Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests, especially as honorary president of National Energy Action. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Beckett, and the noble Lord, Lord Mackinlay, on their excellent maiden speeches. They are both remarkable role models in their own right. I also congratulate the Minister, who has sat through all the speeches today and displayed his staying power and great interest in this subject. I wish him well through the passage of the Bill.

The country is facing twin challenges of energy and food security. They are both extremely serious and should be tackled together. Specifically, I agree with all those who have said that the remit of the Bill is extremely broad—too broad. I hope we can clarify that through its passage, as one of my concerns is that this is a potentially massive land grab.

I would like to explore how relationships with those affected by the decisions will be handled. There is talk of consultations, but there must be more joined-up decisions between the Government, investors, local authorities, local communities and consumers. Take the position of offshore wind farms: consent for the wind farm is currently given separately from consent for the substation needed to land the energy onshore, then separate planning permission is sought for the overhead power lines. These pylons to transfer electricity long distances, losing up to 10% of the energy in transmission, are deeply unpopular among those in rural communities, who have to live with them but recognise that they have absolutely no benefit to those living there. Can the Minister explain and define the engagement process with interested parties—for example, farmers, fishermen, residents, consumers and industry? What form will that consultation take?

The Bill seems to give a blanket power to the Secretary of State to decide. There is very little parliamentary oversight, merely reports to Parliament. In Clause 5:

“The Secretary of State must prepare a statement of strategic priorities for Great British Energy”.


He

“may revise or replace the statement”,

but need only

“lay a copy of the statement, and of any revised … statement, before Parliament”.

We need to amend that to have greater parliamentary oversight over the Secretary of State’s powers, so that they are not completely untrammelled.

There needs to be formal consultation with the interested parties before decisions are made. Take the example of the spatial squeeze; it has raised very real concerns among fishermen about how their fishing grounds risk being squeezed out by offshore wind. I wonder whether the Minister has already had the opportunity to meet with farmers, and particularly with fishermen, to address their concern about this spatial squeeze. What form does the Minister expect the relationship with these interested parties to take—not just with farmers and fishermen but with intensive energy users, such as brickmakers, those in ceramics and others in the manufacturing sector? What form of consultation will there be?

The Minister referred briefly to finance and talked about some finance coming from the national wealth fund. He will be aware that the Association of British Insurers has been closely engaging with the Treasury on the development of this fund, and I was very pleased to receive a briefing from it. The ABI hopes that the national wealth fund’s success will be in

“unlocking investment, delivering economic growth and creating new green high skilled jobs”,

but it has identified current barriers that could prevent this happening. They include the need for

“a national transition plan … sector specific investment roadmaps, especially for the five priority sectors identified by government”.

I will name them:

“green steel, green hydrogen, industrial decarbonisation, gigafactories, and ports”.

It also identifies the need for

“greater engagement between investors and local authorities to develop investable propositions”.

To ensure the success of Great British Energy and the funding from the national wealth fund, how does the Minister expect the current barriers identified by the ABI to be addressed?

I turn to sustainable sources of energy. We had a little debate on Drax at Oral Questions last week. It raised the question of why we are importing woodchip from abroad when we could use more sustainable, locally produced willow coppice and miscanthus, easily meeting the Government’s own sustainability criteria. Equally, we should use offshore and onshore wind energy locally, close to where it was produced. That would reduce the need for pylons; as I fear the Minister will find out, rural dwellers do not accept them criss-crossing the countryside, bringing no benefit to them locally.

The Minister did not mention energy from waste. Together with renewable energy, this is a very powerful strand of energy source in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany and other European countries. It disposes of household waste and creates energy. What is the Government’s position on this?

Environmental levies of £2 billion are added to energy bills, primarily in the standing charge to every household and business, which goes towards future infrastructure. I ask the Minister to name any other utility or public service whose future infrastructure is paid for up front by the consumer.

Offshore-generated wind coming on shore at massive power stations poses problems, particularly when transported long distances to the national grid. We are soon to see offshore floating turbines to replace fixed turbines at sea. I urge the Minister to address these problems and to meet with the fishing fleet to avoid dangers not just of their grounds being squeezed but to marine life, porpoises and dolphins from the constant buzz of turbines. What happens to wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries at the end of their working lives? How will they be disposed of? These two issues alone, among others, create real environmental challenges.

