Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 90A in my name. At the time that I tabled it, it was a simple little amendment at the fag end of a Bill. Instead, it is now an amendment that threatens to be hated by my own Front Bench and is obviously getting between many Members of the Opposition and whatever they have in mind before they can execute it. But I want to speak to what I think is a very sensible little amendment. Great British Energy has an important role; it has considerable public investment behind it and there is, probably across the Committee, agreement that the reporting requirement in the Bill—that GBE would be required only to submit a normal Companies House report—is simply not enough.

With the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I tabled Amendment 116, which we discussed earlier in the course of the Bill, which gave an objective to GB Energy, as part of its strategic objectives set by Government, to help to deliver the statutory targets for both climate and biodiversity enshrined in the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act. The Minister promised to reflect further on Amendment 116 between Committee and Report—which assumes that we will eventually finish Committee, which is highly doubtful as we are progressing at the moment.

As a minimum, the Bill should require Great British Energy to report on its achievement of the Secretary of State’s strategic priorities for GBE, including the climate and biodiversity targets, as well as on the progress of community energy. It would be rather strange to determine strategic objectives for GBE without requiring it to report on progress on achieving them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it has just gone 10 pm. We are just over half way through the Government’s stated targets for this evening. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said, it is highly unlikely that we can finish another eight groups any time soon.

It is a firm convention that the House rises at 10 pm between Monday and Wednesday, and there has been no agreement to the contrary. We have had, thus far to date, one and a half days in Committee against a committed three days. This is a significant Bill; £8.3 billion worth of taxpayers’ money is going into it. We owe it the scrutiny that such public spending, rightly, should deserve. I ask the Government Chief Whip whether he will resume the House now or fairly soon after.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

Will the Opposition Chief Whip take an intervention? I just want to point out that there have been two and a half days of scrutiny and not one and a half days. She is not correct.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think that the noble Earl was not listening to me. I said that, to date, we have had one and a half days of scrutiny, and tonight would make two and a half days. The Government committed to three days. That was the point I was making.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I do not know why we could not have had those discussions in usual channels. I have been around all along today. No one has come near my office today to have this discussion—no one at all.

As I said to the noble Baroness—I spoke to her last week and at the weekend—we need to make progress on this Bill. It is an eight-clause Bill. When we started the first day in Committee, we had 13 groups of amendments. When we started today, we had 18 groups of amendments. We have seen lots of filibustering going on today. We need to make progress on the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I am sorry, but I absolutely was. Every time, we would get to Report stage and if we did not like something, we would defeat the Government, as we did many times, but we never sat there filibustering and wasting people’s time. It is not on. We need to proceed with the discussions tonight and see how much further we get.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot agree. The Chief Whip is absolutely right that we had discussions on Friday, in which we did not agree, and so no agreement was had. In light of there being no commitment from the noble Lord, I beg to move that the House do now resume.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

All I can say in response to the noble Baroness is that we have tried to get agreement on this. The House needs to continue with this important work and scrutiny. I oppose the Motion that the House should now resume.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak against Amendments 23 and 24. If the Conservative Benches had put forward something saying that Labour should be held to account for the promises that they have made, then yes, they should. Should those promises be enacted in this overpoliticised amendment? No, because that is not the way that we do things.

This is a very politicised amendment. It does nothing to help bill payers, nothing to make Great British Energy any better at delivering for bill payers and nothing to reduce costs for bill payers. Amendments 23 and 24 are amendments for leaflets and nothing more. They are pointless, petty grandstanding.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

What? Leaflets?

[Earl Russell (LD)]

Yes, they can write a quick leaflet saying that they held the Government to account, when actually they achieved nothing other than tabling an amendment. The last Tory Government had a de facto ban on onshore wind, did little to develop renewable technologies, left us dependent on Russian gas and ended up spending £40 billion subsidising bill payers to import foreign gas, for little or no long-term benefit. The previous Government gave up on delivering on nearly all energy-efficient measures and left UK citizens in cold and damp homes. We believe that, if done well, GB Energy will provide energy security, reduce energy bills, create green jobs and kick-start economic growth. Many of these arguments also apply to Amendment 24.

Without wasting time, our response is much the same as to the previous amendment. Frankly, we feel that holding the Government to account by enacting something in a Bill is pretty delusional. It would be far better to do that outside of the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 28 to 32 agreed.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is 10.25 pm. We still have six more groups to go. There was no agreement to go beyond 10 pm, and indeed the Order Paper says that the House should sit until 10 pm. We had three and a half days in Committee, and I expressed my reservation about getting Report done in one day. A number of things have happened today which are beyond people’s control, so it was a challenge anyway. I ask the Chief Whip to adjourn the House.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I have been clear with the Opposition that we are going to complete Report stage of the Great British Energy Bill today. I made that clear in my meeting with the noble Baroness last week.

In my time in the House—which will be 15 years in June—and particularly in over three years as Opposition Chief Whip, I always played fair with the Government. On more than one occasion I sat here until 2 am or even 3 am so that the Government could get their business through, often on Bills that the noble Baroness was trying to get through this House. The Opposition, who were the Government only a few months ago, would have been absolutely furious if I had come to that Dispatch Box to ask for the House to be adjourned at only 10.26 pm. The Government have a right to get their business through. The Opposition have the right to oppose and the House has the right to scrutinise legislation. All these things can be accommodated very easily, but if the Opposition are determined not to play fair then we get into these difficulties. It is unnecessary.

I can only imagine the complaints from the noble Baroness if I was behaving like this last year. It is wrong, it is unnecessary and it does the Opposition no credit whatever. We need to complete Report tonight. We have only two amendments left to vote on—I have been advised that that will be Amendments 46 and 50. With a bit of good will on all sides, we can complete Report easily before midnight.