Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

Since we are having this conversation, it is not a question of putting off these measures but of proportionality and ranking those impacts according to the scale on which they are occurring today, taking into account the positive impacts of offshore wind on no-take zones and the artificial reefs they create, as well as the advances in technology that mean that floating platforms will be more common.

Then there is subsea cabling. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, did not pick up on the fact that the 30% loss she cited is very old data. We do not see those losses now, with modern technology. Subsea cabling will be the future of connections into existing places where there are already reinforced grids, thanks to the closing down of thermal plants. I do not see that we should be unduly raising issues and putting more and more barriers in the way of clean technologies delivering great reductions in emissions, as well as providing energy security and jobs. I support the Government’s amendments and I am sorry that I cannot be more supportive of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, before I start, as we may talk about energy storage later, I declare my interest as a director of Aldustria Limited, which is into energy storage. I am also chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership.

First, I congratulate the Government on the Chris Skidmore report that has just come out. It is one of the best reports sponsored by the Government, and I look forward to hearing their reaction to its recommendations. There is some really good stuff in there that must be applauded.

Generally, I welcome these amendments. We know that we have to decarbonise our energy and, in particular, our electricity system; the Government have committed to do so completely by 2035. To do that, we have to make sure that we can deliver. Probably pretty well everybody agrees that methods of implementation, planning and getting wind farms into the gestation period all need to happen quicker, but we also know that there is a biodiversity crisis.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, that I deal a lot with the Wildlife Trusts, and it is about nature recovery, not stopping stuff. No other organisation is more into pointing out that we have been in retreat, we continue to retreat and that we need to reverse that—and the ways of doing so, primarily through agriculture but also, in the marine environment, various other ways as well.

I get a bit involved in the Celtic Sea development, which, I am pleased to say, the Minister mentioned. Down in the south-west we have been saying that there needs to be a holistic look at the effects of that programme on the environment—marine and terrestrially, where it comes on board—and that the research needs to be done in advance. That should quicken it, in that it is done in one whole system rather than by individual planning applications for individual farms or floating facilities, and so on. Through that, there is not necessarily a conflict between the two.

I very much support the exposition of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about the hierarchy, because I am certain that, as we know from onshore and things we have talked about before, off-setting as we knew it is an excuse, mainly for developers—I declare that I have a developer role. It is sometimes too easy to push the problem somewhere else and not confront it where you are actually causing the damage. One of the problems is enforcement and making sure that those things actually happen.

As I said, I generally welcome these amendments and trying to speed up the process, which is necessary, but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I am concerned that we need to make sure that the powers given under these amendments are restricted to environmental improvement, in that they do not detract from that. I am particularly interested in how this compensation might work. The mitigation hierarchy absolutely needs to be put in primary legislation, but I want to understand from the Minister whether it is the Government’s intent that mitigation elsewhere should be a last resort. That is the fundamental question, and I would be very interested to hear the answer.

On the voluntary marine recovery fund, the idea of a voluntary fund seems very strange to me. What does it mean? I would like to understand from the Minister whether it means that, ultimately, it is voluntary. Is it voluntary for a developer that cannot do mitigation as we would all wish to contribute to this fund, or is it, at that point, compulsory? I do not get it. If it is voluntary, I am heavily concerned.

In addition, who will manage it in England? I understand well and I agree that it should be farmed out to the devolved authorities, but who will be the manager of that fund? I assume that it would involve rather large amounts of money, so how it is managed will be particularly important.

I also understand, although I do not think it is in the amendments, that there will be offshore wind environmental standards; I think that is in part of the briefing. I presume that these will have to be done by Defra. Defra is absolutely useless at doing environmental standards anything like on time. It has the whole of the EU repeal legislation Bill to do; I think the Defra Minister, Richard—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Benyon.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Yes; the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, said that there were 1,200 pieces of legislation. I am therefore very concerned about how those standards will be produced and when. Perhaps the Minister could just give us an idea of those deadlines. I have a concern about enforcement generally but I am sure that the Minister will say, “They will be enforced.”

