have policies that are better and amendments that improve Bills. We are not here just to have framework Bills. If we think something is of crucial national importance—and this is—then we should be able to debate those amendments and decide whether we accept them.

On devolution, yes, there is an argument there, but if the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, really feels that there should be complete devolution of fisheries issues, he should have voted against the Bill at Second Reading, because the whole Bill is completely concerned with devolved issues; therefore, some of the amendments will be as well.

As for the landing obligation, yes, we have one, but what have the Government done about it over the last few years? It has not changed and there are a number of opt-outs, so some of those economic links will still be there. However, it is vital, surely, that we look at the most important ones, those that actually protect or improve our coastal communities and our fishing industry. We can ask ourselves why the fishing industry has not strongly campaigned for this. I remember going, soon after the Brexit vote, to a fisheries conference elsewhere in London where I raised this point with the main fishing trade associations, and they did not really want to discuss it. Why? Because their members are primarily owned by foreign owners, so it is not particularly in the interest, certainly in England and Wales, of the main fisheries representatives to argue this.

Let us remember that some 55%, by value, of our fisheries are fished by foreign vessels owned primarily by Spain, Iceland and the Netherlands. Those interests are there; what we are trying to do here is to defend all those people who are excluded: the coastal communities we are talking about do not have a vote and do not have a piece of the action at the moment. We are trying to improve that. That is why this amendment is so important and why I back it. In Wales, the by value figure is 85%. One foreign-owned vessel, as I understand it, has 85% of Welsh quota. This is a real issue and it is absolutely appropriate to deal with it in the Bill. What I particularly like about the amendment is that it actually says that something has to come out of this consultation—the 65% or more—but it allows the fishing authorities to make exceptions, such as where the long-distance fleet has to land, perhaps.

Interestingly, Norway has been particularly mentioned. What are the statistics on Norway? Norwegian interests own 100% of Norwegian-flagged vessels, so Norway does not have this problem; indeed, Scotland hardly has it either. In many ways—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on this—we are being global Britain: we are claiming back, as an independent coastal state, rights over our economic zone and our fish stocks. We are putting them out for sale to the world and the world is enjoying the benefits of our biomass and our marine stocks.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness [V]]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. My instinct is to support this amendment wholeheartedly, because I am a great believer in environmental sustainability, but we must also look very carefully at sustainability, because in all our discussions sustainability has rested on the three pillars: economic, social and environmental. If we change our understanding of that, it will affect not only fisheries but also every other industry.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, gave the game away completely when he said that it should be introduced to every other piece of legislation. I do not think that this House has given enough thought to that. If this amendment is accepted, it will become a precedent for the Agriculture Bill. That will mean that the son of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, will now be told that he cannot farm a certain crop because it is not environmentally sustainable in the way that people would like it maintained. It will mean foresters being told that they cannot cut down trees because it is environmentally unsustainable to cut down a tree when that will happen anyway through natural regeneration. There are huge complications that we have not considered if we alter the balance now, because this will go into legislation and become a very firm precedent for the future. That gives me great concern.

I strongly believe that the environment should be given priority, but it must be in a way that respects the other two legs of the sustainability stool. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern said that, legally, this is almost impossible. We are in a real quandary here. I hope that, between now and Third Reading, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, can get together to achieve what I know they both want. We are all on common ground regarding where we want to get to, but the wording of this amendment will cause us problems.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, also mentioned the effect on coastal areas. If suddenly a report said that fishing must stop in a certain area since environmental sustainability was the prime objective, the effect on that area socially and economically would be immense, and the Government would not be able to mitigate it in the way that they could as the Bill is presently worded.

Although I support the spirit of this amendment, I cannot support it in the way that it is worded. My noble friend Lord Lansley was right to highlight the question of “fishing fleets must”, which is a wording that we are not used to in legislation. I do not see how that can be implemented. I look forward to what the Minister says and hope that we can reach a common position on this, rather than bringing into law something that we may all regret in a few months’ or years’ time.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, if I may just respond first to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, this amendment does exactly what he asks. It gives priority to environmental sustainability, but the other elements are there as well—so, bingo, we are there. We do not have a Content Lobby, but if we did, the noble Earl would need to go through it.

