Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Lord Cameron of Dillington and Baroness Grender

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in favour of Amendment 18, not Amendment 28— to be clear. I regret that I was unable to be here for Second Reading.

This amendment inserts two additional objects for GBE. The first is to implement

“an emergency home insulation programme with targeted support for people on low incomes”.

The second is to have as a clear object

“the expansion and development of renewable energy and technology”.

I also support many of the amendments in this group, particularly those in the name of my noble friend Lord Russell. Most of my comments will address his Amendments 16 and 17, which, alongside the spirit of my own amendment, seek to promote an eco-friendly and affordable way to heat homes.

On these Benches we would argue that these amendments are essential if the welcome aims of the Bill are to be fulfilled; namely, to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, drive down costs for individual households and ensure long-term security of supply. Failure to give these two issues due prominence, especially when it comes to insulation, would be like running a hot bath with the plug missing. My amendment focuses on getting GBE to support and innovate on behalf of its customers, because GBE, like any other part of our society or any other organisation, should be working towards and contributing to net zero.

The UK has one of the worst records in western Europe when it comes to losing heat from homes—three times faster than neighbouring countries—resulting in exorbitant costs, poor health and a level of wastage which is breathtaking. The greatest impact of our older, damper, leakier housing stock is on those who can least afford it; and it particularly impacts on people who live in the private rented sector. While residents might be able to access help with insulation from their local authorities at present, that is not what this amendment attempts to achieve. It is about the rollout of a proper emergency home insulation programme—yes, for this winter but, above all, as a long-term measure to improve living conditions and drive down costs. I ask that the Minister particularly addresses our aim for an emergency scheme. The benefit is obvious and has been laid out by the Climate Change Committee in the past. Demand for energy can reduce if we deal urgently with the energy which is lost and seeping out of homes that are not insulated and are leaking heat.

The potential savings are significant. The New Economics Foundation estimates that £2 billion alone could be saved for the NHS from reducing cold and damp in current housing. In addition, home energy efficiency is highly necessary to get us to the net-zero target. Regrettably, according to the previous Conservative Government’s own Climate Change Committee, while the UK over recent years should have installed nearly 3 million individual measures in energy efficiency, the last Government achieved just under 16% of that target. This was such a wasted opportunity to help those who need it most, in the leakiest of homes.

The worst part of this historical record is the abandonment of targets for energy efficiency and insulation in 2015, allowing houses to be built without energy-efficiency measures at all. We urge this new Government to make this record of lost opportunities a thing of the past, and to adopt an emergency programme of insulation through the scheme proposed to support those on low incomes. While we are of course aware that the Government’s warm homes plan is due next year, if this Bill is intended to champion the consumer alongside the objective of energy efficiency, which is one of the best ways to help them, it should be included within this legislation, particularly given how far these programmes have, tragically, lagged behind and how much progress and catch-up now need to be made.

I ask that the Minister responds in the context of the warnings from Age UK and Disability Rights UK about the urgent and imminent impact of the changes to the winter fuel allowances. This is something that could be reduced as an impact, crisis and concern right now, if countless vulnerable pensioners were lifted out of fuel poverty with the emergency programme we have described.

Leading the way in previous years, my noble friend Lady Pinnock introduced an amazing scheme that I urge the Minister to look at called the Kirklees Warm Zone scheme—noble Lords may have heard her reference it once or twice in the past—that offers over 170,000 households support with an insulation programme, regardless of the tenure of the property. It was an award-winning programme over a three-year period, and the largest domestic insulation scheme in the UK. It is estimated that approximately 55,000 tonnes of CO₂ were saved in that period, and it helped to dramatically reduce fuel poverty and won many awards for sustainability.

In October, Wokingham Borough Council launched a new home decarbonisation advice service aimed at supporting residents who want to make their homes more energy efficient and reduce their energy bills. Eastleigh, as part of a much wider consortium of local authorities, secured home upgrade grants to help vulnerable households. I have given the Minister those three local government examples where there is such a strong appetite for the emergency action that we are trying to bake into this legislation.

The second part of the amendment would also reinvigorate an ambition that has fallen away in recent years for the UK; namely, to be a global leader in development and expansion of renewable energy, which many noble Lords have talked about in this group. This is an ambition, sadly, that the Conservative Government dropped like a wet, cold potato when they ditched—according to the Sun, not me—the “green crap”. This new ambition today should be baked into primary legislation. We should immediately remove the last Government’s restrictions on new solar and wind power. When it comes to renewables, we should be innovating and proudly leading. From insulation and heat pumps to wind, wave and solar, the UK is uniquely able to lead in this, in part because of the geography.

We are ambitious for what this Bill can achieve and, as a result, what the UK can achieve. We believe that investing in renewable power now will ensure that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by 2030. Innovation that is referred to in this amendment would include things such as a rooftop solar revolution, with strong incentives and a guaranteed fair price for electricity sold back into the grid, for instance.

