Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Monday 18th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

We have had a wide-ranging debate on the Bill. Indeed, it has been so wide-ranging that in some instances I forgot there was a Bill in front of us. I was pleased to hear from the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) who, in a thoughtful contribution, kept us on track. I intend to talk about the Bill in my closing remarks, as well as about what various hon. Members who did address it had to say.

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) spoke about the original Bill being thin gruel, improved by amendments in another place. He is exactly right. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) dispelled some of the myths and inaccuracies of some of the anti-renewables contributors tonight. He was also right about the missing parts and the ambition of the Bill, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who reminded us, in the light of our move to an Anthropocene age, of the ambition we need to have for our energy policy, in particular in relation to fuel poverty and energy efficiency.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) appeared to suggest that the best idea we could take was to close down the North sea. That is not something I buy into. Since we know gas and oil will be with us for some time, albeit in reduced amounts relative to the overall energy mix and more concentrated in transport and heating, it is better that it is sourced from a secure resource in the North sea than bought in from across the world. The North sea is a great sustainer of jobs, industry and supply line for the UK, as we have heard from a number of hon. Members. It is right we look to gain the best out of it for those jobs and that industry and for the security of the UK. It is not an either/or. It is right that we should pay full attention to the climate change commitments we have made. Labour will be seeking to strengthen some of the commitments as part of the Bill. The creation of the OGA to secure the best outcomes for the next phases in North sea development is an essential plank of Sir Ian Wood’s report. We fully support its creation as a free-standing body with powers to develop and co-ordinate the industry.

The North sea is, as Sir Ian Wood states, a mature resource. While we inevitably strain to know knowns and known unknowns, a number of authorities estimate that the North sea is up to 80% exploited already. Future finds and future fields will be small, possibly increasingly difficult to exploit, and will require support from existing infrastructure to ensure that production is logistically and economically possible. Increasingly, production will be underpinned from now on by co-operation and sharing of resources. One of the OGA’s particular tasks will be to ensure that this works equitably and effectively—a point underlined by the hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), who in his contribution quoted a reminder from his local Unite official about the importance of jobs and security in his region.

There must be concerns about current responses to the low price of oil and their effect on longer-term considerations of the future development of the North sea. BP has just announced further job losses in the North sea that may well impact on maintenance work, safety and operation, and readiness for exploration, which reminds us of the sort of short-termism that, if the OGA works well, it can tackle effectively. Through the MER—maximising economic recovery—consultations, we need to see that the OGA really has suitable powers to sustain the UK offshore skills space and that phrases such as “cost reduction” are about efficiency and operation, not just code words for stripping back safety and imposing longer shift patterns and cuts to pay and conditions.

In thinking about the future of the North sea, it is right that we take care to ensure that what is there in the form of infrastructure—both in structures and skills—is used to best advantage. That is not a theoretical point about future exploration; it is a very practical point about present realities. According to Oil & Gas UK, there are currently some 300 finds that have not been exploited further, some dating back 10 or so years. That is due not only to the current low oil price but to difficulties with infrastructure, and since the bulk of those fields are below 50 million barrels of oil equivalent, they are unlikely to sustain infrastructure connections by themselves.

The OGA has some powers in the Bill to ensure that decommissioning is thought about, and that platforms and pipelines are not just taken away and disposed of in a rush to develop what some might see as a new industry for the North sea—important though that is. That thought carries over to what could be a very important future for the North sea as a repository for carbon dioxide sequestered as part of the carbon capture and storage process. This is not just for the UK, because the capacity and extent of potentially available strata for deposit mean that the North sea could be Europe’s depository of choice in the future. An elegant underpinning of the need for a carbon capture strategy came from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich.

The fact that the Government very unwisely scrapped the UK’s plans to get ahead of most of the world in CCS at scale technology does not mean that CCS will not come or that it is needed any less for future energy and intensive industry production. It just means that we will be buying someone else’s technology more slowly at a greater cost, but the least we can do now is to ensure that the storage end of the process is secured in one of the best places in the world to undertake such activity and, on the back of it, to develop jobs, supply chains and income in parallel with the continuation of that mature field—and possibly at some stage even securing crossover between what is happening with oil recovery and the storage of CO_2.

I do not agree with the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig), who said that these two issues, though connected, should be proceeded with separately. They are completely connected in respect of how the North sea will work now and for the future, so it is important to take careful note of what CCS has to offer the North sea in the longer term. We will therefore be pressing in Committee to secure a better overview of CCS by the OGA, and indeed to ensure that for the future the Government have a full strategy for dealing with CCS both in the North sea and across the country.

We will not divide the House tonight because some of the work to improve the Bill, which comes to us from the other place, has already been done. We shall seek in Committee to maintain those improvements, particularly in the part that deals with renewables and low-carbon energy, most notably in the Government’s clear intention—it is yet not with us as the Bill goes into Committee—to close the renewables obligation for offshore wind early. I am reminded of the strong contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), who told us just how wrong-headed a decision that looks to be.

I am afraid that the agenda that we have seen over the past few months—one of downgrading options for renewables in order to pursue a gas-based strategy overall —is at the heart of this particular issue. We say that there is, and should not be, a contradiction between supporting the continuing secure supply of the gas and oil that we will need for the foreseeable future and the development of renewable energy as a key component of the United Kingdom’s energy mix.