At COP 24 the Prime Minister agreed and signed up to an 80% reduction in emissions. This will impose a heavy burden on households and businesses alike going forward, while countries that deny climate change, such as the US, China, India and Brazil, continue to pollute regardless to ensure that their industries remain competitive.

In conclusion, I simply ask how this Bill to create Great British Energy will benefit Great Britain, given the massive impact the work of the company will have on the countryside, local communities, industry and consumers.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a short but crucial amendment in this group—Amendment 51A—which deals with the key issue of employment. It rather shocked me when I checked the wording of the Bill that the words “employment”, “skills” “training”, “retraining”, “upgrading” or even “fair transition” are not mentioned in it. At one of his briefing meetings, I asked my noble friend the Minister for a clear chart of the various bodies we are now envisaging having influence on energy policy—NESO, Ofgem and now Great British Energy and Great British Nuclear. None of them have as a central mission to provide the new and upskilled workforce that will be needed to deliver both the grid and the new forms of energy which will take us to clean energy by 2030 or 2035.

I also looked through the previous Act of the last government—the Energy Act 2023—which is 473 pages long. It provides much of the body of approach to energy policy which the new Government have largely adopted. From a rough-and-ready word check, I do not think that the words “employment”, “skills” and “new skills” appear in that either.

If we are to deliver a clean energy system, from generation to delivery, and energy efficiency in our homes, offices and buildings, as well as a transformation of our industry and transport, we will need a much more skilled, or differently skilled, workforce than the one we have at the moment. That requires somebody to take responsibility for that. None of the bodies has that as one of its central tasks. That needs to be remedied before this Bill disappears from this House.

We need to ensure that those currently employed in sectors of energy which will reduce in gas and oil have a high level of skills which will be relatively easily transformed into skills delivering the new clean energy—or those further down the line delivering home efficiency and other forms. We do not have that in the energy policy. It is mentioned in passing in one of the White Papers, but it is nowhere in proposed legislation. This amendment would at least put it in the statement of priorities required to be issued by NESO early in the transition. It will need following up; it will need more than that. It will need substantial intervention, provision of retraining, apprenticeships and skills, and redefinition of jobs if we are to achieve the timescale and trajectory to net zero that we are envisaging.

This amendment, which is supported by the TUC, would put a marker down that we need to address this issue. Without a transformation and extension of the workforce, we will not deliver the full energy system in anything like the timescale currently envisaged. Can my noble friend the Minister ensure that the Government come back with some way of reflecting in this Bill that employment and the transformation of employment are an important priority, as is assigning responsibility for them to one of the many bodies now in this arena? It may not be regarded by many as central to this Bill, but it is central to the delivery of the outcome. I put down this simple amendment at this point, and I will return to it at a later stage.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, there are a number of interesting and thought-provoking amendments in this group. I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in speaking to his. I will speak to my Amendment 55 and ask the Minister to respond on a number of issues when he winds up on this group.

I felt that this amendment was necessary to probe the thinking of the Government. Clause 5(7), on strategic priorities and plans, says:

“The duties to consult imposed by subsections (4) to (6) may be satisfied by consultation carried out before this Act comes into force”.


What is the timetable for those consultations? Can the Minister assure the Committee that they will be meaningful and last, as in the terms of my Amendment 55, for the usual 12 weeks—ideally not covering the summer or Christmas holidays, which is so often the case? Will they be meaningful and be over a 12-week period, and will they consult farmers, fishermen and local communities?

Why are those three groups important? With farmers, as the Minister knows because we debated this in Questions and earlier in Committee, the Government are minded to take over highly productive land—often grade 2 or 3 land—for solar farms. In preparing for today, I have been issued information from David Rogers, an emeritus professor of ecology at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford. He is not personally known to me, but he has some very good figures.

I think the Government are underestimating, as of today, the amount of agricultural land that will be taken out of useful production. Let us look at the five most affected constituencies. In Newark, it is a land take of 7.9%. In Rayleigh and Wickford—I declare that I represented Rayleigh many years ago in the European Parliament—4.9% would be taken out of production. Sleaford and North Hykeham will have a reduction of 4.62%. In Newport East, the figure will be 4.6%, and Bicester and Woodstock will see 3.96% out of production.

We have to have a very grown-up debate about what the land use framework will be. I do not think that it will be published before this Bill passes, but I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in this regard. She has put an inordinate amount of work into this. There will be other opportunities to discuss the impact on farming. I hope the Minister will give us an assurance today that farmers will be included in the consultation and say what form the consultation will take.

I turn now to fishers and the spatial squeeze they face. The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations provided a briefing, at my request. It is the first to understand that fishers must share the sea, and if other industries expand so much that fishing is squeezed out of its traditional grounds, they obviously do not want to see the industry collapse. In the NFFO’s view, it is a mistake that when a new wind power station is built or protected areas are designated, the fishers who previously worked there are deemed simply to go and fish somewhere else; that is often not the case. Fish can be caught only in the places where they live and breed. They have been caught commercially in UK waters for centuries, and the areas where they feed, migrate and breed are well known, so expecting displaced fishing efforts to simply resume somewhere else entirely misses the point.

In the NFFO’s view, there is an absolute need for a strategic approach. The UK’s needs for food, energy, communication, transportation, waste disposal and recreation all intersect at sea, and the interests of fishers —and, in fact, of all users—can be met only with a strategic approach to using the marine space. How will the Government use the consultation to ensure that that is achieved, and that fishers’ voices will be heard when such a plan is developed, to ensure their future?

I turn to the work we did on the EU Environment Sub-Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. We took evidence on the environmental impacts of these developments, particularly offshore wind farms and their future replacements, on marine life and the future of the fishers. The NFFO views with increasing concern the environmental impacts of such vast industrial developments in the sea. It makes a plea that, as we go forward, any strategic overview will be consulted on. A ban on fishing is obviously not an option, in its view. We hope that fishing will not be automatically damaged through any development of the marine environment, but that common ground will be found, so to speak, in any consultations on developing strategic priorities and plans within the remit of Clause 5.

I turn finally to local communities. It is regrettable that in the past, planning permission has been granted separately for offshore and onshore wind farms, because then, a separate planning application takes place, particularly for offshore windfarms, wherever the energy reaches the shore. That poses all sorts of problems that really came to life during the general election. Perhaps it is no surprise that we have a Green Member of Parliament for part of the Suffolk coast, because if you are going to have a large substation created separately from the original planning application for the offshore windfarm, that poses problems for the Government—whichever Government it happens to be.

Also, there is alarm that the Government are planning to take back control, so to speak, of planning decisions. Under the proposals the Government envisage, we are taking the decision away from local communities— I pay tribute to all who have served and who continue to serve as local council representatives—and giving it to the Secretary of State. That is wrong, because local communities should be asked to decide where these electricity substation superstructures will be placed and, just as woefully, where the overhead pylons will be placed. I still bear the scars, as the then newly elected Member for the Vale of York, from when we were deemed to take an additional, second overhead line of pylons. This does not go down well with local communities.

I hope the Minister will look kindly on the points I have made and listen to the voices of the farmers, fishermen and local communities as the Government proceed to develop their strategic priorities and plans.

--- Later in debate ---

This has been an interesting debate. We think we have got the balance right between what should be in the legislation and what should be left to a proper government statement of strategic priorities, within the constraints set by Clause 3. I have no doubt that we will have further debates on this, but this has been a very good airing of some of these important issues.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

May I have a reply, if possible, on having joined-up planning applications for offshore oilfields and substations or pylons, so there is one planning application for the whole project?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I am sorry, I should have responded. Clearly, the noble Baroness will know from the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan the Government’s intent with regard to planning generally. She will have seen what we said in it about seeking to reform the whole planning process. I will ensure that the point she makes is embraced within that. I see the force of her arguments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 51 from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and I also have four other amendments in this group. One of my concerns about the Bill is that Great British Energy is the last in a long line of unelected quangos, which have precious little parliamentary oversight and weak accountability processes. All the amendments in this group in one way or another seek to increase the role of Parliament, and thereby go some way towards remedying the accountability deficit that exists in the Bill.

As the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has already reminded the Committee, the Constitution Committee has called out Clause 5 as being disguised legislation. I agree with that. I do not agree with it in relation to Clause 6, which I will explain when we get to that clause. The important thing is that this underlines the need for strong parliamentary processes around Clause 5.

