Albert Owen
Main Page: Albert Owen (Labour - Ynys Môn)National Policy Statements (Energy)
Albert Owen Excerpts
Charles Hendry
The hon. Gentleman, who understands these issues, will be well aware that the national policy statements concern not the costs of different technologies, but the planning consents for them. If companies decide that the costs have risen and are not affordable, and that they will not achieve a return, they will not go ahead with the investment, but that is not the subject of this debate. However, we have conducted a thorough assessment of the lessons that need to be learned after Fukushima to determine whether any adaptation is needed in the policy statements. That is why we have reflected further, and have taken more time to consider them.
The overarching national policy statement, EN-1, sets out the need for each of the different energy infrastructure technologies. It makes it clear that we need a diverse mix to provide affordable, clean energy. It explains the Government’s policy on clean coal with carbon capture and storage and the need for gas and biomass electricity generation plants to be “carbon capture ready”, and sets out the part that renewables and new nuclear power stations will play in meeting our emissions reductions targets.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
As the Minister will know, the Select Committee was anxious for wave and tidal generation to be included in the policy statements. When does he intend to produce a national policy statement covering those important new technologies?
Charles Hendry
The hon. Gentleman knows that we attach tremendous importance to the potential of marine technologies. He will also appreciate that the national policy statements relate to major infrastructure projects involving more than 50 MW. There is currently no possibility of any marine technology of that scale. The national policy statements can be adapted in due course and will be reviewed over time, and as technologies of that scale emerge, it will be possible for a policy statement to be established. However, the schemes that we are currently seeing are much smaller, and can therefore be dealt with through the other planning procedures that cover them.
The overarching national policy statement explains the need for transmission networks, which are vital to get electricity into the grid—from locations where there is no existing network infrastructure—and to consumers. It also explains the need for gas and oil infrastructure to ensure that we can take advantage of diverse supply options for gas and oil. Some fear that our policies will lead to a “dash for gas”. We understand their concerns, and we will keep a close watch on the electricity generation that is coming on line. If in the future we decide that our policies are not having the desired effect, we will review them, but the national policy statements are not the place for that review.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I understand the sentiment behind my hon. Friend’s question. The difficulty is the broad scope of the term “waste incineration”, as many different types and technologies come under that category. The issue is addressed in some of the amendments, including two tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), to which I shall return. My hon. Friend makes a very valid point and we have to be very confident that we are not going backwards by including certain things.
Let me direct Ministers’ attention to the bold statement in EN-1 that
“the Government supports a move across the EU from a 20% to a 30% emissions reduction target by 2020.”
That is very good, so can the Minister explain in his concluding remarks why his party’s Members in the European Parliament voted against those same proposals two weeks ago? It is so disappointing that wave and tidal power have taken a back seat in the Government’s plans again despite this national policy statement. Given the slashing of Labour’s marine renewables funds, the shelving of any proposals whatever—big or small—for the Severn estuary, the worrying noises from within the industry, in which people are looking to invest abroad, and the long wait for wave and tidal technologies to be properly recognised in the renewables obligation certificates fund, it is no wonder that the head of RenewableUK described the £20 million, out of a £200 million low-carbon innovation fund, that was given to the Government’s flagship marine scheme as
“a drop in the ocean”.
Albert Owen
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point about marine technologies. The Secretary of State has said that the mature technologies do not require a subsidy or any Government support, but does my hon. Friend agree that the technologies he is talking about have yet to be developed and will never become mature unless they get the Government support that is needed?
Huw Irranca-Davies
My hon. Friend makes an absolutely key point. If these technologies are to get up to large industrial and commercial scale, they need support; that cannot be done in any other way. Labour showed that with what it did with offshore wind and we need to replicate that in this regard. Hon. Members should look at the way the Scottish Government are driving ahead with these technologies in terms both of consents and of the ROC structure. Wales has immense potential but we also have potential all around the English coast.