The hon. Members for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden), who talked about subsidies for renewables, should be reminded that all energy is in effect now subsidised in one way or another. Indeed, we have just completed an exercise that subsidises gas, coal and nuclear generators to the tune of £940 million in one year —just to be there, not to produce anything. Perhaps that puts the figures for renewables subsidies that we have heard today into context.

In Committee, we will seek to defend the present status of the Bill without early closure of the renewables obligation, and will remind ourselves that we are talking about an existing subsidy rather than a new one. We will also seek, by means of new clauses, to clarify Britain’s longer-term low-carbon energy targets.

[Mr Lilley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Whitehead]

I am afraid that I have no time to take interventions.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) gave a clear and lucid indication of his wish to go further, and to table amendments in an attempt to underpin those longer-term targets. I detected strong support for that position on the part of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart).

We have an opportunity to forge, in a spirit of joint endeavour across the House, a key piece of legislation that will provide security and a clear way ahead for energy investors and operators, and for Britain’s energy workforce. My hon. Friends the Members for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) reminded us of the need for coherence, long-term planning and stability in energy policy. We all know that that clear way ahead will be necessary for the health and prosperity of Britain’s future energy activities, and for clarity about the future direction of our country towards a low-carbon economy. Let us hope that, in Committee, the Government will recognise that compromise and discussion on both sides provide a joint opportunity to make that vision a reality, and that the Committee stage will produce a Bill that truly represents the interests of the whole House and moves us towards a low-carbon economy that will take account of our oil and gas in the context of that wider ambition.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I get two kinds of letters about infrastructure. The first kind says: “The infrastructure in this country is inadequate. It is the cause of congestion, housing shortage and economic inefficiency. We must invest heavily and speedily in more infrastructure.” The second kind objects to any specific item of infrastructure being built or proposed. Those letters say: “A new road? No. We should be investing in rail,” or “A new rail line? No. We should be relying on short-haul aircraft,” or, “More airport capacity? No. We should be staying at home,” or, “Build more homes? No. We can’t build more homes because we haven’t got the infrastructure to support them.” We suffer from infrastructural schizophrenia in this country. To some extent, that has been exemplified in the debate.

I congratulate the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who has responsibility for roads, on finding the one piece of infrastructure that does not arouse antagonism: the widening of the A1(M), for which my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) has campaigned so hard with my support. That has won near-unanimous support in our part of Hertfordshire, not least because it is economical, it will be done on an existing hard shoulder, it involves minimal disruption and it can be done rapidly.

I want to focus on the element of the Bill that empowers drilling under other people’s land. When I initially heard those proposals I was worried, although I am sympathetic to promoting and developing the shale oil and gas industries in these countries. The proposals sounded like an unprecedented invasion of people’s property and an act of trespass, but they are far from unprecedented. The London underground runs under the street where I live in London. I can often hear the rumble, even though we live a couple of floors above it. I doubt whether the owners of my property should have had the right to prevent the building of the London underground.

The tube is a maximum of 100 feet beneath the ground. Coal mining involves massive and relatively shallow tunnels, which can cause subsidence. Sewerage, water and other underground networks also run under other people’s property. By contrast, a lateral gas or oil well is usually just a 7-inch bore about 1 mile below ground. It can cause no conceivable disturbance to the surface landowner.

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Gentleman observes that lateral drilling and fracking for gas takes place a mile underground, so why do provisions in the Bill deem deep-level land to be 300 metres underground?

[Mr Lilley]

Well, 300 metres is 10 times as deep as the London underground. The Bill states that deep-level land is at least 300 metres down, but normally drilling will be about a mile down because—as the hon. Gentleman will know from serving on the Energy Committee—about 7,000 feet of rock is needed to compress the shale sufficiently to turn it into gas or oil.

Rightly or wrongly, mineral resources in this country were nationalised before the war and, unlike in the USA, landowners do not have the right to extract them. I do not see why landowners should have the right to prevent the extraction of a national resource that is collectively owned by us all. After all, we do not have the right to prevent aircraft from flying over our property, although frankly the chance of an aircraft falling on our property is rather greater than that of anything welling up through a mile of rock and affecting our homes.

In theory we could revert to the pre-war situation, as in America, and give landowners rights over subsurface minerals and their exploration. If we did so, the general taxpayer, who stands to benefit from a 61% tax on profits from any shale gas, not to mention royalties and fees, would be the loser, while landowners lucky enough to own land above any of that natural resource would become richer—I am not sure whether that is the direction in which the parties of Keir Hardie or the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) are going, but I think we should keep things as they are. The resource is collectively owned; let us open it up for sensible, properly regulated and environmentally sound exploitation.

In the USA, when landowners are given the choice between preventing or allowing the exploitation of land from which they will profit, they overwhelmingly say yes. Despite strong campaigns to discourage the development of the fracking industry in north America, 2.5 million wells have been drilled and not a single person has been poisoned by contaminated water, nor a single building damaged by the minute seismic tremors that fracking can cause.

