Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Eighteenth sitting)

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is trying to bring some colour to his remarks, but does he agree that alluding to acts of physical violence in something so important is not a brilliant plan?

[Dr Whitehead]

I would agree if that were not my metaphorical way. Of course I do not believe that the former Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is going to take the Minister into a cupboard and do him over; it is a metaphor that I hoped might convey some of the possible lingering influence of the right hon. Member for North East Somerset on our present considerations. I am sure that the Minister will want to put that lingering influence out of his mind when considering what to do today.

After all the work that has been done on getting this clause back into the Bill, I confidently expect the Minister to greet it with acclamation. He does not have to do any work on it now, because it is ready to go. He can proceed with a Bill he can be proud of through its remaining stages in this House.

Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage
Thursday 15th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

While I understand the argument that the hon. Gentleman is trying to prosecute, surely we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We are talking about how to sensibly protect the environment while establishing a broader regime for offshore wind, which has huge benefits for the environment. Can he understand that what he proposes might tip the balance towards making the perfect the enemy of the good?

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member makes a valid point. Certainly, we do not want to effectively veto the development of offshore wind by putting restrictions on it place by place, scheme by scheme, in such a way that those schemes cannot go ahead. However, the North sea and the Celtic sea, for example, are very large places. They have a great many sites that can be used for offshore wind development in a perfectly good and environmentally conscientious way, which allows for enhanced development to take place without trashing the marine environment. The issue is not whether we make the best the enemy of the good, but how we pursue the good in tandem with environmental considerations, while not stopping the progress of that enhanced development.

[Katherine Fletcher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again, and I will make this my last intervention. He has just described offshore wind as trashing the marine environment. I really do not think that we can leave that on the record. In fact, we could highlight the good about offshore wind development. One of the most destructive marine practices is bottom trawling, which is made much more difficult with wind turbines in place. Once installed, wind turbines actually create nursery environments for the marine life that I was so fortunate to study at university.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member would be absolutely right again, had I said that offshore wind was trashing the environment. I think that when we get the record back we will see that I said, “so that we can proceed without trashing the environment.”

[Katherine Fletcher]

There is an implication there.

[Dr Whitehead]

Okay. What I was trying to convey—perhaps I did not do so in quite the pellucid way I might have—was what we want to achieve with offshore wind development. As I have said, the Opposition are committed, along with the Government, to a huge increase in offshore wind, which we think can be achieved, most importantly, while taking proper note of the environmental considerations that surround those sites. As the hon. Member for South Ribble says, in the right places and under the right circumstances offshore wind can be, in the end, a substantial enhancement of the underwater habitat and environment.

Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage
Thursday 8th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

The amendment relates to clause 170, which is very much another stand-alone clause; it concerns smart meters, and nothing else in the Bill relates to smart meters. We think that there ought to be a rather more serious approach to the question of smart meters and their present position in the energy firmament than the clause provides. I want to amplify that for a moment.

Where we are with smart meters is nothing short of a creeping long-term disaster as far as the UK energy economy is concerned. I am sure that Members will be aware that the introduction of smart meters came about through a 2012 piece of legislation with a view to starting the roll-out in about 2013 or 2014. The Minister responsible for the 2012 legislation said that the roll-out would start in 2014 and would be complete by 2019, when we would have 100% smart meters across the country. Ever since the 2012 legislation and the beginning of the roll-out, there have been repeated returns to the legislative process, including the Smart Meters Act 2018, which among other things included various measures on the Data Communications Company, about which I perhaps should not say too much for fear of becoming upset.

The thrust of that Act was to extend the timescale during which there would be jurisdiction over the process by the regulator, various other people and the DCC from 2019 to 2023. And here we are in 2023, having a further go at doing exactly the same: extending the exercise of powers from November 2023 to 1 November 2028. It is as though, if we continue to flog the dead horse for another five years, maybe the horse will miraculously come back to life again and we will all have the smart meters installed.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I can speak from my own personal experience about why the horse is not dead and is benefiting from new technology. I wanted to have a smart meter and I could not, because the mobile phone signal was not good enough in the north of England. We have made great strides since 2019, so I think that horse still has a breath of life as technology, especially gigabit coverage, expands.

[Dr Whitehead]

My dead horse was perhaps something of an over-dramatic metaphor, but at the very least the horse is pretty sickly. That is partly because the smart meter wide area systems in the north of England are different from those in the south of England; the roll-out of smart meters in the north of England and in particular regions has been much slower and more problematic than has been the case in the south of England.

