Renewable Energy: Costs

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Acteon, which operates across global marine energy and offshore infrastructure services. Central to this debate is a clear understanding of the significant distinction between the availability of renewables and hydrocarbons. One leads to the generation of intermittent power; the other to much-needed baseload. While moving to an increasing share of renewables, we always require the availability of baseload.

I had the good fortune, as Energy Minister back in 1990, to introduce the first competitive framework for renewables: the non-fossil fuel obligation, which morphed into the contracts for difference that we have in place today. What it has not led to is a simple trade-off between gas-fired power generation and renewables. Even as we debate today, at this hour—not just last week—our grid status shows that 53% of our power generation is from gas, with wind at 18%. Nuclear at 13% is far too low; the late delivery of SMRs is due to their being stifled by bureaucracy. While gas plants account for about one-third of Britain’s power requirements and are destined to fall to an average of 5% in about 10 years, we still have to retain the capacity of these gas-fired plants as a strategic reserve for windless days like today.

It is worth pointing out that we will not achieve that switch without substantial investment and private sector creativity. The recent NESO report, referred to by my noble friend Lord Frost, finds that the shift to renewables necessary for the Government to reach their flagship manifesto pledge of a clean power system in 2030 will require annual investment of more than £40 billion, with nearly 2,700 miles of offshore electric cables and 620 miles of new onshore cabling.

The alternative to this scenario necessitates storage solutions, and while I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that storage technology is improving, there is a long road to travel to reach scalability and affordability. The capex has to be found by the Government if they want to keep the promise made by the Secretary of State Ed Miliband that household bills will fall. Given this reality, it would be irresponsible to turn our back on maximising domestic gas production in the UKCS. A stable fiscal regime for gas production is essential in a highly competitive global market for investment dollars. Norway has a consistent 78% tax rate. If the Government are to follow the Norwegian model, which they began to do in the Budget, the next steps must include further investment allowances. Without them, we face—as we do today—a premature wind-up of the UKCS, leaving gas stranded and substituted not by renewables but by expensive, more polluting, imported LNG, which makes neither economic nor environmental sense.

Renewable energy sources come with massive upfront capital investments which cannot be excluded in any cost comparison. Maintenance, decommissioning, grid costs and life-cycle replacement need to be costed. It is true that the marginal cost of producing electricity from wind or solar, once the facilities are operational, is extraordinarily low. In summary, we have to create a resilient, sustainable energy system which has to underpin energy security. The key, as ever, will lie in the strategic investments we make today, in both technology and infrastructure, and in private sector investment to ensure that we are not merely reacting to market forces but proactively shaping the energy landscape for generations to come. This, I would argue, is a future well worth striving for, and I wish the Government well.

Climate Change

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on securing this important debate. My focus this evening is to concentrate just on one issue—one example of where global warming and climate change are having an adverse effect and acting as a multiplier or accelerator to the damage being inflicted on our environment. In so doing, I declare my interest as chair of governors at Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools.

At our schools we have decided to champion climate change and sustainability. Our flagship policy is the health of the River Wye. Our objective is to place sustainability at the heart of everything we do, and for that reason we are one of only eight schools in the United Kingdom on the ISC advisory group on sustainability. The River Wye is in sight from all our schools. It runs through Wales, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire. The River Wye is ill; it is in poor health. Local practices, many uncontrolled, are impacting the ecosystems, and global warming compounds their damaging effect. Treated sewage is discharged into the river and combines with run-off from farms. When combined with rising temperatures, conditions become perfect for algal blooms, which limit oxygen levels in the river and act to distress the lifestyle of the whole ecosystem. The depletion of ozone is happening due to global warming and is a major factor behind rapid growth in algal blooms.

Global warming compounds the problem. At seven to 16 degrees centigrade, fish are happy and active. By 19 degrees, temperatures are too high, and fish are stressed. Aquatic life at this temperature and above will increase the risk of fish mortality. Last month, temperatures in the River Wye during the daytime exceeded 20 degrees, leading to fish mortality, and the incidence of such high temperatures is not a one off but regularly reoccurs. The Wye Valley is an iconic landscape, hugely important for biodiversity. It is an SSSI and part of it comprises the River Wye special area of conservation. Yet it is dying.

