Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Haworth. I think everyone will agree this is a very substantial Bill indeed. Like most noble Lords, I welcome it; anything that will make the energy sector make provisions towards net zero and a stable future has to be welcomed. There are areas, as I say, where we can agree, but there are some conspicuous absences and some need for massive improvement.

There have been, as many noble Lords have pointed out, a lot of mentions of hydrogen. While everyone agrees that it will have a key role to play in decarbonising certain hard-to-abate sectors, the thought of having hydrogen pumped into people’s homes seems at best really inefficient and at worse plainly dangerous. Would noble Lords want hydrogen pumped into their homes? This Bill will allow for a hydrogen village trial to be built, and the fact sheet states that:

“Low carbon hydrogen could be a key option for decarbonising heat in buildings”.


However, 18 independent studies—and that includes the IPCC’s and IEA’s—have ruled out hydrogen as playing a major role in the heating of buildings. It is expensive, inefficient and it is high carbon. Research by the Hydrogen Science Coalition shows that delivering one unit of heat with green hydrogen requires six times more renewable electricity, which will also be hard to practically deliver, as we have heard from many noble Lords this afternoon, and is significantly less energy efficient compared to heat pumps. There is also a risk that, due to insufficient green hydrogen, blue hydrogen—that comes from natural gas with carbon capture and storage, emits methane and will lead to increased gas sales—could be used instead. This would maintain the use of the fossil fuel network into the future.

Just before I go on, I would like to make a point, as a journalist, about the use of green hydrogen, blue hydrogen and “natural” gas—there is no such thing. Natural gas might be natural, but we are not talking here about a safe, organic product. The fossil fuel industry has done a brilliant job with all these labels. We all, quite niftily, say “natural gas” as if, in some way, that is a perfectly okay thing to have around us.

As others have said, most notably the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, carbon capture is not working at scale, may never work at scale and we cannot plan an energy system on the basis that it will come to our rescue like a knight in shining armour. It sounds slightly as if the Government’s policy on hydrogen is actually the oil and gas sector’s future wish list for how it will stay relevant in our decarbonising world. The main reason, however, that noble Lords should be against this is the sheer cost. It is a cost that this Bill will put on consumers’ bills via a levy. This is so not the time to add any additional costs to any household bills.

On the subject of unproven carbon capture and vast subsidies, I want to turn to electricity generation from biomass, which I have talked about before, which weirdly gets no mention in the Bill. I welcome that as it is a very controversial means of extracting energy. I understand that the Government are shortly going to publish their biomass strategy which will set out beyond 2027, when the current contracts lapse, and will say what kind of investment is going to go into the future. BECCS, which stands for “bio-energy carbon capture and storage” is entirely dependent on a technology that does not yet work at scale. Even if it did work perfectly, and all the trees that were planted to make the bioenergy carbon neutral did grow tall and were not encumbered by rising temperatures, like today, or disease, it would, according to briefings that we all had last week, take 140 years to become carbon neutral. We need to take into account the life cycle of emissions from biomass when we consider deploying it, as we do not have 140 years to play with. We barely have 30 years. There are many measures which seem to me to kick the can down the road, which we have been doing for ever anyway, and we must stop.

I shall focus on a couple of areas that I think are missing. The most glaring omission is taxing demand. There is a technology we have in abundance and know how to work: insulation. The Minister admitted last week during a debate on the energy company obligation that if the Government had spent the money that they will spend this winter to help households cope with the extra cost of gas, it might have been much more efficient in the long run. That makes the omission of something along the lines of a national retrofit strategy all the more puzzling, and it begs the question of whether the Government are able to learn from their mistakes. We are having this debate on what has already turned out to be the hottest day we have ever experienced, so it would be amiss not to remind noble Lords that, beyond this Bill, on the adaptation and mitigation measures we need to carry out to address climate change, if we do not pay for them now it will be far more expensive later. Noble Lords do not need to take my word for it; they can take the word of the ONS, the OBR or the CPC—they have all said it. If we do not act now, we will be in the position we are in with energy in the future, only it would be our entire economy.

