Draft Tees Valley Combined Authority Order 2016
Debate between Alex Cunningham and Anna Turley(9 years, 1 month ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between Alex Cunningham and Anna Turley
Alex Cunningham
My hon. Friend and near neighbour makes the point clear.
Being a leader is critical to our energy-intensive and other industries if we are to overcome the competition threat from across the world. It is no use hanging back when other nations look like stealing a march on us. I have mentioned the Teesside Collective project to develop an industrial CCS project on Teesside, home to some of the country’s most energy-intensive industries. I invite the Minister and the Chancellor to the next meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on 23 March to learn about those ambitious plans. I know the Chancellor will be busy until the night before, but I guarantee that the APPG will be much more focused on the needs of industrial Britain than will his Budget.
The Government have made clear their intention to build a new series of gas-fired power stations and nowhere is better placed than Teesside to build one. Not only does a site exist there, but so does the infrastructure to put the electricity out directly into the national grid. Developers Sembcorp believe it could house a conventional combined cycle gas turbine plant or an integrated gasification combined cycle plant, both of which could incorporate carbon capture. Although Sembcorp could develop its own power station, a potential partner is looking to install a 300 MW gas-fired power plant on the plot.
I know that some may have reservations about the use of fossil fuels, but what an opportunity for the Government to put some meaning into the much abused term “northern powerhouse”—a large-scale power plant, an opportunity to develop it with CCS, but with the immeasurable bonus of doing it with the Teesside Collective and developing an exciting project that could mean boom time for Teesside, with the kind of inward investment that only people in the south believe can be a reality.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s generosity. He is right. At a time when Teesside has seen so many job losses in the past few weeks, carbon capture and storage could provide a huge opportunity for people there. Does he agree that in order to enable a transition to a low-carbon economy, we need to ensure that such jobs go to local people, and that nationally agreed terms and conditions are not undercut by recruitment from overseas?
Alex Cunningham
Indeed. I know that local trade unions have been campaigning on this. There are examples on Teesside of companies undercutting what is, in effect, a living wage for the skilled people on Teesside.
I know that projects such as a power station are always fraught with planning complications, but I hope that when the time comes the doors of Ministers in both the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government will be open to ensure a quick decision on the planning application.
It is difficult to see how some of our industries, many of them critical to our economy, can remain located in the UK without CCS if our long-term national carbon reduction commitments are to be met. The Government appear to have no strategy for CCS development, let alone a means of funding it.
New clause 7 could compel Government to fill this huge hole in their energy policy platform. It does everything that any self-respecting Government would want to do, but, more than that, it could send that much wanted signal to the sector that Ministers are serious about carbon capture and storage, understand it and are prepared to deliver, and our country could benefit from potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs if they got it right.
Post-SSI Support Package: Redcar
Debate between Alex Cunningham and Anna Turley(9 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Anna Turley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The scale of this has been absolutely devastating, not just for those who were directly employed, but, as I said, in the knock-on repercussions for our community.
This debate is about trying to learn lessons from the support package that has been put in place—lessons at local level and, indeed, national level. It aims to look at how the £50 million support package from the Government is being applied, what is working and what is not, and what lessons can be learned, particularly as we see other steelmaking areas in the country now facing the same tragedy as us.
Out of the tragedy has come some positive learning. The steel taskforce has been an important creation to enable multi-agency co-operation from the start. Weekly meetings have allowed local partners from the Department for Work and Pensions, the local authority, BIS, the unions, the local enterprise partnership, the local media, elected politicians and others to clarify communications processes and to get to the root of the issues and concerns. I believe that every region should consider putting together a committee of this kind that could be called on in the event of a catastrophe similar to that which we saw last year. Indeed, areas with similar high levels of unemployment may want to consider organising such partnerships as a standard procedure to tackle the challenges they face in employment and skills.
It has also been encouraging that national and local agencies have worked together in a way that departmental silos and local versus national boundaries all too often prevent. The National Careers Service has provided guidance and advice. The Skills Funding Agency has acted to remove barriers and increase the flexible use of its funding for SSI workers. Jobcentre Plus has worked closely alongside the DWP and BIS, allowing rapid response processes to be put in place and creating an efficient system for passing on referrals. FE Plus, a group of colleges in Teesside, has forged a close working relationship with private training providers, allowing referrals to be passed from public sector providers to private sector education providers with specialist provision.
This experience has highlighted the complex and bureaucratic nature of skills funding and provision, but it has also clearly indicated that after an initial period of shock, enabling agencies to work together at regional level has allowed many of the usual barriers to be overcome, helped particularly by the benefit of a clear decision-making body in the form of the taskforce.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on the sterling work she is doing for people across Teesside and elsewhere. My surgeries have been full of people who are contracted employees and who are not getting the same level of support as direct employees. Does she agree that barriers need to be broken down so that they can get help similar to that for direct employees?
Anna Turley
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. I have met a number of contractors, many of whom have service of over 30 years in the steel industry, having worked in catering and on the site itself. They have all provided as much value to the steel industry as others, and they deserve equal treatment. I will go on to talk about one of the successful experiences that we have had. Again, I hope that lessons can be learned to make sure that there is not a two-tier system for contractors and the full-time employed.