Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman mentions boilers, and a number of organisations, including Green Alliance, Action for Warm Homes, Power for People and Energy UK, have produced briefs that point to how infrequently such Bills come around. There are great changes in energy technology and in world events, but they are not mirrored in Parliament. Both sides of the House should commit to not cramming everything into one energy Bill every decade. Given how things are changing in this sphere, Parliament should address it far more frequently than every decade.

[Dr Whitehead]

If the hon. Gentleman contains himself, he will see that we have tabled an amendment on low-carbon energy in homes. I agree that we cannot put everything in a Bill but, because of the urgency of the commitment we are making with this Bill, it is important that we get as much clarity as possible on what we are doing in the Bill now, so we know where we are going and the ways we are doing so.

Having discussed those other amendments, I will now draw attention to Labour’s amendments. I hope the House will understand why we have drafted them in this way and how that relates to the tests I mentioned. On our new clause 53, the Government say they support community and local energy. Indeed, as the Minister said, the Government have put a modest amount of funding into supporting community energy but, as the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), who is not in her place now, said, we still do not have an understanding of how community energy can actually work. We think community energy will be an important part of the decarbonisation process. It is not one of the large, shiny things upon which money will be lavished in large amounts but, in aggregate, it will have a huge impact on decarbonising energy in this country.

The Government still have not introduced arrangements that will enable local power producers to trade locally and get the proper value of their trade, which is vital to the success and certainty of these projects. Labour wants to support local energy projects practically, particularly through the “valley of death” period where the pockets of community energy are usually shallower than needed for all the planning permissions to run their course. With support from Great British Energy and local authorities, we propose that £400 million a year will eventually support the important role of community and local energy in decarbonising power.

Energy Infrastructure

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Angus Brendan MacNeil

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.

Energy Spending Priorities: Investors and Consumers

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

As a rural MP, I am aware of that issue. The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) is also assiduously aware of it, and I commend and congratulate her on raising it in Committee on just about every possible occasion. The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that on several occasions the Scottish Government were praised for their actions and—perhaps tongue in cheek; perhaps not—maybe I could recommend that energy policy in that area be devolved to the Scottish Government who, according to the evidence, seem to be doing a better job of it for the whole UK than other Governments.

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

Does the Chair of the Committee have anything to say about the almost collapse of solid wall insulation in homes that was predicted by the new ECO arrangements, as set against the suggestion by the Committee that by the end of the fourth carbon budget we should have in place 2.2 million solid wall insulation completions? Has the Committee considered that issue?

[Mr MacNeil]

It is always with certain trepidation that I give way to the hon. Gentleman, because what he does not know about energy, nobody else knows either. He sat on our Committee early on and did a fine job, and he also sat on the Committee in the previous Session, where he was highly regarded. There is some concern about solid wall insulation. If I remember right, the figures expected are far below what is needed and have almost collapsed, which, as he said, would be very worrying.

Let me start approaching a conclusion—that is more often a hope during speeches in the Commons than a statement of full intent. I thank my Committee colleagues for their excellent work on these inquiries, as well as the hundreds of companies and individuals who gave their time and expertise to inform our conclusions. It is appreciated. I Chair the Committee on Energy and Climate Change, but I am not an expert. I can, however, take information from experts, distil it, and hopefully get policy points out of that. Along the way, I will hopefully develop some expertise in those areas.

The Government’s response to our investor confidence report demonstrated disregard for the Select Committee inquiry process, and their response to our CCS report leaves important questions unanswered. Their response to the report on home energy efficiency appeared only this morning—eight weeks late. I hope that when the Secretary of State responds to this debate on the Government’s spending priorities, she will afford the House and my Committee a little more courtesy than her Department has sadly shown so far—I say that with regret because I like the Secretary of State personally. We have raised the issue with Ministers in Committee and several times by letter, and we need more information that businesses and homeowners might use and need to plan their energy futures. That would be an important step.