On the specifics of the Bill, can the Minister enlighten me about why Clause 163, which will allow energy companies to buy out their ECO payments, is part of the Bill? We know that the ECO scheme has been a success. Energy UK told us that it has saved households £17.5 billion on their energy bills since 2013 and that, due to the high price of gas this autumn, an EPC C grade home will save £900 compared to an EPC D grade home. Can the Minister provide an assurance that this buy-out will not be set at a level that would have been lower than the money that the companies would have had to spend on upgrades? The Secretary of State can set the buy-out price, and I understand that we do not want to put a figure on it in the Bill, as it would become out of date, but is there something more that we could do to index-link it so that it cannot fall below the level it would otherwise be?

Finally, I reiterate the points made by my noble friends Lady Hayman and Lord Ravensdale on the need for local energy. I think that at the next stage of the Bill I will back amendments that allow local communities to generate their own electricity as people know this goes way beyond energy security, builds community cohesion and is good for all of us.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th December 2022 Grand Committee

Finally, it is worth stressing what a core centre of a community these schemes can be. I have seen that time and again when visiting so many of them, whether the Ashton Hayes zero-carbon village in Cheshire, the micro-hydro community schemes I visited in Stroud and mid-Wales, or indeed Lawrence Weston in Bristol, which, even under the current difficulties, is going to put up its own large wind turbine. Such schemes are a real way for a community to come together and for money to be circulated within a local community. I believe that levelling up is still on the Government’s agenda—surely the delivery of local community energy schemes would be a key measure for levelling up.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support Amendments 237 and 238, along with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, set out so many of the reasons why we should support this. As she said, the rollout of community energy has ground to a near halt in recent years for reasons related to the withdrawal of the feed-in tariffs and the surely well-intentioned but hopelessly ineffective smart export guarantee, which has given community energy generators either prices which are inadequate or, where they are adequate, no confidence that they will remain so. This has been distressing for volunteers and community energy generators who have put down roots in the community and are supplying valuable services for their community, including energy efficiency—a significant omission from the Bill, which we will hear more about—and skills.

The Government effectively banned onshore wind in 2015 and are now, after seven lost years, belatedly unbanning it in rather curious circumstances. Some communities are up in arms about solar farms, and the Government have recently wobbled somewhat awkwardly between permitting and restricting them, only to now be talking about the need for a balance between farmland and solar PV. This is odd, given that meeting the Government’s own energy security strategy, published in April this year, of reaching 20 gigawatts of installed solar by 2030 would occupy only 0.5% of UK land, which is half of that occupied by golf courses. As noble Lords know, I am very passionate about food production, but I know that we can also produce a level of energy. As I said, I am not so sure that there really is a great tension when the land needs of solar are so limited.

These bannings and unbannings and restrictions and relaxations are really just the policy manifestations of community concerns about energy installations being done to them, rather than with them. The point about the vast majority of large-scale generation in people’s areas is that there is actually very little community benefit. If the Government were willing not just to see the benefits of community energy—as I am sure the Minister does—but to put in place the policy measures to support it, it would make things so much easier for all of us.

I sit on the Environment and Climate Change Committee, which has been taking evidence about boiler upgrade schemes and the like lately. One of the things about community energy is that one or two people within a community are capable of finding their way through the quite complicated government documents to obtain the subsidies, and they in turn can empower a load of residents who otherwise might not be so minded to install insulation and take up new means of energy. There are multiple benefits to this, and I find it hard to see any drawbacks. I am sure the Minister agrees.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support Amendments 237 and 238, to which I have added my name, and Amendments 242F and 242G in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, which, with some variations, aim to achieve the same outcome. Previous speakers talked about the role of community energy generation, which is an important one in future energy supply. It was a small but growing effort in this country and a contribution to the development of renewable energy on a local scale.

However, when the feed-in tariff disappeared for new applications that really put the nail through the head of that growth, and nothing that the Government have done in the last few years to try to reignite it seems to have worked. People have talked about Licence Lite and the smart export guarantee, but neither of these has really produced an uptick in that trend of community energy generation. We need to find a way to get around that. This depends quite substantially on reducing the barriers of upfront capital and the regulatory effort of getting a connection to the system, on making sure that there is a key partnership between the big boys and the small community energy generators, and on some sort of guarantee of purchase price and length of contract. If we do not have those, we will not get any security into the community energy generation sector through investment.

