Electricity Grid Upgrades

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the delivery of electricity grid upgrades.

It is wonderful to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am grateful to have the opportunity of this debate.

I chair a cross-party group of MPs from Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. We are working to promote the Clean Power 2030 objective, but we want to deliver it more cheaply and quickly, because it is becoming increasingly clear that undergrounding high voltage direct current cables is the way forward for the great national grid upgrade. Undergrounding will carry public consent and will avoid delays, and will therefore be cheaper as well as better for the countryside. Relying on new lines of pylons for the entire upgrade, as proposed, will delay decarbonising the national grid, because they arouse such hostility and will end up costing more because of the delays.

This debate is therefore not just local. Decarbonisation is one of the great national challenges that the United Kingdom faces. How it is achieved, how quickly and at what cost is an issue of national importance. The National Energy System Operator’s “Clean Power 2030” report is welcome, but it highlights the scale of the challenge. NESO is clear that public support is critical to achieving those ambitions, but its response to the Secretary of State in that document warns that losing public consent is a significant threat to delivering projects on time and within budget.

Fintan Slye, the executive director of NESO, made the importance of engaging community support clear on Radio 4 when the report was launched on 5 November:

“I am acutely conscious that building infrastructure, pylons, does impose on people and their locality.”

He also emphasised that

“it is really important…that we bring people and communities with us on this journey”,

and that the transition to net zero only works

“if we can bring society with us”.

He is clearly saying that infrastructure solutions must align with community priorities.

The challenge to install new capacity is enormous. The UK has around 14 GW of offshore wind capacity but, to meet future energy demands, that capacity will need to grow nearly threefold by 2030 and continue expanding so it can handle 125 GW of wind by 2050. That is a much faster rate of investment than we have seen so far, but projects for 2030 are already falling behind. Given the strength of public opposition to overhead pylons, it is highly unlikely that any pylon proposals will be delivered on time.

The “Clean Power 2030” report sets out how delays are already affecting key projects such as the one from Norwich to Tilbury, which is 184 km of pylons across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. NESO says that it will now be delayed by a year to 2031, and that delay is very costly. NESO estimates that the cost of delay is £4 billion a year—far higher than previous estimates—mainly because of the constraint payments that have to be paid to wind power generators.

Given the public opposition to the Norwich to Tilbury project, the funds being amassed for legal challenges, and the opportunity for judicial review at least twice during the process, it is likely to be delayed for far longer than just one year. That risk is likely to apply to the other 17 pylon schemes proposed in the great grid upgrade. Nevertheless, National Grid plans to use overhead pylons as the primary infrastructure for the massive reinforcement of the national grid. I put it to the Minister that the current concept is not deliverable.

The implication is clear. The way to secure public consent is by pursuing strategies that respect and protect local communities and what they value—their property, their livelihoods and the countryside.

[Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has done a fantastic job in this area. He has been very persuasive in setting out the damage done to his constituency. Does he agree that the strength of the OffSET group—the offshore electricity grid taskforce—demonstrates that the issue is going to affect communities right across East Anglia, including Margaretting village in my constituency, and that therefore the opposition he talks about is likely to be very strong across the whole region?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. It affects other colleagues, including some present here today representing, for example, Lincolnshire. We know that there are concerns in north Wales, and on the east coast of Scotland in the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), who is representing the Opposition Front Bench. This is a very widespread problem.

Undergrounding HVDC cables is not only technically viable, but the most sensible and sustainable solution for the future of our energy network—that is, if we cannot have it offshore. I acknowledge that quite a lot is going offshore, but it rubs salt in the wound that other areas, from Scotland to north-east England, have the luxury of offshore schemes, but we in East Anglia do not. Our countryside is not worth the investment.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

It is interesting to hear the hon. Member talk about delays and the issues with floating offshore wind. Does he agree that we should look at why we have such delays? After 14 years of Conservative Government, one might have thought that many of the challenges would already have been dealt with. Does he acknowledge that many of the current issues are because of a lack of action over the last 14 years?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I accept that the present Government have inherited a planning system and a philosophy of upgrading the national grid that is out of date.

When we were in Government, we were very slow to recognise that such a big, strategic upgrade needed a proper strategy. We started moving towards holistic network design. We commissioned a report from Charles Banner KC to look at streamlining the planning process—I will come on to putting that streamlining in place—and I very much welcome that the Government have commissioned a spatial review of the entire network, which should have been done years ago. I think we were blind to the failings of the structure inherited from the Electricity Act 1989; we should have moved much sooner.

That report should make it easier for the Government to change the out-of-date policy of a presumption in favour of pylons, which we said in our manifesto that we would review. I am very happy for the Minister to blame the previous Government for the difficulties he is facing and to change the policy accordingly, but it will be very odd if he comes to the Dispatch Box to defend what the previous Government were doing, after what the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) just said—but I suspect that that is what he will do.

I put this issue forward in a bipartisan manner. We should all be able to agree that the great grid upgrade is not going fast enough, and that we need to streamline the planning process and speed up delivery. However, we also need to mend our ideas about how we deliver it, because as I have said, undergrounding high voltage direct current cables is not only technically viable, but the most sensible and sustainable solution for the future of our entire energy network.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I would like to return to the hon. Member’s point about international comparisons and other countries nearby perhaps having a presumption in favour of overgrounding. I draw the House’s attention to the fact that Germany’s Opposition recently said that using overhead lines instead of digging underground could save the country €35 billion, and that the German political parties that previously, as part of Angela Merkel’s coalition, backed underground cables have now called for overhead lines to be given priority. Does the hon. Member agree that the picture is not quite so clearcut in mainland Europe?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

What is interesting about Germany is that its presumption was in favour of undergrounding, so the idea that that is a great big experiment and we do not know what it means is incorrect. There is plenty of expertise in Europe. When we look at cost comparisons between undergrounding and pylons, it also depends on the territory we are dealing with.

Our problem is lack of community consent, as Fintan Slye, the executive director of the National Energy System Operator, rightly says. It is a question of swings and roundabouts, but in the case of Norwich to Tilbury, the consequence of delays from trying to run roughshod over the very widespread and well-funded public opposition will be to put up the cost, which makes the cost of undergrounding advantageous over pylons. That is my point.

I am not necessarily disagreeing with the principle of what the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) says, but undergrounding DC cables has great advantages. The latest estimated cost of just one year’s delay for Norwich to Tilbury is four times more than the additional £1 billion cost of undergrounding HVDC— I hope the hon. Gentleman was listening to that: £4 billion a year for delay against £1 billion extra for DC undergrounding. I think that puts this into the field of a no-brainer. Why would we spend all that money fighting through the courts for a very unpopular scheme when we could save time and legal expense by going for a different method?

In the National Energy System Operator’s East Anglia network study, which was published earlier this year, undergrounding HVDC was set out as alternative option 8. The great advantage of undergrounding HVDC is that there will be far less public resistance. Moreover, as I have said, the planning procedures could be streamlined— as recommended to the Government recently by Charles Banner—to conform to the regime for installing new major water pipes. If we had the same planning regime for underground cables as we did for water pipes, we could speed up the process for undergrounding cables.

Underground HVDC offers a scalable, future-proof solution that can be delivered with far less environmental impact, with public support and much more quickly. Schemes without pylons that are already planned by National Grid—for example, in north-east England—are being delivered without public opposition or long delays, which seems to be an enormous advantage for the Government’s objective of decarbonising the grid. There is no comparable resistance from campaign groups, which is clear evidence that underground HVDC gets public support, making it a far more practical and feasible solution.

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I pay tribute to the hard work that the hon. Member has done cross-party on this issue for many years, and I am grateful to be joining that as another east of England MP. The issue of public consent is important, because the proposals could have such a huge impact on local communities. Developers suggest that they could provide community benefits, but with all due respect, the idea of having a community hall 5 miles down the road does not mitigate having massive pylons going past someone’s back garden. Does the hon. Member agree that the problem with regard to public consent is that people who are very well organised will understandably continue to kick up a fuss, which will delay the creation of the renewable energy that we absolutely need and certainly support?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. As the new Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford, she demonstrates that this is a cross-party campaign, supported by people who are as committed to decarbonisation as anything else.