Amendment 51 from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is important. If the Secretary of State delays setting out his strategic priorities, the company, Great British Energy, will be left rudderless and may start to spend taxpayers’ money in ways that are not in line with what the Secretary of State wishes to prioritise. Alternatively, a less generous perspective is that the Secretary of State might delay issuing the statement of strategic priorities in order to delay laying it before Parliament and thereby exposing it to public scrutiny.

There is no unanimity even among the green lobby as to what would amount to a good use of taxpayers’ money under the Great British Energy banner. Some of the things that the Secretary of State might choose to prioritise may well horrify some of the climate activists. We might expect nuclear to be one of those examples. The Secretary of State could probably get Great British Energy to act in accordance with his wishes without going through the Clause 5 process by using—or more likely, threatening to use—the Clause 6 power of direction, which we will debate later. He could thereby sidestep public and parliamentary scrutiny for quite some time.

Whichever analysis is the correct one, it is clearly important that we ensure that there is a public statement of priorities as soon as possible. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, generously allows for six months after the Act comes into force. I could easily argue for less time, but six months is good enough for today’s debate.

On the question of timing, I also note that in Clause 3 there is no time limit for the Secretary of State to lay his statement after he has prepared it. Amendment 51 concentrates on a time limit for the preparation of the statement, but similarly does not have a time for when it has to be laid before Parliament. That is another defect in this clause that we will need to seek to remedy on Report.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has already referred to some of my amendments. Amendment 119 is another way of making sure that the strategic priorities statement is pursued quickly. It allows Clause 5 to come into effect immediately after Royal Assent, but the rest of the Bill cannot come into effect until the statement is laid before Parliament. Importantly, that means that Great British Energy could not make any practical progress until the statement of strategic priorities had been dealt with in accordance with Clause 5.

Amendment 52 tackles a different problem, namely the toothless involvement of Parliament in the statement of strategic priorities. As we have heard, under Clause 5 the Secretary of State merely has to lay a copy of that statement, or any replacement statement, before Parliament. That is it. Parliament has no say whatever. My Amendment 52 gives each House of Parliament 40 sitting days to resolve not to approve it, and in that event the Secretary of State has to withdraw it and have another go. That is the procedure adopted, for example, in relation to the national procurement policy statement published under Section 13 of the Procurement Act 2023. As the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has suggested, it is probably the lightest of the parliamentary procedures that are available to give Parliament some opportunity to challenge the Secretary of State’s priorities.

The amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is in similar territory but would require the Secretary of State to table a Motion. It does not, however, specify what that Motion might be or the consequences if the Motion were not agreed. There could be other formulations for parliamentary oversight of the strategic priorities. The important point is that it should not be a “take it or leave it” situation when Parliament is given the statement of strategic priorities. Parliament is entitled to some substantive involvement in the priorities.

My Amendment 128 is a companion amendment to Amendment 52. It is similar in structure to Amendment 119 so that the commencement of the Act after Royal Assent, other than in relation to Clause 5, would be delayed until 40 sitting days had passed. That would ensure that GBE could not be operationalised until Parliament had had an opportunity to consider the statement of priorities. That is a belt-and-braces addition to Amendment 52.

Lastly, my Amendment 58 in this group is also intended to enhance Parliament’s oversight of Great British Energy. Under Clause 5(8), Great British Energy’s articles of association have to ensure that GBE will publish its own strategic plans and act in accordance with the statement of strategic priorities. My Amendment 58 goes further and would require GBE to send a copy of the plans to the Secretary of State, who then has to lay them before Parliament. It is clearly insufficient for Great British Energy simply to upload its strategic plans to its website. There needs to be a formal communication of those plans to Parliament. That is all that my amendment is aimed at, and I hope that is not controversial.

The broad thrust of all the amendments in this group is effective parliamentary engagement. The Minister might not like the detail of the amendments, but he ought to subscribe to the notion that effective parliamentary engagement in the work of quangos is necessary. I hope he will see that the parliamentary involvement allowed for in the Bill falls short by some way. I am sure the whole Committee would be delighted if the Minister were to take this issue away and bring forward government amendments to achieve proper recognition of the role of Parliament in Great British Energy’s scrutiny. If he is unable to do that, I am sure we will need to return to this aspect on Report.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I will speak to Amendments 53 and 90 in my name. Before I do, I lend my support to the two authors of the other amendments who have spoken. In particular, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, on his amendment and on setting out the problems of Clause 5.