My intention on focusing on the Wye this evening is to demonstrate that climate change must never be viewed in isolation from the wider devastation to which it contributes. The decline in the health of our rivers is magnified by climate change, which can turn manageable problems into a heady cocktail of aggressive destruction, as they increasingly oscillate from flood to drought. On the River Wye we have a duty not only to take action against the huge algal blooms, the invisible poison of phosphate and the dumping of over 1 million tonnes of manure from farms housing up to 10 million chickens; we have to engage in the climate change debate, to which the impacts of these actions are linked.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hastings: we need to campaign. It is vitally important to engage with young people in all our schools in the UK, following the lead we are taking in Monmouth, and to assist in ensuring the integration of environmental and sustainable principles into the educational delivery and operational procedures in all our schools. We must do all this with the same commitment as we intend to generate with our focus on the River Wye. It is one of our great rivers, which must be nursed out of intensive care and away from its current spiralling decline to once again becoming the river which used to see 2,000 to 3,000 salmon run every year, not today’s few hundred stressed fish. We will do that only if all politicians lead by example and work with all students in the United Kingdom, as we intend to do with the people in Monmouth, those living in our towns and villages close to the river, and the many organisations that come together and work so diligently to save the Wye.

Devolved Administrations

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, again I reiterate the importance of respect. The kind of authoritative statement that my noble friend asks for is not something that I am going to venture in five seconds at the Dispatch Box—but I undertake to write to him on the matter.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that, in working constructively with the devolved Administrations, Westminster always needs to adopt a collaborative rather than a confrontational approach; that that approach to working constructively should be based not solely on the right to choose but on the right to an informed choice; and that that approach should be placed at the centre of new information-sharing protocols and never protocols built solely on the rhetoric of muscular unionism?

[Lord True (Con)]

Well, I do agree with that; indeed, it has been implicit and explicit in the answers that I have sought to give your Lordships. I believe profoundly that the peoples of these islands have benefited extraordinarily from centuries of co-operation within our United Kingdom, and I hope and pray that that will continue. That must go with mutual respect—and that goes both ways—between the centre and the devolved Administrations. I think that is the devout wish of the whole of your Lordships’ House.

Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I also welcome the Bill and congratulate the inimitable noble Lord, Lord Bird, on securing time for the House to consider this measure.

I would like to concentrate my brief remarks on the importance of health, an active lifestyle and recreation in the context of the well-being of future generations. In so doing, I note that there is only implicit passing reference to these essential building blocks to be laid at the foundation of the Bill before the House today, which seeks to ensure that UK policy-making needs to take future generations into account. It is a civic society build and subsequent bolt-on measure, requiring collaborative thinking and action between civic society and lawmakers, which is why a call for public consultation in the first place is right.

While the Bill does not seek to define “wellbeing goals”, I believe that, following public consultation on the issue, they should ideally be placed in the Bill. Alternatively—albeit sub-optimally—they should be brought before the House under secondary legislation for further annual debate. That is a nuanced approach to the principle that government should be required to set measurable national well-being objectives and publish an annual report on progress towards meeting them.

I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, to the proposal by the Department of Health to launch an office for health promotion this autumn. It wisely has set out the objective as leading national efforts to look to the future to improve and level up public health, setting action across government to improve the nation’s health by tackling obesity, improving mental health and promoting physical activity. Since well-being policies cover educational opportunity, no well-being measures can avoid placing the interests of children at the epicentre of the Bill, for they are the future. Issues around poverty, levelling up, education and, above all, mental and physical health and well-being are critical for children—not least access, with responsibility, to the countryside, which we have been working on in Committee on the Environment Bill this week.

My noble friend Lord True, representing the Cabinet Office, is the right man to respond to this debate today because that is exactly where ministerial responsibility for well-being should lie. Once established, the well-being goals will require more co-ordinated action across government departments than ever seen before. We will need to move away from the silo approach which has characterised Whitehall departments for far too long and work toward a series of national well-being goals capable of being judged against definable outputs across government. I hope the Prime Minister will consider creating the office of a Secretary of State for well-being and children in the Cabinet Office.

Civil Society Forum: UK Delegation

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, obviously I do not accept the conclusion. The noble Lord is oversimplifying what I said at the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is precisely because we knew we had agreed something exceptional, complex and difficult that we built in consent arrangements, and why we had a reasonable expectation of the arrangements operating pragmatically. That has not turned out to be the case. There has turned out to be a very significant chilling effect on Great British businesses moving goods to Northern Ireland. We knew that there would be such an effect. It has turned out to be very much stronger and much more rapid. I do not think there is anything unreasonable in learning from experience when we deal with such a sensitive and delicate situation and trying to find a more reasonable balance as we go forward.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, given that the civil society forum must bring a wide range of experience to collaborate with government and business leaders in finding and advocating solutions, would my noble friend agree that engagement with civil society representatives from a wide range of experiences, including the recreational and active lifestyle sectors, could benefit government by drawing together expertise from across government and the recreation sector to ensure the success of the recently announced office for health promotion in the Department of Health, which in turn would focus on how an active lifestyle could benefit our population, tackle obesity and mental health challenges, and enable us to emerge stronger as a nation from Covid-19, as well as sharing all our experience with the UK-EU civil society forum?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I certainly agree that the civil society forum, when it is up and running, should seek to draw in as wide a range of expertise and ideas as it possibly can. I certainly agree that it is also important that the Government meet as wide a range of civil society organisations, broadly defined, as possible. I certainly meet business representations weekly from sector to sector. I have met a wide range of civil society representatives in Northern Ireland, and we continue to do so.