When we see the roll-out of smart meters now being 56% of all meters in Great Britain, the figure hides a number disturbing points, one of which I think the hon. Member for South Ribble will certainly want to worry about: that the roll-out in certain parts of Great Britain—strictly speaking, statistics are not provided on a regional basis, so I am citing evidence gathered by other means—could be as low as 30-odd per cent. in certain regions of the UK.

That is important not just because it is a good idea to have a smart meter that reads bills so that people do not have to continue to send their reading in, and not just because someone can look at their meter and see what sort of energy they have used and therefore can economise —although those are important things. One of the overwhelmingly important parts of the smart meter roll-out has always been and will always be the extent to which the smart meter network gives the country the opportunity to move forward radically with different forms of managing its electricity structures, including: a demand-side basis equivalent to the supply-side basis; ensuring that systems are resilient in terms of the information the smart meters are giving out; and enabling both prosumers and consumers to come closer together when it comes to what is going in and out of the smart meter via self-generation or other devices. There are all sorts of things, including half-hourly settlements, that will collectively make our energy system much greener, much better and much more resilient.

Indeed, the ability of smart meters to aggregate data—another area that we might want to consider—means they can read in real time the nation’s electricity activity. In the context of the roll-out of electric vehicles and all that goes with it, and all sorts of other things such as heat pumps, the ability to gauge in aggregate electricity demand at particular times, including where that demand may stress the system, means that activities can be undertaken that will divert from that and use the system much more effectively. That all depends on what is happening with smart meters and the information they give out. It is about—Daily Mail, take note—not capturing people’s personal information but capturing aggregate information that comes out of smart meter use as a whole. And that is where we are in a potentially disastrous position for the future, because the 55% roll-out does not mean 55% of all meters; as I have said, there are big regional divergences. I am very pleased that the hon. Member for South Ribble has got her smart meter in—[Interruption.] She has not.

[Katherine Fletcher]

Unfortunately, I have only an electricity one now, after the mobile phone signal was upgraded; the gas cannot take it, because of the construction of the house. There are a number of practical problems that we have to get over. The issue is not just consumer desire.

[Dr Whitehead]

Indeed. That was why I was pretty dubious about the 2G system, essentially, being used for this purpose in the north of the country. It is not fit for purpose and will not be fit for purpose in the future. It needs to be substantially revised.

[Katherine Fletcher]

No, we haven’t got any phone signal: not 2G—nothing.

[Dr Whitehead]

I think that underlines my point. It is not fit for purpose.

[Katherine Fletcher]

It doesn’t matter what G it is if you haven’t got one.

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes. The various retail energy companies that have been responsible for the roll-out have in many instances tried their hardest, but they have been overcome by the sort of obstacles that the hon. Member mentions. For example, in an urban environment, meters may be in the basement of a block of flats and then somehow the smart meter is supposed to communicate from the 7th floor to the meters in the basement—the arrangements between the meter and the householder. That is over and above the problems with radio signals and phone signals that there have been in the north of England.

The roll-out is 55% after nine years of active operation, so let us say that that goes on at the same rate, although it very probably will not, because we have captured all the low-hanging fruit as far as smart meters are concerned, and smart meters are getting more and more difficult to install.

Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage
Thursday 8th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

This summer, along with colleagues on the Science and Technology Committee, I had the opportunity to visit the Torus at Oxford—a particularly impressive site—and to hear from not only academic scientists but private businesses, and they were calling for this measure. Having seen as a little girl, and worked in, the nuclear fission industry in Sellafield, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that these are two completely separate processes. The stripping of electrons to produce a plasma—while nuclear, in that it is engaging with nuclear atoms in the centre—is not the same as splitting large amounts of, say, uranium and creating by-products that could be injurious to human health and require an enormous amount of regulation, such as alpha and beta radiation. Does he agree that it is possible that in seeking to be mega safe, we risk choking off an energy source that could be the answer for all our futures, and one in which Britain is genuinely recognised as a global leader?

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member is right that the processes are quite different—I was about to put forward a few reflections on that—but they are not completely unconnected. As she mentioned, fusion is essentially about containing a very high-temperature process of the fusion of molecules into other molecules—

[Katherine Fletcher]

Plasma, yes.

