Hinkley Point

Debate between James Heappey and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman; I know this is not his area of expertise, but he is absolutely right. I reiterate that this is a team effort, and the whole of the United Kingdom must benefit from it. It is iniquitous that we are buying electricity from France and the Netherlands; we should be producing our own electricity for our own people. The jobs and skills are interchangeable: the skills that a person learns as a steel fixer, a concrete pourer, an electrician, or anything else at Hinkley can enable them to go anywhere in the United Kingdom. Those people are trained to the highest level of engineering that we can achieve. The only thing that they cannot do is welding the nuclear flask, but they can do everything else, and that is important for our area.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

It is a delight to contribute to my hon. Friend’s debate, as he contributed to my debate on broadband yesterday. There is huge opportunity in Somerset for upskilling of individuals, and for businesses to upgrade their capabilities in order to contribute to the nuclear supply chain. It is important that those individuals and businesses are able to access the Hinkley programme, but does my hon. Friend agree that it is equally important that the industrial strategy for our region helps to deliver follow-on industries in Somerset and the south-west, so that those skills can be employed within our region, rather than seeing them move on with the nuclear caravan when the nuclear new build programme moves elsewhere in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank my hon. Friend; he has been an incredible advocate for nuclear, and has worked tirelessly. This has not been easy, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are creating something for the future, and it is going well. The Minister is fully aware of that, and of how much work has been done locally, both in North Devon and in Somerset.

For every nuclear job, we must create a non-nuclear one. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) covers Burnham and Highbridge—it is in his constituency, and on the border of mine—and it is important that we create jobs in Morrisons distributions, Wiseman’s milk, Yeo Valley dairy products and Mulberry handbags. The development at ROF Bridgwater in Puriton, the bomb factory, is 626 acres of industrial space, right on our joint border. We are making strides to ensure we keep that legacy going for generations to come. The Minister has been briefed on that, and is fully aware of it.

Some 95% of everything at Hinkley C is delivered right on time, which is an amazing statistic for an engineering job on this scale, and lends credibility to EDF’s belief that the next power station built in the UK can be done 20% quicker and cheaper than Hinkley. That is a phenomenal statistic. The cost of Hinkley C, as far as the British Government are concerned and as we all know, is locked into something called a strike price: how much we are prepared to pay for every volt generated. The price was agreed several years ago, and some people argue that it is high, but Hinkley was never planned to be a one-off. EDF is already well advanced with plans for Sizewell C, on the Essex coast, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wells has been a great advocate for that as well. That development will be, in effect, Hinkley C mark 2. It will offer the same job opportunities, as well as economies of scale, supply, licensing, and design. Those savings are likely to be reflected in the price that EDF receives for the electricity produced, but the financial risk—and this is important—remains primarily EDF’s, not ours. The experience of Hinkley C in Somerset continues to be critical for Britain’s nuclear future.

Hinkley could not have proceeded without the intelligent local authority support of Sedgemoor District Council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and I share. It was the council that negotiated the generous compensation from EDF, and we know that that there will be a community financial benefit when the plant starts generating power, because the Government have already promised it. It would be helpful if the Minister could provide some pointers about that; I realise that it is early days, but a bit more flesh on the bones is always helpful from any quarter, and the council and many others—including my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and I—would be very interested to hear about it. It was Sedgemoor that insisted on sensible traffic management, and Sedgemoor that smoothed out the planning obstacles without, most importantly, surrendering proper oversight. As I hope my hon. Friend would agree, Sedgemoor has been an exemplary council.

[James Heappey]

I do.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend assents from a sedentary position. Sedgemoor has significant experience, which all other English councils will wish to imitate when they deal with nuclear plants in the future, and I know that Sedgemoor would be happy to help. I just wish that Somerset County Council had the same enviable reputation. The unions at Hinkley tell me that there is now real concern about Somerset County Council’s financial problems and the impact those could have on Hinkley C. I realise that this is not the Minister’s direct responsibility, but it is important that he hears it. Somerset County Council is severely stretched; actually, it is almost broke. It is about to make savage cuts to essential public services, and it cannot afford—so it says—to finance new schools. There are also worries about threats to the learning and skills service. Hinkley’s job opportunities are attracting families to settle locally, which means a housing boom for our area and our county, but it could mean a crisis if there are not enough schools or public services.