These amendments put forward simple solutions. I shall not go into any detail, because the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has gone through them, suffice it to say that the whole issue is about how local energy generators can sell the power they generate locally through a community scheme to local communities. That is the magic bit in this area of community generation. Local schemes are developed and owned by local people, and they have local benefits in the form of cheaper and cleaner energy. They also provide other benefits for local communities.

When I was thinking about a way of describing this, it came to mind that the Labour Party used to talk about Arthur Scargill in a particular way: “He may be a bastard but at least he’s our bastard”. There is a difference between “damn windmills” and “our damn windmills”, so there is a real attraction in local support. I thought that the Government were keen on improving the popularity of locally determined schemes—I am sure that they are—which gives me huge confidence that the Minister will take these four amendments and do the job that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, suggested some of the rest of us do: draw out the best cherries from among them.

However, I do not intend to do that. I would rather like the Minister to do it and come forward on Report with a government amendment that meets the key needs of obligating the big boys to buy from the small-scale generators; setting a predictable, fair price; and setting a minimum contract period.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests set out earlier and add my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her support on Amendment 94. I will keep my remarks brief, but first I thank the Minister and his Bill team for meeting me and for all of the engagement on this important issue over the last few months.

I feel that one of the key missing pieces in the net-zero puzzle before us is in better defining the role of local authorities within the whole governance structure. We all know that local authorities have a vital role to play, but there is limited definition of this. I think that local area energy plans are at the core of fixing this. Local area energy planning is a data-driven and whole-energy-system evidence-based approach, which sets out to identify the most effective route for a local area to contribute towards meeting the national net-zero target, as well as meeting its local net-zero target. Its proven methodology is a well-trodden path which has been effectively used in a number of other countries.

I wanted to return to this issue on Report as I strongly feel that there is a missed opportunity within the Bill to set out the role of local authorities more clearly. There have been some developments since Committee. In particular, the Skidmore Mission Zero report was published, which recognised the issue and aligns with what I am asking for in this local area energy planning amendment. This was brought out strongly in the report, as one of the 25 key actions for 2025 was for the Government to provide guidance on local area energy planning. The Committee on Climate Change also recognises the need for this.

The amendment does not ask for much; it asks only for guidance to be published, and it does not mandate the approach in any way. It simply asks for the Government to publish guidance for local authorities to use in local area energy planning—this step has already been taken by the devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales. So it will provide much-needed clarity to local authorities on how they should approach energy planning, and it will also send the important signal that the Government are behind the approach to help to increase the rollout of these plans. So I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope he can provide me some reassurance on this point. I beg to move.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 134 and 135, about community energy. In the midst of an energy crisis, when cheap and clean home-produced energy has never been more vital, as we have heard in this debate, we are far behind where we could be with the amount of small-scale renewable energy, especially community energy schemes, which are simply community-owned and community-run renewable energy projects. Our limited number of schemes has been massively welcomed by politicians of all parties because they provide cheaper and greener power, and they distribute benefits locally, rather than up to the big power companies.

The feed-in tariff briefly created rapid growth in these schemes, but that has dwindled to almost nothing—despite renewable technologies being cheaper than ever. The lack of growth is largely the result of the prohibitive cost that the small-scale generators face. The problem is well recognised, and 318 MPs from all major parties back the Local Electricity Bill, which would enable community energy schemes to sell electricity they generate to their local customers.

The potential is enormous. According to the Environmental Audit Committee, community energy could grow by 12 to 20 times by 2030, power 2.2 million homes and save 2.5 million tonnes of CO² emissions every year. This would take our renewable energy generation from community schemes to almost 10% of our entire needs, and the substantial benefits of enabling this can barely be overstated. However, community energy has seen a trickle of minimal growth, amounting to less than half a per cent.

The problem can be solved without subsidy, and this seems to be the key point. Small-scale renewable energy generators need to receive only a guaranteed fair price for the electricity they contribute to an energy system in desperate need of homegrown energy, as we have heard. Amendment 134 establishes a

“Community and Smaller-scale Electricity Export Guarantee Scheme”.


It would provide a guaranteed income for the electricity from small-scale low-carbon energy generators, with “small” defined as “a capacity below 5MW”. This would mean that communities get properly remunerated for their contribution to the system, and they can therefore go to their banks and raise the funds to expand or establish. This guaranteed price could be set by regulations, revised annually by Ofgem, with the initial contract guaranteed for at least five years—not that long.

Amendment 135 establishes a

“Community and Smaller-scale Electricity Supplier Services Scheme”.


This, again, would allow community schemes that registered under the electricity export guarantee scheme also to sell the electricity they generate locally. No requirement is placed on community schemes to do this, so, if they wish, they could operate simply using the proceeds of the export guarantee. For some, such returns would be sufficient to encourage local people to invest in new energy schemes—such was the case when we had a feed-in tariff.

But, if a community wants, it can sell the electricity it generates directly to households and businesses in its community. It can do so, for example, as an additional incentive for local people to invest or because it believes it can offer a lower tariff to the less well off in the community—this point was made on previous amendments this afternoon. This means that the community, which knows its people and what is going on, can flex its tariffs, and everyone can buy in to the project.

As with the clause created by Amendment 134, this would all be monitored by Ofgem and reported on annually. This is a nationwide campaign backed by a coalition of over 80 organisations—the Church of England, the CPRE, the Energy Saving Trust et cetera; I will not name them all—and 100 councils have already stated their support. Four of the six major distribution network operators—basically, our regional energy grid monopolies: Electricity North West, SP Energy, UK Power and Western Power—are supportive. As has been mentioned before, the Skidmore review supports all such organisations and ideas that will help green renewable energy, so I am completely puzzled as to why Ministers are not falling over themselves to make this thing happen.

In Committee, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said that the amendments would create a subsidy to community energy schemes. However, we need to be really clear—in saying this, I want to pre-empt a response from the Minister—that the amendments do not establish subsidies for community energy schemes. Renewable energy can stand on its own two feet now; it has been successful in cutting costs over the last two decades and is now completely viable without the need for feed-in tariffs. We just need to set up the right market system for the energy for people to buy it and for people to be responsible for it. I will be completely puzzled if the Minister does not accept that, and I warn him now that I intend to test the opinion of the House later.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the three amendments have been extremely ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. It is a pleasure to speak after them, having attached my name to all three amendments.

I will briefly sum up what they seek to achieve. Amendments 134 and 135 are about community energy, which is where people can get together as a community, decide what they want their local energy system to look like and deliver it. There is no need for any involvement from Westminster or big multinational companies; it is a chance for communities to get together. Surely, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has signed both Amendments 134 and 135, this would be seen to be utterly in line with Conservative approaches. I note that, in the other place, among the hundreds of signatories is Sir Graham Brady, so if you want a full political spread, perhaps from me to Sir Graham Brady will pretty well cover the breadth of support for community energy.

On Amendment 94, we know that there is huge concentration of power and resources, and that the reins are held very tightly by Westminster. As the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, set out, Wales and Scotland have already seen the importance of local decision-making to solve local problems to ensure that they are able to deliver renewables, with local people making the decisions about where they go, what they look like and how they are distributed. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, this could be a local poverty alleviation issue and a levelling-up type of approach.

I acknowledge that the Minister has very kindly had meetings with us to discuss the amendments. We keep being told that this is something that the Government would like to do eventually but it is all too difficult. However, I think it is all worked out and set out in the amendments. Clearly, many people in the other place and here have been convinced that now is the time to go for community energy.

I will offer a final reflection. I happened to be in a bed and breakfast in Norfolk this morning, chatting across the table to some residents of Herefordshire who had just driven across the country and were about to drive back. They asked me, “Where are all the solar panels? We can’t see solar panels where we know we should see solar panels.” I said that the answer to scale this up quickly could be community energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

If organisations take advantage of community-minded individuals prepared to contribute work to their local community, that is something that we welcome. However, what will be critical to those communities is the ultimate tariff that they pay, irrespective of how much voluntary effort goes in. Our concern is that these amendments are being slightly oversold to many communities; they may think that they are somehow going to get a favourable tariff compared to what they would get in the wider market. As currently structured, we do not believe that the amendments would produce that.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

Before the Minister sits down, I think that that is slightly unfair on local communities. A lot of people enjoy being involved in local community schemes and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just said, a lot of volunteering work goes into this. It is not just about getting lower prices; it is also about reducing our carbon emissions and being part of the campaign to get to net zero. You cannot just quantify everything in pounds, shillings and pence.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness, and we are supporting a number of community energy partnerships at the moment. As I say, we are not against the idea in principle, but we need to work through the proper policy implications and ensure that some of these very worthwhile schemes are not piggybacking on to the costs that everybody else pays into the system.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the Minister—he knows that I like to praise his work—particularly on the change in the Ofgem amendment, in that our major regulator will now have a net-zero objective. To me, that is absolutely stark staringly obvious, and the fact that there has been government resistance to it while the Bill has been in this House I find strange, so that is a real move forward. The other thing that is to me stark staringly stupid is that we are talking about opening a coal mine in 2023. That makes no sense at all, and I will go through the reasons why.

It is not just we on these Benches or the Opposition who have that view. Let me quote from the Commons at Report. The then Energy Minister, Chris Skidmore—highly respected in this area and highly respected by the Government, in that he wrote their independent net zero review—said:

“Legislating to prevent the opening of new coal mines simply maintains the commitment that the UK sought to make to the rest of the world at COP26”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/23; col. 303.]


That was Chris Skidmore, former Energy Minister, valued by the Government for his net zero review, and by all of us for that great piece of work.

At COP 26 in Glasgow a couple of years ago, which we chaired very successfully under Sir Alok Sharma, we nailed our colours to the mast and led a coalition of countries—I think the government press release says 190—and celebrated the fact that we would phase out coal. What motivates me most to put Amendment 272A forward again is that our international reputation is being shredded by the fact that we are moving ahead on this basis. Let us not pretend that it is not noticed internationally, because it is. Even the White House, under John Kerry, the climate envoy, has remarked on this piece of government policy planning and Michael Gove’s proposal to open the coal mine. So, our international reputation for climate leadership, which all of us on all sides of this House have been particularly proud of over the years, is being literally trashed by this decision.

That has other effects as well. During a Private Notice Question yesterday, we debated the fact that we had no investor take for offshore wind on the CfD pitch when it concluded last week. That shows that we need rock-solid commitment to net zero in order to attract investment into this country. To me, our saying internationally that we are starting to open coal mines absolutely goes against what we are saying to bring in investment. It questions UK government policy, which is competing with the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and a green deal industrial plan in the EU. We are trying to get a slice of that global investment, yet our environmental and climate focus is wobbling. That is absolutely wrong.

This amendment would apply to any sort of coal mine, but the Minister mentioned the Cumbrian coal mine, which is what that decision is all about. Let us be clear about that proposition and the company West Cumbria Mining. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has said already, that industry is moving—indeed, must move—competitively towards a much greener stance; for the UK steel industry to remain competitive, it must do so as well. As I understand it, scientists have questions about West Cumbrian coal, including whether its sulphur content is even sufficient for the steel industry. However, the main facts are these: first, the steel industry generally is not that interested in that coal; and, secondly, the company itself says that some four-fifths of the coal will not be used by the UK steel industry, which means that it needs to be exported. Once coal is exported, we have no control over how that substance is used.

That brings me to transport. The argument is that it is better to provide our own coking coal than to import it. However, if we export 80% of this coal, that will put transport costs up because we will have the cost of transporting it to other, international markets.

The one argument that I do have sympathy with concerns jobs. We all know that the region of Cumbria is hugely challenged in terms of levelling up, jobs and income. However, it is completely obvious to me that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, just talked about with regard to Labour’s amendment, we have the ability to provide green jobs and proper energy efficiency. It is clear to me that this coal mine will not be there for a particularly long time, so those jobs will be transient.