Finally, this part of the amendment is connected to jobs that can be created in this area. I think everyone would agree that one of the best examples of that over a few years now is Hull, where the new blade factory with a recent contract worth £1 billion is yet another example of how growth in jobs can be generated through great innovation in this area. That is why the amendment refers to expansion and development: it is with these schemes in mind.

Our ambition as a nation must be to be a leader in this, and it should have no limits. I hope noble Lords and the Minister will support this amendment, its intentions and the spirit of the other amendments as the Bill progresses through Committee.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I do not believe that the Bill should be too specific on the investment targets of GBE. As I said in an earlier group, I believe that GBE should remain flexible and fleet of foot, adapting itself over the years to the development of science and changes in the marketplace.

Nevertheless, there is no harm in us discussing where we think some of the current opportunities lie. In that context, and in the context of the amendments in this group, I will touch on both heat pumps and tidal energy. Unfortunately, it was not clear from reading the script that the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, referred to hydrogen. Had I known this, I would definitely have been supporting his amendments, because I am very keen on hydrogen. It has a crucial part to play in our energy infrastructure, as a storage of intermittent power—as the noble Lord himself mentioned—as well as in the making of steel and in transport. Hydrogen fuel cell cars have a range of more than 1,000 miles. Hydrogen is a really important part of our infrastructure. As I said at Second Reading, I hope that GBE will support the hydrogen industry.

I turn now to heat pumps. Heating and hot water make up around 40% of the UK’s energy consumption and nearly one-third of our greenhouse gas emissions. I see a role for GBE not so much in individual domestic heat pumps but in community heat pumps—particularly where, to coin a phrase, we can use the heat under our feet. Many major population centres in the UK are above, or adjacent to, hot, sedimentary aquifers at, say, 500 to 2,000 metres depth, with temperatures ranging from 25 to 60 degrees and higher. These, combined with an at-scale community heat pump, have huge potential to produce heat for hundreds of thousands of homes, factories, hospitals and greenhouses. In Holland, they hope to meet 23% of their heat demand by 2050 using geothermal heat.

We have geothermal resources in the UK; we have the heat beneath our feet. We also have the drilling skills left over from oil and gas explorations to use in this nascent industry. The industry is poised to deliver growth, renewable heat and employment. It just needs a small amount of government focus and pump priming.

I turn to tidal energy and the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I strongly believe that it is imperative for the UK to play to its strengths in the whole energy field. One of its real strengths is its range of tides. While in Gibraltar, for instance, the tidal range is only about one metre, in the Solway Firth it can be eight metres or, in the Bristol Channel, 15 metres- plus. We also have tidal races around our shores and between our islands which flow at great speed and with considerable power.

Of course, tidal power is classed as intermittent, but it is guaranteed and predictable. We know now how much power we can produce from a given site between the hours of 6 pm and 7 pm on today’s date in 2124 because, if we build, say, a tidal lagoon now, we know it will still be producing electricity almost for free in more than 100 years’ time.

We have tidal races in our firths and between our islands but, to me, the most compelling solution for harnessing our tidal power are large, offshore tidal lagoons. Any site with a depth of between five and 10 metres, and a tidal range in excess of five metres, can produce guaranteed power. They are better than a barrage across a bay because you can have turbines all round, not just on one side. This means they are almost half the price per output of power. They can be any shape, with curves in any direction that can follow the required underwater contours to produce maximum return on investment. There are about 20 ideal sites around the UK coastline.

I come from southern England, as compared to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the other side of the channel from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. If noble Lords look up, they might be able to imagine a wall of water the height of this Chamber and several miles long. This is the sort of power that the Severn Estuary can produce four times a day. One lagoon in Bridgwater Bay alone—right next door to Hinkley Point, with its connections to the grid—could produce 1,900 megawatts. These lagoons do not have to be shut down for repairs. If a turbine—one of 20 or 30—needs servicing, it is lifted out for maintenance, while the rest just keep on turning.

As opposed to a barrage across an estuary, these lagoons do not upset shipping traffic in any serious way, because they sit at the side of shipping channels in the shallow waters. Furthermore, their environmental effect makes only peripheral difference to the course of the tide, migratory fish, wading birds and so on. They have the support of most environmental NGOs. There are numerous sites for these lagoons, from the north to the south of the UK. There is a seven-hour tidal difference between Bristol and Solway. If the tides are used on both flood and ebb, this gives an almost consistent baseload of power for England—and that is before we tap into some of the Scottish tidal ranges. Tidal lagoons as a whole could provide three times the capacity of Hinkley Point. We must play to our strengths. Tidal power is our natural advantage and I believe it would be well worth the focus of GBE.