Energy Policy

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Henley

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

I thought the strike price was 8.9p per kilowatt hour, as opposed to Hinkley’s 9.3p or 9.4p per kilowatt hour. Am I wrong in that? That is what my study of the proposals said.

The Minister refers to the production of energy as being intermittent. As I understood the scheme, the tide coming in moved the turbines in one direction, so there was electricity generated and, as the lagoon emptied, the emptying caused the turbines to go the other way. What is intermittent about that?

There is more to it than that. It is the lack of vision in this Government that is so distressing. “The Life Scientific” last week mentioned the fact that in Wrexham, where I come from, back in the mid-18th century, John Wilkinson invented precision engineering by boring cylinders which Watt took over. That led to steam engines and the pumping of mines, so that coal could be produced, and eventually to locomotives. As was said last week, it was the start of the Industrial Revolution in Wrexham. Of course, Wilkinson went to other places—he went to Swansea, among other places. He had vision and could see the future. This Government simply cannot grasp that, and it is highly disappointing that this decision has been made.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not think that I can take the noble Lord much further in his accusations of lack of vision. I think that he would be one of the first to say that it would show a lack of straightforward common sense and financial honesty to go ahead with a scheme that was going to cost quite so much, and quite so much to the Welsh consumer and Welsh businesses in terms of their costs for electricity.

Justice and Security Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Henley

Monday 9th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I do not think that the noble Lord, dare I say it, listened to what I was saying earlier about this amendment. It may be that we need to look at the drafting. I have given a commitment to the Committee that we will deal with that in due course and look to see whether we have got it right. As I explained—I have to go back into my speech—I think that that is probably the right way to proceed. If the noble Lord is accusing me of taking a Humpty-Dumpty approach, well, Humpty Dumpty was not always that wrong with some of these things; certainty in terms of when one is speaking at the Dispatch Box and defining what words mean. Anyway, if I say it means that, that is what it does mean—that, I think, is what the Humpty-Dumpty approach is.

I do not think that I can add much more to my response to the noble Lord and other noble Lords. I appreciate the intention behind Amendment 25. I appreciate what my noble friend is doing but I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment at this stage.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

As the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was speaking I wondered whether the word, “proper” is supposed to mean “contrary to convention”. It would be impossible to have a convention across all departments where there are Select Committees so it was conventional in one department to release this information but it might be conventional in another to release more or less. It would be almost impossible to get a standard of disclosure of information across the board which it is proper to disclose. I am very grateful for what the Minister has said on that issue.