I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Cameron of Dillington, on their amendments, both of which I put my name to. The irony in this debate is that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, are arguing for the old-style common fisheries policy. What they are asking for is exactly what the CFP did. It gave a range of options to politicians—Commissioners or the Council of Ministers in that bun-fight that happened every December—which allowed fudge in decision-making about future quotas and fishing rights over the next year. They could look at some other objective or reason and decide to take an easy way out, forget environmental sustainability or put it second, third or fourth, and go for a short-term decision on fisheries.

And what was the outcome of that? We have hugely depleted stocks in our own EEZ and globally, because of all those fudge factors. Tell me an organisation that can survive with eight objectives but without anything being said about which is the most important. You cannot do that. You must have some idea of what the priorities are. None of us could run our lives on that basis; it would be impossible.

I come back to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, when he criticised the word “prime”. I did Classics up to O-level—pause for a “wow” from the Chamber—and “primus” means first. We know what “first” means, and it does not push the others aside. We have a first Secretary of State in the Government but that does not mean to say that the other Secretaries of State are all redundant; they are not. It is just giving a priority.

We also know, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said, that if we do not have environmental sustainability first, then everything else falls aside; it just goes away. Sometimes we have zero quotas, as I think the Minister said earlier about my first amendment, and they are dealt with by finding ways around them, either with financial compensation or otherwise. That means those stocks, the health of the industry and jobs in those coastal communities are there for the long term. That is why this is inarguable; you cannot have it any other way than that environmental sustainability has to be a prime objective. That would not get rid of the rest of the objectives; they are in the Bill for us to see.

I want to take a point that has not been mentioned: devolution. We are told by the Government that this House is not competent to amend the Bill because of devolution; we are going through this process for no reason at all because everything in it is devolved. The Government have brought a Bill to us that they may have agreed with the executives but, as I understand it, it has not gone through any of the democratic assemblies or parliaments of the nations. We have been given a Bill that we have to make decisions on. The Government cannot put a gun to our head and say, “Because we have done a deal with the other executives, the Bill can’t change at all”. If the Government hold that view, they should dissemble this Bill, bring an English Bill to this House and let the assemblies and parliaments have their own fisheries Bills. That is the solution. However, we do not have time for that because we need to get this right and we need to do it before the end of the year when we move out of the transition period. All we can do is ensure that the Bill is right and protects the industry and our marine environment for the future—for the long term as well as the short and medium terms—by making sure that the amendment is passed.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Monday 10th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much agree with the amendment. I have backed similar amendments to other Bills. Unfortunately, we did not manage to get any further on it. It is Liberal Democrat policy that we should get unabated coal out of the energy generation system by 2025—to me that seems an eternity. One of the key things that would do, as this amendment would do, would be to stop long-term investment of any size in unabated coal generation and facilities. That seems to me an absolutely fundamental prerequisite, not only of meeting our carbon budgets, but of ensuring we meet our international obligations, such as on air quality. It will be very difficult to continue to lead on climate change—as we do and as we want to continue to do into the future—if we have a continued electricity generation industry based on coal for the long term.

There are all sorts of other ways to do stop that reinvestment. We have rehearsed these arguments many times before. It is the Chancellor’s and the Treasury’s wish that we should have gas investment at a reasonable level in this country over the next few years. Of course, the more we take the risk of encouraging coal to reinvest into the future—we do not know how much of that will happen but some of it already has—the more we will crowd out investment in other technologies. I suspect that the Minister will not accept the amendment, unfortunately, but I know that a number of Ministers and people in DECC understand the importance of taking coal out of generation. I hope that the Government will one day come to a single view that this needs to be done.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, we were treated yet again to an exposition by the noble Baroness on a matter that we debated at length and voted on last year on the Energy Bill. Here we are doing it again. If the noble Baroness and her party had really wanted to meet some of the targets then they should not have flapped around like wet hens in a thunderstorm when they were in power and got on with doing something about nuclear. As a result of this Government, the energy programme is taking off in a way that it should have done a long time ago. We all agree that we want to get coal out of the system. It is about getting the timing right for that, without creating extra costs for the consumer and without switching the lights off. The coal power stations have to meet the new directive on, I think, 1 January 2016. This subject has been debated long and often and we have voted often. We will obviously continue to do so, but thankfully we are now heading in the right direction. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will not accept the amendment.