As has been said, there is no comparable resistance from campaign groups in the north-east of England. That is clear evidence that underground HVDC receives public support, making it a far more practical and feasible solution.

In East Anglia, the opposition to overhead pylons is not subsiding; it is growing and becoming more intense. Campaign groups are united in their resistance to this outdated approach to infrastructure. The Government, including the Minister, have made it clear that local campaigners will not be able to block their nationally important mission to build clean energy infrastructure across the UK. We are not blocking; we are trying to help. In my constituency, one local group wrote to National Grid, in response to a consultation, saying:

“By all means, build closer to our houses and shorten the route, just put it underground.”

That demonstrates that communities are not opposed to infrastructure or the objectives behind it. They are just against bad decisions to achieve it.

I mentioned streamlining the planning system to bring it into line with what is required of water companies laying major water pipes. There is a massive underground Anglian water pipe being installed from Bury St Edmunds, across my constituency to Abberton reservoir in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). That includes digging a trench through the sensitive landscape of Dedham vale across the Stour valley, almost exactly where the pylons or alternating current undergrounding will go. Nobody is objecting to that underground scheme. I have not had a whimper of complaint about that pipe going in.

Why stick to pylons when that method is slower and delays will make it far more expensive? The Government may argue, as the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) mentioned, that community benefits will compensate for the disruption to affected areas caused by pylons, but those ideas will not buy off the hostility to pylons and other unwanted infrastructure. Solutions that respect communities and their interests, as well as deliver for our energy network, are the future.

For Norwich to Tilbury, the onshore undergrounding HVDC proposal will cause significantly less environmental damage than overhead cables and AC undergrounding. Let me expand on that. For a start, the entire route would be underground, not just through the sensitive landscapes. The cable trenches required for undergrounding HVDC cables are far narrower than for AC cables.

AC undergrounding is proposed for the area of outstanding natural beauty, the special landscape area that I share with my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). That requires a 120-metre-wide trench, because AC cables need to be spaced out. That means a very wide swathe of destruction, as that vast trench is dug and refilled, and everything in its path is destroyed.

It is extremely expensive to avoid going through archaeological sites. The Stour valley is an archaeological site of the same importance as Stonehenge. If there had been stones in the Stour valley, we would have a Stonehenge, because there is evidence of a wooden henge. Ancient tribes lived there in prehistoric times and it was a significant area throughout Roman times and the middle ages.

All of that is at risk, in addition to the massive destruction of trees, ancient woodland and hedges, in order to install AC underground cables. I am all for mitigating the effect of pylons by undergrounding, but let us not kid ourselves that it is a solution for the most sensitive areas of landscape. It is also much more expensive to underground AC cables than DC cables. I would very much like the proposal to underground cables to be extended to other areas, such as the Roman River valley, which is technically not in the special landscape area but is just as special. The Government have an obligation to respect sensitive countryside, so that could be another cause for a judicial review. A much better solution would be to underground DC, not AC, cables through that sensitive landscape.

Another reason why this proposal is so advantageous is that offshore DC to onshore AC requires huge DC-to-AC converters at the cable end points. When DC current generated by a wind farm lands somewhere such as Friston in the constituency of Suffolk Coastal, there has to be a massive DC-to-AC converter for it to go into the AC grid network. If we started building a DC grid network—for example, if energy ran all the way from Norwich to Tilbury on a DC line—all those connections could go straight into the DC network, avoiding the need for extra infrastructure. Incidentally, that would apply to the interconnectors for energy coming from the continent. Electricity arriving from the proposed Tarchon Energy interconnector would be DC, so we would not need a massive DC-to-AC converter at Ardley in my constituency; we could have just one DC-to-AC converter at the point at which the electricity needs to be converted to AC much nearer London—at Tilbury or even the Isle of Grain.