A lot of letters I receive say, “But this is against the laws of trespass. This is terrible. You’re trespassing under my land, which is as bad as trespassing on it.” Actually there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the law of trespass. My father did not have many political opinions but he was a libertarian. When we went out in the country and saw a sign saying, “Trespassers will be prosecuted”, he would say, “My son, as a free-born Englishman, you have the right to go anywhere as long as you do not cause damage. The landowners are bluffing and cannot stop you.” He was right, of course. Subsequently, Mr Fagan wandered into Buckingham palace and the Queen’s bedroom, but he could not be prosecuted because he had done no damage.

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Thursday 20th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lilley]

Yes. I normally call myself a lukewarmist. I believe that the climate will warm a bit, which will probably be quite beneficial to parts of our country, although it could pose problems elsewhere. I do not deny that double the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere will increase the temperature by 1° and a bit, plus or minus any effect due to positive or negative feedbacks. However, I do not think that the evidence shows that the change will be very large. I will come to that.

It is not just climate sceptics and I who have been critical of the IPCC’s tendency to exaggerate. Following the discovery of inaccuracies, use of grey data and so on in AR4, the fourth assessment report, which forecast that all the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt in 35 years rather than 350 years, the InterAcademy Council—the council of all the main scientific academies in the world, including our Royal Society, the US scientific bodies and so on—carried out an investigation of how the IPCC worked. The IAC was critical, particularly of authors who

“reported high confidence in statements for which there is little evidence”.

It is not just fellow sceptics and I saying it; all the scientific academies of the world, which by and large have signed up under some political pressure to rather unscientific statements about global warming, have considered the IPCC report and concluded that some scientists, although not all, tend to report high confidence in statements for which there is little evidence. The IAC therefore recommends:

“Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence. Authors should indicate the basis for assigning a probability to an outcome or event (e.g., based on measurement, expert judgment, and/or model runs).”

No such basis for assigning enhanced probability was given when the most recent IPCC report came out. Its headline conclusion was that the evidence for human influence has grown since the fourth assessment report, and it went on to attach increased likelihood—categorised on the scale as “extremely likely”, rather than the previous “very likely”—to the possibility that human influence has been the dominant cause of the warming observed since the mid-20th century. That was the overall headline assessment to which the IPCC wanted policy makers to respond. However, it is hard to back up that conclusion from the substance of that report. Since the last report, we know what has happened.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I will make this point, and then I will give way.

Since the last report, the earth’s surface temperature has not warmed further; indeed, it has not warmed during the entire period of the IPCC’s existence, since 1997 or 1998. There has been a hiatus in warming, yet during that period since 1997, one third of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted by mankind has been pumped into the atmosphere. We have had 17 years to test the effect of a third of all the CO₂ we have ever emitted, and there has been no increase in temperature. That does not mean that the global warming thesis is dead or wrong—I believe in it—but it does mean that it is not the dominant factor. It means that during that period, other factors were masking any warming due to the increase in CO₂.

[Dr Whitehead]

I would like to get something clear. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the issue relates to the difference between “extremely likely” in the fifth assessment report and “very likely” in the fourth assessment report? That is, does he stand by the idea that anthropogenic global warming is very likely, although he might not stand by the idea that it is extremely likely, or is he saying that it was not very likely in the first place?

[Mr Lilley]

I am saying that in its use of those terms, the summary for policy makers has not responded to the recommendations of the InterAcademy Council report.

[Dr Whitehead]

But does the right hon. Gentleman stand by “very likely”?

[Mr Lilley]

I never made that statement. I think that it is uncertain how much of the heating that has occurred since 1950 is due to CO₂. Some of it is; perhaps half of it. I do not know.

It is the word “dominant” of which I am most critical, and the idea that human influence is the dominant factor. During that period, the whole lifetime of the IPCC, there has been no warming, yet a third of the CO₂ ever emitted by man has been put into the atmosphere. That does not seem to be evidence for being more certain; it seems to be evidence for being a little more qualified in stating that CO₂ may be the dominant factor. It clearly was not dominant during that period. By definition, a period with record emissions but no warming cannot provide further evidence that emissions are the dominant cause of warming.

A number of other, quite important factors have simply been omitted from the summary for policy makers. Although the IPCC says that there is increased certainty, it does not tell us, except obliquely in a footnote, that for the first time, the authors of the IPCC report are unable to agree on a best estimate of how sensitive the climate is to increases in CO₂. In previous reports, they have always been able to agree a best estimate, but this time, there has been so much disagreement among them that they have been unable to reach one. When I was a Secretary of State being advised by experts, if there was disagreement among them, I wanted to know about it; I did not want it hidden from me. If the disagreement was new and had not been present in their previous advice, I doubly wanted to know about it. However, that was not mentioned in the summary for policy makers, which is not a good way to ensure that policy makers are well-informed.

Nor does the summary mention that in the body of the report, the IPCC’s medium-term forecast for temperature increases to 2035 is below that given by the climate models. In other words, the experts used their judgment to say that in their opinion, the climate models are wrong. They came up with a forecast below the models, and they explain that the reason is that the models have been overheating. Their forecasts have not conformed to the facts. I would have liked to have that pointed out to me in the summary for policy makers, but it was not. I would also have liked some explanation why, after 2035, the IPCC assumes that the models will be right and will no longer overheat. If they have overheated in the past and are expected to overheat until 2035, why are they expected to be right thereafter?