[Dr Whitehead]

Into a plasma within a contained vessel. The processes of producing that plasma for the purposes of electricity generation are indeed very different from producing steam, effectively, for electricity generation through the decay of radioactive isotopes within a controlled reactor. However, what happens when that plasma is produced is that a very large amount of neutrons are released, which bombard the sides of the vessels within which the whole process is contained so that, over a period of time, the atomic structure of those vessels starts to change and there is considerable radioactivity contained within the vessels, which, when the site is decommissioned, would have to be taken down and probably stored in a repository in the long term because of its enduring radioactivity. The hon. Member is also right to say that the life of the radioactivity that is produced in the plasma process is a question of, among other things, tritium.

[Katherine Fletcher]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that an individual neutron is a body that can further emit a radioactive source? That cannot be true. Radioactivity, by its nature, is the smaller bits that come as a co-product. While I accept that there is a need to make sure that any industry is responsible and can look after itself, it is about making sure that the industry is being properly regulated, but perhaps not regulated as a fission nuclear site. I am sure he will agree that although the containment vessel is important in the process, it is actually about the generation of the electromagnetic fields that contain the plasma, which is the subject of much research at the moment and would prevent the problem he is describing—of neutron leaking into both the concrete and steel containers. Will he clarify that point? A neutron, in itself, can only decay into quarks. That is what the clever guys at CERN do when they smash things together at speed.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member is of course right to say that neutrons, in their own right, cannot produce radioactivity, but that is not what I was saying. What I was saying is that the process by which neutrons are released to bombard the vessel in which the process is contained indirectly produces radioactivity through changes in the structure of that outer casing. Perhaps I can inform the Committee briefly by setting out the description in a recent note from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which says:

“To produce usable heat, the neutron streams carrying 80 percent of the energy from deuterium-tritium fusion must be decelerated and cooled by the reactor structure, its surrounding lithium-containing blanket, and the coolant. The neutron radiation damage in the solid vessel wall is expected to be worse than in fission reactors because of the higher neutron energies. Fusion neutrons knock atoms out of their usual lattice positions, causing swelling and fracturing of the structure. Also, neutron-induced reactions generate large amounts of interstitial helium and hydrogen, forming gas pockets that lead to additional swelling, embrittlement, and fatigue. These phenomena put the integrity of the reaction vessel in peril.”

I think the hon. Member will be clear from that that it is not the neutrons that are the issue; it is the radiation.

[Katherine Fletcher]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

Indeed. The hon. Member makes an important point about where we connect and the facilities for connection, which I will consider briefly in a moment. This is also a substantial problem with DNOs, as we know from published data on local junction boxes and various other things. How long a local or a regional connection will take is determined by whether the system is red, yellow or green in terms of its local connections within the DNO network. We are seeing similar waiting times for smaller connections and the sort of large offshore connections that the hon. Member mentioned. Obviously, that is difficult in helping to ensure that onshore electricity is delivered as well as offshore electricity. That is one reason why the distinction between the high-level grid and the lower-level grid in the circumstances of our renewable, low-carbon future is not as great as has hitherto been the case.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun rightly draws attention to the fact that some Scottish-based offshore schemes are now being asked, on a point-to-point basis, to connect south of the border, because the facilities for delivering from those connections, were they to be north of the border, are not as good as they should be. Interestingly, the Government are presently considering a bizarre series of arrangements called marginal cost pricing, which will deter certain people from taking particular views about where they should connect because there will be a price differential in connecting. As I am sure the hon. Member will agree, the solution is not to start messing about with theoretical market considerations about who might connect where, but to build the stuff so that people can connect to it properly, where they are and where they want to be, with a certainty that there will be a connection in a short period of time and that what they have connected to gets to where we want it to be. Those are all reasons why the ISOP will be so important.

Through these amendments we want in no way to undermine, but rather to enhance, the substance of the ISOP. Our amendments, which are on page 5 of the amendment paper, seek to do several things regarding the structure and operation of the ISOP. First, we think that the ISOP should have oversight not just of the cabling itself, but of the cabling efficiency and loss reduction in cabling as it goes around the country. That is a potentially important issue for the future. I am sure that hon. Members know how much electricity is lost just by the transmission function.

[Katherine Fletcher]

I believe it is about 6% in standard main lines, which presents a huge opportunity for us to be more efficient with the energy we generate and transmit.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. I think the figure is around 6%—sometimes a bit higher—but part of the issue with that loss is not just the general inefficiency of the system; under certain circumstances, we are using cables for transmission that are much less efficient than they should be.

