Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between Alan Whitehead and Mike Weir(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Weir
I agree that it is important that targets are set and delivered, but I do not agree that energy saving would necessarily be a lower priority under the guidance system, and I shall explain something about that. As the hon. Lady will know, the Scottish Parliament has often taken a different road from the UK Parliament—the central heating scheme is a classic illustration. Both the previous Administration in Scotland and the current Scottish National party Administration have taken different routes from the UK Government to deal with those matters.
The Scottish Government have decided that they will focus their efforts on each local authority’s housing strategy. As the hon. Lady rightly says, guidance has been issued. They are seeking to make it clear that that strategy and guidance are the driving force behind determining levels of investment in each local authority area—I believe that a significant piece of work was done in the highlands and islands on that basis.
The Scottish Government have also introduced Scottish housing quality standards, which every local authority and housing association must achieve by 2015, and for which an additional £1.5 billion will be spent over the next three years. In a recent case in my constituency, there was a difficulty with lack of insulation, and I took that up with the housing association. It is clear that it is very much aware of the need to react to the 2015 standard. I hope that that problem is resolved before the onset of winter, although time is running out.
The standard has already been achieved in 40% of housing in Scotland. There is still a long way to go, but that is a significant achievement. The standard assessment procedure rating achieved is 7, so clearly the standard is delivering what is necessary in those houses—it is much more effective than HECA in doing so.
In addition, the Scottish Parliament has passed the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, which is acknowledged as world-leading legislation. The Act will drive much of what is done in Scotland. The £33 million energy assistance package has helped 150,000 people on low incomes to reduce their bills since 2009. One in six Scottish homes—a total of 145,000—have been visited for a home energy check, and there have been almost 18,000 installations. The EAP has been extended to help the most vulnerable. In addition to helping pensioners, the scheme has been extended to include disabled families with children under five, disabled children under 16, those with severe disabilities, and those who are terminally ill. The £50 million warm homes fund will also be introduced to help.
In addition to the EAP, the Scottish Government are providing £12.5 million in 2011-12 to support local councils to deliver area-based insulation to save households money, reduce emissions and tackle fuel poverty. It is hoped that councils will target areas across the country that are most in need of free insulation and other energy efficiency measures. The Scottish Government are working with local authorities to help to target the areas that are most in need, which is very much welcomed by Energy Action Scotland.
I am pleased to hear that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun will not press amendment 51 to a Division, but I ask hon. Members to realise that Scotland is doing things differently. In many ways, HECA has been overtaken by events in Scotland, which is why the Scottish Government want it repealed. They want repeal not because of a desire to avoid the implications of HECA, but because they have moved in another direction. Interestingly, the Scottish Government and the Labour Government in Wales have taken a similar view. We might be going in different directions, but I hope that we are all going towards the same goal of making our homes warmer and eradicating fuel poverty among our populations.
Dr Whitehead
I want to comment briefly on new clause 11 and, in doing so, echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). With hindsight, it has been recognised that the clause concerned, which was originally pretty flawed, has been substantially strengthened and clarified as a result of its withdrawal, the discussions that followed and its emergence on Report as new clause 11. In Committee, widespread concern was expressed about that flawed clause on the grounds that it sought to replace an arrangement under the Energy Act 2008 that enabled the Secretary of State unilaterally to invoke sections 48 and 49 of the Act for the modification of a decommissioning programme regardless of any agreement made previously.
The original clause would have replaced that provision with an arrangement that appeared to enable the Secretary of State to waive the ability to make programme modifications, if circumstances changed, by making an agreement when the licensing agreement was first adopted binding him or herself in perpetuity regardless of the objective circumstances in place after the original agreement. That was clearly not satisfactory. I accept that, for logical reasons, it is difficult to place the words “unforeseen circumstances” in legislation—clearly we do not know what those would be—but I think that the question of when a programme ceases to become prudent could be better addressed.
I would be grateful if the Minister clarified a couple of issues relating to the wording of the new clause that might be referred to should a modification action be undertaken by people seeking to understand what the clause really means. I appreciate that, as I have mentioned previously, the background to the new clause is similar to the Marx brothers’ form-guide sketch in “A Day at the Races” in which they have to refer to a large number of separate documents to understand where they were in the first place. Nevertheless, I would be grateful if he confirmed that the Secretary of State may act, by him or herself, to point out that a decommissioning programme subject to the new clause had ceased to be prudent and say, “It appears to me that this programme has become imprudent and therefore needs modification.”
What those modifications might consist of would be a matter for negotiation and discussion with the site licensee. If points in the modification programme could not be agreed, a third party could come in, under proposed new subsection (3D), to determine how those points might best be resolved. When the third party—as the Minister emphasised, it would be an independent party—has resolved those previously unresolved issues, the Secretary of State would, under the proposed new subsection, be
“bound by such a determination”.
It is clear, however, that under administrative law the Secretary of State would not be able to undertake an agreement unless he was satisfied that there was adequate provision for the modification of the programme, including the understanding that the site licensee would also be bound by what the third party had determined.