I know that the Government are being lobbied hard by Somerset County Council, and badgered by its leader, to create a new unitary authority. This is not the time or the place to analyse what has gone wrong, but Somerset County Council’s attitude, I am afraid, is not helpful. It is already blaming Sedgemoor District Council for allowing too many new houses, which is absolute madness. As the Hinkley unions emphasise, where are the thousands of nuclear workers expected to live? That point has been made in this debate by hon. Members from all over the UK. I do not believe that incompetent financial management of the county should put any part of Hinkley’s future at risk. That would be bad for the United Kingdom, as the economic rewards of Hinkley are far too important to us all.

I have just returned from China, which I visited with a group of colleagues from the all-party parliamentary group on nuclear energy. We were guests of EDF’s Chinese partners, CGN. Its engineers have worked hand in hand with EDF to develop as a major nuclear player, as well as develop its own reactors, and we were taken to see the working EPR in Taishan. It is very good; it does the job that CGN set out for it to do. While we were away, we heard the sad news that Toshiba was abandoning its plans to build a new reactor at Moorside, near Sellafield. We know that Toshiba has been facing financial problems, but the potential loss of any new plant anywhere in the country is obviously serious.

The future cost of Hinkley, and all nuclear installations that follow, will be high. In the specialist field of energy production, quality, long life, efficiency and safety will not come cheap at the moment, but they will become cheaper. I thank the Minister for all his support.

Superfast Broadband Delivery: Somerset

Debate between James Heappey and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey]

My hon. Friend is ensuring that the Minister gets the message loud and clear, because that is one of the key questions for today’s debate. The remedial plan presented by Gigaclear already runs beyond the date that the Government have said that all available money for the delivery of phase 2 will be spent. Clearly, if Gigaclear’s remedial plan is accepted, the Government will need to be willing to extend the period over which the money is spent from 2020 to 2022. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some good news on that.

Given that only 40% to 60% of properties that were due to be connected by 2020 will now be connected by that time, we might also look at whether we should offer a voucher scheme to people who now find themselves in the 50% to 60% that will not be connected, so that they can take some sort of interim measure themselves. We did exactly that for those who were going to be in phase 2 or in the final 5% when the phase 1 delivery programme was rolled out; we offered voucher schemes of £500, so that people could take interim measures within their homes.

The second issue is the ongoing case for state aid, which we have spoken about a number of times. When the delay in the Gigaclear delivery was first announced, I was straight on local TV and radio, and speaking to my local newspapers, because I was very, very cross. My expectation was that my mailbag was about to explode and that I was going to be contacted by hundreds, if not thousands, of very angry people who were concerned that the broadband they had been waiting for for years and they thought was just weeks away was actually going to be years away again.

The reality is that I have had hardly anything, and that makes me wonder why. If I go back to my former employment, there is a very important part of the military planning process. When assessing the orders to be given in order to achieve a mission, we keep asking ourselves whether the situation has changed, in order to make sure that we are not problem-solving against a situation that no longer exists. I have come to realise in the last few weeks that the reason why so many of my constituents have not been in touch with me about the Gigaclear delay is that they have sorted themselves out.

