Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

124A: After Clause 107, insert the following new Clause—
“Low-carbon transport schemes(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for the establishment and operation of one or more low-carbon transport schemes.(2) A low-carbon transport scheme for the purposes of subsection (1) must include, but is not limited to, the use of hydrogen as fuel to power vehicles.(3) Regulations may include—(a) the setting of low-carbon transport targets,(b) encouraging and incentivising the provision of networks of refuelling stations supplying hydrogen for vehicles, and(c) encouraging and incentivising businesses which run fleets of vehicles to convert to hydrogen fuel.(4) Regulations must specify that, where low-carbon transport schemes include the use of hydrogen, the hydrogen must meet the UK Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard. (5) Vehicles covered by low-carbon transport schemes may include e-bicycles and e-motorbicycles.(6) Hydrogen to power vehicles may be used in a fuel cell or burned in a combustion engine.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to encourage and incentivise the use of low-carbon transport schemes, similar to the low-carbon heat schemes in the Bill, particularly the use of hydrogen to power vehicles.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I decided to table this amendment, because I felt that it was important to draw attention to what I and many in the transport sector see as the lack of leadership from the Government on this issue. It is important to bear in mind that the Government have seemingly very good targets on decarbonising the transport sector, but there is no detail on how we are going to get there. The path ahead is very vague.

Transport is the largest carbon-emitting sector in the UK. It is responsible for a quarter of CO₂ emissions globally. In the UK, the sector has reduced its emissions by only 3% since 1990. That stands in contrast with other sectors. There is a desperate need for leadership, because we are falling behind. The evidence is that we have to be halfway there by 2030 to reach the goals for 2050, but we do not have the plans, the policy or the path set out for us, and it is now a matter of great urgency.

One reason why emissions have not reduced is that although the technology has improved, the number of vehicles on the road has increased, as has the size of cars. Although they are more efficient kilo for kilo, if I can put it that way, they weigh more now and have a greater impact and emit greater amounts of carbon. I want to say briefly that we are talking about this in relation to carbon emissions, but it is, of course, a matter of health. It has a huge impact on our breathing and things like heart attacks, and so on. It is a matter of considerable importance in health.

A great deal is made about the move to electric vehicles, but only 2% of the vehicles on the roads so far are EVs. We are a very long way behind the leaders—countries such as Norway, where up to half of vehicles sold are EVs. My amendment refers specifically to hydrogen, and hydrogen is controversial. Of course, it must be green hydrogen. Even then, green hydrogen has disadvantages, but the advantage of hydrogen is that it provides an early answer to the difficult-to-decarbonise sectors of the transport world—that is, heavy goods vehicles, heavy vehicles generally and, of course, shipping, which is particularly difficult to decarbonise. That is one reason why there is the reference to hydrogen.

The other reason why there is a reference to hydrogen is that, unlike with electricity for vehicles, hydrogen cannot really be installed on a commercial basis unless the Government put in place a set of carrots and sticks to encourage it commercially to be installed. It costs over £1 million to install a hydrogen-fuelling point. It is not the answer for ordinary domestic cars. It could be the answer for fleets of vehicles such as vans, but it is not going to be, unless the Government provide leadership.

I have been raising this issue for the past six years at least, and the Government have said that the market will solve the problem of electric vehicle charging points. To a certain extent, the market has stepped in. Of course, there are huge gaps, but the market has stepped in. The reason it has been able to is that all around us there is electricity—but we do not have hydrogen all around us. I deliberately mention hydrogen in the amendment because the Government need to consider how they are going to lead on this issue.

I finish by saying that the point of the amendment is to open up the matter for discussion and to give the Government the opportunity to consider—and, I hope, to think again about—the urgent need for leadership in setting out a set of steps, a policy or plan. These exist in other countries without Governments taking a huge commercial risk, but simply by providing the incentives to encourage people to choose more environmentally friendly ways of fuelling their vehicles and ensuring that, having chosen a more environmentally friendly vehicle, they can run it efficiently and effectively.

Noble Lords will be well aware that every time we talk about electric vehicles, there is immediately a discussion of the latest crisis that someone has faced in being unable to charge their EV—despite the fact that they are probably running short of electricity outside a house or fuel station that is blazing in electricity. Let us just think about how much more complex the matter is if we are talking about hydrogen.

This is about discussing the difficult issues and encouraging the Government to look ahead and plan—urgently—for what must be achieved. The average life of vehicles on the roads now is 16 years, I believe, and that will probably get longer because we are facing a period of difficulty, austerity and rising prices. This is therefore important, because those decisions made this year about what vehicle to buy—whether you are an individual or as a company—will be with us for decades to come. The Government must lead in the way only Governments can. I beg to move.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 124A, as presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I must say that it is seldom that we disagree, because we both share the objectives of a rapid response to the growing climate risk, rapid decarbonisation and increasing the efficiency of our energy systems. I welcome this chance to have a debate about the intersectionality between transport and energy. In fact, and not to pre-empt it, I have an Oral Question later this week about how departments connect on these issues. It is hugely important that the DfT, in particular, teams up with BEIS on planning for our future decarbonised energy systems.

