Capenhurst Facility: High-assay Low-enriched Uranium

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Curran

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I have had a discussion previously with the noble Lord about americium, and I appreciate the briefing that he has given me. The Government have supported the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory to extract americium from the UK’s civil separated plutonium inventory at Sellafield for the European Space Agency’s ENDURE programme. We recognise the potential importance of americium for other advanced technologies, including space power systems. We are currently working with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to explore opportunities for collaboration with industry. I should say to the noble Lord that no decisions have been made at this stage, but discussions are ongoing, and I have a funny feeling that he will ask for those further discussions to include him, which I am happy to do.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Amey, Acteon and Buckthorn Partners. Urenco at Capenhurst is a successful project, as the Minister said, funded by the UK and Dutch Governments and two private German firms, and it aims to become the West’s first commercial HALEU plant. Will the Government now take steps to encourage the development of a domestic fuel supply chain, including decompression and fuel fabrication, to capture the significant value of this emerging market? Does this success story not prove that we do not need to acquiesce to EU rules and call on taxpayers to fund expensive EU electricity projects to have a productive working relationship with the continent in the pursuit of low-cost energy?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question—he never fails to surprise me with some of the questions that he asks. I can commit to the domestic supply chain. It is important because, as I have said before from the Dispatch Box, we want to get a double hit out of our investment: not only is it about creating that supply chain, it is about the benefits that come with the supply chain and the skills and the jobs that that will mean for Britain. I guarantee to the noble Lord that that is a vital part of this programme. It is a success story for Britain that we should be proud of and that we should focus on. On his wider point about Europe, I am always willing to work with European partners and support the electricity market of Great Britain, and will continue to do so.

Rosebank Oil Field

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Curran

Thursday 29th October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the exploration of the Rosebank oil field, following its development being accounted for in the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook published on 28 October 2026.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Curran) (Lab)]

The OBR makes assumptions about future oil and gas production in order to forecast tax receipts. It uses the North Sea Transition Authority’s projections, which include potential production from potential new fields, including Rosebank, and future discoveries. It is therefore normal for the Government’s future revenue forecasts to include both current and potential future oil and gas projects. Rosebank, for example, has been included since at least 2019. This in no way reflects the Energy Secretary’s independent decision on the project, which will be made through a quasi-judicial process, taking into account all relevant factors in the case. It will not surprise the noble Lord to hear me say that I am unable to comment further on individual projects and that the Energy Secretary will be making a decision on whether to grant consent or not in due course, in the normal way.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of Amey, Acteon and Buckthorn. The legislation governing the OBR gives it an explicit, legally binding right to access information and seek assistance from government departments. When it is uncertain, it says so. However, what it says on pages 93 and 94 is as clear as crystal. The projection for oil and gas receipts,

“includes production from currently producing fields (including Jackdaw), and the NSTA’s estimate of production from development of new fields, which includes Rosebank”—

so there is no prevarication and no rider, and it is specifically named.

At today’s oil prices and with current reserve estimates, it is likely that the tax take could be north of £10 billion for the life of the field. Can the Minister say why it has taken over a year for the Government to announce the decision to produce Rosebank, with the Secretary of State stating to the Guardian that she is “leaning towards” refusing Rosebank when the words of the Chancellor this morning in the context of Jackdaw were:

“I really welcome the decision … It’s common sense. It’s practical. It adds to our energy security. It produces revenue”—

all of which are equally applicable to Rosebank?

Does the Minister agree that if these figures are wrong, then the OBR, despite its right to consult DESNZ, should bin its projections and rewrite them? Alternatively, should not Parliament be informed first when the Government make an announcement, especially when backing the Conservative campaign to approve Rosebank and back Scottish workers—indeed, over 1,000 Scottish workers and their families?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a number of points. In terms of what he says about the OBR, I have to re-emphasise the points that I have made, that it is a normal process for the Government’s future revenue forecast to include both current and potential oil and gas receipts, and it has been included since 2019. However, the noble Lord went on to make a number of other points.

The Chancellor indeed said that Jackdaw was common sense—I think I used that very phrase myself when I was at the Dispatch Box earlier this week. I have to emphasise that we have had a legal challenge through this process—the noble Lord’s former Government will understand that, because the Court of Session said that scope 3 emissions had to be taken into account, so we have had to revisit that. I want to be as clear as I can be that this is quasi-judicial and I do not wish to jeopardise that in any way whatever. I take the point the noble Lord made; I am under no illusions about the Conservative Party’s view on this is—it has been pointed out to me on countless occasions. I want to just leave it at that. I am sure as the questions develop, we may go into a bit of a party-political debate, but at the moment I just want to emphasise the quasi-judicial nature of the Rosebank decision.

