Smart Meters Bill

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Simon Hoare

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

As I understand it, there are six days in the programme motion—[Interruption.] Forgive me; there are eight days in the programme motion for a Bill on which the Labour party will not divide the House. It seems bizarre to divide the House on the programme motion.

[Dr Whitehead]

I repeat that according to my latest information, the discussions about what should be in the programme have not concluded. That may be reflected in what we do tonight.

I have with me plastic models of Leccy and Gaz, the characters from the advertisements for the smart meter roll-out. Hon. Members can see that as far as Leccy is concerned, the model does not stand up; perhaps that is no coincidence. We want the process to stand up as well as it can, and we will work hard to ensure that it does.

Energy BILL [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Simon Hoare

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman knows that it was clearly written post-2013, but the sector should have known of the irrepressible commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, with his 101 Dalmatians, or however many it was, who had been making such comments during the course of the previous two Parliaments, and realised that something was likely to happen.

One thing that I find of genuine interest/concern—we sometimes have faux interests and concerns, but this is genuine—is that the onshore wind sector is fairly mature and well established. We do not need to argue about its bona fides. We do not need to argue about whether it is generating 1%, 5%, 6% or 14% of electricity, because it varies. It is here and we have it. Very often, Governments of all stripes will provide some form of financial support and backing to a nascent industry or sector, but once it is on its feet and has proven its bona fides, it should be able to stand on its own two feet without subsidy.

In the conversations I have had with people from the sector, the question that was always very hard, if not impossible, for them to answer was what cut-off point they envisaged for the ending of onshore subsidy. When I asked, “What are you saying to Government and to Ministers about how you see this support going?” the general response was, “We will continue to take the subsidy as long as it is there.” That is no way to run a policy, even if the books are buoyant and in the black. It is certainly no way to run a policy when the books are anything but.

I was interested when the hon. Member for Norwich South seemed to suggest that because the subsidy was coming from the public—from their direct debits, bank accounts, purses and wallets—and not directly from Her Majesty’s Treasury, there was some difference. I keep making this point: although the national average salary is around £24,500, in North Dorset it is £17,500. I do not think that my constituents saw it as particularly fair or equitable to provide, through their bills, subsidy to very successful businesses and the landowners who were also getting their percentage of the deal.

[Dr Whitehead]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Let me make this point, because I think this is how the market operates, and will operate in future.

The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill was discussing the planning system. Anybody who has any understanding of the commercial planning process—onshore wind turbines are part of that process as much as supermarkets or hotels are—will know that there are risks attached to it. People can spend an awful lot of money optioning up the land, paying consultants, having surveys done and so on, yet still fall foul of the process. Even if someone does not fall foul of it and secures consent, they might suddenly find that the funding regime from the banks or pension funds has altered or the appetite for the product they were seeking to develop has waned. They just have to chalk it down to experience. If we have some form of system in which as soon as anybody makes a planning proposal the automatic presumption is that, de facto, they will always have consent, that would be a very dangerous sign to send to the commercial development sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. He obviously has a little more faith—I will be charitable and say faith—because I am not entirely convinced that any sector that is so sated by subsidy would ever turn round at any point and say, “Do you know what? Now is a really good time to end the subsidy.” There will always be a reason. We heard it from the solar sector: “Give us another 10 more years because we are on the cusp of doing something quite exciting with storage batteries.” Why they did not think about that when the sector was nascent, I do not know. People who receive a subsidy will always find an argument for the maintenance of the status quo.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test, who leads for the Opposition, is about to burst a blood vessel unless I let him in. Having listened to him for the past two and a half days, I am loth to do so, but of course I will let him in.

[Dr Whitehead]

May I gently ask the hon. Gentleman whether he has ever heard of digression? When the subsidies for wind were first introduced, one of the reasons that they received clearance for state aid in the EU was that they were not permanent and were based on digression, and everyone agreed that that should be the case. Secondly, I could have sworn the hon. Gentleman was here earlier in the debate when we were discussing the application of subsidies to a mature industry: North sea oil and gas exploration. Will he compare what happened earlier in the debate and what is happening now?

[Simon Hoare]

In fairness to the hon. Gentleman, he makes a valid point, and I will answer his point in the way that I have answered it when constituents have talked to me about it. For those who try to seek a golden thread of thinking that runs through all of energy policy, they will look in vain, because there are inconsistencies. I am a huge supporter of the nuclear sector. I must confess it makes me slightly glow. [Interruption.] No, that is not the word I am looking for. It is not a rational approach to say I do not like subsidies for onshore wind, but I can understand the need for a subsidy for the nuclear sector. The problem with what the hon. Gentleman is trying to find—and he is legitimate in his search—is that we have so siloed our means of energy generation that they have to be viewed silo by silo, rather than according to the product that is being generated: electricity.

I do not want to take up the Committee’s time more than I need to, but I want to slightly echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry said. My hon. Friend the Minister may recall that I mentioned this point on Second Reading in the House. At some point, there will need to be a side conversation between her Department and the Department for Communities and Local Government about the national planning policy framework. There is a slight danger that in the Localism Act 2011, we raised too much expectation of the phrase “local decisions”.

The Minister confirmed this morning—we are absolutely right to keep to this regime—that an aggrieved applicant would still be able to trot off to the Planning Inspectorate to appeal a decision, in the same way as the Secretary of State will be able to recall an application that may have been determined favourably by the local planning authority. Again, both an aggrieved applicant and an aggrieved third party will still have recourse to the courts for a judicial review, but the wording of the national planning policy framework—I am afraid I do not have the paragraphs to hand—provides a strong and reliable crutch to the inspectorate. It says that national planning policy, such as decarbonisation and so on, will trump a number of the key topics that my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry was talking about: areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest, heritage and listed buildings and so on.

I do not think that we need to ramp that up too much, but I welcome the fact that instead of segregating proposals by size, local councils will be able to determine applications through the democratically elected process of the council chamber. Local people will, of course, be able to have a say there and will be able to appear as third parties at a public inquiry, but the final decision will not be taken by local people if an applicant decides to appeal. In my constituency, prior to the election, we had a terrible proposal for a very obvious place in terms of local vista and impact. North Dorset District Council turned it down, to the huge relief of the community, and the applicant read the room and did not appeal, realising that they would not get it. However, that avenue will remain open to an aggrieved applicant or developer.

It goes back to the point that I was making to SNP Members and others: all planning has a risk. In the absence of a provided subsidy, it may well be that applicants and landowners will think far more carefully about what they are applying for and where they apply for it. If they are reliant on the private sector to fund their initiatives and enterprises, we may find—