The overheating is serious, and it is not just during the period of the hiatus. Over the past 35 years, the models studied by the IPCC have collectively run an average of 15% too high. They are significantly in error. That, too, is something that I would have liked pointed out in the summary for policy makers, so that one would know, when talking about model estimates, that they have been consistently and significantly wrong for 35 years. But that was not pointed out.

According to one of our witnesses, the most significant fact in the whole AR5 was the new evidence about the impact of aerosols. We now have evidence from satellite observations that provides more certain estimates of the prevalence of aerosols in the atmosphere and their impact and suggests that they produce less cooling than was previously assumed. However, there was not time to use that information to rerun the model—sometimes the models take months to run—so none of the models takes into account the latest information on aerosols. Had they done so, they would have produced an even higher forecast for future warming, because the future warming forecast involves the warming created by CO₂ less the cooling created by aerosols. If there is less cooling by aerosols, the forecasts would be higher—that is, more wrong—in the past, and probably even more wrong in future.

Indeed, given that we know what the actual amount of warming has been, if that warming—0.8° C since the industrial revolution—is the result of carbon dioxide, the model suggests that if it had been down to CO₂ alone, the warming would have been something like 1.2%. However, because of the old estimates of aerosols, an offset of 0.4% is assumed, which is why we observe the 0.8° C figure. We know the 0.8 figure is true. If we now have better estimates, so that instead of 0.4% the offset is 0.2%, that means that the CO₂ effect should have been forecast as being 1° C rather than 1.2° C or 1.4° C. That is a significant change—new evidence—that should have been brought to the attention of policy makers but was not.

Nor was the fact that most recent empirically based studies of the sensitivity of the climate to CO₂ have come out with lower figures. Indeed, since the report came out, a study of all the estimates of the sensitivity of climate over time has been made—in the form of a chart—and it shows that the estimates are progressively coming down. In other words, the likely feedbacks must be less and less, as estimates become more accurate and indeed the period with no warming extends. Again, I would have liked to know that in the SPM, rather than it being hidden away in a 1,000-page report, which by definition the policy makers are not expected to read.

We know that there has been a pause in global warming since 1997. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk says that is somehow a statistical fabrication. If I want to know how long this table is, having climbed up the steps to get to it, when I get to the level bit, I measure that to see how long the table is; I do not include the rise before and I do not exclude some of the flat bit. The length of a plateau is the length of a plateau, and it is 17 years. That is quite simple.

If over that 17 years, the effect of CO₂ has been offset by other natural factors—I am not denying the effect of CO₂; I am saying it must have been offset by other factors. [Interruption.] Presumably, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) agrees with me; if he would like to intervene to disagree, he is welcome to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Lilley]

No. He agrees with me.

[Dr Whitehead]

I merely pointed out—unfortunately, from a sedentary position—that it is a little dangerous to start talking about plateaux in the context of what has been probably several hundred years of anthropogenic effects. Indeed, at any particular stage, it would have been possible during that period to select particular years to make particular points. However, that is not the greater point that needs to be taken into account; that is about looking at the overall effects over a period. The right hon. Gentleman persists in talking about plateaux when, in overall terms, that is what happens on occasions in a much longer period, and it can be easily demonstrated over the period.

[Mr Lilley]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. There are periods when temperature has been rising and periods when it has been falling, for example from about 1945 to the early 1970s. Then there was a period of about 25 years when it was rising and everyone said, “That 25 years is very good evidence.” They did not say, “25 years is far too short a period.” They said, “Oh, that’s it. That’s going to go on.” The Met Office gave us forecasts for a single decade of how much things were going to change; it was confident that this was a continually rising trend.

However, there is a period when it has been flat. But if the underlying greenhouse effect has been rising, that means that natural factors are of the same magnitude, and those natural factors—over the long term—will cancel out other factors. Therefore, the upswing in natural factors may have been contributing to the warming in the 25 years of warming, and that should have been brought to the attention of policy makers but was not.

The hon. Gentleman says that I go on about flat periods. However, far worse than the SPM is the press release issued by the IPCC itself, which says:

“Warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to millennia.”

It goes on to say that the period of

“the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface.”

So it is talking about warming.

The fact is that the warming since 1950 has not been unprecedented; it is almost exactly the same, over exactly the same period, as the warming that occurred from the end of the first world war up to the second world war. How can we explain the fact that there was a similar amount of warming when there was very little emission of CO₂ to a period with an identical amount of warming when there was a lot of CO₂? It must mean that other factors are relevant, and those other factors are of the same order of magnitude in their impact on the climate as CO₂.

All I am saying is that these things should be drawn to the attention of policy makers. Policy makers should not be treated as children; they should not be fed a line; they should not be given a document that purports to be a scientific document, but is actually an act of advocacy, achieving its end by selective use of facts and omission of a lot of the evidence that the experts who produced it took a great deal of time and a thousand pages to assemble. Sadly, that is why the report from our Committee sounded more like cheerleading than holding to account a body that must be held to the highest standards, and not excused if it happens to agree with our own opinions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

It is better that a report produced for policy purposes is a synthesis of what scientists and others are saying and concluding. Indeed, that is exactly what our report concluded.