Boiler Upgrade Scheme (Amendment to the Energy Act 2008 etc.) Regulations 2026

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Curran

Monday 14th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Baroness Curran) (Lab)]

My Lords, these regulations were laid in draft before Parliament on 13 July 2026. The boiler upgrade scheme is the Government’s flagship scheme for supporting the decarbonisation of heat in homes and small non-domestic buildings across England and Wales. The scheme provides grants towards the installation of eligible low-carbon heating technologies, primarily heat pumps, helping households overcome the upfront costs associated with transitioning away from fossil fuel heating systems.

In 2025, the Government consulted on expanding the range of technologies supported through the scheme, including the potential introduction of heat batteries. Heat batteries are a type of thermal energy storage system that can use low-carbon electricity to generate and store heat, and release that energy when required. Following consideration of the consultation responses, the Government confirmed their intention to support heat batteries through the scheme once the appropriate standards are in place. The amendments made by these regulations are an important step towards implementing that decision. The Government are supporting the future inclusion of heat batteries in the boiler upgrade scheme to increase consumer choice, as they have the potential to provide an alternative low-carbon heating solution for consumers in homes where heat pump installation may not be appropriate.

These regulations amend the power of the Secretary of State to make regulations to establish schemes to facilitate and encourage the renewable generation of heat in England and Wales. These schemes can be established only in relation to the listed sources of energy and technologies. These regulations add thermal energy storage systems to the list of those sources of energy and technologies. This amendment provides the necessary statutory basis for thermal energy storage systems to be supported through government schemes that derive their powers from Section 100 of the Energy Act, such as the boiler upgrade scheme. Subject to Parliament approving these regulations, the Government intend to bring forward a statutory instrument to amend the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (England and Wales) Regulations 2022 and to enable support for eligible heat batteries through the scheme.

The regulations also amend Regulation 22 of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (England and Wales) Regulations 2022. This is a technical amendment that clarifies the powers available to the scheme administrator where an installer has received an ineligible payment. The change will enable the scheme administrator, Ofgem, to recover any amount owed through a combination of repayment and offsetting against future grant payments to that installer, improving the administration of the scheme and the protection of public money.

The changes made by these regulations will ensure that the legislative powers underpinning the boiler upgrade scheme can accommodate heat batteries. In doing so, they deliver an important step towards the Government’s commitments to support heat batteries through the scheme, to increase consumer choice and to help more homeowners across England and Wales decarbonise their properties. I beg to move.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument.

The passage of time points to the boiler upgrade scheme’s own record. Regrettably, there have been years of missed installation targets: the original goal was 600,000 a year by 2028, but barely a tenth of that figure has been met. It is now self-evident that expanding the scheme’s budget and eligibility in 2026 will escalate spend on a mechanism that has structurally underperformed without any intention to reform it coming from either the Government or the Liberal Democrat Benches. At this point, I should declare my interest as the chairman of Buckthorn, Acteon and Amey.

The clearest recent articulation of this comes from the shadow Business Secretary and former shadow Secretary of State for Energy, Claire Coutinho, fronting a report from the think tank Onward. It argued that UK electricity prices are too high and that cheap power itself, achieved partly by using more gas and cutting green levies, will do more to drive heat pump and EV uptake than continued subsidy and mandates.

It is compelling economic sense, and it is the belief on this side of the Committee that this approach would make electrification more attractive, while delivering prosperity and a better environment. In other words, no one is arguing that heat pumps are bad, but we believe that a BUS-style subsidy is now proven to be the wrong lever and that removing green levies from bills would achieve similar ends without state spending.

Moreover, my colleagues in another place have consistently pressed Ministers about the stronger evidence that costs associated with the wider agenda for the decarbonisation of heat, including mechanisms such as the clean heat market mechanism boiler tax on manufacturers, are being passed to consumers via higher gas boiler prices. In other words, the current approach taxes conventional boiler households to subsidise heat pump adopters, and this is regressive.

There are a number of specific points, and I am grateful to the Minister for having raised them. The first was a constitutional process concern. This SI amends primary legislation via secondary legislation. That is not unusual but, because it touches Section 100 of the Energy Act 2008, it requires the affirmative procedure. Regulation 2 modifies the list of sources of energy and technologies as set out in Section 100(4) of the 2008 Act to include “thermal energy storage systems” and, as stated:

“By virtue of section 105(3A) and (3B), these Regulations attract the affirmative procedure”.


