Electricity and Gas Transmission (Compensation) Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) and for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). There seems to be a theme; perhaps what we are debating only affects people in the north of their counties. Representing north Staffordshire, as I do in Newcastle-under-Lyme, it may be appropriate that I am speaking as well. It is always a pleasure to be here on a Friday doing important work on Bills such as this one. I pay tribute to everybody who is here doing so, particularly the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones). Instead of listening to me, she could be watching Gareth Bale—I wish Wales well and I am sure she is not following the game on her phone. [Laughter.]

I pay tribute to the Bill’s promoter, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset, not only for what he is doing today, but for what he did with the Down Syndrome Act 2022. He referred to it today, as have colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond). I noticed the other day that he won campaigner of the year at The Spectator awards, which goes to show that the legislation will really make a difference to the lives of many people with Down’s syndrome and their families throughout the country. That is what these sitting Fridays are all about. If he could tell me how to win the ballot—he has been lucky twice in a row—that would be greatly appreciated.

My right hon. Friend is right to say that we need to upgrade our grid. As we move to decarbonise our sources of heat and electricity, more will be delivered through electricity, because heat pumps and transport—electric cars and so on—will put an increasing demand on the grid. The Government consultation on land rights and consents for electricity network infrastructure, which was held in August and September, summarised the scale and pace of change to electricity networks that is anticipated; peak electricity demand is expected to go from 58 GW in 2020 to between 130 GW and 190 GW in 2050 to meet both our net zero targets and, increasingly in the light of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, our energy security targets. The report went on to say:

“Over the next decade and beyond, this means an unprecedented build of new electricity network infrastructure and reinforcement, especially of the existing distribution network where between 200,000-600,000 km of additional distribution network cabling could be required by 2050.”

My right hon. Friend is at the sharp end of that, with his constituency near Hinkley Point C. That is because these big new developments will put a lot of demand on the capacity to get that electricity out and across the country more widely, as we on the Science and Technology Committee have heard in our current investigation into nuclear. We are generating a huge amount of electricity in one place in Hinkley, as we will be in Sizewell following the Chancellor’s welcome announcement last week that we are going ahead with that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset is right to champion his constituents. Although I have not had the cases he has had, I am sure the criticism of National Grid is warranted, because we see this kind of thing all too often. I do not have the data, and one thing I noted when preparing for this debate is that we do not have good data about how often such consents are sought in our constituencies. Perhaps the Government could look to get Members of Parliament more information about how much of a problem this is in our areas.

The constituency represent is not nearly as rural as those of the Members who have spoken before me, but the principles remain the same—solid, Conservative principles of justice, fairness and people’s property rights. As my right hon. Friend said in his opening speech, sometimes it feels as if the odds are stacked against individuals. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire said, the principles that ought to apply with compensation—putting people in the same position as they would otherwise have been in—often do not seem to be observed. That is why Bills such as this, which create independent means for people to seek redress and compensation at an appropriate level, are so important.

That does not make me a member of an anti-growth coalition, or anything like that. If we want infrastructure in this country—if we want to build things for the overall betterment of our national population and build national infrastructure—we need to be more constructive and work with people affected. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire said that HS2 was better than what we have here, but in truth HS2 has caused no end of trouble as it carves its way through the countryside, and, indeed, through Staffordshire.

People have to fight so hard even to get back to the position they were in. We perhaps need to offer them more than 100%, as France does. In France, they make sure that affected people are not only made whole, but get some compensation and acknowledgement of the disruption that is caused when their land is concreted over or they have to sell their house subject to compulsory purchase. In this country, we do not work with the grain enough when it comes to housing or infrastructure.

I welcome the Bill, which is all about ensuring that we treat our constituents fairly. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset has been an undoubted champion for his constituents in this Bill and in the speech he made today. As he said, this will flow to other people. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley said that this could usefully be extended to other utilities, not just water but perhaps broadband—sometimes the disruption that that causes is quite substantial. I look forward to further progress on the Bill, and to what more can be done in Committee. I welcome the fact that the Government will work with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset in pursuing this important piece of legislation, and I hope that it goes through its further stages in this place and the other place.