I am a fan of the National Wealth Fund. I have been watching the Norwegian series on BBC Four, which ended at the point when Norway set up its sovereign wealth fund with the proceeds from oil and gas in the North Sea. I could not quite understand why we did not do the same when we were receiving all the profits that we did. We have fallen behind Norway in living standards in that time.

The points from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, about the relationships of GBE and its ability to raise funds, were very well made. Previously in Committee we have questioned what its relationship to the National Wealth Fund will be. This goes to the heart of what the national transition plan for the National Wealth Fund will be. We keep hearing that there will be a transition plan, but I would be interested to know what that plan will be and what its relationship with the National Wealth Fund and GB Energy will be.

When will we see the sector-specific road maps for the five priority sectors? Will they be in the impact assessment or come at a later stage? Some clarity in this regard would be good, as well as some greater engagement at this stage between investors, both those of the National Wealth Fund and GBE, to raise these new funds, and to have local authorities develop projects and propositions which are investable as well. I lend my support to the amendments in this group in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and my noble friend Lady Noakes.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

Such is the great lack of clarity in how GBE will operate that I believe there is even justification for Amendment 87, in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, to which I have added my name. This would require a Motion for resolution in both Houses before the Secretary of State could issue any directions. I look forward to hearing my noble friend introduce her amendment. I expect that the Minister will not be inclined to accept it in its present form, but I certainly look forward to hearing from him about how he proposes to ensure that GBE is more accountable and more transparent in pursuing its objectives and believe that the Government need to bring forward their own amendments on Report.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 87 in my name and to take this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord Trenchard for lending his most welcome support to the amendment and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for introducing this little group so eloquently and strategically. He is absolutely right to point out that the difference between his amendment and the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Trenchard is the difference between an Oral Statement which can just be debated and, in our case, the need for a Motion of resolution in each House of Parliament. To put his mind at rest, I cannot believe that that would need to delay the process at all. It could be called in exactly the same amount of time—probably half a day, an Oral Statement possibly taking an hour, or 30 minutes in each House.

The Minister, who I do not think is replying to this group, said in response to the first group that he believes and hopes that Clause 6 will never be used. But the very fact that it is in the Bill means that it is there to be used should the circumstances arise and I believe that the magnitude is such that it is important to debate it and to carry each House with the Government. I cannot believe that that would be a delaying tactic; I think it is absolutely essential. The noble Lord also, in reference to the question of giving directions, equated the situation to that of the National Health Service. It is clear to me that, were such a direction to be given to the National Health Service, that would be debated in each House of Parliament as well, particularly in the circumstances that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, related of a potentially dangerous one-off situation which we understand Clause 6 envisages.

Words were said earlier about Drax and I do not wish to dwell on that, but Drax is a major contributor to the whole of the Yorkshire and Humberside regional economy. I believe that we should go back to growing the fast-growing willow coppice and—a name I can never pronounce—miscanthus, as that would help Drax to have a local source of produce on which to rely. It would also help the farmers at this very difficult time for them.

On the question of directions and consultation raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and others such as my noble friend Lord Trenchard, it is important for it to be in the Bill that, before giving a direction, the Secretary of State must consult. Clause 6(3)(b) simply says

“such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.

Well, it would be helpful, if there were a situation of some danger, for local authorities to be consulted, because they are the first responders in many cases. I am slightly baffled that they have not been mentioned so far. Do the Government intend to consult them? In previous debates it was also raised by the Association of British Insurers that, in these circumstances, potential and actual investors may need to be consulted if such an emergency were to arise. I do not think they have been mentioned so far. Again, is that something the Government have in mind?

I want to sound fairly relaxed about this, but I do believe that the amendment in the names of myself and my noble friend Lord Trenchard is preferable to the wording of the noble Earl’s Amendment 66 and I hope that the Government will respond favourably to our very modest request that a resolution should be debated in each House of Parliament and potentially voted on before the directions are adopted. I hope the Minister will also respond to my queries about who is to be consulted and why there are not more of them listed in the Bill. With those few remarks, I commend my amendment.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it must be maddening for the Minister that a Bill specifically designed to exclude investment in the nuclear sector keeps on dragging back to the nuclear sector. This is for the obvious reason that these issues are completely and utterly inseparable. Investment in the energy sector generally has got to take account of all the different aspects, and nuclear is obviously one of them.