In light of the documents, what specific plans do Ministers have to make sure that the maximum possible benefits from the huge and imminent expansion of renewables, notably in offshore wind but also in onshore wind as well as in other renewables such as biomass, large-scale wave and tidal technologies—if we get to that level—and energy from waste, stay in the UK in the form of jobs, skills, training, manufacturing, distribution and economic growth? The Secretary of State’s repeated warm words about green jobs will generate no dividend whatever if all the relevant technology and skills are imported. How will the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) help Mabey Bridge of Chepstow —a company he knows very well from his recent welcome visit to open its new turbine shaft manufacturing plant—to secure contracts from the many multinational companies that are currently sourcing many of their parts, labour and skills overseas?
The same question has to be asked in relation to the other national policy statements about nuclear, carbon capture and storage and all the other technologies in which we could be developing green jobs in manufacturing and a world-leading competitive edge in green expertise and knowledge. The purpose of our amendment (c), which was not selected—I understand why, Madam Deputy Speaker—was simply to remind the Minister to get a move on and do what he promised. We were promised the green economy road map in April, but April came and went, as did May and June, and here we are in July, with the House rising tomorrow or the day after. Did he mean April 2012, perhaps? A year that started with a tragic decision and lost jobs in relation to the Sheffield Forgemasters’ loan was depressed further by the UK’s falling out of the global top 10 for renewables investment and the unseemly mess of the feed-in-tariffs fiasco. It is now ending with the Minister having lost the green economic road map. Perhaps he is waiting for the return of a Labour Government to get us back on the road to green jobs; we would love to oblige. If not, will he just do what he said he would do and show us his road map?
Martin Horwood
I accept that a percentage of them are—we have debated this at length in relation to the Energy Bill—but the hon. Gentleman must accept that a huge bill is still falling on taxpayers in this country as a result of the last generation of nuclear power stations. Why would we want to risk repeating that mistake?
I acknowledge that nuclear power is a relatively low-carbon energy source, but it is not renewable. Uranium is very far from being a renewable resource, and may prove to be very expensive if more of the world chooses to follow us down this dangerous path, although few would do so if even the insurance costs of nuclear power were accurately reflected in its price. One estimate suggests that French nuclear power might be four times as expensive if the French taxpayer were not the insurer of last resort.
I also acknowledge—I agree with the Minister on this point—that fulfilling our future energy needs is a challenge. The overarching national policy statement sets out the need for urgency, with one quarter of the UK’s generating capacity due to close by 2018, but the nuclear NPS states on page 235 that applicants only have to provide a plan that is
“credible for deployment by 2025”.
It even states that
“a detailed project plan…will not normally be needed.”
The worldwide experience is that not a single nuclear power station has ever been built on time, on budget or without public subsidy. It is very doubtful what contribution nuclear will make to closing the energy gap.
Albert Owen
The hon. Gentleman has made his party’s position on new nuclear very clear, but where does it stand on extending the life of existing nuclear plants so that low-carbon generation can be extended to bridge the gap that he talks about?
Martin Horwood
There is already an issue relating to existing nuclear, as the floor price for carbon will give it an undeserved subsidy for no actual change in behaviour.
Planning for the energy gap pales into insignificance beside the time scales that have to be imagined for waste disposal and site safety. It is those long-term dangers that should concern us most. Politicians are often criticised for a lack of long-term foresight, but certainly not this Government. The historian in me is delighted to report that we are making policy today for the mid-22nd century and beyond. On the very long-term scale there is the moral question of whether material that is likely to be dangerously radioactive for millennia should ever be intentionally created, however safely we plan to store it. We can know as little about societies 1,000 years from now as the Anglo-Saxons could have known about us. To talk of long-term storage, accessibility and monitoring arrangements over such time scales is utterly meaningless. We are leaving a toxic legacy to future generations about which we can know absolutely nothing.
