Draft Electricity Capacity (No. 1) Regulations 2019

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to follow the hon. Member for Southampton, Test; as usual, I will be somewhat briefer and, I suspect, more superficial than he was. I, too, would appreciate it if, when he sums up, the Minister reminded us how we got to this point; whether these proposed changes are sufficient to meet the concerns with the ECJ; what the outstanding risks are; and, if the proposed T-1 auction we are preparing for does not go ahead, what the supply risks are in terms of the electricity market. Energy UK, the industry body, is in favour of these changes, so it seems that some changes are required to facilitate further capacity auctions.

Paragraphs 6.4 and 6.5 of the explanatory memorandum detail the additional legislative changes required to accompany this statutory instrument. Can the Minister say what other changes are required, when they are coming and why we are not seeing the whole package together?

In terms of the Government consultation, half the responses express concerns regarding the T-1 agreement trigger and the amount of power or discretion that that gives the Secretary of State. Paragraph 10.3 of the explanatory memorandum says that some changes to the proposals have been made, following the consultation. Do the proposed changes to the legislation cover the concerns that respondents had with regard to the T-1 agreement trigger?

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test touched on the fact that the UK Government need a much more coherent energy strategy. Half the existing nuclear power stations are due to be decommissioned in the years 2023-2024. In recent written questions, I asked the Government about the proposed plans for the replacement generation capacity for these nuclear power stations. I was told that there are no immediate plans, but that they have decades to decide that. Clearly, they do not have decades to decide, given that those stations are going offstream in five years’ time. That shows the failings of the Government’s policy in their current nuclear obsession—new nuclear is not working but they are still carrying on full steam ahead.

We need more onshore wind generation in Scotland, CCS strategy, and greater investment in marine and tidal energy. Those are all required to stabilise the power generation market going forward. I would like to hear some comments about those issues, too.