The Minister raised the question yet again of Sizewell C being a replica, and obviously he thinks I am being very boring on this, but can I plead with him to go back to his department and point out the obvious fallacies in the whole replica concept? If Sizewell C were to go ahead, it would be being constructed in the late 2020s and the early 2030s, probably for completion and producing kilowatts in the late 2030s or later. That will be approximately 25 years beyond the original design of Hinkley C, which was originally conceived under the Blair/Brown Government in the late 2010s.

Everyone in the civil nuclear sector knows that this is a highly fluid situation in which technology is rapidly developing and is going to create, along with the arrival of new things such as AI, a completely new set of designs, which will mean that by the late 2020s the Hinkley design will be frankly out of date. The idea that something that is 20 years old should be replicated is absurd in any advanced technology, and particularly absurd when it comes to electricity generation and civil nuclear power. If one just thinks about it for a moment, one will realise the replica argument carries absolutely no weight at all. I very much hope that any new nuclear installations—whether 300, 500 or gigawatt size—are definitely not going to be a replica of what has occurred at Hinkley C.

This is a view that is held very widely in France, where they say this design is unbuildable and should never be repeated, and it is the view of many other technicians involved in new nuclear development, which I strongly welcome in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but the idea that we should build a replica 20 years after the last one is frankly absurd. Please would the Minister go back to his department and point this out?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I lend my support to my noble friend and congratulate him on moving his first amendment. As in Norfolk, there is a huge problem across North and East Yorkshire, where tenant farmers face being bounced off the land that they currently farm for solar panels. I hope that the Minister responding to this little group of amendments will use their good offices to ensure that solar panels are best built in more appropriate places. I say that as honorary president of the UK Warehousing Association, which has a campaign—of which the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is aware and, I hope, supportive—to ensure that we can get solar panels off the ground, particularly in productive grade 1, 2 and 3 agricultural land, while also helping warehouses to create more of their own energy.

I believe this is a debate to be had. I support those who say that it is perhaps not the role of Great British Energy to do this, but we have to raise this at every turn. If we run out of productive farmland on which to grow food—and to allow tenant farmers of every generation, including new entrants, to enter the market—it would be a very sorry state indeed.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Grand Committee

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Offord’s Amendments 111 and 112, to which I have added my name. It has become increasingly apparent, from many points of view, that impact assessments are necessary. In particular, in exercising its functions, GBE should be required to consider the environmental impact and the effect on sea-birds and marine life of its installation of offshore wind facilities, as well as of its decommissioning of oil and gas structures.

I also support my noble friend Lord Fuller’s Amendment 113, which seeks to place the same obligation on GBE with reference to tidal energy projects. I have looked for information on both the Sound of Islay project and the Bristol Channel project, both of which I was reasonably familiar with some years ago but about which I have heard nothing in recent years. I am heartened by my noble friend’s enthusiasm for the sector and look forward to hearing whether the Minister expects that GBE will be encouraged to make investments in it. As my noble friend Lord Fuller said, this is a slim Bill with fat consequences. We have to make sure that GBE will act in the public interest.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Offord and Lord Fuller for tabling the three amendments in this group, all of which I support. I want to address a few remarks to Amendment 111.

I had not realised that we are the second-largest renewable energy market in the world. Most of the equipment is made outside the UK; I hope this is something we will do better on in future. I do not think my noble friend referred to the position of porpoises and dolphins, which have been causing me great concern over the past few years for the same reasons that my noble friend Lord Offord gave. We took evidence on this from the RSPB and from the department of ocean systems—I think it was called that—at the University of Plymouth in 2020-21.

Two issues arose from that which I would like to put to the Minister. The first, from the RSPB, said that “substantial sums” are being made, which really should be

“reinvested back into the natural environment from which”

these sums are derived. Is that something the Government are keen to do? The reason I ask is simple: I asked for a moratorium at that time, when we were under a Conservative Administration, until we had established what the impact was on birds and other marine life, such as whales, porpoises and dolphins. Over the last five years, we have had a number of inexplicable bankings of whales in particular but also of dolphins and porpoises. It is up to the industry to fund this work, so that we better understand why this is happening. If, as my noble friend Lord Offord argued, there is interference with the sonar of marine life, that should be established before we build the next stage of these massive developments at sea.