Energy Spending Priorities: Investors and Consumers

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

In these days of uncertainty, one thing is certain: if we are going to go it alone in the big bad world out there, we need energy policies that are fit for our future requirements, and that means making sure that our spending priorities are targeted properly. Yet already reports suggest that the UK is lagging behind an existing legally binding EU target that 15% of energy should come from renewables by 2020, with the Government bringing an end to subsidies for new onshore wind farms, cutting support for solar power and cancelling the zero carbon homes standard.

Moreover, the Government are failing to provide the investment that we need in energy efficiency to support a low-carbon economy here in the UK, and have ditched support for low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage, or CCS. I know through my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group on CCS that, following the decision in last year’s comprehensive spending review to withdraw the £1 billion for the CCS competition, the industry has spent several months considering and developing its thinking on the way forward for the technology in the UK, but industry wants answers from the Government.

Although the EU referendum result has undoubtedly left UK politics in a state of turmoil, the climate change agenda and therefore the CCS agenda must remain a strong priority. Just last Thursday, a mere week after the EU referendum, the UK agreed its fifth carbon budget as part of the Climate Change Act, committing the UK to cut emissions by 57% from 1990 levels by 2032. This is a more rigorous target than the collective EU agreement to cut emissions by 40% before 2030 as part of the Paris accord, and as such was a commitment to be welcomed and embraced. However, there is no doubt that CCS and, I would argue, industrial CCS, must have a significant role to play if we are to meet that goal.

The carbon budgets determine the direction for the UK’s low-carbon transition. Any uncertainty about the status of the target is therefore disruptive at best and catastrophic at worst. The Government have already slashed funding for greener energy options. Further ambiguity will not secure the investment needed, but will lead to increased costs. We need the Government to clarify the status of climate targets in the light of the outcome of the EU referendum, and to clearly prioritise energy spending intentions to ensure that realistic and responsible goals are retained and achieved.

I would argue that following the referendum, it is more important than ever that the Government commit to being a world leader in important areas such as climate change and energy policy, driving innovation and investment, rather than sitting in the passenger seat attempting to give directions.

The importance of carbon capture and storage to meeting the UK’s climate change targets was confirmed when, on the same day as the fifth carbon budget was agreed, the Committee on Climate Change published its 2016 progress report, which specifically recommended that the Government urgently come forward with a new approach to CCS technology.

I know that the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), has been busy working for an EU exit and is now preoccupied with becoming the next Tory leader, but she has promised a new plan for CCS for eight months now, and it is time that we saw it. I firmly believe that in the light of what happened less than two weeks ago, the Government’s new approach now promised towards the end of this year is far too late, and Ministers need to come to the House much sooner. I would none the less welcome hearing from the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State, that the events of 23 June will not be allowed to cloud our collective judgment and create a barrier to progress.

The absence of the CCS demonstration projects, which had been expected to contribute towards decarbonisation of power generation by around 2020, is extremely worrying and is something that I know the energy intensive users group has raised previously with the Energy Secretary. I share the group’s view that it is difficult to see how the Government’s absence of policy ambition for CCS can be reconciled with the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change for power sector decarbonisation, or with the Government’s stated desire to enable energy-intensive industries to remain part of the UK economy in the longer term.

The Tees valley, in which my Stockton North constituency falls, represents one of the largest clusters of manufacturing industries in the UK. Industries in the region contribute more than £10 billion to GVA— gross value added—annually, provide more than 25,000 manufacturing jobs in the local area, and produce a significant share of the UK’s manufacturing output, but they also emit some 22% of the UK’s total emissions from manufacturing industries, meaning that industrial CCS has the potential to protect these energy-intensive industries from future high carbon prices, while curtailing CO₂ emissions.

We know that CCS is a core component in a number of energy-intensive sector 2050 industrial road maps developed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, alongside industry. However, despite that and the expectation that CO₂ abatement costs may be lower for some industrial applications than for power generation, there is no specific support policy for industrial CCS deployment. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could outline what steps her Department is taking to address that disparity.

Some energy-intensive industries have started to benefit from the Government’s carbon compensation package, following approval from the EU. I welcome that, but what is the future for carbon taxes and compensation post EU membership? Will the burden of EU carbon taxes still exist? If so, to what extent? Will the extra costs imposed by the British Government, over and above the EU costs, be removed any time soon?

Importantly, the Committee on Climate Change singled out new CCS transport and storage infrastructure as crucial for meeting future carbon budgets, and it recommended that separate consideration be given to the support needed to enable the development of that infrastructure. Only by developing it in places such as Teesside, which has the capacity and expertise to make such projects work, can the UK even hope to secure a stable future post EU.

Investment in such infrastructure holds the potential to secure thousands of jobs, which are more important now than ever before, in the light of the failures in the Government’s handling of the steel crisis and the subsequent rises in unemployment on Teesside. However, with the UK having stated its intention to vacate its seat at the top table as far as policy making at the EU level is concerned, can the Minister reassure the House that plans are in place to guarantee that DECC officials can continue to collaborate with their EU counterparts as policies for CCS are developed?

I would also welcome the Minister confirming that the industry will not lose out on current or future support as a result of our leaving the EU and that backing for these technologies will be a priority for the Government. She will be aware that EU funds have supported, and continue to support, CCS projects in the UK, such as the Don Valley project, which receives in the region of €180 million from a European economic recovery package. I would be grateful if she could outline how the Government intend to replace those moneys for existing and potential future projects once the UK ceases to be part of the EU.