It is clear that HVDC is right for many parts of the United Kingdom, not just East Anglia. Wind power stations are increasingly located along the coast or just off our coastline, and a DC transmission network would reflect that. Converting power to AC at landfall is inefficient and duplicative. A properly designed onshore and offshore HVDC network would reduce the infrastructure needed, cut down on converter stations and enable us to focus on building for real demand, rather than just peak production.

Globally, HVDC is becoming the standard for modern energy networks. By investing in HVDC now, the UK can maintain its leadership in renewable energy, create jobs and develop skills that will keep us competitive. The alternative is clinging to outdated, mid-20th century technology that will leave us falling behind other countries. Germany will not give up HVDC undergrounding altogether, but that is the presumption in our planning system, which I suggest the Government need to revise.

The Government must show decisive leadership and embrace an HVDC future. This is about more than just reducing costs and avoiding delays; it is about ensuring we meet our renewable energy goals in a way that works for communities, the environment, the economy and the planet.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. This debate is an opportunity to discuss how to upgrade the grid in the best way possible, because currently, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, the rules do not work. Despite the fact that we are one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and the most depleted in the G7, our planning system does not take nature into account.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s acknowledgment that the previous Government did not adequately reform the energy system. I am also struck by the fact that he mentioned the 1989 Act. He has been in the House since 1992, when all the Government Members in the Chamber, with the exception of myself, were in school. I have been an ardent monitor of this House and energy policy more widely, and I have not seen him quite so enthusiastic about energy market reform until now, so I am somewhat sceptical about his conversion to the idea that we need to change our planning system. I am here to change the rules, and I am glad that he is, but we need to agree on exactly how to do that. We need to preserve our nature, while increasing our efforts to restore it.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge it was the previous Government who commissioned the Banner report on streamlining the system? Let us approach this on a bipartisan basis—we are all on the same side, trying to achieve the great upgrade of our electricity grid—and stop scoring party political points, shall we?

[Ms Billington]

I am perfectly happy to acknowledge when the Opposition are right and I am afraid to say that on this one they are not. We need to preserve the nature we have, while increasing efforts to restore nature. To restore nature by 2030 by 30% is one of our manifesto commitments, and that has to be taken into account with planning and national infrastructure projects. We will not reach our ambitious climate targets without it. I am disappointed there was no reference to the impact of this kind of infrastructure on nature by the hon. Gentleman. Reaching our targets will require a strong land use framework that intersects with an energy special plan, to which we have committed, and an updated national planning policy framework. I am delighted that the Government are currently working on all three of these documents and I look forward to seeing more detail on them.

It was interesting to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to the importance of public consent and support. For anyone who is aware of my work before I came to Parliament, public consent and support are absolutely vital for us to be able to undertake the transformation that we are discussing. That also involves benefit for communities, and ownership and accountability for those communities, in the form of local energy projects to help us build a more resilient grid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

That is a good point, and it is why Lincolnshire county council’s submission to National Grid specifically takes into account the trenching problem that the hon. Lady raised. It suggests an offshore grid, but obviously one that avoids the damage she mentioned. I recommend that she studies that submission—it is in the public domain—to see how we can offshore that grid without damaging the salt marshes in the way she suggests.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) made the relevant point that there are balancing factors. First, once cables are undergrounded, they are maintenance free, but pylons require constant maintenance, which therefore adds to their carbon footprint. Everybody has seen that. Secondly, salt marshes are very often Ramsar sites and migration bird sites, and we do not want overhead power lines interfering with the migration of birds. We often see that scores of swans have been killed on power lines because they are not very good at navigating around these things.

[Sir John Hayes]

With the insight for which he is known, my hon. Friend has anticipated two of the points that I was going to make. The problem with pylons being so close to SSSIs is that the birds do not know boundaries. Of course, the salt marsh in Lincolnshire matters because, exactly as my hon. Friend said, it is important as a site for geese and duck in particular. To run the pylons so close to that is at best highly contentious and at worse wholly destructive. The offshore grid that my hon. Friend describes can be run further out to sea, which is what we do with cables routinely. If we were able to see the ocean bed around our islands, we would see any number of trunked cables that run through them, which provide vital power and communications infrastructure.