I have a further question in this area, which is around making sure in future that we have much better co-ordination on new developments and sharing infrastructure. I know this has come up in the Bill, but can the Minister assure us that this will be much better managed than in the past and that it will be a network rather than point to point? I again congratulate the Government on their agreement with the EU last month on the North Seas Energy Cooperation forum, which the UK has now joined. That makes complete sense to me. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what the next step on that co-operation is.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I start by thanking the Minister for his full explanation of the amendments in this group. I also thank all those who have contributed to the discussion so far and I very much look forward to the answers the Minister will give to the relevant questions that have been asked.

Obviously, the Government’s ambition of delivering up to 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, including up to five gigawatts of innovative floating offshore wind generation, is to be welcomed. However, as we have heard, this is a challenge in terms of delivery and obviously, it poses questions about the impact on the wildlife in the areas where these installations will go.

I understand that Denmark is well advanced in this respect, particularly on innovative floating offshore developments. Are we in dialogue with Denmark about its experience in this area? What has it learned, and does it have the same measures in place? It does not seem that we need to be setting this out if some of these challenges have already been met or understood, or indeed through implementation. I know that one of Denmark’s real concerns is moving the energy off the island and how that will be achieved, but also energy storage. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us as to the thinking on putting in these installations and how we will get the maximum benefit from them without losing, as we have heard, some of the valuable energy delivered through the process.

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I shall finish by saying a few words on Amendment 224 because I think it beggars belief that anyone still thinks that the solution to our energy woes is more gas. It is clear that we need more, not less, energy, but that energy must be clean. It must be sourced on UK soil or from our waters. Gas from the North Sea is sold on the international commodities market; we cannot buy it directly. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I shall speak to my Amendments 223 and 232, but I am in sympathy with my noble friend Lady Sheehan’s amendments. On flaring, we are undoubtedly the dirty man of the North Sea. Although the Minister may say that over the past year we have reduced our flaring by some 20%—we are starting to get there—as my noble friend said, really it should be zero, as many North Sea neighbours have been able to do.

Amendment 223 effectively bans fracking. It is straightforward, in black and white. I shall go through a bit of modern history—this Government’s view of fracking. In November 2019, there was a moratorium on fracking. In September 2022, fracking was allowed. In October 2022, fracking was banned. Let us be clear about this: we need a little certainty and the firm smack of decisive government here. Let us put this to bed by putting a ban on fracking in primary legislation.

With the cost of energy from gas at the moment, the problem is that in the UK we are still overdependent on gas, but our production, even with fracking, would be minuscule in terms of global production, so it would have little effect on the market price. Looking back to last February, Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted

“UK producers won’t sell shale gas to UK consumers below the market price. They are not charities.”

Indeed they are not. Fracking in this country will make no difference to gas prices at the moment. It will take some years to develop it, and the time is past. Let us be decisive about this and make clear where the UK stands.

Amendment 232 is very similar; it concerns England, because this is a devolved area. We should end the licensing of new coal mines. I was quite shocked at the end of last year that the Whitehaven mine in Cumbria was approved, and that it was approved by the Levelling-Up Secretary, Michael Gove, who should know better, having invented the 25-year environment plan, knowing all about these issues and being one of the best Environment Secretaries we have had for many years and a member of a Government who have sufficient respect and leverage to say no to something that should not happen. We have become an international laughing stock in many ways. Our reputation has been straightforwardly destroyed by hypocrisy.

I looked at a BEIS press release from just over a year ago, on 3 November 2021, regarding COP 26. It says:

“The end of coal—the single biggest contributor to climate change—is in sight thanks to the UK securing a 190-strong coalition of countries and organisations at COP26, with countries such as Indonesia, South Korea, Poland, Vietnam, and Chile announcing clear commitments to phase out coal power … Business & Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: ‘Today marks a milestone moment in our global efforts to tackle climate change as nations from all corners of the world unite in Glasgow to declare that coal has no part to play in our future power generation. Spearheaded by the UK’s COP26 Presidency, today’s ambitious commitments made by our international partners demonstrate that the end of coal is in sight.’”


A year later, just after COP 27 has finished, we have the Government declaring that a coal mine should open in England.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

Would the noble Lord remind the Committee that that coal mine will not produce power—all the pledges that he has just talked about concern the use of coal to produce power—but steel?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. One-fifth of that production is estimated to be going towards steel, an industry that needs to decarbonise and has said that it will do that itself. The other 80% is to be exported and will be used as energy. I cannot understand what else it would be used for.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

Steel.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

But that industry should be decarbonised. Whatever the noble Lord says, it goes exactly against what we as a nation have said about the future of coal. That brings disrespect, I am sad to say, on not just this Government but this country. That is why I believe this amendment is an important one to go forward.

If the Government cannot agree to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, on the name of the Oil and Gas Authority then there is absolutely no hope for the Bill. I also very much support the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I remind the Committee that the International Energy Agency’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said at the end of last year:

“If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now—from this year.”

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 224 and 230 standing in my name. Before I do so, I shall make a supportive remark about Amendment 226 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lilley.

I remind the Committee, since it is such a long time since Second Reading back in July, that the context in which it was introduced was one of a very serious energy crisis. Whether or not we have a climate crisis is highly debateable, and many of us do not accept that alarmist language. However, that we undoubtedly had an energy crisis in the course of last year is absolutely manifest in the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary people living in this country. Although we have been assisted by the weather in having a very moderate winter and therefore less demand for domestic energy, none the less that energy crisis has not abated; prices remain extremely high and energy is in short supply. We all know the reprehensible reasons lying behind that and we condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine, but none the less there is no likelihood of it ending very soon, as far as anyone can see, and we have a very serious crisis. That is the background to the amendments that I am speaking to. It is remarkable that in the same group there are a number of other amendments that seek to cut off—radically, permanently and, by statute, for ever—access to energy supplies that we have available to us.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, was somewhat surprised that I should talk in Amendment 224—which I will speak to in more detail in moment—about increasing gas supply to reduce foreign dependency. The noble Baroness seems to think that we have a target of zero carbon emissions set in law in this country. We do not; we have a net-zero target and there is nothing that I am aware of in government policy that says that the use of some amounts of carbon, including gas, in our energy mix over the long term is not both foreseeable and acceptable, provided that it meets a net-zero target.

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Before I come to Amendment 230, concerning Amendment 226 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lilley, again, it is astonishing that we should want to cut off access to what could be an important source of energy in this country, the fruits of which we have been importing in huge amounts from the United States without any qualms whatsoever, it appears, because so much of the LNG coming here from the United States is in fact the result, I believe, of fracking in that country. Here, we are happy to consume it, hypocritically, at the same time as saying that we cannot possibly allow it in Britain, as if the relatively modest amount—I agree to a certain extent with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—certainly in comparison with the United States, that we might produce here was somehow globally unacceptable in climate terms, while consuming the product of the United States is fine and we can carry on doing that and turn our noses to one side.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I am not objecting to importing. I have supported fracking in the past. The point is that the time has gone; it has all changed. The United States has been fracking for some time; I have no problem if we import that. My whole concern is about new sources and new exploration.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

That is a very good question. It is partly answered by the fact that I put my amendment down first before the other amendment went down. The other answer is that in all legislative processes—the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, will know far more about this than me—you try to go for what might be possible, and I suspect that the Government are less keen on the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, whereas all my amendment does is confirm present government policy.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

So, had the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, got her amendment in first, the noble Lord would have signed it. It is interesting to know that the Liberal Democrats are against any new fields in the North Sea.

What I want to try to get home to those members of the Committee who have not yet taken it on board is that up to now we have pursued a path to net zero which involves reducing demand for fossil fuels by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. That is a logical path to pursue. We have not been seeking to achieve it by reducing supply of fossil fuels. As a result, if people choose to produce more fossil fuels than there is demand, as demand falls fossil fuel producers will be left with stranded assets and lose money. It could not happen to a nicer bunch of people, but why should we think that our judgments are better than theirs or worry about them erring and producing too much, investing too much and not getting their money back? That is up to them.

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We will, of course, keep under review the Coal Authority’s statutory duties with respect to licencing extraction. Extensive changes would be required to the Coal Authority’s duties to establish an enforcement regime for it to monitor the purpose and the end use of coal extracted from future coal mining. The phasing out of future coal-powered generation, in our view, is a more proportional response than introducing a completely new regulatory regime at the coal mining end of the production chain.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I will not detain the Minister for long, it was interesting that he referenced the Climate Change Committee in response to my noble friend’s amendment. That same letter said,

“the evidence against any new consents for coal exploration or production is overwhelming.”

I am sorry that the Minister accepts part of that letter, but maybe not the other part. The Minister has nobly and served well a number of Administrations, including the one during COP 26, and I would like to know how he reconciles the COP 26 statements by his own department with the opening of that new coal mine.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The decision was taken by a different department, by DLUHC, in a quasi-judicial manner. It is likely to be the subject of judicial proceedings, so I cannot comment in detail on that decision, as the noble Lord will understand. I am sure we will be having this debate lots of times in future.

I move on to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Blake. The reasons for the Secretary of State’s decision are set out in full in his published letter on GOV.UK, which takes into account matters like the demand for coal, climate change and the impact on the local economy. To reiterate the point of my noble friend, coking coal is used in the production of steel—it is not used in power generation—which is, of course, crucial to building the infrastructure that we all wish to see more of, such as offshore wind turbines.

On fracking, I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh for her contribution. The Government have been clear that in line with the commitment made in the 2019 Conservative manifesto, it is adopting a presumption against issuing any further hydraulic fracturing consents for the extraction of shale gas. That position is, in effect, a moratorium. This will be maintained until compelling new evidence is provided that addresses the concerns around prediction and management of induced seismicity.

I move on to my noble friend Lord Lilley’s amendment. I welcome his thoughtful contributions to today’s debate, as well of those of my noble friend Lady Altmann. British Standard 5228, which my noble friend quoted, recommends procedures for noise and vibration control in respect of construction and open-site operations. It is not a measure designed to reduce the risk of induced seismicity. The potential for induced seismicity from hydraulic fracturing is a result of the injection of fluid deep underground, at depths of one kilometre or more. Seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing is therefore different in nature from vibration directly induced by a construction site, and the application of BS 5228 would therefore not be appropriate.

My noble friend Lord Moylan tabled an amendment about the composition of our domestic gas supply. A review of the Gas Safety (Management) Regulations 1996 is currently under way. The Health and Safety Executive has been reviewing these regulations, which govern gas quality, and is consulting on a set of proposed changes. The HSE’s consultation closed in March 2022, and it will be aiming to publish its response in due course. BEIS has worked closely with the HSE and has taken regular opportunities to input into the process in both an analytical and a policy capacity. A statement by the Secretary of State at this stage is therefore unnecessary as the publication of the Government’s formal response will be tantamount to just that. I hope my noble friend will understand that in advance of that document, I cannot comment as it would not be proper.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, tabled two amendments in this group. On Amendment 222A, I should say at the outset that tax matters are an area for the Treasury. Since the introduction of decommissioning relief deeds—DRDs—the Treasury issues a Written Ministerial Statement at the end of each financial year updating on DRDs, including the total number of DRDs in force during the past financial year, past payments under DRDs and the projected value of future payments under ongoing DRD claims. While a DRD claim may arise where a company has defaulted on its decommissioning obligations, the tax system also provides tax relief for decommissioning costs in recognition that decommissioning is a significantly expensive and statutory obligation. HMRC publishes information annually on the estimated sum of all forecast tax relief payments due to decommissioning as part of its annual report and accounts.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

As I say in the Member’s explanatory statement, this debate is to raise issues that many people have raised with me about the purpose of Clause 230, which covers licensing nuclear sites that are on or under the territorial sea of the UK.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, in talking about offshore wind farms, referred to the impact on marine mammals of seismic testing in particular. In the middle of last year we saw seismic surveys being carried out in the Irish Sea off Cumbria in order to assess the potential of undersea nuclear storage. At that time the Marine Management Organisation noted in a letter that those tests could cause disturbance to certain cetacean species. Those tests were carried out before this Bill became law. Those are interesting circumstances for them to be carried out in, which I will come back to.

In the Government’s own words, they need to keep the waste safe and secure for hundreds of thousands of years, give or take, for the radioactivity to decay. That is why they are seeking long-term storage for hundreds and thousands of years. The UK has the world’s largest stockpile of untreated nuclear waste, more than 100 tonnes of plutonium, and the total volume is 750,000 cubic metres. We are talking about a lot of nuclear waste. The chair of Nuclear Free Local Authorities, David Blackburn, who for full disclosure I will note is also the leader of the Green Party group on Leeds City Council, has said:

“The waste would be left in situ for millennia and, no matter how effective the barriers, some of the radioactivity will eventually reach the surface. The rate at which radioactivity would leak … can be poorly predicted and is likely to remain so for an indefinite period.”