The NPS does not appear to pay any attention at all to those issues, but it does have something to say on rather shorter historical time scales. In relation to those, Ministers are acting not so much like Anglo-Saxons making policy for today, but like Gladstone or Disraeli trying to determine our current waste disposal policy. The NPS states, on page 239:
“Geological disposal of higher activity waste from new nuclear power stations is currently expected to be available for new build waste from around 2130”
That is on the assumption that spent fuel rods kept on site will have cooled sufficiently for disposal in geological disposal facilities. Every decade of activity will add another decade to the end disposal date.
Hon. Members are today being asked to make nuclear waste disposal policy well into the mid-22nd century. Of course, policy making on such a time scale is not remotely practical, and the NPS admits as much. On page 239 it says:
“it is possible that there could be waste on site for longer than the assessment has been able to look ahead. Predictions of potential climate change impacts become less certain the further into the future the assessments are for, and it is not practicable to consider beyond 2100 at this stage.”
That is an interesting contrast with the Weightman report, which explicitly evaluates risk only in so far as that is reasonably practical and does not even address the major cost of evacuation and dislocation that has emerged at Fukushima.
Why are we being asked to approve a policy with risks that will be significant into the mid-22nd century when the NPS itself admits that those are not practicable to foresee, and the Government’s own safety adviser has not even tried to address them? The NPS talks of additional safeguards to cover these risks, saying that applicants need to
“identify the potential effects of the credible maximum scenario in the most recent projections of marine and coastal flooding”
and demonstrate that they could take “further measures” if necessary. I suspect that Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and the No Need for Nuclear campaign, and all their lawyers, will no doubt take full advantage of those words, with scope for years of argument and debate. If I were an investor in new nuclear, I would not be holding my breath for a return on investment before 2025.
The jury is still out on the long-term effects of Fukushima, but it is already clear that even without a major Chernobyl-style meltdown 50,000 people have still been displaced, and there is a bill running to tens of billions of pounds—and, as always, the taxpayer is being asked to foot the bill.
The real lesson, if I can paraphrase this in parliamentary language, is: stuff happens, and when it does, nuclear power is the worst possible energy source to have lying in its path. At this of all times, we should reassess our national commitment to nuclear. I know that the radioactive tendencies in the Tory and Labour parties make the passing of this policy statement inevitable, but we must challenge every licence and its capacity to withstand the worst-case scenario of climate change, and we must challenge every hidden and indirect subsidy that will make nuclear power possible.
Gregory Barker
I am not going to give way; the hon. Gentleman has not spoken in the debate, and in the time I have left I want to deal with the contributions that have been made.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) criticised the delays in bringing forward the national policy statements. He is absolutely right to say that there have been delays, but they occurred under the Labour Government because the original NPSs, which were signed off by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)—hon. Members might recognise his picture in the document here—were riddled with inaccuracies and errors and had to be worked on again. I am glad, however, that we have now produced the NPSs, that broad consensus exists on them, and that we can now plough ahead. That sends an important signal for investment.
Gregory Barker
I want to press on. If I can give way a little later, I will, but there have been a lot of contributions and I want to try to respond to them.
The hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) were among those who raised their significant concerns about the potential for an expansion of incineration. I understand the gut instinct against energy from waste, but we must recognise that it has moved on significantly over the past decade and now involves a wide range of different technologies. The important thing to remember about any form of energy-from-waste technologies is that they sit at the very bottom of the waste hierarchy. Before we reach that point, we must first ensure that there is waste prevention and reduction, as well as reuse and recycling. We must prepare for recycling and recovery and, ultimately, if there is no other use for the waste, we can turn to the responsible creation of energy from waste.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough pointed out, however, we must take account of local opinion. This NPS is only a framework. Were there no framework for energy from waste in it, a free-for-all could be created. The NPS creates a framework in which these decisions can be made; it does not necessarily mean that there will be an automatic presumption in favour of energy from waste.