They have gone to Openreach and put in place a community fibre partnership, or they have gone to companies such as TrueSpeed or Voneus that have cell-to-build business models. Those companies go out into communities and engage, they get 30% sign-up and then draw down the money from Aviva, which underwrites the delivery of the infrastructure, and they build the fibre into those communities. When the Gigaclear contract was delayed, there was complete silence from all those communities that were flashing red on the whiteboard in my office as those which most urgently needed broadband. The reason is that the market is already providing, and has already provided, for a number of them.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong point and is representing his constituents extremely well. I am old enough to remember, because I was here before this started with CDS, that we were originally promised a level, as he quite rightly said, and it has not appeared. BT, slightly duplicitously, is getting in behind and setting up in villages that we were not expecting to come on. They were going to come on with Airband or Gigaclear, which is the point that my hon. Friend has made, and have actually come on behind. We should celebrate the fact that BT is still opening up in some areas—I hope the Minister takes that point—as it is a good fibre system. I accept that Gigaclear has problems and I understand that, but we must not just put BT to one side, because its infrastructure is what they all use.

[James Heappey]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right: the market is delivering. Whatever the business model, and whether that is cell first and build second, I now have hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of TrueSpeed, Voneus and Openreach fibre-to-the-premise customers in my constituency—a situation that has been delivered through an open-market solution, within the area that the open market review had identified as requiring state aid.

A key question for the Government today is whether state aid is even legal in areas where the market has already provided. I am not sure that we should be using taxpayers’ money to subsidise the delivery of a competitor into an area where a commercial company has already set up. TrueSpeed is underwritten by Prudential. How absurd that we would be spending taxpayers’ money to subsidise the delivery of an infrastructure underwritten by one pension scheme while another, Aviva, has underwritten the money on a commercial basis without the need for taxpayers’ intervention. As the market has changed, we need to be very clear about whether we need to go back and look at the open market review again to understand where the market is now providing.

It is certainly the case that my constituency and those of my hon. Friends the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and my hon. Friends the Members for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) and for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) will benefit more quickly because TrueSpeed is working away from the transatlantic fibre link that lands at Weston-super-Mare. TrueSpeed has accessed that link to fibre and is fanning out from there. The delay in the Gigaclear contract is an opportunity for us to look again at whether the market has changed, and whether Gigaclear’s priorities need to be tweaked.

[James Heappey]

My hon. Friend is an excellent pacemaker—she runs slightly in front of me. I am coming to that point, but it is very helpful for the Minister to hear such things twice.

There is another part to the point about the change in the market and whether state aid is relevant. There is also the frustration that communities feel when they have got themselves motivated to bring in an alternative provider, such as TrueSpeed, Voneus or Openreach, and when they have fibre to the premise already, and yet their roads are now being closed and dug up with their tax money to deliver something that causes huge inconvenience to them while it is being put in, and which they have already got. A number of communities have written to me not to criticise the delay in the Gigaclear programme but to ask, “Why on earth are you still digging up our roads and blocking off our village when we have already got ourselves sorted and we have got it? Can we not have our tax money spent on improvements to our junction or a new road or something else?”

I know that is not how it works, but it certainly underlines the case for reassessing the priorities that Gigaclear has been set by Connecting Devon and Somerset, so that Gigaclear focuses on areas where we know the market will not be able to provide over the next 24 months, rather than focusing on areas, as is the case at the moment with its early areas, that are in direct competition, particularly with TrueSpeed. I am not sure that that is the most effective spending of Government money.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) pointed out, we have been given extra money by the Government to look at further broadband improvement in rural areas. There is a real opportunity to take the money that the Government have announced—I know that the Minister will be enthusiastic to remind us of the vast sums of money that the Government have made available to Devon and Somerset—and to add it to the £5 million-plus already available in gainshare from Openreach from phase 1 of the CDS roll-out, and the substantial additional money that is still to come as part of that gainshare, and look at where that combination of funds could be used as an intervention to deliver the final 5%.

We know now, by definition, what the final 5% is, because phase 2 delivers everything but the final 5%, so surely we can deliver that final 5% concurrently rather than waiting until we have connected the 95th percentile to get on with connecting the 96th through 100th percentiles. It seems to me that the money is already available. The gainshare is coming onstream very quickly. We have a real opportunity to get the whole thing cracked in a few years by taking advantage of what the market is now providing.

