Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Monday 10th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, neither the noble Baroness who has moved this amendment nor the noble Lord, Lord Judd, appears to have recognised that what we are talking about in Clause 32 is developing land 300 metres below the surface. Looking at the list of the various sites in the noble Baroness’s amendment, I cannot of think of one of them which could remotely be affected by horizontal drilling 300 metres below the surface. I am surprised that neither the noble Baroness nor the noble Lord seems to have acknowledged this. We are not talking about actually drilling down in a special area of conservation or a site of special scientific interest which implies development on the surface. We are talking here about horizontal drilling 300 metres below the surface and I just cannot understand how either the noble Baroness or the noble Lord can think that this could affect these important sites. Perhaps I have missed something.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for introducing these important amendments. Perhaps I could immediately pick up the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, a moment ago. Yes, there will be drilling across—of course there will be—but somewhere they have got to drill down. If he is saying there shall be no drilling down at all in these areas, just drilling across into them, then at least I would understand what he was saying, but he appears to say that there should not be any rules whatsoever appertaining to these special areas because the drilling can only come from the side. Well, it cannot only come from the side, and I would have thought that that is something that perhaps could be addressed later if this amendment was accepted.

I wholly welcome this amendment—

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

The noble Baroness had an amendment in Grand Committee which addressed the question of whether there should be downward drilling and whether pads for developing shale gas could be located in any of these places. Although we did not vote in Grand Committee, the argument was perfectly clear that it would depend on the site. You have got planning permission and you have got a whole range of other things. I must confess I have not reread the noble Baroness’s debate on that occasion, but what we were talking about here is 300 metres below.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Monday 3rd December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I have some doubt about the proposed new clause of which my noble friend has just spoken. The Nuclear Liabilities Fund very properly seeks to avoid the situation that the country got into over many years when large numbers of nuclear installations of one sort of another were left to be decommissioned and their radioactive materials dealt with, and there were no funds available. One is always astonished at the huge amounts of money that have to be set aside to satisfy the obligations that are now being discharged to decommission these nuclear plants safely and effectively. My noble friend Lord Teverson may contradict me on this, but I believe that it is intended entirely to be confined to that purpose; it is intended to be there when it is needed and nuclear establishments come to be decommissioned. When my noble friend says that this increases the firepower of the Green Investment Bank, what does he mean? Is it intended that the fund should be invested in other green projects, which may or may not achieve the return expected when the fund was invested? I would have thought that that would risk defeating the purpose of the Nuclear Liabilities Fund.

The question of the rate of interest that should be earned on that fund is something that the Minister may wish to look at. I had not refreshed my memory of Professor MacKerron’s report, and I was grateful to my noble friend for reminding me what was in it. Of course, it is a very low rate of interest, as he has rightly said. But the fact of the matter is that this is a hypothecated fund; it is there for a particular purpose, and the idea that it could be used by the Green Investment Bank to invest in something else that might produce a higher return risks prejudicing the absolute and essential purpose for which it has been set up—namely, to meet the costs of decommissioning nuclear plants when they are available. I hope that the Minister will give some indication that he will look at this proposal in the proposed new clause with some suspicion, because I believe that it might be misconceived. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Teverson for putting it in that form, but I feel very strongly about this.

One of the best things that the previous Government and this Government have done is to make sure that future nuclear liabilities will not fall on the taxpayer but are regarded as a proper cost of those who invest in nuclear installations, power plants and so on. That is what it is intended to do. It is a very wise thing to do, and I hope that it will not be prejudiced by diverting it to some of the other purposes of the Green Investment Bank that noble Lords have talked about this afternoon.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I apologise for coming in rather late, but I am in good time for the amendment that I wanted to catch up with, Amendment 11, and to follow on from the question regarding nuclear decommissioning. I live in a part of north-west Wales where there are two nuclear power stations. Trawsfynydd nuclear power station stopped generating two decades ago. It now employs some 600 people on decommissioning, more than it ever employed when it was generating electricity. The message that comes home from that is the uncertainty with regard to the cost of decommissioning and the length of time, and the need, therefore, to have financial cover for that.

This becomes particularly relevant with regard to the new reactor that is likely to be forthcoming with Hitachi at Wylfa in Anglesey. There is considerable support in Anglesey for the renewal of the nuclear power station. But the one reservation that people would have is if there were uncertainty as to the eventual decommissioning and the resultant costs arising from that station, particularly if in the private sector the company running it were to go out of existence. There needs to be a cast-iron guarantee with regard to funding for that purpose in order to maintain the good will towards the building of that new reactor at Wylfa. It is needed in energy terms and in terms of investment in the local economy in north-west Wales.

Therefore, the amendment goes to the heart of some very important aspects of nuclear power. Whereas I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the amendment in terms of the green bank and developing green alternative sources of electricity, that has to go on side by side with the nuclear dimension. Whatever settlement is finally reached it has to encompass both sides of that equation.