Energy Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I want to reinforce the comments of my noble friend Lady Parminter. One of the great challenges of the electricity supply industry is to de-peak its supply. One of those is demand side, but the other is very much around alternative sources of supply. Energy storage is not really where it needs to be at the minute, but interconnection is a technology that has been around for decades. It works and we should multiply it. I know that the Government have a number of schemes that they are looking at currently. I welcome those and congratulate them on being so proactive in this area. I hope that the Government and the Minister will be able to propel this even faster and further by taking notice of my noble friend’s amendment.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, while I support in principle what my noble friend Lady Parminter is trying to do, I am concerned about her wording. The idea that a Government should prepare a strategy, and then that is it, leaves a lot of questions begging. I suppose the Government would have to implement that strategy, but the amendment does not specify that.

My noble friend Lady Parminter will recall the evidence we heard when we were on Sub-Committee D together. Therefore, perhaps this is a good opportunity to ask my noble friend the Minister a couple of questions regarding what progress has been made with the energy infrastructure regulation, in particular the PCIs, so that that can be implemented. It is no good, we discovered, having one side that was keen to do an interconnection if the other side was not.

That leads me on to the seemingly constant battles between the regulators in each country. We had evidence from the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity about that. Has there been any progress between the regulators? If there has, that would make future interconnection much easier.

Energy Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Jenkin has yet again put his finger on a hugely important issue, but it is a little bit of motherhood and apple pie. We all want competition and there is no disagreement about that. Indeed, the Bill is all about competition, and the Government’s policy that has already led to more competition. It is worth remembering that in 2000 there were 14 major energy suppliers, but by 2010, within 10 years, they had shrunk to six. In the past two years, seven more energy suppliers have joined the market. The mere fact of what the Government are doing has already started to improve the position with regard to competition. Therefore, the question is: how do we expand that without in any way damaging the Bill?

This part of the Bill covers the trilemma which I mentioned on the first amendment that we debated. It covers the core matters of decarbonisation, security of supply and least cost. It is a very difficult balance to get right. As such, I think that this part of the Bill was quite well framed. It seems to be the wrong place to bring in something about competition when the whole Bill is about competition. It could also open up opportunities for other amendments such as securing the efficiency of the rural economy by having cheap energy. There are many other things you could add to this list once you start to move away from the core principles.

That leads me back to the question of how we get more competition without damaging the Bill. I would ask my noble friend Lord Jenkin: what is the situation where there is little competition? I am particularly keen on tidal energy. Living beside the Pentland Firth for the part of my life when I am allowed out of this place, I think there is huge potential for energy generation there. However, if I set up an energy company to try to exploit that, and the noble Lord down in Sussex set up a company, would he be able to say that he did not get a fair crack of the whip because there was not enough competition? If that is the case, what happens if he goes to judicial review on the wording of this amendment? That will only delay matters. My real concern is that we might be introducing something here that could delay the much-needed investment about which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and I were given a lot of evidence when we sat on the sub-committee together and which he has expanded on tonight. I agree with him totally.

My concern is that this opens up the potential for a legal challenge. What about nuclear? As I said on Amendment 1, we were the world leaders, but now we have to go overseas. Can that be a possibility for a legal challenge? I would say to my noble friends Lord Jenkin and the Minister on the Front Bench that, since we all agree on this, can we somehow get it into the Bill? This is the wrong amendment in the wrong place, but the principle is absolutely right. Can we have a form of wording that gives effect to competition but which does not open loopholes that those who dislike a particular form of energy or want to delay a scheme could exploit to the disadvantage of all?

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I do not want to speak specifically in favour of the spirit of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the vertical integration of this industry. It has seemed to me over the past 12 months in particular that there has been, if I may say, a growing corporate arrogance in the energy industry. Power seems to have gone to the heads of many of those six organisations. They feel that they can do what they like to their own customer base and that they do not have to pay much regard to democratically elected Governments or Parliaments, let alone your Lordships’ Chamber.

I was particularly struck by this one evening when I visited my 94 year-old mother. She had just had a letter from British Gas which said that she would have to pay an increase of 10% on her bills for the year. Then it kindly went through—in very small type, which was not easy for a 94 year-old—all the reasons for the rise. It gave as the top reason, the first on the list of bullet points explaining why energy prices had gone up, not one of the reasons that we know are actually the reasons for the price increase; instead, it blamed the Government. It is a dual fuel tariff, so the charges are affected by the various bits of government legislation. I think that reflects a real arrogance. It is very difficult indeed to fix this competitive area, as noble Lords are trying to do. It is time to think what has previously been the unthinkable and say, although perhaps not tonight, “Yes, it is credible that we split supply from production”. That should be seen as a real way forward.