Instruments that amend an Act of Parliament rather than just delegated regulations routinely draw scrutiny from committees such as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee or the JCSI over the appropriateness of using a Henry VIII-style power for what is a fairly narrow technical expansion.

A related 2026 BUS amendment instrument, SI 2026/390, had to be reissued because the original published version did not reflect the version signed by the Minister and had to be removed and replaced. That is not this specific SI, but it illustrates the concerns about drafting quality that Members of Parliament in the other place and committees have been raising about the pace of legislation on the boiler upgrade scheme.

My second point—I am grateful again to the Minister for raising this—relates to the question of heat batteries or thermal storage. This came out clearly in the Government’s consultation on the eligibility of expanding the BUS, which took place in November last year and which underpins this SI. I would be grateful if the Minister, in responding, could update the Committee on whether any product standards yet exist. Currently, as I understand it—and things may have moved on since November—there are no product standards for the thermal energy storage performance of heat batteries. These technologies will become eligible for scheme funding only once the relevant standards have come into force, which means that the law will permit funding for a technology category that cannot actually be certified or verified yet.

On efficiency and running costs, some respondents raised concerns about direct electric heating’s lower efficiency relative to a heat pump, its running costs and a lack of evidence on the performance and suitability of the various technologies. Some respondents preferred excluding the heat battery category altogether, arguing that funding should stay focused on technologies with proven carbon savings rather than diluting the budget across less tested electric heating options.

The Minister rightly pointed out the importance of the Regulation 22 payment offset amendment, which is a much more mundane and fairly straightforward change clarifying that the administrator may take one or a combination of the actions available to recover payments, provided that the total does not exceed the sum of payments due. As I understand it, it has not attracted any public objections, but it is worth flagging and I am grateful the Minister did; it is a tidying-up clause that gives Ofgem a somewhat broader discretion to recover overpayments and clawbacks. A point that scrutiny committees sometimes probe is whether it expands administrative power beyond what was originally debated, but, as the Minister said in her opening remarks, that would not be the case on this occasion.

I believe that the Government should stop increasing the cost of gas boilers for families through their boiler tax and stop wasting money forcing people into buying heat pumps that they do not want to make marginal reductions to our already limited contribution to global emissions. The Government must, above all, make electricity cheaper and back consumer choice, if they truly want families to adopt electric heating technologies instead of simply forcing people into changing the way that they live their lives to meet their self-imposed, unachievable net-zero targets.

That is why we have called for the scraping of the boiler upgrade scheme along with the clean heat market mechanism that places an obligation on gas and oil boiler manufacturers to install a minimum number of heat pumps at an estimated cost of £340 million in the first year. This goes far further than the boiler upgrade scheme introduced in 2022 under the Energy Act 2008, which encouraged the use of renewable heat by providing financial support for families to install heat pumps to replace fossil fuel boilers. As the Minister said, this instrument amends that Act to extend financial support eligibility to heat batteries, electric heating tech and thermal energy storage systems.

Many of us on this side of the Committee who have studied this consider it to be a case of excessive government intervention and cost to ease the effects of other government interventions. Energy prices are currently high, not despite our transition to renewable sources and green policies but because of them. The Government have acknowledged the fact that policies are to blame by removing VAT from energy bills. Similarly, their focus on renewables, inextricably linked to firm power—oil and gas—has caused the cost of using gas-fired power plants to rise, as they are forced to operate on an ad hoc basis dependent on the weather and are thus far less efficient and very expensive.

Taxes and renewables are the two core policies that have led to the increase in energy bills, which are now the highest of any IEA member country, both including and excluding taxes, for industrial and domestic bills. The Government should not be subsidising the cost of renewables by promoting higher bills for some instead of bringing them down for all through more systemic changes, which will be a subject we will return to, no doubt, on the long overdue introduction of the supremely misnamed energy independence Bill, which will increase energy dependence on imports and not decrease them. That said, on a personal note, I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for this SI and look forward to further debates and discussions with her.

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that contribution, and on that very note I welcome his remarks. We debated some of these issues on my very first outing at the Dispatch Box on the Floor of the House, and I think we will debate some of the fundamental points that he made about the direction of energy policy. He is right to contextualise this within that wider debate about energy policy. It is perhaps one of the great debates of our time and will dominate our thinking and discussions in the time ahead. I am tempted to go into a very long discussion about that; I am sure we will have lively debates going forward. He will know, as I said on the Floor of the House, that the Onward report faced some criticism and there were some arguments from the sector about the report’s premises, but I will leave that because I am sure that we will return to it. At the end of my contribution today, I will comment on the general policy of our approach.