In some ways, we have an embarrassment of riches, because in some parts of Somerset we now have two entirely independent fibre-to-the-premise networks being dug in on very remote rural lanes, which is a slightly absurd situation. In small communities such as Badgworth, Biddisham and Lympsham, people will soon end up being able to choose which fibre-to-the-premise provider they want to use—not the internet service provider, but actually who is going to put the fibre to their front door. I am not sure that that is actually what taxpayers’ money should be being used for.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I remind my hon. Friend that places such as Exmoor and the more remote parts of Somerset do not have that choice. Gigaclear’s cheapest package, for instance, is £35, with an activation fee of £120. Sometimes we have no choice. I know my hon. Friend is fully aware of that, because he covers the Mendips, but it is worth reiterating to the Minister that there is a cost differential here that people have to pay.

Somerset County Council: Unitary Status

Debate between James Heappey and Ian Liddell-Grainger

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He was a county councillor, and so was fully aware of the situation—more so than any of us. I am delighted to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey), who I know had a pressing engagement, has made it here. He will recognise this point, because he wrote a devastatingly good article that follows on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil has said. My hon. Friend puts forward a good case that we must look at the debt, look at our options and look at our future. I will take that first point first, if I may.

My hon. Friend is right that it was the Liberals who created the debt—not the Conservatives, but the Liberals. We are now living with that legacy, but it has to be faced. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that it is our social services that are pulling us down. The problem we face is that we do not have enough money to take care of the neediest in our community.

The second point my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil makes, which I have made before and which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wells agrees with, is that we should also look to our neighbours. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells wrote a good piece about looking toward BANES, and I mentioned looking toward Devon. We have no parameters—we could look at either of them—but we need democratic accountability. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that if we are going to go through with any form of unitary, we need to have a referendum. If we need to look to the people of BANES to split up the ghastly edifice that is Avon and get our old county back, we will do that.

When Councillor Fothergill came to the House—he was very courteous; it was a very courteous meeting—I asked him directly about a referendum. He said, “I will hold negotiations or conversations with our stakeholders.” To me and to my hon. Friends the Members for Yeovil and for Wells, the stakeholders are our constituents. They are our stakeholders, not the Avon and Somerset police farce, based in Bristol, or the ambulance service, now based in Exeter, I believe, or the fire service, based wherever the heck it has got to now. We, the people of Somerset, are the stakeholders. That is who we represent.

I would like the Minister, if possible, to say a referendum should be held. We did not hold one in West Somerset. When I had to put my views gently to the Minister last week, I said that the majority of people who took part in what can only be described as a pretty desultory consultation were against that proposal, but they were ignored. I hope that will not be the format for the future.

I say to the Minister, please do not underestimate the ability of Somerset to fight back. We have done it once, and we will do it again. The last time was the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, which happened in my constituency, very close to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells. We marched on London. This time we are coming by train, so we will not get it wrong, and I assure the Minister that we will do what we have to in order to overturn this decision. I therefore urge him to think constructively about a great county such as Somerset. We have had our traumas, but we have a team that is blue throughout, and we want to keep that.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that, while a referendum is certainly the way to finish this process with full public support, the problem with referendums in recent years is that people have sometimes gone into them with incomplete information at their disposal? We must insist that the county council and the districts fully resource the analysis of all possible courses of action, so that a decision can be made on our future as a county based on all facts, rather than those selectively presented to engineer the outcome the county council desires?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I could not have put it better myself. My hon. Friend does a phenomenal job up on the north flank of Somerset. He is absolutely correct in what he says. We must take local opinion into account—not by saying in some waffly way, “Well, it’s quite a good idea,” but by saying, “A referendum must be held.” As I think my hon. Friend alluded to, his preference would be to go north and look toward BANES, if possible. We need to talk about that. It is no good the county council leader’s turning up in the House of Commons to try to persuade MPs of a course of action.