Finally, it is only right that a Committee should reflect that it is not all about MPs or the Chair, and we are fortunate to have talented people working with us. Last, but by no means least, I thank Dr Farrah Bhatti, the Clerk, Gavin O’Leary, the Second Clerk, Stephen Habberley, the specialist, Jamie Mordue, senior committee assistant, Henry Ayi-Hyde, Committee support assistant, and our ever cheerful Nick Davies, the media officer. For the investor confidence inquiry I thank senior specialist Andrew Buglass, founder of Buglass Energy Advisory, and Kirsty Hamilton, a lady with many jobs—of course she has because, like your good self, Madam Deputy Speaker, she has a Scottish background.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). She has made a very thoughtful contribution, most of which I agree with. I hope that this will set the tone for the rest of the evening’s debate, because there is now a wide consensus that the storm of changes that were made last summer to a whole range of renewables incentives has created enormous problems for investor confidence and substantial uncertainty over the Government’s direction on energy policy overall. The three excellent reports from the Energy and Climate Change Committee that we are also discussing this evening underline how the problems have arisen and what they consist of. However, we have also seen the acceptance by the Government of the fifth carbon budget in the past couple of days. It is great that they have accepted it. It would have been nice to have included shipping in it, but I understand that they are not going to proceed with that. Nevertheless, they have accepted the fifth carbon budget, which describes the onward march of renewables as absolutely essential for the reduction of our emissions.

The fourth carbon budget dealt with the essential nature of carbon capture and storage and the forward march of energy efficiency in homes. I made the point in an intervention earlier that the fourth carbon budget assumed that there would be 2.2 million solid wall treatments in homes, but the changes that have taken place over the past year have all pointed in the opposite direction to the imperatives that the Committee on Climate Change put forward in the carbon budgets. There are therefore real question marks in relation not only to investors but to future policy overall. How can we be on target with those budgets—as I hope we will be—at the same time as undertaking all the recent changes?

The cancellation of the carbon capture and storage programme was thoroughly deplorable. The justification for the changes to the renewables incentives was that this was all about the levy control framework. The framework came in in 2011 and it was supposed to place limits on the levies that were arranged in relation to certain renewables. This would also have an effect on what customers’ bills would look like, as the levies would be passed down to customers’ bills in the end. However, the levy control framework was almost inevitably going to be a car crash, both in terms of how it was conceived and of what it was going to look like by 2020.

There now seems to be some clarity about future auctions relating to contracts for difference under the framework up to 2020, but it does not look as though there will be much money in those auctions. It does not look as though they will be significant, and the levy control framework itself will come to a sharp cliff edge at the end of 2020. That is partly because when the framework was first designed, it was largely based on the renewables obligation, which involved a fixed amount of payment from the Government to those receiving renewables obligation certificates, whereas the change to contracts for difference has resulted in varying sums coming forward. As energy prices go down, so the cost of the payments goes up, resulting in less and less money in the levy control framework. This is a fundamentally badly designed arrangement for dealing with future renewables deployment if we are serious about getting that deployment in line with our carbon budgets.

We need clarification on whether there will be a levy control framework from 2020 onwards. I was interested to discover this morning that a consultation about changes in the 2014 contracts for difference orders had turned into a consultation about whether there should be a levy control framework at all after 2020—not about what it should consist of, or how it should work. I believe the Secretary of State indicated in her “reset” speech that some offshore wind would be auctioned after 2020, in which case there must be a levy control framework, but that is all the information that we managed to obtain. The consultation consists of one question and nine pages, and it does not tell us a great deal about the framework itself.

[Mr MacNeil]

I was interested in what the hon. Gentleman said a few moments ago about the effect of the levy control framework in an environment of low energy prices. Such an environment puts greater demands on the framework, which was probably conceptualised when prices were higher, or even heading in that direction. Another question is posed by the fact that the framework is not being revised to take account of the future capacity market.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman—the Chair of the Committee—is right to raise those questions. The effect on the levy control framework of the change in prices—and it should be noted that the prices of gas, electricity and oil are now below the lowest conceivable scenario in the Department’s energy projections—was simply not anticipated by the Department when it designed the framework. Moreover, the framework only takes into account the expenses to consumers of power. As the hon. Gentleman said earlier, it is clear that investment in renewable energy is affected. The change in the merit order and the downward pressure on prices has a real effect on wholesale prices. It is estimated that for every pound that is invested, about 60p comes back. That has not been taken into account in the calculation of the costs of the levy control framework, and I think that it is an argument for another fundamental redesign of the framework after 2020.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned another issue that I consider to be as important as the levy control framework itself: the signals that are given out by the parallel arrangements for the capacity auctions, which have exactly the same effect as the framework on customer bills. The energy companies will pay into a levy, which will eventually land on customers’ doormats in the form of a bill. However, although the Department has said that capacity auctions for the continuation of supply of non-renewables for mineral-based power stations will be within the levy control framework, they have kept the sums involved in those auctions outside the headline total for the limit of the levy control framework up to 2020.