I will leave it at that but let me come back to the United Kingdom’s international reputation and our important share in global investment in the green sector. I quote the Government’s own website, which said this after COP 26:

“The end of coal—the single biggest contributor to climate change—is in sight thanks to the UK securing a 190-strong coalition of countries and organisations at COP26”.


That was a proud moment for not just Alok Sharma but the Government. It is being trashed.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 274B in my name. I draw attention to my interests in the register.

I will speak briefly about community energy but let me just say that I absolutely support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I also very much support the noble Lord’s words, especially about what this measure is going to do to Britain’s reputation, and his reminding us of where this country was just a couple of short years ago as the leaders of COP, playing a proud role on the world stage; that seems to be in tatters right now.

Community energy is wildly popular in the country—it is extremely popular with all sorts of people. I find it puzzling why the Government are not bending over backwards to make this easier and simpler for people. I do not want to get into the arguments about onshore wind, but surely one way to mitigate communities’ concerns about renewable energy is to give people a stake in it so that it is about not just a bit of money but owning something. My sister has lived on a small island in Denmark for 60 years. The people there are completely energy independent. It was the first place I knew of that had wind farms everywhere. Everyone knows how much electricity is coming in and what it is doing. They have ownership and share prices—that is just the way it has been done, and it is kind of brilliant. Why can we not say, “The local energy we produce off that hill heats my towel rail all year round”? They can report, “I co-own it”, “It has paid to put solar panels on the roof of the community hall”, or “It has paid for energy efficiency advice and deals for the other homes in our village”.

In fairness to the Government, they have acknowledged this, but we seem to have spent an incredible amount of time hand-wringing about the difficulties rather than finding the easy, appropriate ways of supporting it. All that the sector wants is a deal comparable with all the other renewable energy that we have in this country, via a guaranteed minimum price. This gives communities the certainty that they need to raise the funds to go ahead. This is true across so much of the alternative energy sector.

I supported the establishment of the £10 million community energy fund but, quite honestly, that is not very much. If you look in the Evening Standard, you find that you can buy a flat for £10 million within about 100 yards of here. It is not going to go far enough. We need real reform, so the commitment made by Andrew Bowie in the other place

“to consulting on the barriers the sector faces when developing projects”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/23; col. 281.]

was particularly welcome.

That is why I have come up with this compromise amendment, which I hope that the Minister feels able to accept. It would give the industry a boost to know that there was something coming down the tracks on an agreed timeframe. A problem that we have seen before is consultations which do not receive a response—or do but with serious delays. That is all that I am trying to avoid with this amendment in lieu, which sets a generous timescale of 18 months for a consultation and a further six months for bringing forward proposals to remove the barriers to community energy schemes. This times nicely with the end of the two-year community energy fund and would avoid a potential cliff edge.

I believe that the Minister will appreciate the need for clarity for the sector and the need to reassure over 300 MPs, including 147 Conservative MPs, who backed the original Local Electricity Bill, which recognised the barriers to community energy and proposed remedies. I therefore ask him to give this house more clarity on timescales, or I may be required to test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise extremely briefly to support very strongly the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady Boycott. Regarding the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Boycott, it is crazy that we have barriers inhibiting the development of renewable energy by community energy schemes. This amendment is a very modest proposal to ensure that those barriers are removed within a reasonable timeframe. I hope that all sides of the House can support these three amendments, but I have particularly spoken to that tabled by the noble friend Lady Boycott.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Boycott]

At end insert “and do propose Amendment 274B instead of the words so left out of the Bill—

274B: After Clause 271, insert the following new Clause—
“Local supply for community energy
(1) Within 18 months of this Act being passed the Secretary of State must consult and report on the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes.
(2) For the purposes of this section, community energy schemes are defined as low carbon and renewable energy schemes owned, or part-owned, by community organisations.
(3) In carrying out the consultation, the Secretary of State must consult with—
(a) current and prospective community energy generators,
(b) the community energy industry,
(c) the electricity transmission and distribution industries,
(d) licensed energy suppliers, and
(e) any other persons deemed relevant by the Secretary of State.
(4) Within six months of the closure of the consultation conducted under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must respond to the consultation and bring forward proposals to remove the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes.””