Beyond that, we then come not to the question of what concerns there might be about some of the detail of the fifth assessment report and its policy summary, but to one important element of scientific method. I should say that I am a social scientist, not a scientist scientist, but I certainly would always have regard to scientific method in my researches and thoughts on a matter, and would be pretty much guided by scientific method and principles of probability and various other things such as those. The important element is that there are always outliers in any scientific discussion. How could it be otherwise? That is what science is about. Science is never unanimous. Indeed, the whole of scientific method is to take something that looks unanimous and test it to destruction and see whether a new consensus emerges from that—and that in turn is tested. There are always outliers and always people who are testing science, and always people who will disagree with a conclusion.

In terms of what science does in informing policy makers, the question is how to best get to the best science that there is, currently, to inform something that will not have 100% certainty behind it but which is, as I have described in terms of what people do about their house, an imperative that they may have to act on, without 100% certainty, but with a high degree of probability behind their actions. That is essentially what the IPCC fifth assessment report is about.

[Mr Lilley]

I intervene to offer the hon. Gentleman some advice on surveyors. If a surveyor is asked to do a report, the probability is that he will find some damp, some rot and something to do, because that is his job; he is a professional alarmist. I have a surveyor coming in a week’s time and I am paying him a fee just for the survey, so that he has not got an incentive to create work. In a sense, the IPCC is a bit like that. It is in the job of producing things that show that CO₂ is an alarming proposition.

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right, but I think that perhaps he slightly misunderstood the process that follows that. If people get a surveyor in, it is quite possible that they will find some things wrong with their house. The probability, in terms of that surveyor’s professional background, is that even if the surveyor finds a few things wrong with their house that they do not think are particularly wrong, he is probably right. The question is to what extent they take action following what the surveyor says. The right hon. Gentleman appears to suggest—I would not put words into his mouth—that people can safely say, “This surveyor is just after his own interests in surveying my house, so I can confidently put this in the bin and purchase the house down the road that the surveyor told me is a complete turkey, safe in the knowledge that he is trying to make money. Therefore I can completely disregard what he said. And then, when my house falls down, I will be sorry about it, but I am safe in the knowledge that I wasn’t taken in by that beastly surveyor, who was trying to make some money.” I am not sure that the argument really follows in its fullness. I want to concentrate on that for a few moments in respect of the IPCC report.

One concern about picking small holes in a report and bringing outliers on board in emphasising the size of those holes is that, eventually, people might say, “Perhaps those holes need to be looked at”—indeed, the Committee in its report identified a number of areas in the procedures of the fifth assessment report and the summary following it that did need looking at and action for the future—and they fairly soon elide into talking about conspiracy theories and asking, why would people have falsified data and put things into this report? Or why would scientists from across the world have congregated together to overthrow their own scientific method and start putting bogus material into reports and trying to smuggle such material into summary reports, to falsify those and affect the gravity of action that may be required for policy makers?

The problem then arises of people moving away from citing holes and difficulties to saying that the whole thing is therefore a bunch of falsified bunkum. I have to say that hon. Members contributing to this debate in a contrary position from that of the fifth assessment report and the Committee’s conclusions seem to be sailing rather close to the wind on that. As soon as people get into the area of conspiracy theories, that is the complete overthrow of science. Conspiracy theories and science are mutually self-destructive.

We have to accept, surely, that this IPCC fifth assessment report was carried out by honest scientists from around the world, who honestly put forward what they did because they had found it to be so in their view, and that the collocation of those various views—a difficult process in its own right—was also undertaken by honest people coming to particular conclusions. Unless we think otherwise, we will eventually be in the position of saying, as I have mentioned, not necessarily that it is extremely likely that anthropogenic action on the climate is the cause of global warming, but that it could be “Very likely”, “Maybe”, “Extremely likely”, “Maybe not”, “A bit between the two”, or “Very likely that it is very likely”, and then we are in no man’s land. At that point, people may start saying, “If they are all fabricating these things and the evidence really is a tissue of misrepresentation and lies, then we have no guide at all for policy in future,” which is, after all, what we ought to be discussing in this Chamber.

[Mr Lilley]

Normally, the hon. Gentleman is good, in that he follows the logic of my questions through, sometimes to points that I did not want him to reach, but here he is putting words into my mouth that are the exact opposite of what I said. I did not say anyone had falsified anything; I simply said they had excluded material that was in the main report from the summary for policy makers. I hope he will clarify that. I was not accusing anyone of inventing falsehoods.

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. He will recall that I said that it sounded to me a little bit like that was the direction in which some of the contributions might be moving. I do not personally accuse the right hon. Gentleman of taking that position. However, a number of other people—not he—have taken and do take that position and it seems to me that they are, as a result, hopelessly adrift in terms of what we might or might not do.

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[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend describes the sort of process at an international level that to some extent goes on in Her Majesty’s Government. The document that he refers to, which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, is headed, guide for policy makers. It does not purport to be the scientific document. The scientific documents, as we have agreed, are elsewhere.

[Mr Lilley]

It is a “Summary for Policymakers”.