I will now address the boiler upgrade scheme. I put on record that I recognise and respect the noble Lord’s detailed points about it and will pay great attention to the arguments that he is putting forward. It is an argument that this Government want to win, and we believe we can win it, but we will do that only by paying attention to the substance of what he said—and I recognise that substance. I will go through the points that he raised. I will not repeat that the boiler upgrade scheme remains the Government’s flagship scheme for supporting the decarbonisation of heat in homes and small non-domestic buildings across England and Wales, because we see decarbonisation as fundamental to the challenges facing the country and as offering solutions to some of the great issues around climate change and its consequences. I will return to that.

I shall focus on the points raised by the noble Lord and the detail of what he said. He acknowledged that the boiler upgrade scheme is directly funded by the Exchequer. It does not put any direct costs on consumers’ bills. Furthermore, our scheme evaluation data shows that people who have received grants from the boiler upgrade scheme most commonly find that their energy bills decrease as a result. Some 50% of boiler upgrade scheme grant recipients reported that their total energy bills decreased when replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump, compared with just 15% who reported an increase. As he acknowledged, eligible low-carbon heating installations currently benefit from 0% VAT, which further reduces costs for consumers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Can I return to a question that I raised, which the Minister has answered? She seems to be in agreement but it is a real concern. Without product standards for the thermal energy storage performance of heat batteries, these technologies will become eligible for the scheme but the law will permit funding for a technology category that has yet to be certified or verified. I know the Minister said in response that she hoped that it would be done in the near future. I know she would agree that there are significant safety risks associated with this, and consumers and the industry are very worried about it. Recent incidents have highlighted critical gaps in safety standards, indicating that certification alone does not guarantee safety under real-world conditions. That makes the importance of certification and having product standards all the more important for the safety. Can she write to me at the time when the Government are likely to approve these product standards, and therefore introduce into effect what we are considering in the SI today?

[Baroness Curran (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that, and of course I commit to write to him and always to keep him as informed as I possibly can. He raises an interesting point, which was exactly the point that I asked during my three or four briefings with the team to prepare myself for today’s statutory instrument. I asked specifically about where we were with safety regulations and product standards. I have to say that I was concerned about the timing of it, because I want to make sure we move forward in this, but we also talked in some depth about the safety measures around that. I cannot recall in detail offhand every single step they took me through at the moment, but they explained to me the rigorous process that it goes through, which sometimes means it takes that bit longer. One example they cited was that you have to ensure that, as with a driver’s test, the installer must be observed by a senior person to get their certification. I can assure the noble Lord that we have this in hand, but I will of course write to him and keep him appraised of our process in that regard.

Jackdaw and Rosebank Oil and Gas Fields

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Curran

Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of Buckthorn, Amey and Acteon. I warmly welcome the Minister back to the Dispatch Box, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead, who was a highly knowledgeable and impressive Minister.

Given the Government’s outright opposition to new drilling in the North Sea, does the Minister nevertheless agree that there is no reason not to approve Jackdaw and Rosebank, which have already had drilling activity, with Jackdaw now ready for production? In contrast to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Winterton, to the Private Notice Question just now, given that the Government themselves have the final sign-off on Falkland Islands production licences dating back to the early 1990s, when both Tim Eggar and I were ministerially involved, what is the Government’s position on the Falkland Islands Government’s pro-oil and gas position on the Sea Lion oilfield, which is at the centre of the diplomatic row with Argentina? Is it consistent with the department’s position on the North Sea—in other words, outright opposition to new drilling and new offshore oil and gas infrastructure? If not, what is the difference?

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Curran) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his warm welcome. We know each other, and I know that we both welcome robust discussion—which is just as well because I think we will have a few disagreements along the way. He made reference to the enormous contribution of my noble friend Lord Whitehead to this portfolio and the work that he has done. I have learned a lot, and will continue to learn a lot, from my noble friend.

On the substance of the issue the noble Lord raises, he will know that the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields are each subject to a live regulatory process. The public notice period is closing on 10 and 17 August respectively. We are part of that regulatory process. The Secretary of State will consider the representations received and make separate decisions on each project in due course. It would be inappropriate to comment further on either project because it is important to maintain the robustness of the process and not pre-empt or predetermine the decisions.

I note the detail of what the noble Lord asked me in relation to the Falklands. I refer him back to the comments of my noble friend Lady Winterton, and it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on that.