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House on this very simple, good-for-everybody amendment.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 274B was added to the Energy Bill during the previous consideration of Commons amendments. As the House will be aware, the amendment was debated in the other place last week and the Government Motion to disagree to the amendment was passed with a substantial majority.

I can confirm to the House that our position remains the same. The amendments would commit the Government to a consultation on the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes. The amendment sets out with whom we would consult and commits the Government to bringing forward proposals to remove identified barriers to community energy within a brief six-month timescale.

I welcome the constructive engagement from across the House, in particular from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I welcome her continued efforts throughout the passage of the Bill to ensure that the interests of the community energy sector are heard in this Chamber, but I reassure the noble Baroness that, on this issue, the Government have already made a clear commitment to the consultation.

As part of this commitment, we have outlined that we will engage in an open and collaborative way with the community energy sector, via the community energy contact group, to design the consultation. In fact, officials are already engaging on exactly that, and earlier this month held a very constructive discussion on the consultation with the group. Given our existing commitment to consult, and our ongoing engagement with the sector, we therefore believe that it is of no additional value to put the specifics in primary legislation.

In addition, there are further issues with the previous amendments that meant that we could not support their inclusion in the Bill. We clearly cannot commit to putting forward proposals to remove barriers that are preventing the development of community energy schemes before we know what barriers are raised in the consultation, or the implications of removing them. It would be remiss of us to agree to put that into primary legislation. Placing this obligation on the Government would be putting the cart before the horse.

However, I reassure the House yet again that the Government will carry out the consultation and continue to work closely with the sector to do so. I also reiterate the Government’s support in principle for community energy; we recognise the role that community groups play in our efforts to eliminate our contribution to climate change. I participated in a great visit to North Kensington Community Energy two weeks ago where I was able to see first-hand some of the important work that the sector does and to meet the contact group.

More widely, government support for the sector is demonstrated through existing support that we have already put in place, such as the £10 million community energy fund. I am pleased to tell the House that we aim to open applications to that fund as soon as we possibly can.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the Minister very much for his sort of co-operation through the passage of the Bill. It is hugely important. It was introduced about 16 months ago, and I do not wish to delay it any further. But I speak with great regret that the Government find themselves unable to agree to my simple and incredibly uncontroversial amendment, which just seeks to clarify the Government’s commitment to consult on the barriers that community energy schemes face. I am very pleased that the Minister went to visit one that was working, but I assure him that a lot are not.

While I welcome the steps the Government have taken to re-establish the community energy fund—for instance, reporting to Parliament and consulting—it is important to put a timescale on these plans; 18 months is fair and reasonable. Without a timescale there is a risk that this will not happen. It has been demonstrated that this issue has widespread support across both Houses. When we have something that we agree on, we ought to just get on with it and do it. I fear that this small but significant issue will get drowned out in next year’s general election. I would appreciate reassurance from the Minister that this is a needless worry and that the Government are committed.

I would just like to get some clarity on a couple of points. What will be the basis of this annual report to Parliament? Is it simply to report on the progress of projects, or will it address the challenges that we face and the best route to sort them out? My amendment also sought to ensure that, should any consultation find that there are barriers—new barriers, for instance—the Government will commit to taking steps to address these. Being candid, we know that there are barriers, and I appreciate the argument that you should not legislate for the unknown, but I am simply trying to get an assurance that they would plan to lift barriers that we know are there—including ones that we do not know.

To return to the issue of the consultation, we have rehearsed what issues need to be resolved; thanks to the Bill committee in the other place, there are many views on record. I do not believe that much is likely to change in the next year. While I agree that we should follow due process here, it must not be used as a reason for delay. I urge the Minister to open this consultation ASAP, so that we can get this ball rolling.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly and with great pleasure following the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who has done such an enormous amount of work on this issue—I pay tribute to that.

I was the person who started these amendments on their way back in December 2022, after we started work on this Bill last July. A consultation is something but what we really need is action, so I have a simple question for the Minister. As he said, this consultation has already started this month; if the Government see or identify through that consultation some simple, easy-to-remove barriers, will they act on them immediately rather than waiting for the end of the formal process? Surely, if action can be taken then projects, such as the one in Kensington to which the Minister referred, can go forward.