Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Oxburgh and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I will now speak to government Amendments 12, 16 and 17, which relate to the matters to which the OGA must have regard when exercising its functions. There has been informative and reasoned debate throughout the passage of this Bill about the role of the OGA in relation to CCS. I am glad that we have had the opportunity to discuss these matters more fully with many noble Lords since then. These amendments, along with others that we will be considering later today, are designed to ensure that the OGA’s important functions in relation to carbon storage, which support the Government’s overarching strategy for the decarbonisation of the economy, are at the forefront of the Bill.

I have spoken about the OGA’s role within the Government’s broader strategy to support decarbonisation. Within that context, I will now speak to government Amendment 12, which inserts an additional subsection into Clause 4. This requires the OGA, in the exercise of its functions, to have regard to the development and use of carbon storage facilities and of anything else needed in connection with the development and use of such facilities. This will create a duty upon the OGA when exercising any of its functions, so far as relevant, to give due consideration to not just the development and use of such facilities but to other necessary aspects of the carbon storage chain. Those functions include statutory functions relating to oil and gas, such as the OGA’s statutory activities on decommissioning, which we will discuss more fully elsewhere. When scrutinising an abandonment programme, which is submitted prior to decommissioning, the OGA will have a statutory duty to consider alternatives to decommissioning at every stage of a proposed decommissioning planning process. This amendment will crystallise and strengthen the need for the OGA to have regard, in particular, to the development of carbon storage facilities through its role on decommissioning.

Such duties will also read across to the OGA’s role in relation to the stewardship of upstream petroleum infrastructure, including upstream pipelines, which are important for the transportation of carbon dioxide and for the commercial viability of CCS projects more broadly. Part 2 of the Bill will give the OGA new regulatory powers that apply to owners of upstream petroleum infrastructure, including powers to attend key industry meetings. These regulatory powers will provide the OGA with a much greater insight into the asset stewardship of upstream petroleum infrastructure, and this amendment to Clause 4 will help to ensure that the OGA makes strategic links to the viability of such infrastructure for the transport and storage of carbon dioxide at an early stage.

This amendment will also read across to the OGA’s functions regarding information and samples. For example, when consenting to plans for the preservation of information and samples, the OGA will consider how such materials could be of interest to the development of CCS.

The amendment will also apply to the OGA’s non-statutory functions—for example, where the OGA is developing important sector strategies to support the oil and gas industry. This amendment will help to ensure that CCS will also form an important element of the OGA’s technology and decommissioning sector strategies, which I know are already under development. In producing these strategies, the OGA will consult the CCS industry to ensure that synergies between the industries are identified and exploited wherever possible.

The amendment will also have importance at an organisational level, and the OGA has already been examining how CCS fits into the operations of all of its directorates and has identified a key contact point for CCS at director level.

Furthermore, to make explicit the link between the OGA’s carbon storage functions and the Government’s priorities regarding decarbonisation, the OGA must consider how its work to develop carbon storage may assist the Secretary of State to meet the target in Section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008.

Government Amendment 16 is intended to place beyond doubt that the OGA’s functions include functions in respect of the storage of carbon dioxide. It does so by expanding the definition of “function” as provided under Clauses 4 and 5 to include functions exercised under Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Energy Act 2008, which comprise the OGA’s statutory functions in respect of carbon dioxide storage licensing. Amendment 17 simply ensures that the definition of “relevant functions” does not extend to any activity carried out by the OGA under an agreement made with the Welsh Ministers under Clause 3.

Amendments 12 and 16 are intended to formalise in the OGA’s functions objectives to support the development of carbon storage, and I have outlined the effect this will have. In many cases, this reflects work already under way and which I expect to develop further as the OGA builds capacity.

I know that many noble Lords met members of the OGA leadership team following the Committee debates. I hope they will agree that the organisation recognises and understands the benefits of CCS and will work to ensure that carbon dioxide storage is properly integrated into the OGA’s functions. Through these amendments, I have sought to place clear obligations on the OGA to support that approach. Moreover, I am tabling separate amendments to ensure that these matters will be continuously reviewed by government and scrutinised by Parliament—a point that we will discuss separately in more detail.