That may not be particularly surprising. It is clear that all the billions of pounds that have been thrown up against the wall in relation to capacity auctions—when it comes to trying to get some new gas-fired capacity power stations on stream, or, failing that, to ensure that gas-fired, coal-fired and, indeed, nuclear power stations can continue to supply energy—bear no relation to the limits that have been set for the levy control framework. Not only do they bear no relation, but the Committee on Climate Change estimates that some £70 of a customer’s bill will fund renewables by 2020. It is currently about £35.

On capacity auctions, a new auction was recently announced for a period preceding those of the two T-4 auctions that have already taken place. The estimated cost to consumers for those capacity auctions will be something like £15 on the bill for the first two auctions and as much as £36 for the most recent auction. If we add the figures together, we find that by about 2020 the cost to the customer of capacity auctions will be about the same as all of the costs rolled up for renewables under the levy control framework, yet one is capped and the other is not. If the Government are prepared to put up £5.5 billion on capacity auctions but not to proceed with the levy control framework, which is actually able to deal with renewables investment over the next few years, that must send a message to renewable and low-carbon investors. That is fundamental and needs to be addressed.

I will bring my remarks to a close, but I hope that the Secretary of State will indicate in her response that the levy control framework will be coming forward after 2020 in a decent form and that it will be reviewed to take into account my points about its operation.

Draft Renewables Obligation Closure etc. (Amendment) Order 2016

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Gillan.

As the Minister set out, the effect of the order will be to close access to the renewables obligation for solar arrays of under 5 MW by March 2016. It represents another early closure of the RO, alongside the one for onshore wind and, as she mentioned, the previous one relating to larger solar. One might add that reining back renewables is another perverse, sudden policy intervention. As she mentioned, the category of solar in question eventually proved rather successful. If the solar industry at the sub-5 MW level had been as unsuccessful as, say, the green deal, perhaps the closure would never have happened. Perhaps that is not a terribly good example to use, because of course the green deal has been scrapped as well, on the grounds that it was unsuccessful.

To understand how sudden and random the intervention was, we need only look at the supporting documentation for the statutory instrument, from which we can see that the consultation on the early closure, and the grace periods attached to it, which the Minister drew attention to, commenced on 22 July and closed on 2 September—just when everyone was on holiday; but perhaps that is beside the point.

The date of 22 July happened also to be the date on which projects that were not fully agreed, for example in the planning process, could make no further progress through grace periods. To show how random that turned out to be, I have a note from a leading UK solar company, telling me that the 22 July grace period qualification deadline was

“by definition was unknowable even 24 hours in advance”

of its being announced and that 22 July was the first time anyone in the industry knew about the date. The company had one project, which it was 95% ready to submit as a full planning application; but it did not intend to do so until about a week after the consultation was published.

When the 22 July consultation was published, with the grace period definition within it, the company scrambled within 24 hours to try to submit its project, but failed by one day. With one day’s notice it did quite well to fail by one day; but nevertheless it was still cut off, which means it has £1 million tied up in a project that may now not qualify for anything, solely on a technicality it could not control, despite the fact that the planning application was 100% valid and less than one day late.

Indeed, the process of consultation has been substantially criticised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in another place, which drew particular attention to the deficiencies in the consultation period and the difficulties caused, particularly with the sudden emergence of grace periods, for the industry as a whole.

The central justification for the policy lurch is also to be found in the supporting documents; as the Minister has also mentioned, it is to keep within the levy control framework, that half-mythical, half-real device that now hovers over most renewable deployment for the next 10 years—or should we say the next five years.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I did intend to intervene on the Minister about that, but is not it high time there was full transparency on the levy control framework, so that given the lurches and changes there have been in policy we could at least have some idea of what is underpinning this? There are investors in particular who have got quite nervous in the last while, with the possible pushing up of premiums they will have to borrow with to invest in the future.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman has clearly, with a little long-sightedness, been looking over my notes, because that is exactly the point I need to emphasise now about the levy control framework. Although we think that the issue is about the next 10 years, as far as the deployment of renewables is concerned, we simply do not know in any detail what will happen to the levy control framework between 2020 and 2025, despite the fact that the Government have indicated that detail will be filled in at some stage. Obviously, that is a cause of continued consternation for those attempting to plan some sort of future for their longer-term projects.

