Energy Trilemma

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on securing the debate. I must admit that I did not realise when she secured the debate that I would effectively be responding to a Tory Back-Bench 1922 committee report. It comes as an even greater surprise to me that I agree with the recommendations she has raised. She did say that there were 30-odd recommendations, though. She did not go through them all—I thank her for that—but I suspect that I would find some among them that I disagree with.

As I say, I agree with the right hon. Lady on the points that she brought forward. We really do have to unlock renewables, and I agree about the need to reduce demand. One way to do that is to increase energy efficiency installations; the Government must really ramp up action on that. One thing I would say to the Minister is that I am now getting feedback that the roll-out through ECO4 is not going as quickly as suppliers would like it to go; they are already behind on progress this year, so maybe we need to look at ways to target the right homes for energy efficiency upgrading.

The right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire obviously took credit for the creation of the new stand-alone Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. I welcome that new Department; to be honest, it was long overdue, but at least it now seems to have the right priority within Government. I also completely agree about the number of grid upgrades that will be required. We need much better forward planning, and it was certainly an eye-opener when she said that we had seven times the amount of infrastructure still to be built. There is no doubt that Ofgem has failed on that. National Grid ESO confirmed two weeks ago to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee that it paid £4 billion in constraint payments last year. That is effectively £4 billion wasted that could have gone towards grid upgrades, storage or other mechanisms, and it shows how Ofgem needs to get a grip on the issue and allow anticipatory investment.

We need to imagine what the grid will be required to look like in 2050 and start planning for that now. I am concerned at the piecemeal approach that has been taken; even when the grid has been upgraded, we are building in future constraints already instead of putting in the right capacity. That will cost more money in the long run and block renewables from coming online.

I must say I also welcome the right hon. Lady’s conversion to referendums. She will find that on the SNP side we completely agree with the need for referendums, and I look forward to her support on that matter. I was also glad to hear her compliment the independent advice body Home Energy Scotland, and it would be good to see a completely independent body set up in England to give free and impartial advice and help people to get the measures required.

It is no surprise that I agree with the points my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) made. He is right that the IPCC report highlights the urgency to take action now, before it is too late. He also highlighted the fact that investment is relocating to the United States where there is momentum because of the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, here we have the electricity generator levy, but no renewables investment allowance. We really need to look at some form of that. My right hon. Friend obviously mentioned the Skilling report, the opportunity potentially to scale up to 80 GW of green electricity generation in Scotland and how important that could be in a just transition, creating 300,000-plus new jobs.

I also agree with my right hon. Friend on tidal stream. I have been trying to highlight the issues with the funding pot announced for AR5—it is definitely not enough money, especially with inflationary pressures. MeyGen in the Pentland Firth is the biggest tidal stream site in the world, but it has confirmed that it now faces inflation pressures of +50% on the AR4 strike rate that it bid against. The only way that that project can grow is if it gets to scale up through a bigger proportion agreed in AR5, and for that there needs to be a much bigger budget. I am pleased to say that the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury has agreed to meet me next week, and I will certainly make the case for at least £40 million, which is what I have been asking for.

In a real twist, I agreed with the points made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid). There is no doubt that we will still be using oil and gas in 2050 and will still need to utilise them as an asset. As he rightly said, Scotland is a net exporter of oil and gas. In fact, it supplied almost 50% of the UK’s gas consumption last year and 75% of the oil.

When we talk about energy security, though, we must be realistic and accept that, while even a lower percentage increase in production for the North sea increases energy security, that oil and gas can be traded on the international market and does not necessarily come directly into the UK market. There has been a 30% reduction in oil refinery capacity in the UK since 2010, so even a lot of the oil for use in end products here has to go abroad to be refined and then come back. The security issue is not quite straightforward, but I agree that that is an asset we must continue to utilise.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alan Brown]

It will need to be very brief.

[Mr Carmichael]

What view does the hon. Gentleman take, then, of the Scottish Government’s current consultation on presumption against future development?

[Alan Brown]

There is no harm in consulting. We need to look at that and have proper climate compatibility checks—I think that is the right way to go about it.

I agree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan about direct air capture, which could, of course, play a role as part of the wider Acorn cluster, but I repeat that, with £20 billion announced for carbon capture and storage, it is disappointing that we are still waiting to hear any firm commitments on Acorn. The Budget mentioned a possible track 1 expansion, so can the Minister advise me on whether Acorn might be included in that this year, or will it rely on track 2? If so, when will we hear an announcement about the track 2 process?

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) rightly mentioned the fantastic EMEC facility. I urge the Government to come forward with funding to replace EU funding and keep EMEC going. He said that he was not too sure about nuclear. My views on nuclear are well known, but I repeat that I am completely against it. Hinkley is costing £33 billion; Sizewell C will cost something like £35 billion. Think what we could do with that money in energy storage, energy efficiency and even grid upgrades. That £35 billion is just a waste of money. Sizewell C will not be constructed for 12 to 15 years, and there is not even one successful EPR project in the world. SMRs are being promoted, but there is not even an approved SMR design in the UK. Rolls-Royce tells us that it will somehow get them up and running by 2029, but that is a fallacy when the regulator has not even approved the design yet. At £2 billion a time, SMRs are not exactly cheap, and that money could be better spent elsewhere.

The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) made a good point about the potential for geothermal, and I agree with him. We have a lot of former mineworking areas in Scotland and other areas of the UK, and they could be a place to start on the potential for geothermal. It would be good to see Government support for that.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) mentioned community energy, an effective Local Electricity Bill, and amendments to the Energy Bill. Certainly, I have been a supporter of the Local Electricity Bill. I would be happy to consider that on a cross-party basis when the Energy Bill comes to the House of Commons.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) mentioned intermittency issues. Yes, we need to deal with them, but that can be done with pumped-storage hydro, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber mentioned. All that is required to get Coire Glas over the finishing line for final investment and approval is a green cap and floor mechanism for revenue stabilisation. Some £1.5 billion will be fully funded by SSE Renewables—no subsidy or Government guarantees have been asked for; just the revenue stabilisation mechanism.

The right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire made a good analogy, which everyone picked up on, and I agree with her, but although we are calling it the energy trilemma, we also need to look at it as an opportunity —the opportunity that comes with decarbonisation, green energy, new jobs, just transition and by bringing bills down in the long run. We have to grasp that opportunity to have a truly green renewable energy grid supplying homes across the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)]

I am going to go through my speech as fast as I can, because this has been an incredible debate. I would so much have liked to have had more time, but I want to allow my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) to come back in at the end.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this important issue, and I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions. We have had an informed and interesting discussion. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire for bringing this important topic to the House. I also pay tribute to her for the important work she did in advancing the nation’s energy and climate security as Secretary of State with responsibility for those matters, as well as in her role as Energy Minister prior to that. I welcome the work that she and other Members have been doing more recently to contribute to this policy debate.

I agree with my right hon. Friend about the creation of the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which I am sure that the whole House will welcome. It will deliver policies at the heart of the Government’s agenda and tackle the energy trilemma. Indeed, the Secretary of State was mindful of the trilemma as he laid out his priorities, which are:

“To set Britain on a path to energy independence, in other words, delivering energy security.

To bring bills down as soon as possible, and keep them down, so wholesale electricity prices are among the cheapest in Europe, delivering consumer security.

To decarbonise energy as part of our commitment to net zero, delivering climate security.”

As the Minister with responsibility for energy consumers and affordability, I will be working hard with the Secretary of State to bring down energy bills for households and businesses and to tackle fuel poverty.

The Government have a clear plan to deliver our priorities, set out in our Energy White Paper, published in 2020, and in our “Net Zero Strategy”, published in 2021. The British energy security strategy, published in April last year, charted a pathway to reducing our dependence on imported oil and gas and achieving net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050.

In the 2022 edition of the index, the UK was ranked fourth overall, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) mentioned, ahead of G20 competitors including France, Germany and the United States. We are clearly doing something right. We should not consider the three aims of having secure, affordable and clean energy as being in competition with each other. In fact, enhancing security means decarbonising electricity, and both mean keeping energy bills affordable. To illustrate that point, I highlight the role that wind and solar play in our energy mix. They are not only the cleanest sources of power that we have, but the cheapest, and they contribute to our energy security by reducing our reliance on imported fuels.

I want to mention the contributions from a couple of other Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) has a great depth of knowledge and brings real experience to the subject. He has a genuine commitment to the subject, and he mentioned carbon capture, usage and storage. That is a priority for the Government, and we are progressing as quickly as we can. The funding package announced at the Budget is unprecedented and demonstrates His Majesty’s Government’s strong commitment to delivering CCUS in the UK.

[Alan Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Amanda Solloway]

I am so sorry, but I just do not have time.

I would particularly like to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who is a strong and consistent advocate for energy security and net zero. The UK currently does not have access to large naturally occurring geothermal resources that countries such as Iceland have, but I welcome the review he is doing and look forward to reading it.

To meet our ambitions on renewables, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire that we should accelerate the planning processes and networks infrastructure vital to bringing these projects to fruition. That is why the Government have committed to dramatically reducing timelines for delivering strategic onshore transmission network infrastructure by around three years, with an ambition to halve the end-to-end process by the mid-2020s. We look forward to the report from the Electricity Networks Commissioner, Nick Winser, this summer, and will take action in response to his recommendations.

We are committed to ensuring that projects benefit not only the nation as a whole, but the communities in which they are built. Members rightly call for an electricity system that is smart and flexible, and by the end of 2022 there were 31.3 million smart and advanced meters across Great Britain. The flexibility of the system is underpinned by a growing pipeline of electricity storage projects, with nearly 23 GW of storage already online.

Members have rightly pointed out the crucial role in energy security of reducing consumption through targeted energy efficiency measures, and we are already off to a good start. In 2010, only 14% of homes were in energy performance band C or better, but thanks to Government and industry action, 46% of homes now meet this benchmark.

The Government are bringing all this work together through the Energy Bill, which is the vehicle for delivering our strategy. It will modernise the way that we heat people’s homes, it will turbocharge British technology and it will liberate private investment, scaling-up jobs and growth.

To sum up, the UK is firing on all cylinders to deliver a green, resilient and independent energy system, with these three elements going hand in hand. As my right hon. Friend will know, the UK is a global leader not just in clean energy, but, as the energy trilemma index confirms, in cheap and secure energy. So it is only right that our ambition is to completely decarbonise our power system by 2035, subject to ensuring security of supply. This will provide the cheap, clean and British energy we need for decades to come.