However, we have another problem, which leads to the arrogance that we are seeing within the industry. The companies know that we know that some £100 billion needs to be invested to keep the power lines going to make sure that we keep the lights on in terms of capacity. That is a dilemma for any Government. Nevertheless, we should start thinking what has previously been the unthinkable: that this arrogance is not acceptable. We expect them to be more responsive, not necessarily to us but certainly to their customer base and to the nation in terms of their pricing strategies. They should know that if we cannot solve the competitive issues, that split could indeed happen.

Energy Bill

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I support in principle what my noble friend Lady Parminter is proposing in this amendment. The evidence that we got in Sub-Committee D was that interconnection throughout Europe needed a great deal more money spent on it, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has told us. It needs to be improved, but that is a two-way process. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, referred to some of the difficulties and I recall those being adduced to the committee.

My concern with this is therefore: what is the point of the UK producing a strategy when nobody else is producing one? We can produce a strategy and the Government can be questioned in the House about it, but if the French are not altering their system so that we are compatible and one can move the electricity to and fro, or if the problems have not been resolved with Norway—as was highlighted, there was a problem getting a connection with Norway or with the Danes—it seems a little pointless us having a strategy. Surely this ought to be done within the EU context. However, my noble friend Lady Parminter and the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Whitty, have the advantage that since I have left Sub-Committee D, they interviewed the Secretary of State. Although I have read the transcript, I would hope that they can enlighten us on what the Secretary of State had to say on our report, which we will discuss in more detail on Monday.

In some ways, I support the principle of great interconnection, although there will be problems from time to time. I know that the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, is more secure about the vote in September next year than I am. I wonder whether there is a way of preventing nuclear energy getting into Scotland because Scotland will not want nuclear energy from England. Can we adapt the grid so that one cannot get nuclear energy; it would only upset the Scots?

[Lord Teverson]

I rise to speak to my Amendments 55AA and 55AD, as part of this group, but perhaps I can come to the interconnection amendment of my noble friend Lady Parminter first. It seems to me to be blindingly obvious that this is something that we should do. I note the comments of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, who may be asking the right questions but he is being slightly too negative. A strategy does not cost billions; implementing it costs billions. When talking about investment in electricity generation, network costs, and so on of potentially £200 billion, looking sensibly at a major part of the jigsaw of interconnection is very important. We should remember that this amendment refers to the capacity payment part of the Bill, so this bit is not saying that we should run UK base load and rely all the time on interconnection. It is a common-sense look at the fact that European energy markets and individual national markets operate at different times, have their own characteristics and different peaks. Therefore, it makes a huge amount of sense to try to benefit from the synergies of capacity, weave them together and make the system work better. There are all sorts of problems with the energy market, but it does not stop the UK trying to make the best out of it, and then fit that within a broader EU strategy. I, too, look forward to the debate on Monday evening.

I move on to my own amendments and apologise to the Grand Committee for using a double negative. It is a probing amendment, trying to find out the Government’s thinking. I am trying to determine what is known as an eligible supplier in terms of the CFD market—someone who has a generating capacity outside the United Kingdom. I am not at all clear about this. I know that the Government have had discussions. We have mentioned Iceland and Ireland before but it would be useful to understand generating plants outside the United Kingdom. I am especially thinking about those that are dedicated to the UK, but there is a broader issue, which is maybe more difficult, on whether they can enter into contracts for difference.

I was struck by the Minister’s comments on the importance of price to the consumer. If we looked at it on that basis, clearly we should be buying internationally as much as we could in terms of bringing extra competition into the market and trying to bring prices down. Clearly we would not entertain CFD contracts that were more than that. Of course, there is the strike price. I would hope that with that extra competition there would be pressure on bringing the strike price down over time.

My second amendment, Amendment 55AD, would put a timeframe on the Government for making arrangements for such extraterritorial generation in order for CFDs to come on board. We often talk about offshore wind generation. This is perhaps the ultimate in offshore wind generation and other forms of low-carbon electricity. I look forward to the Minister’s response.