That said, I do not think it will come as any surprise that I am absolutely opposed to the idea of bringing in this set of amendments as currently drafted. My belief is that hydrogen will have a very limited role, for three reasons. First, it is itself a climate change gas and it is very slippery; it is the smallest molecule on the periodic table and it escapes everywhere. I do not wish to have hydrogen all around me—quite the opposite. I want hydrogen in very controlled places, being looked after by industrial chemists; I do not want it in my home or in my vehicle. We just have to look at the explosion of the hydrogen fuelling station in Norway. It is often forgotten but this is a hugely explosive gas. Norway managed to blow one of its fuelling stations and, if Norway can blow things up, anyone can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Could I just point out that it is easier not to send loads of CO₂ out into the atmosphere in the first place? It is great to hear about all the millions that the Government are spending on these measures, but it would be cheaper not to pollute in the first place. Things such as carbon capture and storage are all incredibly theoretical ideas, so you cannot actually say that it is going to happen, because it may not.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this short debate. I knew that I would provoke a debate by specifically mentioning hydrogen—and that was my intention. I wanted to tease out the Government’s views. I thank the Minister for her response, but it was light on detail as, I fear, the whole of the Government’s policy is.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on her view of the Government. I fear that the Government have been so self-obsessed for the past two or three years that there is a policy vacuum in all sorts of places, and transport is one of them. I also agree with her that we need to rely very much more on public transport but, of course, the vast majority of public transport is provided by buses, which are heavy vehicles. Electricity is fine in towns and cities but it is not yet the answer for long distances in rural areas or for long-distance buses. Of course, not enough of our electricity is green and comes from renewable resources. Despite the ingenious plans for the national grid, we have a crisis of capacity, which will face us very soon if we all rely on electric vehicles.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to aviation. I remind noble Lords about the Government’s jet zero strategy, which is a triumph of optimism over reality.

My noble friend Lady Sheehan made a very important point about batteries. It is important to emphasise that we are well behind in the international race for developing gigafactory capacity. Very soon, rules of origin will be a problem for those wishing to export.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do not know what the noble Baroness is doing; she is supposed to be deciding whether she will withdraw her amendment, not responding to a debate. This is not a debate on general activity relating to hydrogen. She should say whether she wants to withdraw her amendment—that is the question.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, in Grand Committee it is normal to allow people the courtesy to respond to well-made points from noble Lords. I want to make it absolutely clear that the intention of my amendment was to provoke debate. I am disappointed that the Government’s response has been so limited. The amounts of money announced by the Minister are attractive and worth while, but they need to be multiplied by at least 10 to have any impact at all.

I will withdraw the amendment, of course, but I remind noble Lords of the words of the United Nations Secretary-General:

“We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing”—


we need a sense of urgency. I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 124A withdrawn.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th December 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 173, I will also speak to Amendments 174 to 176, 178 to 180 and 182 in the name of the Minister, my noble friend Lord Callanan.

Amendments 173 to 176 provide clarification and consistency to the definitions of the appliances to which the energy smart regulations will apply. These definitions focus on the purpose of an appliance. Amendments 173 and 174 ensure that energy smart regulations can be made only for cleaning appliances that are most appropriate for demand-side flexibility. This includes, for example, a dishwasher or a washing machine. Amendment 175 allows battery storage to be captured in a manner consistent with the definition of electricity storage in Clause 162. Amendments 176 and 182 clarify that the regulations capture heat pumps, which are essential to the Government’s policy objectives for decarbonising heat.

Next, Amendments 178 and 179 indicate that the Secretary of State may make provision about the recall of non-compliant appliances and may issue guidance about the prohibitions and requirements imposed by these regulations. These amendments therefore provide further safeguards to address serious cases of non-compliance and will support industry to comply with its obligations, aided by guidance.

Lastly, Amendment 180 makes a minor amendment to ensure that the regulations cover additional methods other than ordinary selling for making energy smart appliances available to consumers, such as hire purchase agreements.

Energy smart appliances will play an essential part in the transition to a smarter energy system, enabling consumers to save money on bills and contributing to cost-effective decarbonisation. These amendments provide important clarifications on the scope of these regulations and make certain that they can be implemented effectively in a way that maximises the benefits of smart functionality for consumers and the electricity group.

I will respond to the non-government amendments in this group when we have heard noble Lords’ contributions. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My little Amendment 177 seems to have intruded on this group of government amendments. I tabled it because I was concerned about the practical implications of the Government’s reliance on smart regulations and smart appliances. I am certainly not arguing with the technology but I am seeking to tease out exactly how this will impact on us and the people of Britain as ordinary consumers.

If you read Clause 187, you will see that it is very dictatorial and centralised in its approach. Yet if you look at paragraph 438 of the Explanatory Notes you will see that, in practice, the Government’s intentions are going to be carried out by retailers and manufacturers, and they will face penalties if they do not get it right. My concern is that one size does not fit all. For example, the noble Baroness just mentioned washing machines and so on, but my example would be electric vehicles. We are told to charge electric vehicles at times when electricity usage is low, and we are promised that this will become an automatic default position. The Government are relying on smart usage, in effect, to expand limited national grid capacity. At the weekend, when I was reading some background material, I noticed that there are only two regions where there is currently said to be any level of surplus national grid capacity. The rest of the country is in a very stretched position.

I have been asking these questions for some years. I have been asking how a reliance on telling people when they can wash their clothes or charge their cars will impact on consumers and the way we use our gadgets and run our daily lives. There is a current experiment, not using smart technology but with a voluntary agreement, to get people to opt in to using their washing machines, dishwashers and so on at low-demand periods, with a financial incentive to do that. That is great if it is convenient for these people and they are opting in to do it. I am pleased that the experiment is taking place, as I am sure it will produce some useful information, but I want to float past everyone a couple of potential issues.

First, I do not want to bore noble Lords for long with the details of my domestic life but I have solar panels and an electric car. I want to use my washing machine and dishwasher and charge my electric vehicle when the sun is out; sometimes, that is at a time of peak demand. I am saving myself money, which I regard as a good thing, but, more importantly, I am limiting the amount I draw down from the grid because my solar panels provide my electricity. I am minimising my call on the grid. There are lots of people like me with solar panels; let us hope that there are heaps more in the coming months and years. This issue needs to be taken into account.

Secondly, more importantly, there is a host of people whose working patterns require them to charge their cars and do their washing at peak times. A care worker working nights has to fit their domestic life around those daily patterns, which might be peak demand times. This is not just about just care workers; it is about health workers, district nurses or anyone working on shifts—the police, firefighters and taxi drivers. We want taxi drivers to drive electric vehicles but they are going to run out of electricity half way through the day; they must be enabled to carry on their work.

We have all, I am sure, experienced a situation where we have had to take our phone or laptop to the technical experts because it is doing something strange, behaving in a way that is beyond our understanding. We are normally told that it is the factory settings or an automatic download. I am now aware that, because they are so automated, electric vehicles adopt patterns that one might not necessarily understand fully because they have downloaded a new program and so on. As the technology becomes more sophisticated, in reality, consumers will find it more difficult to understand what it is doing, why and to override it when they need to.

My big question is that any reliance on smart charging and smart usage must be able to be adapted for that large body of people for whom it is not convenient. In days of high energy prices, most of us can probably be relied on to know what is best for us financially and, therefore, what draws least from the grid. I am concerned that the way in which this is expressed allows no latitude, judgment or option for consumers to make that decision for themselves.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 181 in my name, which follows on from what my noble friend Lady Randerson was talking about.

The whole area of smart appliances is really important. It is in fact where demand management starts to creep into this Bill; it is about the only place that it does. The popularity of their potential has, I think, been shown by National Grid’s call for people to offer to manage their energy usage over particular times in the winter; the Minister may give us the figures but I think that more than a million people have shown an interest in it. I would be interested to know where we are with that.

There is a risk here, however. We have seen it with smart meters. I will not go back to the smart meters argument but one barrier to rollout has been the fear of people sharing information. Clearly, data is core to smart technology; data is personal so there is the question of how that data will be used.

My Amendment 181 is really a probing amendment; it is not in the form that would finally go into a Bill. It seeks to understand how the Government are going to communicate what is a really important thrust in terms of demand management and the way we use dispersed energy systems in a smart grid. How are they going to explain and deliver the strategy outlined so that we do not have the consumer reaction that we have had in other areas, including smart meters—very much media-driven, I should add? I want to avoid that.

The other area on which I want to tackle the Minister is concerns Clause 187(3)(d). It is one sub-paragraph of just three lines about security of information—indeed, the whole area of security. This is a core, important area: we know that, wherever smart systems or information technology are involved, there are all sorts of threats regarding the use of personal information. There is also the threat of external hacking, with state actors or others going into these systems and making them unusable.

It is easy and right to say that personal and other data used with smart technologies are secure or otherwise protected, but who is actually going to do that? I am talking about security or communication software systems. I would like to know from the Minister who will be responsible for the protection and security of these systems. I believe that it is important from the bottom up in terms of personal information but also in terms of smart grids and external, less favourable people towards the United Kingdom intervening here. I am sure that the Government have this under control and consideration but it is a really important area. We need to understand that it is being taken seriously and that, whoever the person or authority, they are going to make sure that these particular three lines in Clause 187(3)(d) are delivered.