Revised Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation, volumes I and II (EN-6)

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Thursday 13th January 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in this debate from a Cumbria perspective, where I was until November last year the chair of the local economic development body. This statement will be welcomed in Cumbria as a major milestone in what is a long road to building nuclear as an essential part of our energy mix in this country. I should like to be more generous to the coalition than was my noble friend Lord Davies. Things have moved along since the election on the nuclear question, in a positive way. I particularly welcome the fact that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has come out so clearly in favour of nuclear being part of Britain’s future energy mix. This is a major step.

I draw attention to the huge potential of the nuclear future in west Cumbria, which I have got to know extremely well over the past three or four years. Not only is Sellafield the centre of our nuclear clean-up but there is also very big potential at the site for power stations in addition to the one initiative that new generation has started to show an interest in today. The county council believes that there could be more than one new station on the Sellafield site to deal with the needs of nuclear post-2025. There is also the potential for reprocessing. If the Minister could give us some indication of what the Government’s timetable is for thinking about decisions on this issue, it would be very helpful to the local community. The communities in Cumbria have expressed an interest in the question of the long-term waste site, which is very important indeed.

The point that I want to make on this is a simple one. This is an important planning stage that we have reached on this issue, but many more issues will have to be resolved if we are going to build—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for intervening in the gap, but the rules are that there is a limited time for speeches in the gap. I hope that four minutes is recognised by all speakers, as a number of noble Lords want to come in. I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but I am sure he will want to be on the right side of the Companion.

[Lord Liddle]

I shall try to be very brief. A lot of issues have to be resolved, including questions relating to the infrastructure in the area, as well as questions to do with skills and grid connectivity. It is not simply a question of planning approval followed by the private sector taking the initiative and solving all these questions. If we are going to make a success of Britain’s energy coast, we have to build an effective partnership between the Government, the private sector nuclear developer and the local community. That is what I want to stress. In Cumbria, it would be very helpful if we could hear from the Government that they are committed to such a partnership. Under the previous Government, we established a strategic forum to try to bring all the interests together to look at what needed to be done, and I hope that the Government can indicate their intentions to work for the realisation of this enormous potential in Cumbria, which is for the good not just of Cumbria but of Britain in giving us energy security and a low-carbon source of generation, and has enormous international potential. I hope I have been brief enough.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Heavens above, my Lords, I do not think that I can really be such a door-opener. What might we find? I say to all noble Lords that we have access to public bodies. Whether we are on the Front or the Back Benches in this House, we are capable of tabling Questions and we can find out facts. It is quite proper to do so if things are in the public domain. The Library is there to help us and, if we seek opinions, no doubt we all have contacts that we are able to use. I do not want this debate on the Bill to be stifled by ignorance but here we are talking about the consultation process that we are seeking to bring in through the Bill, once enacted.

[Lord Liddle]

One welcomes the steps that the Government are taking in the Bill to ensure that there is wider consultation, and the noble Lord’s Amendment 114 refers to the consultation that is necessary for the bodies listed in Schedules 1 to 6. Of course one welcomes this consultation, but with regard to the area with which I am particularly concerned—that of economic development—what sort of consultation will now occur on the Government’s policy of abolishing the regional development agencies, which are referred to in Schedule 1 to the Bill? To my knowledge, there was no consultation of any kind on that policy—indeed, rather the reverse.

Soon after the general election, we were told that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills thought that the regional development agencies should be saved, and there was a tremendous sense of relief about that in the regions, particularly in the north. Indeed, I am told that the Secretary of State said that to the chairman and chief executive of one of the leading regional development agencies in the north. Then, a few weeks later, it was suddenly announced in the Budget that these bodies were to be abolished. A few days later, a joint paper appeared in the names of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government saying that the Government had decided to abolish them altogether and were now going to set up local economic partnerships. However, what consultation has occurred, and how is consultation now to take place in the light of the proposed new clause in Amendment 114 that the Minister intends to introduce? I should be very interested to hear his reply.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We are in effect debating all these bodies, as the noble Lord knows, and when we come to Schedule 1 there are amendments tabled—indeed, there is one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle—relating to the north-west, if I remember rightly. I notice that the Opposition have populated these amendments with suitable spokesmen for the regions. We will be debating that. Indeed, noble Lords should not forget that we will be debating it in the course of a piece of primary legislation. The political decision has in fact been made on the RDAs. Parliament has to agree to it but the political decision has been made. We are now talking about the process that will apply to future decisions.

