Energy: Long-term Supply

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend is of course right to raise the greater transparency that energy companies need to demonstrate in showing where costs are. However, the main driver behind energy price rises has been wholesale energy costs. We want a secure energy market; we need a diverse mix. We also need to meet our legal obligations, which have been set through the Climate Change Act 2008 and our globally agreed targets. We are working hard to ensure that we press energy companies to be as transparent and as open as possible with what they are putting on their energy bills.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, as a keen supporter of having new reactors at the Wylfa nuclear power station in Anglesey, I press the Minister to clarify the Government’s policy on the decommissioning of nuclear power stations. Is she aware that the Trawsfynydd nuclear power station, which ceased electricity generation 20 years ago, still employs 700 people on the decommissioning? Will she give a guarantee that, first, the companies providing new reactors will have to internalise the costs of decommissioning and, secondly, in the event that that fails to happen, there will be a copper-bottomed government guarantee that the communities welcoming these new developments will not be left without cover for those costs?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord asks a very important question. Of course, the Government have pledged not to put any public subsidy in place for any costs of new nuclear, including decommissioning. As part of the acceptance of any agreement with a company wishing to site nuclear, it will need to show that decommissioning costs have already been included in its costings.

European Council

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his overall welcome, and for the support he has given over a considerable period to my noble friends who took part in these important negotiations. I am not able to give a specific calculation of what the contribution of a smaller budget is likely to be to jobs and growth, because so many variables are in play: what happens in the eurozone, what happens to trade, how far we get with these talks and so on. What I am able to say is that the increased line on research and development should be of particular benefit to British universities, given that the money is distributed on the basis of quality—and, as we all know, British universities are renowned for their quality.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, will the Leader confirm my understanding that structural funds will continue to flow to regions of economic need. I believe those were the words he used? If so, will he confirm that the funds will remain at the levels that were previously anticipated for qualifying areas such as west Wales and the valleys, and that the source of funding will not be repatriated under last week’s agreement?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, on the question of these important funds, the noble Lord will be aware that the direction of travel, which the British Government support, is to try to make sure that they go to the least well-off regions in the European Union. With the accession of new countries to the east, it is important that they should have those funds. On the noble Lord’s specific question, we currently expect that the overall receipts will be broadly comparable to 2007 to 2013 levels. There will be a domestic application process that the Government will have to go through in due course, as a result of which we will know what the figures are.

Tourism

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, first, I am very conscious that I am replying to a former Minister for Tourism. I assure your Lordships that the Government are taking tourism and its potential extremely seriously. The Prime Minister is leading from the front on this issue; indeed, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sports and Tourism are fully engaged in promoting it. The Government are investing £137 million over four years via the GREAT campaign, which is delivered through VisitBritain and in partnership with the private sector. Through that investment, we hope that almost 60,000 new job opportunities will be created. Those will of course include job opportunities for the young, while the success story of apprenticeships is very strong.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the strong and widespread feeling among tourism operators in Wales that Wales is not being marketed abroad effectively by VisitBritain? This fact was recognised by his ministerial colleague Mr Stephen Crabb, who said earlier this month in another place that there would be a meeting very soon with VisitBritain to discuss the specific problem. Has that meeting taken place and if the Minister does not know, can he make inquiries and let us know the outcome?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I shall certainly make inquiries for the noble Lord and place a record of the findings in the Library. Clearly, the task and responsibility for VisitBritain is to work with all the other organisations including VisitEngland, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and VisitScotland, and they must of course be co-ordinated because VisitBritain has the responsibility to ensure that, across the country, there are greater tourism opportunities. Wales, with its countryside and industrial heritage, is hugely important in that respect.

European Council

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, if the Prime Minister had secured the safeguards that he sought for the financial services, would he have supported the treaty going forward?

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords.

House of Lords: Working Practices

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, as a new face in the Chamber, I am hesitant to voice opinions in the debate. However, having read this truly excellent report—I congratulate everybody associated with it—I felt that there are two or three points I can make drawing on experience from three other Chambers in which I have served in the past.

First, I welcome the recommendation to sharpen the focus of Oral Questions. Is there any way in which they could be made more contemporary? Could Questions perhaps be tabled 14 days ahead instead of a month ahead? Could supplementary questions be briefer to include more participants? If they were called by the Speaker, perhaps judgment could be used as to whether to use the full seven minutes on every occasion. Perhaps there could be more than four Questions on the Order Paper.

I warmly welcome recommendation 13 that Ministers from either House could answer in the other Chamber. Surely what we need is the most expert and authoritative answer to Oral Questions. Sometimes, one bleeds for Ministers who are trying to answer questions on matters on which they have not been fully briefed. I also strongly support recommendation 14 on the presumption to have pre-legislative scrutiny. It is before Bills are cast in concrete that the experience of this House can really make a difference and Governments can take ideas on board without the fear of losing face. Some recent Bills would have greatly benefited had this taken place. I also ask whether there is some way in which a degree of pre-legislative scrutiny can be formally facilitated for the National Assembly for Wales to consider those aspects which affect it—for example, cross-border issues which seem to arise more frequently these days.

Incidentally, while reviewing the workings of this Chamber, might there be a wider role for our second Chamber, however it is composed, to bring together the co-ordination necessary between the Administrations and legislatures in other parts of these islands to avoid unnecessary confrontation and misunderstanding? While the UK is clearly not a federal state, growing numbers of quasi-federal dimensions are emerging. Perhaps in the future this House might have a role to play in that dimension.

I also support the way the committee has called for an end to the current petition system in this Chamber and is open to a new system, provided that there is an understanding of the role of the Commons and this Chamber. There are lessons to be learnt from the experience in the National Assembly for Wales with regard to petitions. It was, for example, a petition from the people that came before the Assembly that led to a new policy concerning charging for plastic bags. One may agree or disagree with that but it was clearly a matter that had public support, and the system lent itself to that approach. I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas in the Chamber. He played a significant part in the development of these systems in the Assembly.

With regard to statutory instruments, I also welcome the attempt in the report to establish a more significant and relevant system. I fully endorse recommendations 27 and 28, re-establishing the practice that the House can refuse to rubber-stamp orders with which it disagrees. I believe that they should be amendable on occasions. I also welcome the proposal to create a Back-Bench business committee—recommendations 29 to 32. This could create a more transparent system and it would certainly be beneficial to people like myself, who are outside the large parties.

There is a chapter heading on time-saving. There is one omission from the report—I do not know whether it was discussed—and that is to pay attention to modernising the way in which we vote. Walking around in circles, quarter of an hour at a time, is surely the least productive way of spending valuable time which could be used for addressing other issues.

Finally, I welcome the proposed simplification of the manner in which we refer to each other. Quite clearly, there is a role for improving the understanding of the people outside this Place as well as ourselves. I believe a change in nomenclature would help. I thank the Leader and all those who worked on this committee. I hope their efforts will be turned into reality very soon.