Severn Barrage

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, talk about building a Severn barrage has been going on since the 19th century. In our own time, we know that every reasonable opportunity needs to be taken to develop renewable sources of energy to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change. A Severn barrage would utilise predictable and sustainable tidal power on a scale to provide perhaps 5% of Britain’s energy requirements, the carbon payback time would be a matter of only months, and the installation could be expected to generate energy for perhaps 120 years. If it is not to be Hafren Power’s Lavernock Point to Brean Down barrage, then it has to be another Severn or Bristol Channel barrage scheme.

Of course, the ecological impacts on sites of special scientific interest and on birds are very important. Biodiversity matters very much indeed. Every care should be taken to minimise damage and to compensate with biodiversity offsetting measures. However, the major gain in relation to climate change surely outweighs those other ecological considerations. There are also legitimate and important business interests for Bristol port and for the aggregates industry, but these should be a matter of negotiation and the Government should actively broker a resolution of the differences that exist there. We need vision; we need decision; and we need leadership.

I was disappointed that the previous Government were not persuaded of the strategic case for building a Severn barrage, and DECC, under this Government, continues to equivocate and dither. The Secretary of State, we are informed, told a Liberal Democrat conference that the consortium’s numbers,

“aren’t in the place that they would need to be”.

He suggested perhaps looking at smaller lagoon projects, and he went on to say, tellingly:

“But government isn’t spending a huge amount of our own time developing those projects”.

Quite so.

The benefits in relation to climate change are vital, but the benefits in relation to the construction industry and the engineering industry in terms of jobs and pioneering technology would also be very great. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said to us, I believe that there would be flood protection benefits and that there could also be benefits in terms of transport links. There would be benefits for communities on both sides of the Severn estuary and the Bristol Channel.

If the evidence that has been made available so far is insufficient, the Government should get on and establish the evidence. If, having done so, they have decisive reservations about the credentials of the Hafren consortium or the specifics of this particular project, if the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee gives this project a thumbs down or if problems emerge in terms of the capacity of a private consortium to finance the cost of the barrage—perhaps some £25 billion—then the Government should take the lead and put together a scheme that would work. If necessary, the Government themselves should borrow to help to make this investment. They can borrow at exceptionally advantageous rates in present markets, and I believe that the markets would applaud capital investment by the Government in this kind of infrastructure.

The inertia of Whitehall, of Parliament and of the European Parliament in relation to climate change is one of the factors that cause so many people to despair of politics and to take a gloomy view of the future. I would go so far as to say that it would be a crime against the planet if the Government passed up the opportunity to identify and drive forward an ecologically acceptable and financially robust Severn barrage scheme.