We need to emphasise that many of these projects require a number of years to undertake, and therefore some form of guidance and certainty would be useful for projects that may be starting now and may not be operational and available for contracts for difference, if there are such things in the period between 2020 and 2025. It would be helpful if those companies had at least the assurance that they were not wasting their time by putting forward proposals for the future.

The impact assessment for the SI says in its opening lines:

“The proposed interventions intend to limit projected spending under the Renewables Obligation, while not harming projects that have already made significant financial commitments”—

which is not necessarily the case, as we have seen—

“This is to limit the impact on the LCF of significantly greater solar deployment than previously anticipated.”

Of course, we do not know the actual impact on the LCF of significantly greater solar deployment than previously anticipated because we do not know the effect of overspends within the LCF—that is, the LCF’s original projections for spending on solar and the overspend in terms of the variation from those original projections. We do not know that because apparently we are not to be trusted with that information. No variation figures have been published, nor are apparently likely to be.

Indeed, I have now asked three parliamentary questions on the effects of that variation, which is central to the impact assessment of this SI. On each occasion, I have been met in the answer with complete stonewalling, on frankly increasingly spurious grounds, on what those variation totals consist of. I am sure the Minister is aware of that issue, because it was she who signed off the answers to those questions on the future of the LCF variation.

It would be helpful for the passage of this debate if the Minister, perhaps by an intervention, gave me the actual sums for the variations over the period relating to solar. It would be even more helpful if she gave those relating to variations in her Department’s calculations as far as the LCF is concerned below 5 MW. We could then determine whether the variations in spending really had such an impact on the LCF that they caused this particular decision to come about, or whether they were of an order that would not have had much of a substantial impact on the LCF—as I suspect may be the case, though we do not know.

[Dr Whitehead]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. Frankly, the information she has provided the Committee with today is rather in line with the circumstances in which she felt she could respond to my parliamentary questions. I hope the Minister is not offended by any suggestion that she personally prevented me from getting the information that I requested. My point is that the levy control framework is now so opaque, in terms of its operation and its variations, that it affects proper scrutiny of how decisions have come about. That is not as a result of possible spending in the future but about variations in the past—what was originally thought to be the trajectory of the levy control framework and, as reported in the impact assessment, its actual trajectory in terms of overspending, and how that relates to subsets of that, in particular as we are discussing this afternoon, subsets of solar expenditure as they relate to sub-5 MW installations.

[Mr MacNeil]

Just picking up on the point about the LCF and the OBR, if the LCF is opaque, the OBR varies wildly in its estimates. In November 2014, the projected LCF spending was £6.25 billion in 2021, but by July 2015—eight months later—the forecast spending was £9.8 billion, a huge change of approximately 50% in the OBR’s projections. That further adds to the hon. Gentleman’s call for clarity and an end to the opacity.

[The Chair]

I remind colleagues that interventions should be brief.

Coastguard Service

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Thursday 24th March 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who I believe knows more about this subject from, among other things, direct experience than anyone else in the House. If people listen to no one else this afternoon, they should listen to the hon. Lady, because of what she says from direct experience of what it is to go to sea, what is involved in safety at sea and in calling out the people who can provide support and assistance for those at sea. What she says about the idea that all those things might be co-ordinated from somewhere in Southampton is something of which I am very aware.

Being the Member for Southampton, Test, I do not think that I fall into the category of Members who come along to the debate to whinge about their particular centre, so perhaps it is particularly important that I say a few words this afternoon because I am not a Member who could be accused of coming along to the debate and whingeing about their centre. As is generally known, although the MCA headquarters is not in my constituency, it is 85 yards away, so it is almost there.

According to the proposals, the Solent will have a brand-spanking-new centre, with 24-hour cover. One might say that that is fair enough: the Solent is one of the most congested areas of sea around our shores, so it should have that centre. However, it is also true, as we have heard, that our seas in general are becoming more congested. The volume of shipping is increasing in many areas. Many more large ships are confined to deeper water in restricted channels. As we have heard, large numbers of offshore renewable energy installations are being developed around our coasts, restricting the areas available to shipping.