It would not be logical or reasonable for the Secretary of State to undertake a programme that would enable the licensee to escape being bound by the consequences of a determination of modification and therefore simply not undertake any action relating to those modifications, even after they had been agreed. That is my understanding of the new clause. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that and placed it on the record that the process would lead to an agreed modification programme that could be instituted by the Secretary of State, but mediated by a third party, after a programme had been judged to be no longer prudent on a different programme of decommissioning.
Nuclear Energy
Debate between Alan Whitehead and Mike WeirWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) on securing this debate. It is, of course, a debate about Government policy on new nuclear; we are not talking about the overall advisability of going down the nuclear route. My view remains that nuclear power is not renewable. We have no nuclear fuel in or around the UK and I have my views on that subject. However, Government policy on new nuclear is the important issue that we need to concentrate on right now.
In that context, the Minister has an enormous responsibility on his shoulders. I, too, have a great regard for him and for his skills in tackling these matters. However, he will need at least the skill of those responsible for putting in and removing the nuclear cores from Three Mile Island to keep the coalition on track as far as its policy is concerned, because although the provisional wing of the coalition is in for this debate, the official wing is apparently locked into Government policy on nuclear, in respect of the decisions that will need to be made as far as the Department of Energy and Climate Change is concerned.
Of course, we have clarity about what those decisions will consist of—indeed, we had that clarity in a speech that the Minister made to the Nuclear Industry Forum very recently. In that speech, he stated:
“We will keep the fast-track process for major infrastructure, but planning decisions will be made by Ministers thereby ensuring democratic accountability”.
There is a national policy statement on nuclear. Incidentally, the new Government are going to take that statement apart and put it together again, which I think will ensure further delays in the process. Among all the national policy statements that have come out, the statement on nuclear is unique in that it is site-specific. We have already heard mention this morning of the inclusion or exclusion in that statement of a particular site at Dungeness; in total, 10 sites have been identified in the statement.
If that is to happen as far as those sites are concerned, the decision taken by the Minister will mean that he will have to frank each of those sites and so will, among other things, give an enormous use value to those people who are then commissioned to develop them. The Minister will have to take a positive decision; he cannot remove himself from it.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) mentioned, we will therefore have the spectacle of an agreement that appears to suggest that the Liberal Democrats can maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the Government to bring forward the national planning statement for ratification. But that same Minister, in agreeing to that national planning statement, will specifically have to frank those sites, thereby allowing those particular nuclear stations to be developed.
Dr Whitehead
I was just going to reflect on that issue very briefly. As the Minister mentioned in his recent speech to the Nuclear Industry Forum, these decisions will come before Parliament. Presumably, therefore, the Minister who has made the decisions will be in the position of abstaining during votes on them. That will be an interesting piece of choreography, if the policy is to go ahead.
In his recent speech to the Nuclear Industry Forum, the Minister also emphasised that there will be no cost to the public purse as a result of the new nuclear programme. We need a little more clarification of what that actually means. In the past, one of the reasons why potential builders of nuclear power stations said that they might go ahead with nuclear build was that their clear underlying view was that they really did not believe that the new proposals would present no cost to the public purse.
It is one thing to say that there should be a floor price for carbon—that would not be a cost to the public purse, but generic assistance for all forms of low-carbon energy—but there is also the question of subsidising or giving guarantees of last resort on insurance, waste and storage, and of giving assistance on how all that works. Those are subsidies. If the Government are saying out of one side of their mouth that there will be no subsidies but out of the other side that, actually, there will be subsidies in several areas, that may be the way forward that they wish to assume as far as their policy is concerned. However, if they really do mean that there will be no subsidy from the public purse, there will also be no timetable for the build of new nuclear.
That is the crucial issue that we need to face in respect of future policy. If there is no subsidy at all from the public purse, a company may come forward and build a new nuclear power station, two or three companies may come forward and build two or three new nuclear power stations, or perhaps no one will come forward to build a new nuclear power station. We cannot easily afford that uncertainty, given our energy supply situation.
The previous Government’s timetable for the arrival of the first new nuclear power station was 2017-18. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West mentioned that potential date today. Interestingly, a policy document issued in 2007 by the then Department of Trade and Industry, “New nuclear power generation in the UK: Cost benefit analysis”, gave a different date—the early 2020s—for the arrival of the first new nuclear power station. Indeed, several industry analysts and others suggest that a realistic date is more likely to be in the mid-2020s.
That is important because, by that date, some 8 GW of coal-fired power stations, 3 GW of oil-fired power stations and 7 GW of nuclear power stations will have gone out of commission—for various reasons, including the large combustion plant directive, the age of the plant and the difficulty of maintaining or extending the life of nuclear power stations. That capacity will definitely be out of the system, so the question is what we do in the meantime to replace it. If no nuclear power stations are likely to come on stream until the mid-2020s, it will have to be replaced by other means.