Energy Grid Resilience

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Viscount Stansgate

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as I think I have already said, the security of our energy system is clearly critical. I take the point the noble and right reverend Lord raised about cybersecurity. Noble Lords will have seen the devastating impact that this has had on retailers in the last few weeks. We work with the National Cyber Security Centre. We are very exercised about this. I can assure the noble and right reverend Lord that we are not at all complacent.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My noble friend the Minister has already referred to the fact that the system operator is introducing innovative new approaches. Might that involve the application of AI to managing the grid? Looking further ahead, and in the light of the report from your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee on long-duration energy storage, could the Minister indicate whether or when the Government might take the type of strategic interest in long-duration energy storage that we will need?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My noble friend is right about AI; that was one of the main points raised in the Tony Blair Institute report, which was raised earlier. We are giving long-duration energy storage a great deal of attention.

Internet Activity: Energy Use

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Viscount Stansgate

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)]

My Lords, the National Energy System Operator has estimated that data centres consume around 2.5% of the UK’s electricity. The UK is not a major centre for cryptocurrency mining. We estimate the share of power consumed in the UK for this purpose to be negligible.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. I do not know whether the House quite realises the staggering quantities of energy involved in normal internet activity and, in particular, in crypto mining. It has been estimated that the usage is approximately the same as that of a mid-sized European country, such as the Netherlands or Denmark. How much of this activity is based in the UK? Who is doing it and where? Does my noble friend agree that it has an adverse impact on carbon emissions and brings with it electronic waste? Will he agree to undertake an assessment of the potential adverse effects on carbon emissions of internet activity and, in particular, of crypto mining, so that we can have an honest discussion about the future and the effect of this on our climate change objectives?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to raise this important question. I should say that the Government keep this under review. In fact, we reckon that only 0.2% of global crypto mining takes place in the UK. The International Energy Agency has estimated that, in 2022, 2% of total global energy demand came from data centres, cryptocurrencies and AI. It expects that to double by 2026. However, it makes the point that it expects that doubling to be met by an increase in clean energy sources. The lesson here for us is that we need to power on with our aim to get to clean power by 2030.

Public Health England (Dissolution) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2021

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Viscount Stansgate

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly to support my noble friend’s Motion to Regret. She has outlined the government by press release approach that has been taken. I find myself in considerable agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. In fact, I remember him reacting last week or the week before to a Statement that had in its title on the annunciator “Announcement to the media”. The noble Lord quite rightly said that it is not the business of this House to have to debate something that has already been put out to the media. Ministers are supposed to come to the Dispatch Box and give the House the information directly.

I entirely agree on the issue of secondary legislation as a way of making progress rather than primary legislation. Although there are difficulties with primary legislation—look at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is a mega Bill if ever there was one, so there are disadvantages even for large Bills—in general I support my noble friend’s Motion to Regret. Although this is not a matter for a vote, I hope the Minister will take back something of the cross-party unease expressed by the noble Lord, with which I find myself in considerable agreement.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo my noble friend Lord Howarth’s tribute to Mr Duncan Selbie, the former chief executive of Public Health England. He is a very fine public servant who led PHE with great skill and aplomb over a number of years. I feel very sad indeed that his career ended in the way it did. Shame on Ministers who allowed this to happen.

I also have to say shame on Ministers for the way in which Parliament has been bypassed in relation to these crucial decisions about the future of our national public health arrangements. Were it not for the fact that staff had to be transferred, there would be no parliamentary debate or scrutiny whatever about these important changes.

Why did it happen? It would seem to me that it was simply a panicked reaction which was merely a front for Ministers’ own mistakes, and the attempt by Mr Hancock and his fellow Ministers to shift blame for their own inadequate leadership in responding to the pandemic is really all too characteristic of the way the Government approached it. It was dishonest because Ministers pretended that PHE was an independent body that had its own life, but it did not. I know that PHE’s record is not without criticism, but the fact is that it was fully part of the Department of Health. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, legislated for that and deliberately wanted to make it like that, and for Ministers to try to shift the blame from them to a group of officials —and they are officials—was simply not acceptable.

My fear is that the new arrangements are being set up in the same way, with the same uncertainties about who is actually accountable for what they do. The UKHSA is an executive agency sponsored by the department, so it is the same category of organisation as Public Health England, which was described on the Government’s website as

“an executive agency with operational autonomy.”

It is noticeable that, on 13 July, the Government published a document setting out UKHSA’s remit and priorities, in the form of a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, to Dr Jenny Harries, the UKHSA’s chief executive. It stated that:

“UKHSA is accountable to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Innovation”,


which I think means to the Minister, but unlike PHE, the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, made no reference to UKHSA having operational independence from the Government. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, whether that omission was deliberate.

I have the same question about the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. We are not debating that tonight, but it comes within the package of new measures that are being brought in. This is not, I understand, an executive agency but is described on the Government’s website as “a high-profile group”. The website does state that

“OHID is part of the Department of Health”,


So, again, there is no pretence at independence.

We are at risk of repeating the same mistakes that occurred with PHE. Ministers proclaim these new bodies, they are given a veneer of independence, but as soon as something goes wrong, or Ministers do not like the messages—and they often do not like the public health messages these bodies give out—Ministers jump in and attempt to micromanage. Accountability is confused, reporting lines are blurred, the public are certainly confused and Parliament is unable to scrutinise them effectively because they come within the Minister’s responsibilities as part of the department.

Of course, the ultimate test of these arrangements is how they will work if another dreadful pandemic hits us, or in relation to how we will improve the overall health of the people of this nation. Clearly, the jury is out on that—we do not know—but I would have more confidence if these bodies were more independent and subject to much greater parliamentary scrutiny than they are apparently going to be.