Government Amendments 34 to 40 seek to amend provisions on information and sanctions in Chapter 3 of the Bill to put beyond doubt that information and samples relevant to carbon dioxide storage licensees are within the scope of that chapter. Amendment 34 seeks to amend the definition of “petroleum-related information and samples”, which is used throughout Chapter 3, to explicitly include information and samples which are relevant to activities carried out under a carbon dioxide storage licence. This applies through each of the clauses within Chapter 3 and ensures that information and samples that would be relevant to carbon dioxide storage licensees can be required to be retained, dealt with as part of an information and samples plan, and later published or made public.

Clause 29(1) sets out a non-exhaustive list of what an information and samples plan may provide for. Amendment 35 seeks to include within this list an explicit provision stating that petroleum-related information and samples may be transferred to a carbon dioxide storage licensee as part of an information and samples plan. “Carbon dioxide storage licence” is defined by Amendment 38.

Clause 27(4) allows the Oil and Gas Authority, in certain circumstances, to impose on a relevant person an information and samples plan, which may include the transfer of information to others. Amendment 36 restricts this transfer without the consent of the relevant person. This provision is a necessary safeguard to ensure that the relevant person can retain control of their commercially sensitive and commercially valuable information and samples to the extent that they wish to do so.

Amendment 37 amends Clause 29 to clarify that sanctions can be imposed on any person who is party to an information and samples plan and who fails to comply with their obligations under it. This amendment also includes a provision to the effect that an information and samples plan may impose obligations on a person who is not a relevant person, such as a carbon dioxide storage licensee, only with their consent. This ensures that obligations are not imposed without that person’s knowledge or consent, which the original drafting would have allowed for.

Amendments 39 and 40 amend the Oil and Gas Authority’s power to acquire information to ensure that it is able to obtain any information and/or samples for the purposes of carrying out its functions which are relevant not only to the fulfilment of the principal objective but to activities carried out under a carbon dioxide storage licence. The oil and gas industry has a wealth of information and samples that we acknowledge would be of great benefit to CCS licensees. The amendments clarify the scope of the information and samples clauses and firmly set out that it extends to include information and samples that relate to activities carried out under a carbon dioxide storage licence.

I hope that noble Lords will agree that these government amendments address the concerns raised in Committee. I beg to move.

[Lord Oxburgh (CB)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my non-pecuniary interest in carbon capture and storage.

I both thank the Government and acknowledge the major steps they have taken in the amendments which have been presented. The Minister was clearly listening hard during Committee and now the Bill is much improved.

I do not need to remind the House that the Government have either spent or committed around £1 billion to carbon capture and storage and to get it going in two major projects which are under way. However, those projects were going nowhere unless there was relatively easy access to the continental shelves for the purpose of storing CO_2. As other noble Lords have mentioned, it is not clear when and to what degree the extent of this will be required. It is difficult to put a time on it. There is one functioning carbon capture and storage operation in Canada and others are close to it. However, providing in this Bill for access as and when it is required is very important.

There is a second requirement. We need some kind of strategic framework within which private industry can operate in the CCS area. This is the focus of Amendment 72. Had there been more time—as a number of noble Lords have said, for a variety of reasons we have been rushed over this Bill—I would have liked Amendment 72 to have been made the subject of an informal all-party discussion with the Government and officials. I feel there is significant support for this idea both within the House and probably within the Government.

The fundamental requirement is for an overall structure for co-ordination, timing and funding. Carbon capture and storage with the present technology—which may not be the technology we will have in five or so years’ time—requires that you have a process for capture at the source of the CO₂; that you have a process for transporting the CO₂; and that you have a suitable repository in which it can be contained. Each of these are separate commercial activities requiring different expertise but all have the characteristic that they are relatively capital intensive. Getting these three elements available simultaneously is quite a challenge. You do not want a situation in which two are available but an operation cannot get under way because the third is not. You do not want two assets which are stranded until the third comes along. This would make it inordinately expensive.

