Debates between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Viscount Trenchard during the 2024 Parliament

Tue 17th Dec 2024
Great British Energy Bill
Lords Chamber

Committee stage & Committee stage

Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Viscount Trenchard
Viscount Trenchard Portrait Viscount Trenchard (Con)
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My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lady McIntosh that the Bill is defective so far in terms of parliamentary scrutiny and involvement. I have added my name to Amendment 51, so ably proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and my noble friend Lady Noakes. It requires the Secretary of State to prepare the statement of strategic priorities for GBE within six months. That is quite an easy target. Perhaps when the Minister thinks about this—of course, I am very optimistic that he will come back with his own proposal to deal with the lack of accountability—he could suggest a shorter timescale within which the Secretary of State might lay out the statement of strategic priorities. As has been said, at Second Reading many noble Lords expressed the view that it is a pity that that is not in the Bill.

I apologise to the Committee that I was not able to be present on the first day, when we discussed the objects which refer to clean energy but with little detail. It is very unclear, as other noble Lords have said, what Great British Energy is going to do and particularly how it will relate to other companies and entities in the same space.

I also support Amendment 52 in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes. It is right not only to prepare the statement of strategic priorities but to give both Houses 40 days to approve it or not. On reflection, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, that it perhaps should be subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.

I look forward to hearing my noble friend Lord Effingham speak to Amendment 57. He rightly proposes that the consultations with devolved Administrations should take place before the publication of the statement of strategic priorities. However, this only goes to show how essential it is, as many of us believe, that we have a co-ordinated national strategy, given that devolution has taken place over many areas of our national life, as it would be cheaper and make more sense. But we are not in that place, and we have to take account of the settlement of the devolved Administrations that exists. So, it is obviously absolutely essential, and I hope the Minister will confirm that he will make sure that the policies put forward and GBE’s strategic priorities will not be squabbled over by the devolved Administrations.

My noble friend Lady Noakes, with her usual forensic expertise, has also identified that the articles of association of GBE need to make sure that it is able to prepare the strategic plans, and that the articles must empower the company to do that. It must reflect the Secretary of State’s statement of strategic priorities.

Lastly, I also support Amendment 119, proposed by my noble friend Lady Noakes, which deals with the accountability and other provisions which must not take effect until after the statement of strategic priorities is laid before Parliament.

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Portrait Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
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My Lords, I too support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. It strikes me that the real problem with the Bill is that if nothing happens with GB Energy, the Secretary of State intervenes. On the whole, politicians intervening in investment decisions does not have a very good history, and an awful lot of taxpayers’ money has been wasted. Therefore, it would be a very good idea if there was a system of reporting back to Parliament.

The real problem with the whole energy scene in this country is that the private sector is well in there already. I am not sure how committed these people are to energy, but they are certainly very good at crunching the numbers. Of course, with any project, they establish that the supply of, say, wind, is reasonably constant in a certain area. Then, the key thing is the feed-in tariff that they negotiate. That gives them a guaranteed cashflow. Among other things, with wind turbines they even managed to negotiate that they get paid when the wind is blowing and nobody wants the energy. So, if you can do that, it seems to be relatively easy to make money on these things.

If you want to put up wind turbines, there is no problem getting private finance. It is the more vexed areas of energy where you will find people with DeLoreans appearing, saying, “I’ve got a wonderful scheme all organised for carbon capture”, or something that is incredibly difficult in technological terms—or indeed nuclear fusion, come to that, which is another very hard nut to crack. It would be wonderful if we could have nuclear fusion power stations pumping out energy, but we are still a very long way from getting there. What guarantees do we have that taxpayers’ money will not be ploughed into these things and an awful lot of money completely wasted?

I would like to pick up some remarks from my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. She was concerned that GB Energy would have great problems raising finance. That is not quite the way it works. You actually get tiered finance when it comes to some of these projects, and I can tell noble Lords what the tiers will be: a whole lot of outside investors will get their money back almost whatever happens, and all the high-risk capital will be produced by GB Energy. GB Energy will be the one that will lose absolutely everything if it goes wrong and make a minimal amount of money if it goes right.

We need to be very wary about all this, which is why I support these amendments. It is important that Parliament has some check on all this and is able to say whether it thinks it is a good idea or a bad one. That discipline on the Secretary of State will be very important. Otherwise, I see politicians wheeling off, backing all sorts of incredibly speculative ventures and losing taxpayers’ money as a result. I am not sure that anybody in this House wants to see that happen.