I was in Cumbria a decade ago when there was talk of onshore storage of nuclear waste there and a great deal of local resistance. We are aware that there is no certainty. Putting it under the sea would seem to add to that uncertainty, to the risks and to the difficulties of dealing with anything should it go wrong. I put down this clause stand part debate because there is a great deal of uncertainty. People are unsure what the Government’s intentions are, which is why I hope the Minister may be able to provide more certainty.

I also refer to the fact that seismic testing was going on. The Explanatory Notes for the Bill appear to suggest that Clause 230 is actually to close a possible loophole that nuclear sites under the sea might not currently require a licence or be subject to the nuclear regulator. Page 71 of the Explanatory Notes states that:

“This clause amends section 1 and section 26 of the NIA 1965 and section 68 of the Energy Act 2013 … to make it expressly clear that certain nuclear sites located wholly or partly in or under the … sea … require a licence and are regulated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation”.


That raises a question that I will put explicitly to the Minister: are the Government aware OF or concerned about any unlicensed or unregulated nuclear sites on or partly on or underneath the sea in UK territorial waters?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. When I first read this clause I assumed it was effectively to give permission to go out to sea from land, like some coal mines. I am interested to know whether that was the Government’s intention.

I was also quite interested that the site has to be partly in territorial waters. Territorial waters go out to 12 nautical miles, so that seems to suggests that it does not. I wonder why there is the stipulation that the site has to be partly in territorial waters. It seems to me that if this is done it really needs to be within territorial waters. I have no other questions.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, I will also be brief. I do not want to provoke another debate—two hours on this would be unnecessary. We are all doing our bit by keeping this Room at low temperature in terms of this debate. I do not know whether they can turn the heat up a bit, as I think that would be helpful to all of us.

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Lastly, Amendment 248 amends the long title to reflect these new amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

One thing that the Minister did not mention, although I may have missed it, is the employees and staff of the NDA. What consultation has taken place as far as they are concerned?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I have a few questions and, if it is not possible to answer them all, I shall accept a written response. It would appear that the Government are bringing forward legislation that breaks promises of previous Governments, going way back, in relation to nuclear workers’ pensions. The statutory pensions protections that Parliament previously legislated for were vital to the success of privatisation. Is it right for the Government to promise those protections to ensure that success, and then to rip them up that many years after the event? We would like some clarification as to whether the Minister believes that that is the case—and, if not, why not?

Is it accurate to claim that these reforms would bring pension provision across the NDA group into line with wider public sector pensions? These pension schemes underwent much more radical reform long before my noble friend Lord Hutton’s review of public sector pensions. They have been closed to new entrants for many years. My noble friend recommended that public sector pension accrual should remain on a defined benefit basis, but pension provision across the NDA group is mostly on a defined contribution basis. I have it on good authority that there is an appetite from the trade unions to discuss these reforms with Ministers. Would the Minister be prepared to accept this course of action?

Several more questions are coming up, particularly on technical issues and questions about the proposed amendments. The amendments should allow for the implementation of the agreement between BEIS, the NDA and the recognised trade unions. There is a lot of detail about the proposed career average benefit structure in the heads of terms, but the proposed amendments are drafted in more general terms. Regulations are the proper place for the detail to be set out, but might the agreed accrual rate be an important enough term of the agreement to be in the Bill as well? The average member contribution rate of 8.2% is specified.

There are concerns about proposed new subsection 3(c) of the first proposed new clause that adds this chapter to Part 12, which provides for the increase of pensions in line with CPI, not RPI, for active and deferred pensioner members. However, it says that only increases for active and deferred members—that is, re-evaluation—cannot be capped. This opens the real possibility that the Government intend to bring forward regulations that provide for pension increases for at least some members, possibly members of the Magnox group, to be capped. This is contrary to the heads of terms, which explicitly states that pension increases will be in line with inflation as measured by CPI, with no reference to any cap. Would it be possible to propose an amendment so that we can look at ensuring that regulations cannot propose capped increases for any pensioners?

I will end by asking: how confident are the Government that they can identify people in and out of scope of future regulations, given that there is a fair degree of geographical mobility around the industry?

