Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Alan Whitehead

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I would like to speak to our amendments 17, 18, 19 and 20, to comment on other amendments before us today and then to place all this into the context of the Bill as a whole by way of what will effectively be a stand-part contribution. This Bill remains an ill-advised, pointless piece of political posturing—

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Don’t pull any punches!

[Dr Whitehead]

That was the mild version.

As the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) has informed us, the Bill legislates for something that happens anyway. It will make no difference to bills, according to the Secretary of State. It will make no difference to our energy security, according to the former chair of BP. It will undermine the independence of the North Sea Transition Authority, according to the NSTA’s own board, and it and will reinforce the perception around the world that the UK is rowing back from climate action, according to the former COP President, the right hon. Member for Reading West. We regret that this insubstantial and damaging Bill has proceeded this far, and we will vote against it on Third Reading.

We do not need this one-clause Bill. We need instead a strategy for managing the North sea that supports our energy security, meets our climate commitments and secures the economic and jobs benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy. We would have liked to debate a new clause setting out a new principal objective for the North Sea Transition Authority that would have put such a strategy into effect. However, because the Bill is so short and tightly drawn around the narrow issue of mandatory licensing rounds, amendments to put a more sensible strategy into place are regrettably not in order. We must therefore take the Bill on its own terms, even if that means treating it with significantly more respect than the drafters have treated this House with in presenting such a trivial and nakedly political proposal.

We have in the Bill at present two tests that should be passed if the Oil and Gas Authority is to proceed with mandatory licence issuance, and we know that the two tests cannot be failed. It is a fact that if properly drafted—we might come to that in a moment—liquefied natural gas will always be more greenhouse gas-intensive in production than UK natural gas and we will always be in a position where gas and oil produced in the UK and in a declining North sea field will not meet our total demand for gas and oil.

I learned in my first year at university—as I think the Minister did, because he did a similar degree to me—that a proposition that cannot be falsified cannot stand as a valid proposition. Here we have two completely non-valid propositions in the Bill. They are bogus and cynically contrived to give the appearance that something has to be achieved before mandatory licencing takes place. At the very least we need a test or tests that can be failed and that produce a proper level of judgment into the advisability of proceeding with such mandatory licences. The best test surely has to be whether such action is compatible with our climate change goals. The Government had previously introduced climate change compatibility tests into production generally. It is strange that these appear nowhere in the Bill.

Sustainable Energy Generation: Burning Trees

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Alan Whitehead

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I have listened very carefully to the debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing it.

Overall, we have had a thoughtful debate about the difficult issues facing UK energy production, including what sources it is right or wrong to use, subsidies that might be put in place, and arrangements for the production of comparatively low-carbon energy that could provide power more cheaply and efficiently, as well as, most importantly, on a lower carbon basis.

As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) mentioned, undoubtedly a while ago biomass was thought to be a simple proposition for power production that was fine in terms of the overall carbon cycle: it uses trees that grow again, thus balancing the CO₂ put into the atmosphere through burning. Actually, the same is true of gas power, for example, only carbon has been sequestered in the ground over many millions of years and now we are putting it back into the atmosphere. It is all about cycles and the carbon replacement period, which is an important initial point to consider. The debate has moved on considerably, because people are thinking carefully about what those cycles mean for carbon replacement.

We need to question if it is ever right to use thermal means to produce power. We currently have 200 biomass generators in the UK, producing 88% of UK power. In addition, whether or not we regard burning wood waste and other materials for power as unacceptable, we have 54 energy and waste plants across the country that produce some power, half of which produce a lot of heat that can be used for district heating purposes. They ought to come into the carbon balance equation that we are trying to achieve.

We have heard today an incontrovertible point: taking whole trees, burning them for power and transporting the product of those trees across large parts of the world is clearly not the best use for them. That is particularly the case if those whole trees have not been grown in farmed or managed forests but in primeval ones, where they have captured carbon for many centuries, and are being clear felled and used to fill a hole in energy production.

[Barry Gardiner]

Would my hon. Friend also accept the distinction that a managed forest for production timber and biomass has nowhere near the biodiversity that there is in the primary forests that we have been talking about? It is a matter that we cannot look at simply in terms of carbon emissions; we have to look at it in terms of wider sustainability and the biodiversity of species.

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, indeed, we need to take careful account of the points my hon. Friend has made about wider biodiversity issues. However, we have sources of material—starting with the idea of managed forests, under certain circumstances, or energy crops, under other circumstances—that are much shorter in their use and carbon sequestration, such as miscanthus and short-rotation coppicing of willow. Those can be produced with a very short time of burning and resequestration. However, as my hon. Friend has said, there may be other environmental consequences attached to the practice.

Energy Prices Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Alan Whitehead

Committee stage
Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I agree about the difficulties under clause 16. Does my hon. Friend share my suspicion that, actually, the designated companies are precisely those renewable and nuclear generators that have not previously entered a contract for difference? This is simply intended to be a stick to force them into a voluntary contract for difference with the Government.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes a good, if somewhat speculative, point. As the Bill mentions, the Government are seeking to regularise the status of various renewable generators into some form of CfD arrangement, but of course the “compensation” one might get varies according to the status of those particular generators that do not have a CfD and are getting their remuneration by other means.

Of course, there are generators in this particular area that are not making super-profits, and indeed are not making profits at all, because in most instances they are community-owned wind farms with a large number of shareholders. The purpose of those shareholdings is, among other things, to keep bills down by paying dividends from the wind farm. Such arrangements should clearly not be designated in the same way as other arrangements, even though these wind farms are perhaps not in receipt of a contract for difference and may look like a number of other arrangements.

My plea is that, first, the Government should define, as soon as possible, what is going to be designated and how it is going to be designated. That should go well beyond what is in this Bill and ensure that those generators that are designated really are those that should pay into a scheme. After reading the Bill, I think it is possible to make those changes so that designation is fair and equitable. I am sure that the Government will, very shortly, want to come out with a scheme that enables that to happen. I will certainly be on the phone to the Minister if it does not happen very quickly.