Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Lord Petitgas and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I cringe, with apologies to my noble friend Lord Ashcombe; I did not realise that it was he who said it. Anyway, whoever said it, I very much supported the view that it might well be possible for the price of liquid hydrogen to come down as the technology developed and got better.

My noble friend Lord Roborough said to me that it was always going to be expensive. I said that it was being manufactured by wind turbines in the North Sea at the moment, but as we have already discussed, the problem with wind is that it is intermittent. The wind gets turned off every now and then, the windmills do not turn, and electricity is not generated. Apparently, it is very expensive to replace all the filters, and so forth, and you need to have a constant supply of electricity to produce hydrogen.

What is felt about this on the Opposition Benches does not really matter; what matters is the attitude that the Government are taking towards liquid hydrogen and whether this is something that Great British Energy will be investing in or not. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us where the Government stand on liquid hydrogen, as it is an important component of having clean energy for this country.

[Lord Petitgas (Con)]

My Lords, I also support these amendments aimed, like others, at greater accountability and transparency of the delivery of GBE. In particular, I support Amendment 95 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on budgets. It is all very well to check on delivery and ask for more reports, but you only get what you measure. It needs to be set against a budget and objectives. I have found the objectives in the Bill to be a little vague. I am therefore in favour of Amendment 95 to the extent that it will allow us to set reporting and disclosure against a set of objectives, and a certain budget. I would also add additionality in there, as that is the only way to understand whether the delivery has been effective.