Budget Statement

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, the announcements in the Budget relating to sport and recreation are welcome. There is £300 million available for spectator sports. At the end of last summer, major spectator sports faced debts in excess of £100 million, with a liability of a further £200 million in the absence of action by the Government, so this support is very welcome. The £25 million for grass-roots football was also essential, otherwise one in four clubs would have had little chance of reopening after the pandemic. We must also ensure that money is used to improve facilities and develop new football pitches.

Our sporting infrastructure in this country is in serious decline. Most interestingly, £150 million was made available to allow communities to take over leadership of local facilities that are failing. This can keep many community sports clubs alive. Four hundred pools, leisure and gym facilities will have already gone to the wall before we emerge from this pandemic, and investing in local gyms and leisure facilities, once they can open with safe restrictions, is very welcome, with applications invited for loans and grants.

The Government’s road map out of the pandemic notes:

“Exercise and outdoor sports are well documented to reduce individuals’ risk of major illnesses”.


It also says that physical activity is known to help with increased resistance,

“improving mental health through better sleep, happier moods, and managing stress”

and anxiety. We must build back better and build back more active. Only with a national policy for sport, recreation and an active lifestyle for well-being and a safe environment have we any chance of tackling obesity, boredom and poor health, both physical and mental, which faces the younger generation in particular to a level unprecedented in this country. Only a major cross-departmental response co-ordinated from the top will work, and only when the Government prioritise the importance of an active lifestyle policy to the nation will we be properly prepared to deliver a full recovery from this epidemic—this economically, socially, mentally and physically debilitating time in our history.

Economic Update

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

I share the noble Viscount’s view that we need to talk more of a single nation. I fear we will hear more of this up to the devolved elections over the next few months, but I hope that, after that, we can get back to speaking more as a single country.

[Lord Moynihan (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the £4.6 billion in grants announced for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, as well as the sports winter survival loan package of last November, which covered 11 major spectator sports. Will my noble friend ask his colleagues to turn their attention to the community sports and recreation sector, whose clubs and community centres are currently on their knees, so that, when safe, they can be opened up as soon as possible, to enhance the physical and mental health of the nation, with at least some financial oxygen in essential life-support grants and loans?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

I share the noble Lord’s concern about all these institutions that have been forced to shut down. We all very much look forward to the moment when they can reopen, which is why so much emphasis is being placed on the rapid rollout of the vaccine.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, having spent many years in your Lordships’ House on the Opposition Front Bench with responsibility for foreign affairs following my time in the Foreign Office long ago in the days of Francis Pym, I have always found it possible to combine a passionate interest and attachment to what the Prime Minister recently called the history, security, values and geology that bind us to our friends in Europe with an economic belief that the current European project, which is still in transition, will ultimately face challenges and possible failure on economic and then political grounds. I have always believed that we are better as a close friend and ally on the borders of the EU than one of 28 member states principally tied to the economic and political constraints within it.

Accordingly, I congratulate the Government and the negotiating teams on both sides, and associate myself with the 17.4 million people, including myself, who voted for Brexit and began the process that has led to the passing of this historic Bill. I believe the surprising strength of this deal will in time lead other member states carefully to consider their membership of the European Union.

The Bruges speech in 1988 was the turning point for many of us in government in the 1980s. We can now end the 30 years and more of fractious debate and often exhausting misdirected political energy and demonstrate increasing certainty for business after four and a half years of uncertainty. This Bill—this return to national sovereignty—comes at a time in our history when the establishment pillars of 20th-century Britain are also being challenged as we rightly move to a more meritocratic society where we must level up.

Today, we have loosened and restructured unequivocally the political ties of interstate integration. In 2021 there will be a growing awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship, productivity, competitiveness and opportunity in a global market—themes that will need to resonate as loudly in the boardrooms and on factory floors of UK-based companies as they will be reflected in the increasingly unfettered corridors of Westminster and Whitehall.

However, I temper my optimism with a recognition that, as has been said, this future relationship Bill is ultimately a tool—not an end in itself, but a new beginning, capable of unleashing this country’s potential and above all its people. In using that tool in the Bill before us, I regret the use of Henry VIII powers, which are widely evident in this Bill and which permit the Government to avoid parliamentary accountability and scrutiny with, as became known after the Statute of Proclamations in 1539, a swift flick of the quill that leaves spilt ink on otherwise excellent parchment.

That said, with unfettered optimism and determination, the Prime Minister has delivered, but what above all should be remembered is that Parliament today approves the Bill. The PM should be congratulated. Today is a historic day and a most welcome opportunity that cannot and should not be taken for granted. It must be grasped to be successful.

