Energy Security Strategy

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

We have had a comprehensive, well-informed and thoughtful discussion this afternoon, instituted by my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), whom I congratulate on securing the debate. It is particularly prescient to have the debate right now, because, as right hon. and hon. Members know, we are expecting the imminent arrival of the energy security Bill, which will have to legislate for all the changes we need to implement to make our system much more resilient, energy-efficient and, indeed, internationally secure. I look forward to seeing how many of the essential measures are in Bill. The Opposition intend to insert in the Bill as many of the things that are missing as possible, to make sure that we have a secure, forward-looking energy strategy for the future.

The content of the Bill will essentially be the recently published “British energy security strategy” paper. As I have said on previous occasions, I can describe it best by using the immortal words of Eric Morecambe, when he said he was

“playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”

Members under the age of about 50 might not get that, but it is a very important indication of where the energy security strategy is.

I will discuss the notes that are being played and the order in which they are being played in a moment, but before I go any further, I would like to firmly shoot the canard that has been repeatedly raised by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who has intervened in this debate and others to talk about our energy system as if it were vulnerable because of the fact that the renewables we produce are somehow intermittent, so we need something else to back them up and the something else clearly cannot be renewable. He suggests that the way we are going is therefore inappropriate for our energy security. In fact, at its absolute bottom line, our energy security is best served by moving completely to a series of renewable arrangements as quickly as we can, because that will give us complete security of energy supply, complete security of energy operation and, indeed, complete security of customer prices for the long-term future. At the moment, prices are going through the roof, particularly as a result of international gas prices and, as right hon. and hon. Members have said, the obscene invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin. That ought to be our watchword as far as our energy security is concerned.

In addition, our energy security should be bolstered by energy that we do not use. We could have a much more secure energy system if we used much less energy than we do at the moment. As the hon. Members for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and for Wantage (David Johnston) said, the key is a substantial programme of energy efficiency for homes and offices, which it is estimated could result in the use of 25% to 30% less energy. Imagine the improvements to our energy security that such a reduction in our long-term energy use would produce! That programme could be started in the very short term.

I refute the idea that to enhance our energy security, we must enhance our production of gas, oil and other things. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, our energy security is tied up with getting to net zero. Not succeeding in that would be a great source of energy insecurity. Whatever short-term improvements might be made in gas supply, the idea that we should turn on new oil and gas to enhance energy security does not stack up as part of our overall path.

So to the canard. It is untrue—simply untrue—that the intermittency of some of our renewables is fatal to our energy security because of the inability to run a lights-on system, which is what we absolutely need. It is untrue because of our increasingly smart energy systems. Because of the way our current energy systems work, they waste a lot of renewable energy by constraining it. The introduction of batteries, inter-seasonal storage and the use of other existing storage such as pumped storage, which we have in substantial amounts, will back up the systems where production is intermittent. In addition, not all renewables are intermittent. Biomass and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, which the Climate Change Committee is considering, would not be intermittent; nuclear is not intermittent. Nuclear is so unintermittent, actually, that it is not easily able to cope with the sort of system that we will have in the future, in the quantities that the Government are indicating.

One of the most important newer renewable technologies, which is not completely reliable over 24 hours but is completely predictable in terms of a number for the energy system, is tidal—both tidal range and tidal stream. Tidal power is completely predictable—the tide comes in, the tide goes out, and we know when it will happen. It is different in different parts of the country, so we can add different tidal elements in different parts of the country. It goes into the grid on a wholly reliable basis. One major criticism of the energy security strategy is that it does not take tidal technology much into account, which is a grave omission.

There are at least three wrong notes in the strategy: tidal; energy efficiency, which is it clear the Government are doing nothing much about, even though it is an urgent national priority to get energy efficiency measures seriously under way; and the reform of electricity market arrangements to create an electricity market that is fit for the sort of changes that we will undergo, particularly with renewables, which the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare mentioned. REMA should be an absolute priority right now, but it appears that the Government are not taking it very seriously. They have one line, I think, in the energy security strategy, saying that they are consulting on REMA at some stage.

The sort of changes we must make are an absolute priority now—not least, as the hon. Member said, getting us off the gas standard as far as our energy prices are concerned. That can be done pretty quickly and would make an enormous difference to our energy prices and indeed our energy security. I am sure the hon. Member and I have different notions of how that might best be done, but I look forward to debating that when the energy security Bill is brought forward. If that is not in the Bill, I will try to put it there. I will be interested to hear what the Government have to say in response.

Generally, the energy security strategy contains many of the right notes, but they are being played in the wrong order. As Members have mentioned, we are still not taking onshore wind seriously, with substantial planning obstacles remaining. Unless we have the infrastructure in place, delivering 50 GW of offshore wind will remain a wish rather than a reality. We certainly must deliver hydrogen as soon as possible, but we still have not properly resolved the debate between blue and green hydrogen or on delivering green hydrogen in the best way for the future. Of course, we are also still a long way from getting a serious carbon capture and storage programme in operation. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) failed to mention this entirely, but moving the Acorn project down the pecking order of industrial clusters could deal a real body blow to carbon capture and storage.

There is range of things in the energy security strategy that could lead to an enormous increase in this country’s energy security, but the strategy will probably not deliver because of what is omitted from its contents and because of the rather lackadaisical way in which the Government are pursuing a number of these imperatives through the strategy. My message to the Government is that they should include the notes they got wrong and play the notes they got right in the right order. If they do that, I think they will have a much better energy strategy. I look forward to debating how we can do that when the energy Bill comes before the House. Hopefully, we will end up with a much better energy security strategy as a result of getting that Bill into a good shape.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Talking of renewables and Eric Morecambe, I call on the Minister to “Bring Me Sunshine”.