There is an overriding and compelling argument for a degree of oversight and co-ordination, a topic which the amendment would make the Secretary of State and the Minister address. Otherwise nothing will happen. There will be a great deal of talk and we will continue, as we are at present, with a glacial rate of progress. We need a framework within which business can operate.

The other question that needs to be addressed is that of funding. In Committee I floated an idea which is very different from anything we have at present and which would effectively take the Government out of the funding loop, a possibility that in many ways must be quite attractive. But that is not the only way. Indeed, I hope that one of the advantages that this amendment might bring about would be a kind of study about other funding groups.

Before I conclude, let me just say that a few weeks ago I came across an anomaly when talking to the leader of a research group in Oxford. He pointed out that at present there is no way of remunerating an organisation which is actually carbon negative. He had tried to attain funding and support from what used to be the Technology Strategy Board and which I think is now Innovate UK, but he was told that there is no market for carbon negativity. That is an anomaly which we ought to do something about. What was presented to me was something that, while not certain, was a plausible way of building power stations that could remove CO₂ from the atmosphere by a series of processes while burning natural gas as part of their activity. If this could be made to work, it would be very attractive indeed, but it is something for which it is difficult to find support at present, and is something that the sort of review and organisation I have been talking about could address.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Oxburgh and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oxburgh (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his comment earlier on Amendment 72. I have a specific question on Amendment 64. It relates to Clause 31(3)(b), which says that disclosures may be made to the National Environment Research Council,

“or any other similar body carrying out geological activities”.

My question is simply what those other similar bodies might be. For example, would they be universities carrying out geological activities?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this part of the Bill. I acknowledge the point, as I think I did previously, about the technical nature of these late amendments. I understand the point made forcefully and correctly by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. On the general point about consolidation, I think there is general welcome for that, to try to ensure that everything is all in one place.

There were then some specific questions about the sharing of information with foreign Governments. I think that the legislation will be subject to the Data Protection Act; that is quite true. My understanding is that disclosure to third parties is not appropriate. If there is a body that the information is being shared with, whether domestically or with an overseas Government, that is the limit of it for the function concerned, unless, for example, the treaty were to provide otherwise. I am trying to think of the type of information that might be shared. The examples that I gave of Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and so on are probably in relation to interconnectors. There may be a need to share information about where pipelines are at the moment, and so on. That is the sort of thing, rather than anything of an operational nature; I do not anticipate there being anything in any way sinister about this. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, about the oversight of the Secretary of State. I think that she would have oversight of this, but I will check that point. I shall also check whether there is to be publication of the information concerned. I cannot see why not, in all honesty; as I say, this is a functional managerial thing rather than anything else.

The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, raised a point about Clause 31(3)(b) regarding the National Environment Research Council or other similar bodies. I anticipate that that would include universities. The other eventuality covered here is if for any reason the council were to cease to exist and something else were to take over its functions—it is most unlikely—that would then qualify as a similar body. I hope that that deals with the points that were made.

Noble Lords will be interested to know that arrangements exist in treaties to ensure that the Secretary of State is satisfied that adequate protection is in place. An example is the showing of protection measurement systems and production measurement for joint fields of exploration in the North Sea. In relation to the point made about consolidation, for which I think we have general support, it was parliamentary counsel’s advice to consolidate those disclosure provisions. That is not an attempt to take the credit for what we all think is a very good idea, but it is to give credit to the parliamentary counsel for that. I hope that helps.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Oxburgh and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oxburgh]

I join the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, in thanking those who have participated in the debate and the Minister for his reply. I have one final question for him. Have the officials in his department conducted a study of how the Bill might impact CCS? There are serious questions there: if they have not done that, could they do so? It would be extremely useful as a lead-in to the next stage.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

In answer to the noble Lord, officials have certainly been looking at how CSS fits in and dovetails with the Bill. We will continue to consider that and look at it if we are able to engage in discussions between now and Report. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments.