Energy Infrastructure

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) on securing this afternoon’s debate, which has been very well informed and well argued on all sides. I might add that there has been one exception; I thought that one hon. Member made a particularly silly and evidence-free contribution that chimed ill with the others, but perhaps we will gloss over that.

I have known the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for a very long time, although I still cannot pronounce his constituency entirely right.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Na h-Eileanan an Iar.

[Dr Whitehead]

Thank you very much; I will not even try myself. Among other things, the hon. Member mentioned the Climate Change Committee’s very recent report, as did the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and others. Before I get into the detail of what has been discussed this afternoon, I think it is important to set out what that committee actually says about Government action on climate change, and particularly about the progress made by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on the matters within its purview, which include most of the net zero emissions targets.

Last week’s progress report from the Climate Change Committee says quite simply that the Government have a “lack of urgency”, and a lack of interest in pursuing net zero targets and undertaking the action necessary to reach them. It is a devastating report with respect to just how little is being done by the Department to advance the net zero policy framework. As a couple of hon. Members have noted, the committee comments:

“Pace should be prioritised over perfection.”

That is, I think, the committee’s very kind and polite way of putting its devastating point. Basically, it is saying, “Stop messing about and get on with it.”

That has been a bit of a theme among hon. Members this afternoon. They have raised issues in several areas, including those in the list set out by the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, who raised the question of the grid, the question of nuclear and the question of floating wind. The problem arising in all those areas is that we are failing to take action or take the opportunities to push things forward. All of that will have a very substantial effect on future net zero targets.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

We are here in the UK Parliament talking about the UK context, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the bigger context is about rising global demand? People are going to struggle to find ways to get the copper, get the cables and get the people. To meet those targets, there needs to be internationally co-ordinated thinking about how best to utilise resources, people and what have you.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. We are in global competition for resources that are presently being procured for things across the world that we are still thinking about, worrying about and wondering whether to go ahead with, when we know that the availability of those resources is rapidly running out. If we do not take action very soon, we will simply find when we come to the table that all the food has been eaten.

The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire highlighted the grid, which he rightly described as not fit for purpose. My personal view is that lack of action to undertake the necessary uprating and reorganisation of the grid will be the undoing of all our net zero ambitions. We have heard that projects seeking to get their connections to the grid firmed up are facing delays of up to 10 years. If we do not urgently get the grid up to scratch so that it can capture and deliver low-carbon electricity, we may well completely miss our targets, because we will have a number of schemes in hand but will be unable to plug them into the grid to deliver any low-carbon power to anybody. Urgent action to get the grid up to scratch is important.

The grid needs to be able to deliver electricity around the country effectively. At the moment there is a tremendous problem with constraints between Scotland and the north of England and the south, where we are increasingly turning off low-carbon power to balance the system. Quite often, we are bringing gas into the system because we cannot move that power around the country properly. We need urgent grid bootstraps to make constraints a thing of the past, and the Government have only recently woken up to the idea that action should be taken. Frankly, they are way behind the curve on the work that needs to be done.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) made a telling contribution on the future of floating wind in the Celtic sea. We have to bear in mind that floating wind is part of the ScotWind process, too. I do not need to add anything to what she said about the danger of failing to reach our targets on floating offshore wind development and all that that means for RenewableUK’s ambition to have some 34 GW of floating offshore wind in UK waters by 2040. We are going to miss that initial target, so where will we be on our future targets unless we get our act together on supply chains, the grid and the development of offshore wind in general in the very near future?

My hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) and for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) raised the issue of carbon capture and storage, and the problems we are having with developing it for the future. They are absolutely right, among other things, to query the arrangements that are presently under way on cluster development. It baffles me, to be honest, that we continue to have competition between clusters on CCS and hydrogen development. We had a first-track competition before placing in reserve—whatever that means—the important Scottish cluster, which is essential for the future of CCS. We have second and even third rows of clusters waiting to see whether their ambitions can be realised. A number of companies involved in those ambitions have put their concerns on hold while the Government decide the track for each project. We should not have tracks; they should proceed together. We ought to be clear about that.

If the Department had a target for consultations and papers, it would have easily exceeded that target, but I am afraid they are not yet attaching themselves to the urgent progress needed on net zero. That is the main charge laid against the Department by Members on both sides of the House this afternoon.