[Dr Whitehead]

It is a summary and a guide for policy makers. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the document, he will see that that is exactly what it says in those documents. That is how it was announced and how it was reported to the United Nations. Indeed, it is how the United Nations Secretary-General described it. It was specifically set out on the back of the various documents and the detailed material that it was a further document over and above that work, forming a bridge between the scientific material and the guide for policy makers, and that is exactly how it should be seen.

As far as I am concerned as a policy maker, the fact that the IPCC report concluded that the anthropogenic effect on global warming is either “very likely” or “extremely likely” impels me to act, for all the reasons I have described. The Select Committee report was attempting to ascertain the overall veracity of what the IPCC’s fifth assessment report was about, how it translated into policy, possible difficulties and what needs to be done next. That is essentially what our report talks about, and that is good enough for me.

We need to take decisions on how we deal with the decarbonisation of our energy and on limiting as radically as possible the emissions that will add to anthropogenic global warming. Those are the direct policy implications that this House needs to look at closely, and we will unpack that further to say, “We may have disagreements about exactly how we limit the decarbonisation of our energy supply and the many different ways of doing it, but we will have a separate policy makers’ debate”—as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) has alluded to—“on the best method of doing that.” Unless we have an overarching guide where we are clear about what we are doing, most of the rest of that conversation will not make a great deal of sense.

The best endeavours of pretty much all the scientists involved in this area around the world are to get to grips with finding out what is happening, why it is happening and what we should do about it, and we in this Chamber should commend that work and not seek to draw false conclusions from it or pick holes in it that are of no relevance to the overall policy making thrust. I commend what our report says to Government. I hope that they will be able to take on board what is said and ensure that they use it to guide their policy formation, whatever vicissitudes there may be about exactly how we will get there.

UK Shale Gas

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Thursday 18th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lilley]

Even that is not true. The most recent generation of gas turbines are so much more efficient than the previous ones that the savings from replacing all our gas turbines with the most recent generation would probably be greater than the savings in CO_2, emissions from using wind. I will, if I may, make some progress.

Until we find a way of controlling CO₂ levels in the atmosphere that will not cost more than the benefits of doing so, we should not impoverish this generation. My respect for the hon. Lady and her colleague, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), begins to evaporate when they abandon their real belief, which is that we should not burn any fossil fuels, and start to concoct fabricated fears and spurious arguments against fracking. Their first argument is that there will not be much there—that was what they originally said. Now the British Geological Survey says that there is probably an awful lot there, but that we will not know until we have drilled it.

The hon. Lady went on to say that the process will be so costly that it will cost more than the price, in which case no one will extract it, so her fears can evaporate. She clearly does not believe her own argument otherwise she would not even bother to attend this debate because it would not be important. She alleges that it will be more difficult geologically to extract shale in this country than in the United States, and that the geology here is less attractive than there, but that is simply not the case.

When the Select Committee interviewed Cuadrilla and BHP Billiton in the States, we asked them how thick the shale beds were in the States that they typically extracted from. They said 300, 400 or 500 feet thick. How thick is the Bowland shale? It is a mile thick; up to 20 times as thick as in America, which means that from one surface pod, we can get up to 20 times as much fracking as they can in the States—perhaps it is only a dozen times.

[Dr Whitehead]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Lilley]

The hon. Gentleman can intervene if he wishes to put me right.

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Gentleman will lose time from me intervening, so I am sorry about that.

[Mr Lilley]

If the hon. Gentleman can be quick.

[Dr Whitehead]

Thickness is not necessarily the final indicator.

[Mr Lilley]

If the hon. Gentleman does not have anything interesting to say, then he should not waste my time.

[Dr Whitehead]

Well, it relates to geological faulting, clay, extractability, tightness—

[Mr Lilley]

Thank you very much. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That was not very helpful to the debate in general.

The second and more plausible argument is that, even if there are large quantities of gas here and we will not know that until we have drilled, it will not succeed in bringing down prices in the UK, because our prices are fundamentally set by marginal suppliers from Europe. That is both plausible and possibly true, but either we will have so much here, and there will be so much elsewhere, that gas prices will come down, or they will not in which case the tax revenues from producing gas in this country will be substantially greater—three times as much per cubic metre extracted as in the States. With those extra tax revenues, we will be able to reduce our other costs on the economy or other tax bills that people face.

Shale is ubiquitous; it is incredibly widespread across the world. For the hon. Lady to suggest that it will be extractable only in the States is really to express the belief that God is an American, that he has created a particularly unique situation in America with shale that is so different from shale elsewhere in the world and with a technology that will only apply there, and that he has maliciously arranged things so that the technology will not apply to the shale in the UK, France, Poland, China or elsewhere in the world. I simply do not believe that that is true. In all probability, we will see a shale gas revolution worldwide that will probably keep gas prices low. It is certainly likely to prevent them going up, and it may even bring them down as it has done in the States.

When pessimism about reserves and prices fails, some people resort to fabricated scares, which are as irresponsible and as unjustified as the MMR scares, which stopped people taking advantage of vaccination. I hope that we will not allow similar scares to stop us taking advantage in this country of the potential resources that exist beneath our soil.

The letter from the people in Balcombe from which the hon. Lady quoted says that fracking is considered to be an uncertain and risky technology. It is far from being uncertain and risky. The first gas well was fracked on 17 March 1949. Since then 2 million wells have been fracked in the United States, and 200,000 in the last year, without anyone being poisoned by contaminated water, or any buildings or people suffering damage from minuscule seismic tremors.

The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering dismissed fears about water contamination. They concluded that any health, safety and environmental risks associated with hydraulic fracturing can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

I am sorry, but I cannot give way any more; I would lose the rest of my time.

What happens with those large numbers of wells in terms of the fracking process? That process involves the use of between 2 million and 7 million gallons of water, and 5,000 gallons of chemicals, per frack; whether we know what is in the chemicals or not, that is the sort of volume of chemicals needed. As has been said, that water cannot be injected into seams deeper than the fracking itself, as is the case in America, but would have to be disposed of by other means. Also, unless the fracking companies brought the water with them, water would have to be taken from the water table within the area where the fracking was taking place, which has implications for the integrity of the water tables in those particular parts of the country. That is an important but largely forgotten point.

The final thing that I want to say, given the short amount of time I have, is about the policy implications of going for a large amount of fracking. If we went for a large amount of fracking, as I have said we could perhaps supply—over a period—10% of overall UK gas supplies. If we went for a large programme of anaerobic digestion, we could provide 10% of the domestic gas supply. A farm-sized anaerobic digestion plant costs about £2 million to build—

[Mr Lilley]

What’s stopping them?

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Member may well have asked a very valid question. As I was saying, such a plant produces about a third of the gas over a 20-year period that a fracking well would produce over 7.5 years, but anaerobic digestion plants will produce gas continuously because the cows that provide the stuff that produces the gas continue to produce the feedstock, as do we from our own waste and our food. Therefore, anaerobic digestion plants do not deplete. A long-term strategy for gas supply security might concern itself with anaerobic digestion and biogas, rather than going for a gas bonanza. We ought to look at all these factors when looking at the future of gas supply in this country.

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Thursday 18th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lilley]

I am grateful to hear that there is another voice of common sense in this Chamber. Where do I see nuclear? Unfortunately, it has become extremely expensive but it is, none the less, a source of major power that is not dependent on the vagaries of the weather or the fact that the sun goes in at night.

[Dr Whitehead]

For completeness, will the right hon. Gentleman put on the record the extent to which he accepts any externalities in the extraction, transportation and use of fossil fuels, or does he think that they could be made even cheaper by having 12-year-olds dig them out of the ground with no safety rules whatever, no transportation and no concerns? What are his particular parameters in terms of the comparisons he is making?

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry but we must have brief interventions. That will get us back on to a swifter speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lilley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, Germany is moving away from renewables, if one counts nuclear as a renewable. It is moving away from nuclear. It is planning to close down all its nuclear plants, and by and large that will mean replacing them with fossil fuel plants instead. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) want to intervene?

[Dr Whitehead]

I was just pointing out that the right hon. Gentleman said that nuclear is a renewable. I recall the process of getting uranium out of the ground in order to fuel nuclear reactors, and once it is out of the ground it cannot be put back in again. Nuclear is not a renewable.

[Mr Lilley]

Okay. I take the hon. Gentleman’s pedantry in good heart, since I am a pedant myself. I should not have said “renewable”; I should have said “non-fossil fuel”. Nevertheless, Germany is moving away from its dependence on nuclear, which is a non-fossil fuel, and it will rely more on fossil fuels, despite its already large commitment to solar and wind.

At this point, Mr Turner, to avoid yet more interventions, which might incur your wrath, and further replies to them from me, which might be too long, I will leave Westminster Hall to those who wish to indulge their fantasies in public, so that they can have their say.

Green Economy

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I oppose the motion. I suspect that I will be the only person to do so. It is not because we cannot have green economy. We could—indeed, we once had a totally green economy. We relied on windmills to grind our flour, on watermills to saw our wood, on horsepower for transport, and on biomass—as burning wood is now called—for heat, but we abandoned those when we discovered that coal could fuel a steam engine, that oil could fuel the internal combustion engine, and that gas and nuclear could give us electricity. Since then, we have enjoyed huge increases in our material standard of living based very largely on comparatively cheap energy from fossil fuels.

The great Victorian economist, Jevons, pointed out nearly a century and a half ago why coal had ousted wind:

“The first great requisite of motive power is that it shall be wholly at our command, to be exerted when, and where, and in what degree we desire. The wind, for instance, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear.”

Much the same can be said about the unreliability of solar and the discontinuity of tidal energy. My hon. Friends may want to return to a mediaeval economy that relies on unreliable, high-cost water, sunshine, wood and wind, but I do not. I am a conservative, not a reactionary. Of course, it may be that some time in the future new sources of energy will become available that are as reliable as, and cheaper than, fossil fuels—perhaps thorium reactors, nuclear fusion or cheaper battery storage, in conjunction with the intermittent renewables that we are developing at the moment. I will rejoice if those come about, but they are some way off.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that since the time of the quote he read out, we have had three further industrial revolutions, which makes his assumptions completely obsolete, and that we are in the middle of a further clean-tech and biotech industrial revolution that will make obsolete the previous assumptions on industrial revolutions? Has he taken that into account in his calculations?

[Mr Lilley]

I do not know which industrial revolutions the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but they certainly did not rely on our subsidising the use of more expensive energy to replace less expensive energy.

