Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bellingham and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I make it clear that this is very much a probing amendment. I am trying to find out the Government’s attitude to how regions benefit from the development of offshore wind power.

We have a number of precedents here. We now have onshore wind development, which I very much welcome and which the Government are effectively permitting. Under the previous rules, it was almost impossible in England for onshore wind developments to take place. But it was made clear in very strong guidance that there had to be community benefit from onshore wind. It is very obvious that this is possible and not very difficult to do. A wind turbine or farm is planted in a particular location terrestrially in England, so it is quite obvious which communities are affected: the parishes around it. There is an onshore wind turbine just down the road from me, and two parishes benefit annually from part of that revenue stream. That works out really well; it is important and valuable, and, to a degree, it makes that generation part of the community’s effort towards the local economy. For those who do not particularly like wind turbines—there are not many of them in my local area—this is, if you like, a compensation and a way in which the local authority is rewarded.

Outside England, up in the most northerly parts of the British Isles, we have Shetland, which has its own wealth funds that came from the oil exploration. A very good deal was done by the local authority back in the 1970s, which I think ran out in 2000; it is not so good at the moment. Its wealth funds are related to a local authority, based on the oil development from around the Shetland waters. Again, it is fairly obvious geographically where those benefits should go. There is that precedent—and that system, with some warts, has worked relatively well.

Clearly, the major development of wind technology in future and at present is on the waves. Some of that is going out, such as the Celtic Sea floating offshore wind development. Those developments will be very large. However, even if they are beyond the horizon, which some of the floating offshore wind developments are, those regional communities are still affected by those developments because, as was pointed out on the last group of amendments, we need grid connections that land somewhere on the UK’s shore.

My proposition is that, given the consistency of policy here, there is an imperative and social justice in rewarding regions that have offshore wind coming into them because of developments away in their marine area. To be equitable both for regional communities and of easing the legitimacy of those offshore wind installations, there needs to be payback to those regional communities.

In this amendment, I have put some very general ways in which that would work. Clearly I have no expectation that the Government will copy and paste that into this Bill in future, even if the Minister thought that it was a brilliant idea—which I am sure he does. What I would like to understand from the Government is whether this is a way forward that they see as possible. How should that happen? Would the Government, the Minister and his officials work with us from these Benches to see how such a system could work? I beg to move.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I want to add a couple of very quick points. The noble Lord moved that amendment with great clarity and put a strong argument. The angle which I am coming from is the county where I live and which contains the constituency that I once represented, North West Norfolk. Norfolk is host to a number of onshore installations related to the offshore wind industry. Indeed, off the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts a number of arrays generate a huge amount of offshore electricity. However, Norfolk is seeing the construction of a very large substation, another having already been completed. As a result of that substation, there will be the need to connect to the grid. That will entail the need for transmission. At the moment, it is going to be along pylons. There is a big debate about the possibility of putting it underground but, in any event, there will be a major infrastructure project.

The idea of these regional wealth funds makes huge sense. The community is obviously the recipient of renewable energy infrastructure that can have great benefits to local communities in terms of electricity and can also have an impact on the local environment. I am thinking particularly of the substations and pylons. Could there be a way to link what the noble Lord has suggested with the original fund to some amelioration of the impact on those communities? Perhaps the Minister can comment on that.