Customs Safety and Security Procedures (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, the central requirement for government in the context of customs safety and security procedures is, as the Minister said, to establish the continuity of procedures so that the economy can continue to operate effectively in the context of the end of the transition period.

This is more important than ever today. As reported earlier by the BBC, a global shipping crisis is impacting the UK severely. Understandably, many businesses are stockpiling in advance of a possible no deal. Port backlogs are driving up shipping rates. UK ports are reported to be close to broken. The surge in demand and backlog of empty shipping containers are causing bottlenecks. The impact of the three Cs—Christmas, coronavirus and customs—while businesses are still lacking in confidence about what will happen in the case of a no-deal Brexit, is growing.

Accordingly, I hope my noble friend the Minister will take this opportunity to provide the Government’s view on how this crisis can be resolved, any action the Department for Transport intends to take to remedy the situation, and what proportion, if any, of the substantial port costs will be passed on to consumers. The case of Honda is important; is it the Government’s intention to intervene, given the suspension of production at its Swindon plant? What further capacity for moving containers through ports can the Government provide? Should we look towards more expensive prices for consumers, or unsustainability for businesses where the onward price cannot be increased?

On customs procedures in the event of a no-deal Brexit, I will raise an important issue that I fully appreciate might require my noble friend, despite his lexicon of knowledge, to consult further with Defra and DCMS, although he did refer specifically to the control of the movement of live animals. In that context, can he confirm that EU law on the movement of horses and equines will continue to provide a shared framework to allow Ireland, France and the UK to ensure that, from 1 January 2021, there will be a specific arrangement for the movement of racehorses through customs posts and immigration control, as at present; in other words, will he ensure that that law will be placed on the statute book in the UK?

Will the tripartite agreement—TPA—be in place? As I understand the situation, this agreement will lapse in three weeks’ time, thereby removing the free movement of racehorses between Ireland, the UK and France, and massively impairing horseracing in this country. This would draw a curtain over Cheltenham and racing in general. Trainers would understandably not submit their highly tuned racehorses to potentially lengthy delays at the borders, which would impair the movement of horses and potentially do such significant harm that trainers would not enter them in races. Any increased certification and controls would have to be electronically managed in advance. A successor agreement to the TPA may be agreed in respect of north/south movement of horses only if Northern Ireland continues to provide the necessary guarantees on maintaining high-health status, and if the UK can continue to guarantee that all other controls are carried out, including on horses coming from Great Britain into Northern Ireland, as well as from Ireland and France into the UK.

For the movement of equine animals between the UK and the EU countries I mentioned to continue after the transition period, the UK would need to be listed by the Commission as a third country eligible to export horses to the EU, and vice versa. From 1 January, when the transition period ends, racehorses entering Great Britain from Ireland or France will, I assume, only be permitted departure and entry clearance under this and related regulations. Specific controls for movement from Great Britain to Ireland, including blood testing and residency requirements, will also apply depending on the sanitary group—the health status category—the Commission assigns to the UK and the purpose and duration of the equine movement. Will this impede the current seamless free movement of racehorses across borders, as permitted by the tripartite agreement?

This categorisation has to be clear in three weeks’ time. Equine animals moving to and through the UK will be subject to UK government customs requirements. Customs controls will also apply to equine movements between Ireland and the United Kingdom. In the circumstances, is my noble friend confident that all involved should now prepare for the seamless and unimpeded movement of racehorses between Ireland, France and the United Kingdom? Is the industry ready and prepared for racehorses moving from the UK to Ireland and France? What new documentary, identity and physical health checks will be required?

Will the border be frictionless when it comes to the movement of horses from Northern Ireland to the rest of Great Britain? Are transporters of horses on both sides of the Irish, French and UK borders compliant with the relevant authorisations and certificates, irrespective of the outcome of the current round of negotiations; in other words, can my noble friend assure me that a new TPA will be in place on 1 January 2021 come what may, without any impact on Cheltenham, Ascot, the Derby or the British horseracing calendar next year?

EU: Visa-free Short-term Travel Mobility

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to her place. She is exactly right; the comment underlines my point that we are seeking to negotiate arrangements which run very much in the direction that the House is asking for. For example, we are seeking measures on contractual services suppliers who provide services to a client in another jurisdiction. I cannot go through all our mode 4 suggestions, but they are on the table and we very much hope that they will be picked up.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My noble friend the Minister will know that, currently, eligible applicants can work in most jobs under the simplified youth mobility scheme but cannot work as young professional sports coaches unless qualified in the UK. Will he look again at this prohibition so as to encourage young, recently retired international sports men and women to come to this country as coaches to support our elite development pathways after the transition period?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, again, that is another specific and important point which is covered under this heading for discussion. I undertake to keep the House and my noble friend informed, in particular in relation to sport, as he has asked.