Revised Draft Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy (EN-1)

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I will say a word or two in the break. I first declare my interest and my involvement in alternative forms of energy. I very much welcome these documents and the commitment of the Government to making the changes that they seek.

It would be a foolish and irresponsible Government who did not recognise that the overwhelming majority of scientific advice is that climate change is happening and that mankind is affecting it. Even if that were untrue, a population of 9 billion and a shortage of resources will mean that most, if not all, of these actions would have to be taken in any case. The argument is over. There is no point in arguing; if you do not believe in climate change, you must just accept the population argument and the changes that will be needed to reserve and conserve the resources that we have. That means that those of us who are committed to this should also be careful to ensure that the cost of the change is as low as possible. Cost-effectiveness is crucial but it would be foolish to tell people that because they do not like the rise in the cost of electricity we should not allow it to happen. They will be much angrier if we allow the world to be endangered because we have not taken these steps.

Can the Minister confirm that there is a real need to get rid of several of the impediments to what we are trying to do? I note that the Government have already set up a group of specialists in the agricultural area to look at how impediments to agriculture can be removed. There are many such impediments here. For example, the economic advantage to the providers of overhead power lines of having a new power line militates against the much more sensible policy of restringing old power lines. It is simply to their advantage to have a large amount of new investment in those circumstances. There is a whole range of such areas which are not covered in these documents but could very much benefit the nation.

Someone said that offshore wind is much more popular than onshore wind. I chair an offshore wind company, and I will tell your Lordships why it is much more popular: because it is a long way away. Once you start connecting it onshore, though, a good deal of that unpopularity will return to it. We have to be pretty tough about the changes in the planning arrangements, and I fundamentally disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on this. We really cannot run our whole system on that basis; if we had done that in the 19th century we would not have had a railway, and if we had done so in the 18th century we would not have had a single canal. We have to recognise that we must build for the future, and we must do it as well as we can in the context of what we have, but we really cannot look backwards in that way.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but black carbon is a major concern that people ignore at their peril. It is particularly damaging to the health of people here and throughout the world. Unless we do something about black carbon here, we will not be able to help the Indians, for example. In that country, black carbon is a real issue for the health of its population.

That leads to me to answer a point that I hope the Minister will emphasise: of course we are doing more than other people, because we are taking the lead and because we want the physical and financial advantages of doing so. If we want to get other people to do it, we have to do it first ourselves. I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester that I am entirely in favour of co-operation with our neighbours, but if we want that co-operation we have to set the scene and the leadership example. My only concern about the coalition policy on this is that we have to recognise that this is above all a European issue, that we have to work within the European Union, that the EU is crucial to the future of this, and that a little less attacking of the EU and a little more support for it would make it very much easier to deliver what we need to do.