I visited—this shows the exciting things that I do as shadow Energy Minister—a test site of a highly efficient cable system. I will not mention the company’s name, but as far as I know it is pursuing a much more efficient cable system with a number of DNOs. When I got to the site, there was not very much to see because the cable had been buried underground; I was pointed to a field. There was, however, in the corner of the field, a hut in which calculations on how the cable was performing, and how it would perform in conjunction with other forms of cable, were being undertaken. I was able to see for myself an increase in the efficiency of the cable of about 15%, just by having that cable design as opposed to others.

It seems to me quite important that the cabling introduced to our new system be as efficient as possible. It needs to be clear to the companies that will put the closed cables in that that is what will be expected of them. That is why we would like an additional function to be added to the ISOP’s concerns: oversight of efficiency and loss reduction in cabling.

We have tabled other amendments, which concern the relationship with the DNOs. It is important that we do not make an artificial distinction in terms of what we are doing with the ISOP in the high-level system and others. I am afraid that the Bill, whether intentionally or not, appears to create that divide. The DNOs can get on with their activities, and the high-level grid will have a different system of governance and management. That is why amendment 96 would add

“and of distribution systems in conjunction with licenced distribution system operators”

to the end of line 3, in clause 119. Amendment 97 would add the same words. That would create a much better system of co-operation and collaboration between the DNOs and the new system operator.

I appreciate that we will not vote on new clause 37 today. It is important for the independent system operator really to be independent, and not a creature of either the energy companies or the Government, so that it has its own ability to look at the system, to produce recommendations and arrangements, and to oversee the development of the system as its own master within that.

We therefore suggest in new clause 37 that an independent advisory board be set up to ensure the independence of the ISOP. There are other ways of doing this, but we are suggesting one particular way of ensuring that the ISOP operates in the genuinely independent way that we all want it to in pursuit of the future of grids and connections.

I hope that the Minister and the Committee understand that our amendments and new clauses all seek to help with the ISOP. I hope that the Minister will respond positively by saying that there are different ways of achieving what we want to achieve with the ISOP’s powers, or that, although he might not be able to accept the amendments today, he is actively minded to have a good think about them. By the way, I am grateful for the note that the Minister wrote to me last night about the fact that the Government have done just that with one particular amendment to the Bill. That sort of process could easily be followed in such circumstances in future.

Draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Order 2022

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Monday 18th July 2022 General Committees

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I promise to be brief. Part of the technical consultation that the Minister has alluded to for solid walls is really important. Is there a major gain in preventing the latent heat of evaporation by putting a PVA coating on the outside of walls? Do we have to lose space from inside homes that may already be small to provide initial internal insulation? Does he agree that it was important to take time to ensure that the industry and different providers could work out how to get the most bang for their buck to move it forward?

[Dr Whitehead]

But we always knew that.

National Security and Investment Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the overall effect that shining a light on proceedings, and accounting for them, will have. She emphasises that it will be important for small businesses—I will come to the mechanisms by which this might be done—to see how effectively things are run and organised, ideally in their own interest when it comes to the question of turnaround in proceedings. I quoted one expert witness, but a number of them emphasised the point about turnaround and the problems that might arise for small businesses as a result of lengthy periods of consideration.

My hon. Friend emphasises what I want to emphasise, which is that the report under clause 61 does not enable anyone to assess efficiency and effectiveness. A reader of that report could look at what has occurred and what numbers have gone out, but it would not allow them to consider the efficiency with which those numbers have been arrived at. Our amendment would make that possible. The report under clause 61 would be on the numbers, but the amendment would make it much easier for a reader of the report to interrogate the numbers, and it would therefore add quality to quantity.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned quality and quantity. I have been reflecting on the fact that today is a relatively momentous day, with the first vaccines going into arms. The Committee is lucky enough to have with us the Minister, who has probably been up all night doing that. Although I appreciate that I am not quite speaking to the amendment, I wanted to talk about the quality and quantity of vaccination and of the Minister’s time.

National Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 3rd December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

I ought to explain to the Committee that the Opposition are under some multi-tasking pressures this afternoon, Mr Twigg. I should have been in the previous debate in the main Chamber on the future of coal, in my role as energy Front-Bench spokesperson for Labour. I managed to factor that job out to somebody else in order to be here in the Committee this afternoon, and I am sure that the Committee is delighted to hear that. Unfortunately, there was no such luck for the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting that our time is precious in the House. I, too, was hoping to be in the future of coal debate, to highlight the importance of the West Lancashire light railway. I thank him for bringing it to the attention of the Committee.