[Sir John Hayes]

There is a big argument to be had about costs because we are planning a project that will last decades—perhaps even longer. When I was the Energy Minister, I was very conscious of the fact that we might be making 100-year decisions. It is very hard to gauge costs over time because of two things. First, there are the ongoing maintenance costs associated with any line that runs above ground, and given the changing climate, it is likely that extreme weather events will become more frequent, and extreme weather events will have an effect on anything above ground. Secondly, the relative costs of underground and overhead cables vary according to the kind of cable laid, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said; and indeed some of the evidence from other places in Europe and elsewhere suggests that the cost of trunking cables underground is falling, whereas there is no similar reduction in the cost of overhead cables, which, on pylons, have been at the same cost for a very long time indeed.

The final point is about consent. The longer these things take, the more they cost. Certainly in Lincolnshire—and I imagine this is true in Essex, Suffolk and other places—there will be protracted legal challenges to the pylons, whereas, with local support and the support of local authorities like Lincolnshire county council, undergrounding would be a much more straightforward affair. Factoring in those costs is complex, but it needs to happen.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Very briefly, the ESO review of the east of England network demonstrated that there is a higher up-front cost for undergrounding of an extra £1 billion from Norwich to Tilbury, but in the longer term it saves money. It is just not correct to say that undergrounding is automatically much more expensive. That is a departmental mantra that is now discredited—just read the ESO and NESO documents.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention—he is being very generous in giving way—can I just say that we have to move on to the Front-Bench speakers at 10.30 am and there are many people who wish to participate? I have not imposed time limits; all I am saying is that there are 13 minutes left and probably seven people who want to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will speak briefly because I know that many of my colleagues also wish to speak.

I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin). This does not have to be a partisan issue, but equally we have to acknowledge the situation as we find it, not the fantasy that we wish it to be. The reality is that we have had 14 years in which decisions could have been made.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Here we go.

[Jack Abbott]

The hon. Gentleman says, “Here we go”, but it is absolutely relevant to this debate. Yes, the Conservative Government passed the Banner report—well done. That is the big achievement of the last 14 years. There was a fundamental opportunity over the last decade to recognise where we were going as a country, and what we needed to do. Those decisions were consistently kicked down the line, and now we are here.

The window in which we have to operate is incredibly narrow. We essentially have five years to meet the transition, which we have to do. Yes, underground cabling will cost more, but also there is a significant time delay, too. It is not a 2030 timeframe; it is a 2034 one. Let us get over the fantasy of a magical offshore grid connection that will solve everything way more cheaply and quickly. It just does not exist. We have to be honest with people.

There will always be opposition to any development. I grew up in Suffolk; I know that there will be opposition to the grid upgrades. There is also opposition to solar farms in the west of the county. Obviously, there is opposition to Sizewell C and things like it, but that cannot get in the way of progress. There is also the Green party bingo card—opposing all the projects; well, we definitely cannot go down that route either.

This is about opportunity. There is an opportunity to say that we will be transitioning to renewable energy to fulfil our mission and the guarantee that we made to working people at the election. It is our chance to seize the opportunity for greater energy independence, and for us—including my home county of Suffolk—to seize the opportunity to be world leaders in the energy transition. We cannot keep going around the houses, dithering, delaying and pretending that this stuff will not happen. It might sound good to constituents back home, but I grew up in that area—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I thank the Minister for his engagement and for the meeting he had with MPs. It would be very kind if he could write to me with the further detail that he has not been able to put on the record today. I would also point out that the only orange flag against ultrahigh voltage direct current undergrounding in the ESO review in the spring was about cable availability. It was not a red flag but an orange flag. With streamlining of the planning process, this could be sped up. It is a possibility, and I hope the Minister will continue dialogue on this issue, because I think he will need this as a solution to the problems he will run into.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order. No. 10(6)).