Pollution Prevention and Control (Fees) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2021

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am delighted to welcome the regulations before us this afternoon—certainly as far as they go. I thank my noble friend for his clear introduction to them.

My concern follows directly from the plea of my noble friend Lady Altmann to look more to offshore wind farms—that is what concerns me. Paragraph 13.2, on page 6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, says:

“It is crucial that all businesses operating offshore, regardless of size, are subject to the same regulatory regime to ensure that they continue to provide a high level of protection for the marine environment.”


If my understanding is correct and the regulations before us this afternoon refer only to the offshore hydrocarbons industry, which regulations from his department, which I understand will be the regulatory authority, actually apply to offshore wind farms?

I mention this because we did a piece of work before the EU Sub-Committee was disbanded at the end of the period of its supervisory authority. I quote what one of the witnesses said about how we mitigate the offshore wind pollution of our shores:

“It is fair to say that offshore wind is still a very new sector. It has been around for only the last 10 years. It has, throughout that period, innovated and continues to do so. It is probably fair to say that the focus for that has been more on construction impacts, and potentially pre-construction impacts, and less on the overall operation. Moving forward, we need to bring together the cumulative and ongoing impacts from servicing of the wind farms, for example, and the additional disturbance from vessels that are regularly attending.”


It concerns me that we are seeing a 10-gigawatt increase in one year alone—so we are literally upping the renewable source of offshore wind farms. Yet it is staggering to think that, as I understand it, no research at all has been done into the effects of not just, as the lady witness said, the construction phase and the ships going out to deliver materials but the operational phase and, for the purposes of these regulations, decommissioning. I presume that each wind turbine will have a life of some 10 or 15 years. This urbanisation of the sea, as the witnesses in that hearing called it, has specific ecological impacts on the maritime environment.

If my further understanding is correct, the maritime environment and marine ecology are not included in the Environment Bill, so we have two omissions: no research on the ecological and environmental impacts, in terms of not just noise but disruption to marine life. We have to ask ourselves: why are dolphins, porpoises and whales beaching in increasing numbers on our shores? I would like to think that it is not because of offshore wind farms, but we honestly do not know. I take this opportunity to ask why hydrocarbons, a very important part of the economy, have been singled out for this particular type of regulation? Which regulation covers offshore wind farms? Is there a similar regulation to what is before us this afternoon in relation to the recovery of the charges?

So how do offshore wind farms relate to the comparative structure and fee structure in the regulations before us relating to hydrocarbons? Also, mindful that there will be a rising degree—10 gigawatts in one year— of noise pollution in both the construction and operational phases, will my noble friend put my mind at rest that some research has been done over the period and that the regulatory regime is akin to that before us this afternoon?

With those concerns, I endorse the regulations before us. I am absolutely concerned that any regulatory regime should apply to all protections for the marine environment, whether in relation to hydrocarbons or to offshore wind farms.