Our shipping is getting larger. Today’s ultra-large crude carriers carry up to 500,000 tonnes of oil, some five times the capacity of the Torrey Canyon. The largest container ships—those coming into Southampton —are 1,000 feet long and can carry more than 11,000 containers.

Our coastline is getting busier. The UK has more than 10,500 miles of outstandingly beautiful coastline. Millions of people use our seas, coasts and beaches for an increasingly wide variety of recreational purposes, often in areas that are also used by commercial shipping, as is the case in the Solent.

Weather conditions are becoming more extreme. More frequent and more intense storms have been occurring. That increases the risk to ships. Therefore, there is an increasing requirement for the coastguard to provide navigational advice to mariners in the most congested areas.

As a result of all those factors, the number of incidents to which the coastguard has to respond has been rising—from 16,500 incidents in 2005 to 20,544 in 2010—and it is likely to continue to rise.

I have to make a confession now, Mr Crausby. All the words that I have said since the phrase “our seas are becoming more congested” are not mine; they come from page 12 of the consultation document. Anyone reading those words and then turning the page would expect to see many proposals to strengthen, expand and enhance the coastguard service, for precisely the reasons set out in the consultation document. The problem that we are grappling with is that it is very hard to see how the proposals in the consultation document would bring about that level of enhancement.

It is claimed that the service is being modernised, and I think there is widespread consensus in the Chamber that a lot of modernisation of what the coastguard service does can be undertaken. The problem is that the consultation document is not clear, and therefore the debate is not clear, about whether the proposals are designed to save a large amount of money, in which case the first thing that should have happened at the point of the proposals being made was a series of risk assessments to see whether a safe coastguard service would be retained after their implementation. However, as far as I am aware, no risk assessment, no modelling and no simulation tests have been done as a result of the proposals being made.

Alternatively, if the proposals are indeed modernising proposals to make the service better, an understanding needs to be reached of why the service will be better, and why a service based on two centres, one of which would be Southampton, with the other centres open only during daylight hours, would be better, more modernised and more efficient. In terms of the future for the service in Southampton, yes, it will have 24-hour cover. Nevertheless, it will be a maritime operations centre in addition to anything else it may do. The definition of that maritime operations centre includes, among other things, co-ordinating the whole service, as one of two such centres in the country. As we heard, taking calls and co-ordinating services across a huge expanse of coast is way beyond any experience that centre may have of what such a service would consist of. I wonder about the strain and stress that will come upon those people. Yes, they will have jobs in the centre, and yes, it will be a 24-hour service, but they will be co-ordinating a service on the basis of quite possibly nothing much being on the other end of it. We are talking about circumstances in which people are directing services in a remote part of the country and hoping that they have done a good job and got it right.

It was stated at a recent hearing of the Transport Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), that the proposal was okay because 70% of incidents occur during daylight hours. Another way of putting that is that 30% of incidents occur during night-time. If a centre is co-ordinating a number of other centres that are physically not available during night-time hours, the strain on that centre will be quite considerable.

[Mr MacNeil]

Sometimes the issue is not the number of incidents. If we have one more Braer, we will have quite a disaster on our hands. Sometimes the magnitude of one incident can almost eclipse every other incident. That is the crux of the matter. We are talking about a maritime insurance policy, but unfortunately it seems to be being cast aside.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about what the service consists of and the problems that it encounters. That suggests to me that the idea that the consultation document is about modernising the coastguard service is only partially correct. Again, that was underlined by the evidence recently given to the Transport Committee by Sir Alan Massey, who made this curious statement:

“For my agency, I am required to find a 22% budget reduction in my programme between now and 31 March 2015. In seeking to find those savings, we have had to put forward a number of savings options. One of them does affect the coastguard modernisation programme.”

As I read it, that means that there was a coastguard modernisation programme and that the proposals for making savings have affected it. That may have been a misstatement, and it may deserve further analysis, but if the proposals are about savings that could affect a modernisation programme as opposed to being about the modernisation programme itself, that should be the basis for discussing the consequential examination of the proposals, and not otherwise.