There are perfectly respectable, if not entirely convincing, arguments for saying that we have to replace cheap energy with expensive, less reliable energy to reduce carbon emissions, and that that is a price worth paying, to coin a phrase. However, the premise of this debate is that we can generate economic growth by introducing fiscal measures to subsidise and promote green energy. Let us be clear what that means: it means subsidising the replacement of comparatively cheap and reliable energy from fossil fuels with more expensive and intermittent energy from renewables.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: not only are the jobs real, but they are long-term, skilled jobs. Other countries are investing heavily in such jobs as that sixth-wave energy and industrial revolution takes off across the world.

My reference in an intervention to the several industrial revolutions since the horse and cart and steam relates to the fact that we are now beyond the information and technology revolution and moving into the clean-tech biotech revolution, which is taking off throughout the world. Who is the world leader in clean energy? We talk about its pollution and energy profligacy, but it is China—a country that is clearly engaged in a conspiracy of useless non-job creation in the green economy.

[Mr Lilley]

I pointed out that the Chinese are allowed to subsidise their manufacturers of, for example, wind turbines, whereas we are not. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should subsidise such manufacturers, and how does he propose to alter the EU regulations to enable that?

[Dr Whitehead]

As it happens, EU regulations enable the underwriting of investment in technology that will lead to a lower-carbon economy. The renewables obligation is regarded as state aid, but such investment can be underwritten precisely because it brings new technology to market, reduces its costs and increases its prevalence. That is why the Chinese invested £34 billion in clean energy in 2009, compared with £18 billion in the US. As the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has said, the goods for low-carbon markets are expected to reach something like £4 trillion by 2015. Put simply, if we are not in that market, we will be sidelined not temporarily, but permanently.

Curiously, the recession gives our country an opportunity to be far more proactive than we might otherwise be. The cost of capital is low and liquidity is high because of the paradox of thrift: there is no danger that investment in green goods, services and plants will crowd out other forms of investment. Fiscally, we can go for it, but in view of the asymmetry, there must be clear and long-term signals.

What might we do? We could invest in decarbonising our homes, for climate change purposes and for demand reduction purposes. We should insulate homes to make them fuel poverty-proof—as we know, the green deal will only scratch the surface. We will get £4 billion per annum over the next 15 years from the EU emissions trading scheme, carbon trading and the carbon floor price. As a fiscal measure—without hypothecating what is in the tax pot—we could invest a large amount of that money in ensuring that our homes are energy-efficient.

We should invest in low-carbon energy provision in the way that I have outlined. If the state wills the ends of that provision, it must underwrite it. That need not mean putting money in the pot, but it does mean underwriting at least some of the risk. It is ridiculous, for example, that there is no state backing for the contracts for difference that will replace the renewables obligation under the Energy Act 2011, and that no demand-side measures, underwritten by feed-in tariffs, are being introduced under the Act. We can get long-term value by taking such fiscal action.

Fiscal policy need not involve underwriting money. Holding the ring on risk and bringing new forms of low-carbon power home is key. To get us to a position in which we have a substantial number of ultra-low carbon vehicles on the road, why not have a “feebate” system, whereby we use, as a fiscal measure, additional fees on high-carbon consuming vehicles to underwrite the new low-carbon vehicles that come on stream? We have a target of 1.7 million ultra-low-carbon vehicles on our roads by the early 2020s. That is the sort of measure we should undertake.

Above all, we should get real about the green investment bank. The bank will have £3 billion as a fund until 2016, or perhaps later, depending on whether the Chancellor decides that it is ready for investment as a whole, yet last year KfW, the German public green investment bank, invested £24 billion—more than a third of its £70 billion —on energy and climate change measures. We can do that if the green investment bank is a bank, but it needs the ability to raise bonds and money at an early stage. That is the sort of fiscal underwriting we need for this green energy, resource and social revolution that we are going through. We need to get on with that urgently, and I urge the House to support the motion to assist with that process.

Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

Debate between Lord Lilley and Alan Whitehead

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lilley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. George Monbiot pointed out in his original article that it costs about £3 to save a tonne of CO₂ by investing in geothermal energy, and £8 by building a nuclear power station, whereas the scheme that we are talking about costs more like £800 to save a tonne of CO₂.

Not only do we not create any net jobs; we also create only a tenth of the amount of electricity by investing £8 billion in solar than we would by investing in nuclear or something else.

[Dr Whitehead]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I am afraid that I will not give way again.

I will remind the House of something that may have escaped hon. Members’ attention. Even if the price comes down dramatically, solar will never be a substitute for other forms of energy. It will always have to be backed up and duplicated by an equal amount of capacity that can perform when solar is not available. It may have escaped the notice of the House, but the sun comes out only in the day. It is not available at night, when it is coldest and we need most energy. The sun is highest in the sky in the summer; it is lowest in the winter, when it is coldest and we need most energy. The sun is often blocked by clouds, and one cannot predict when that will happen. For every megawatt of solar capacity that we install, we have to install an equal gas capacity to back it up and replicate it. Unless we realise that, and abandon the scheme until solar becomes much more economic, we are wasting the nation’s money and, as George Monbiot says, transferring money from poor people’s and ordinary people’s pockets into the hands of richer people.