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

228: After Clause 237, insert the following new Clause—
“Net Zero duty(1) In section 4AA of the Gas Act 1986, after subsection (1) insert—“(1ZA) In exercising its functions in relation to the principal objective the Authority has a duty to assist the delivery of greenhouse gas emissions targets as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008.”(2) In section 3A of the Electricity Act 1989, after subsection (1) insert—“(1ZA) In exercising its functions in relation to the principal objective the Authority has a duty to assist the delivery of greenhouse gas emissions targets as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008.”” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would place on the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority a duty to assist in the delivery of Net Zero.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 229 and 233 in my name. Amendment 228 is around Ofgem. We have debated this many times, in many contexts, within the House. It is about Ofgem having a direct net-zero responsibility and objective. That is what this amendment does, and I know another amendment is trying to do exactly the same thing. I am indifferent as to which one is accepted, as long as we achieve this.

The thing about Ofgem is that it is, rightly, customer focused in many ways, but it is focused very much on the short term and not so much on the long term—and that is why we are here. I believe that, in many ways, we have high energy prices because we have not transitioned enough towards net zero in the past. This is partly around the lack of infrastructure and the way that Ofgem assesses investment by the national grid and DNOs, in particular to upgrade the transmission system in the United Kingdom.

Ofgem’s objectives have not been updated since its establishment in 2000. Although Ministers have always said that there is, in effect, a net-zero obligation on Ofgem, I do not believe it is specific enough. There are a number of blockages in the system at the moment: solar farms are not all able to connect and we have talked before about slow offshore wind, which will be more likely in the future. I hope that new onshore wind is coming on, but I am sure the connections for that will be equally difficult. We even have housing developments in the south-east that are not able to connect to the grid through lack of capacity. This is all around Ofgem not being balanced in the way that it looks at investment programmes.

Page 10 of Chris Skidmore’s report says that one of the needs is

“to finally update the mandate of Ofgem”,

which must be to

“accelerate the connection of our cheap renewable generation”.

So let us bite the bullet with my Amendment 228 and finally put a net-zero objective into Ofgem.

As I said, I was impressed that the Government’s future systems operator—which, we understand, is, in effect, a subsidiary of Ofgem, although I am sceptical about that structure—does indeed have a net-zero objective. I welcomed that at the time and welcome it now. Let us reflect that up the management chain to Ofgem as well.

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[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sure that we will have lots to discuss about lots of issues on Report.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, there have been some excellent responses. We are getting somewhere on the capacity market and onshore wind. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her support on onshore wind and my amendment. I had not realised there would be the contract for difference, and I take that as very positive. As the Minister knows, I like to be positive about these things.

However, I find it very difficult that the Government and the Minister will still not bite the simple bullet around Ofgem and the decarbonisation of the grid. It is having a practical effect as regards moving the whole transmission system forward—it really is. Those dilemmas about objectives that he talks about are the same for the future system operator, yet it has that objective.

I am sure that we will come back to this on Report. It is certainly my intention to work with others of a similar mind to find the right amendment and back whoever wishes to bring it forward. However, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 228 withdrawn.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I have a question for the Minister that follows on from that. I very much support the idea of an energy commission, although Chris Skidmore says very strongly in his report, on decarbonisation, that:

“None of this will happen without a step change in the government’s approach to delivering net zero.”


He says that an office for net-zero delivery within government is needed but, if we cannot get that, energy efficiency must be part of it.

When we were in the European Union and single market, part of energy efficiency was around appliances and all sorts of things that we use or do, and we have had an increase in energy efficiency—not fast enough, but a sectoral trend—largely because of the sorts of implements we use; cars, vacuum cleaners or whatever. I therefore ask the Minister: in terms of energy efficiency and standards for equipment and pieces of machinery, what is happening now? Is BEIS doing this itself? Does it have a programme? How does that relate to our export markets and manufacturing sector? I would be interested to understand.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, has presented very interesting proposals. Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I think this offers us one way forward on the crucial issue of energy efficiency, but I have a question for the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. Would he agree that a useful role for the energy efficiency commission would be ensuring systems to educate people to install this new technology properly, so that people such as the plumber whom he cited had the information available to ensure that they knew that what they were installing would work for their customers?