Energy White Paper Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Baroness Sheehan
Main Page: Baroness Sheehan (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Sheehan's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Energy White Paper
Baroness Sheehan Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord’s comments are well made. We all find frustrating the length of time it takes to do anything in this country with the planning system and all the approvals needed, but safety is critical. We must make sure that everything is safe, has the proper approvals and goes through all the proper planning processes, et cetera. I accept his disappointment about barrage systems, but the key point is that these are all different systems with different considerations and investment appraisals. Some of these schemes were extremely optimistic; we have to try to select systems and projects that are good value for money, but we always bear all these systems in mind and are interested in future schemes coming forward for investment appraisal.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, the Government’s policy to extract every last drop from our part of the North Sea is incompatible with our net-zero target, the Paris Agreement and our leadership of COP 26 next year. When will the Government follow Denmark’s lead and stop for good the issuance of new licences for oil and gas exploration and plan instead for a just transition so that jobs and communities in Scotland and the north-east are protected?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I know the noble Baroness has strong feelings on this because she has asked me this question before. She should bear in mind that hundreds of thousands of jobs are dependent on the North Sea. We are delivering the North Sea transition deal, providing support for the people and communities most affected by the eventual move away from oil and gas production. We are supporting the transition of skills and supply chains for a clean energy transition and focusing export finance on low-carbon opportunities internationally. Many companies producing in the North Sea are committed to the net-zero challenge, so, rather than just say that they cannot produce any more, we need to work to help them in the transition away from fossil fuel production.