[Lord Liddle]

I am sorry but that is not what the noble Lord’s Amendment 114 says. He is talking about a consultation process that applies to all the bodies listed in Schedules 1 to 6. Of course, I hope that during the course of our debates the regional development agencies—particularly those in the north of England—will be removed from Schedule 1, but there will still be no process of wider consultation, and we are going to be taking this decision with none of the normal consultation processes that one would expect when such a matter is before us. Therefore, I am still a bit mystified.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have been passed a very helpful brief by my noble friend the Minister with responsibility for these matters, who happens, by chance, to be here at my side. She reminds me that the decision to close RDAs was in the coalition agreement; proposals for local enterprise partnerships to replace the RDAs were invited in June 2010 and a White Paper on sub-national growth—in other words, growth at a regional or local level—was published in October this year. Therefore, so far as concerns White Paper consultations, we are indeed in a period of consultation at this moment, and I suggest that the noble Lord gets about consulting it. Perhaps I can return to my comments on—

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I agree very much with the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Maclennan. Amendment 180 is much needed if we are to have a rational and sensible process for deciding how we deal with public bodies. I return to the example of economic development. This is a classic case of a decision to abolish a body being taken without anyone thinking about what to do with its functions, what the costs and economic disbenefits are likely to be, and what will happen to the liabilities and assets.

The fact is that none of these questions was answered before the Government announced this decision. They are trying to make it up as they go along. That is not satisfactory. I know about this because of my interest as chair of Cumbria Vision. It is a very sad thing to see because the rhetoric is all about localism and setting up local economic partnerships that are supposed to be more local than the regional development agencies but the Government are devolving very few, if any, functions to the local economic partnerships. What is actually happening is that most of the things that were done in the regions are being centralised into government departments. Is that really sensible public policy-making? Should not the Government have been subject to the discipline embodied in this amendment in terms of explaining clearly what they were doing when they announced this decision?

As regards expected costs and their impact, I put down a Written Question to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, in which I asked for information on costs, how many people were likely to lose their job and what the impact on this, that and the other would be. I received the Answer that no such information was available or was being sought, or something like that. That is not a satisfactory due process. The Government must do better than that as regards other bodies. That is why these amendments being put forward from this side of the House are so important. I hope that they will draw support from all sides of the House.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, Amendments 4 and 180 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, which were introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, seek to introduce a requirement for the Secretary of State to make a statement to Parliament setting out how the functions of all the bodies listed in Schedules 1 to 6 would be carried out in the future, and the expected costs and liabilities associated with the proposed changes to bodies listed in those schedules. This statement could then be followed, after one month, with a statutory instrument that would commence the Act.

It is right and proper that, before approving a specific change to a particular body or office, the House should have access to appropriate information on that change, including information relating to functions and costs. I support the spirit in which I believe this amendment is tabled. However, I do not believe that it is required. As has been discussed at length in earlier debates today, it is a shared intention of the Committee that, when laying a draft order under the powers in the Bill, Ministers will publish an explanatory document setting out the reasons for making the order. Indeed, one glance at government Amendment 118 makes clear the detail that will be required to accompany a draft order. Orders at this stage will also have gone through the impact assessment process, and this impact assessment will be published at the time the order enters Parliament, in line with existing practice. I am therefore confident that existing requirements will ensure that Parliament is fully informed on the content and implications of orders before being asked to approve them.

I do not believe it to be appropriate to amend the Bill in this fashion; I believe that it would add limited value to the process and would, in so doing, risk an unnecessary delay to the reform programme that the Bill seeks to enable. Therefore, while I appreciate the intention of the amendment, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.