Energy Bill [Lords]

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

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

We have had a good, calm and well-informed Second Reading debate. Indeed, we have heard contributions from across the House emphasising the point that the Bill is necessary but not necessarily sufficient.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) asked who will pay the changed levies as far as heating is concerned, and spoke about the need to undertake that properly for customers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) pointed us towards the rise of state-controlled companies’ investment in new energy arrangements, and was adamant about the Bill lifting of the ban on onshore wind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) made a strong contribution on the role of hydrogen in heating and, in particular, on the hydrogen trials that he has experienced. Perhaps we can assure him that we will certainly pursue an amendment to the Bill along the lines that he suggested.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) spoke strongly about carbon capture and storage, about the importance of CCS in the Teesside industrial cluster, and about the importance of ensuring that the industrial clusters can play their role in CCS as they develop further,

In the spirit of general cross-party support for the Bill, I think it also worth mentioning selected contributions from hon. Members who are not on the Labour side. Unfortunately, if everyone stuck to the contributions from their own side, those of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) would not be mentioned by anybody, but she made a strong contribution about the future of coal, about the need to support the amendment on coal tabled in the other place, and about the ludicrousness of continuing to maximise the economic production of oil, echoing many of the sentiments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband).

The right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, spoke strongly about the need for security of investment in this market, and the length of arrangement that would secure those investments and confidence in markets for the future.

Finally, the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), author of the net zero report, spoke enormous sense about delays being the biggest threat to net zero in future. He supported the retention of Lords amendments to the Bill, as did many other hon. Members, on community energy changes and other things that are part of the Bill that we are debating in the Commons.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is important that we do something about methane flaring and venting, which I raised in my contribution?

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, I am happy to acknowledge that that is an important issue in the transition to net zero for the oil and gas industry, and that it is ripe for further legislation to outlaw it in the not-too-distant future.

It is fair to say that hon. Members across the House went along with the theme that we have tried to establish on the Bill: it contains a great deal to support, and it is a Bill that is necessary to introduce things that are essential to the development of a low-carbon economy, to the achievement of the many targets on low-carbon energy and renewable deployment, and to the new forms of energy management that the Government have already put in place and on which they are seeking to succeed.

The Bill establishes mechanisms and business arrangements for carbon capture and storage, and for the manufacture and deployment of hydrogen as a low-carbon fuel for the future. It starts to delineate how energy systems are going to be governed and managed for the future, with the establishment of the independent system operator. For the first time, it introduces a proper system of heat network regulation, and it takes the planning and development of heat networks further. It heralds some of the essential elements of energy market reform. In short, it undertakes a great deal of what I would call necessary “green plumbing”, which has to be done now if our low-carbon energy system of the future is to work effectively.

The Opposition have some serious differences with the Government about how to go about those changes, but we acknowledge and support the generality of those “green plumbing” measures, not least because their establishment will undoubtedly help the new Labour Government greatly as we embark on our far more ambitious programme of energy decarbonisation and energy efficiency from 2024 onwards. Indeed, one of our substantial criticisms of the Bill is how long it has taken for us to get to the point of establishing the legislation that will guide the next stages of our energy decarbonisation.

As we have heard, the Bill has been with us for 10 months in its almost finalised form. Yes, the Government have sought to add amendments to the Bill in another place, and there will be further amendments in the Commons, but the measure could have been on the statute book many months ago—and time is of the essence in getting going with the next stages of decarbonisation. Instead, last autumn we were treated to the spectacle of the then Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy pulling the Energy Bill from its established progress after just two sessions of debate, and sitting on it for over three months for no apparent reason while the legislative process stalled completely. That led to the remarkable situation of the Opposition writing to the new Minister during that period of stasis demanding that the Bill be recommenced as soon as possible. I know about that because I was the person who wrote the letter. [Interruption.] Indeed, I did a very good job there.

Yes, this Bill is necessary, but many Members have asked whether it is sufficient, and we think it is certainly not. There are many missed opportunities to legislate for many aspects of the green transition that are or will become necessary shortly. There are many instances where the green plumbing in the Bill looks, frankly, fairly faulty and could do with beefing up. For example, the Bill fails completely to lift onshore wind back into place as a key element of our low-carbon energy armoury. The Bill fails to redefine Ofgem’s remit to start from a low-carbon imperative. The Bill fails to address another key part of that armoury—community energy—in any sort of meaningful and enabling way.

The Bill fails to address the very real changes in regulatory machinery that will need to accompany the transition from oil and gas to a predominantly low-carbon energy environment. The Bill continues to propose soaking customers for the support of future infrastructure when we require entirely new forms of support that recognise both the breadth of the work that has to be done and the institutions that we will need to support investment and development.

There are many areas where we can say, “Yes, but” to this Bill and put forward the measures that will enable it to rise to the challenge of decarbonisation in a comprehensive way. That is why we will embark on that task as the Bill goes into Committee by tabling the amendments that will make the Bill so much more robust for the challenge of the future, and we hope the Government will be receptive to those proposals. That process has been started, with a number of very well-thought-out additions made to the Bill in the other place on Ofgem, hydrogen, coal, community energy and home retrofitting. We will seek to defend those changes in this place, and we hope the Government will see the wisdom of them and not seek to overthrow them.

This is a necessary but not sufficient Bill that we want to get on the statute book, preferably with the added heft of our proposed changes to it in Committee, so that it becomes more on the sufficient end and less just necessary. We will not seek to divide the House on Second Reading but instead will give conditional support and assistance as far as we can with an early emplacement on the statute book.

Labour has an ambitious low-carbon energy programme for government, with a fully decarbonised power system by 2030, including a doubling of present onshore wind deployment; a grid that is fit for enabling and delivering a low-carbon economy; Great British Energy, an investment company that can do so much to speed the energy transition along; a massive programme to retrofit 19 million homes over 10 years to reach our energy efficiency targets; and serious planning of the energy transition, so that it is a just transition both in the North Sea and elsewhere. All these plans will benefit from many of the measures that are in the Bill, but they could be so much more supportive, and that is why we want to see an extended and more robust version of the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible.