Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Debate between Bob Seely and Alan Whitehead

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitehead]

Sorry, no—I have a general habit of wearing a mask whenever possible.

The Bill essentially falls into three parts. Part 1 concerns the designation of a company for the receipt of regulated asset base payments. Part 2 concerns the collection and disbursement of funds through the regulated asset base arrangements. Part 3 sets out a special administration regime, should a nuclear power plant be unable to carry out its obligations arising from the institution of the regulated asset base arrangement.

The Bill, essentially, is trying to produce a method for funding and getting over the line one particular nuclear power plant: Sizewell C. That is the only plant that is developed enough to be able to generate by 2030. A substantial part of the Bill is not about the general future of nuclear, or the relationship with nuclear renewables; it is about how one plant is to be financed over the next period so that it can actually start producing energy, hopefully by the end of this decade or shortly thereafter.

The Labour party supports nuclear power for the future and is particularly concerned that, for example, the Climate Change Committee has indicated that some 8 GW of nuclear power might be put in the mix for low-carbon renewable power for the future. Sizewell C is an important part of that process—indeed, getting it going is long overdue. Perhaps I can put the record straight, because the previous Labour Government, as the 2007 nuclear White Paper and the strategic planning documents of 2009-10 show, laid the basis for the present number of sites to be considered and, therefore, for nuclear power going forward.

[Bob Seely]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but unfortunately we lost a decade, from 1997 to 2007, when nuclear was taken off the table. Because of the timescales, which he is well aware of, will he just accept—this is not necessarily party political—that losing that decade put us back and is costing us now?

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member is quite right that prior to 2007 the Labour Government did not consider the development of nuclear power by state means to be an appropriate way forward, although they never suggested that the development of nuclear power by private means could not be countenanced. However, we have since had more than 10 years of Conservative-led Government, which has produced precisely no nuclear power plants. Indeed, there is one nuclear power plant in the pipeline, and we hope a nuclear power plant that can be financed by reasonable means. One of the problems with the previous plant, Hinkley Point C, which the present Government got off the ground, was the funding arrangements, with EDF supplying most of the capital for the plant and then a CfD for the plant at the end, which looks like it will be quite disastrous, with future electricity prices being completely uneconomic.

It is therefore important that we get a method for funding those nuclear plants, and particularly Sizewell C, that does not fall into those traps and is also secure for the future. That is the concern of our amendments 1 and 2. To put the record straight, anyone who looks at those amendments reasonably closely will see that amendment 1 defines what is stated in amendment 2, and that it is defined as

“means owned by a company controlled by a foreign state and operating for investment purposes.”

That does not include EDF. Let us be clear from the outset that EDF is not

“a company controlled by a foreign state.”

Although it is substantially owned by a foreign state, it is not operating for investment purposes, but for production purposes. Let us be clear about what the particular concern is for the future.

Draft Contracts for Difference (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018

Debate between Bob Seely and Alan Whitehead

Wednesday 11th July 2018 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

As the Minister has set out, a number of amendments—some small, some large—have been gathered together under the heading Contracts for Difference (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018. We have therefore already booked that title for this year, and should other portmanteau proposals come forward, presumably we will have to think of a different title for a future statutory instrument.

The miscellaneous amendments have different weights attached to them, and perhaps I can make progress if I apply very little weight to the two amendments that concern CHP plants and waste. To some extent we have discussed those amendments before, and they relate—among other things—to a desire to ensure that only the most efficient CHP plants obtain CfD arrangements, while at the same time enabling those CHP plants to distinguish between what they do for heat and what they do for power. Previously that balance was not quite right, and the amendments make a positive change in that direction. The amendment on waste makes a positive change by ensuring that what is done regarding sustainability criteria for fuel is properly carried out. Those amendments have two big ticks in the miscellaneous box and we need pay them no further attention, important though they are to the lives of future CHP plants.

The third amendment is a little less miscellaneous, and we need to understand what it seeks to do. The amendment would bring onshore wind back into place in the United Kingdom, and I suspect that that is the subject of rather more internal discussion on the Government Benches than on the Opposition Benches. Labour Members would love onshore wind to come back across the United Kingdom, as long as any concerns are addressed, there is community agreement to the onshore plants, proper planning arrangements are undertaken and proper value for money is obtained. We know, I think, that moves are afoot by the Government, and those who would take substantially the same position, to move such arrangements forward. As far as I can see, on this occasion it was decided to bring back some onshore wind where it was felt that such schemes were already in the pipeline. As the Minister said, a number of schemes could proceed rapidly and fruitfully, and if those schemes could be unleashed, we could have onshore wind in those areas.

The problem is that if we are trying to do that without actually bringing onshore wind back as such, we need a device to do it. The device used here is to say that those places where onshore wind might come back must be defined as a remote island. The problem that then arises is what constitutes a remote island. If a remote island is defined in a careless way, we might find that onshore wind is brought back in places where it was not intended.

Secondly, since onshore wind has for a long time been approved under state aid arrangements by the EU, bringing it back by creating a different category called remote island wind means that state aid clearance must, effectively, be applied for all over again. It would not be possible to apply specifically for onshore wind to come back on stream only on certain islands; that would certainly not get state aid approval, because area-specific arrangements cannot be declared for state aid clearance. It would be necessary to say that in principle it could be anywhere, and then define things to narrow it down to the desired result. In this instance, that result would be the Hebrides, the Shetlands and the Orkneys.

Things then get a little amusing, because on looking at the definition of what a remote offshore island is, we can see the wheels going round. It starts by saying, “It has to be an island.” Well, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight is in his place this afternoon; it might include the Isle of Wight. However, the Isle of Wight is of course in England, and the present policy arrangements probably would not include suddenly covering the Isle of Wight with wind farm applications.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is kind to mention the Isle of Wight, but I hope he is not implying that we are remote.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman strikes the nail on the head, because the regulations progressively exclude the Isle of Wight from the definition. The first criterion is that the remote island needs to be connected by a cable to the mainland, but not by any old cable. It must be a 50 km cable to a main joining point for the national grid or the distributing grid and, furthermore, 20 km of that cable has to be under the sea. There is not a 20 km undersea cable between the Isle of Wight and where the interconnector to the Isle of Wight lands, near my constituency in Southampton. So that is the Isle of Wight out of the question.

The second criterion is that the remote island has to be 10 km away, along all of its coastline, from the mainland. That also eliminates the Isle of Wight, as well as Anglesey and a number of other places. So that is sorted out.

Gradually, by a process of elimination, the point that the Government wanted to get to is reached: the only qualifying islands happen to be the Hebrides, the Shetlands and the Orkneys. There we have remote island wind by definition, without saying what a remote island is. Well done to the Government for getting to that position—the introduction of onshore wind without actually introducing onshore wind. It is quite clever.

In order to make a separate category, however, it is necessary to compare the situation with what would be the case for onshore wind, which already has state aid, and differentiate the two. Indeed, the impact assessment does just that. In an interesting passage, it states:

“The Government considers that the higher costs faced by RIW projects mean that at present they would find it difficult to effectively compete with the more established technologies in Pot 1, including ‘mainland’ onshore wind projects”,

none of which exist, of course, because they are banned. An impact assessment has been carried out comparing remote island wind with onshore wind, when there is nothing to compare with at the moment because there is none, in order to justify a marginally higher administrative CfD than would be the case were it simply to be defined as a variant of onshore wind in general.

Consequently, what we have here is onshore wind coming back potentially at a higher cost than would have been the case had onshore wind come back with the variation, with the overall state aid approval being as it was for onshore wind as a whole. This move, smart though it is, is not without potential cost. I hope the CfDs that come forward under pot 2 will be very competitive; I am sure they will be, because onshore wind has come down to such an extent that there may even be a net nil cost for the administrative CfDs that will be put forward. We hope that that will be the case but, in principle, a mechanism has been put in place, because of this particular convoluted definition, to implant a little more expense in the process than would otherwise be the case.

The other thing I ought to mention in passing is that, smart though this mechanism is, it is not entirely perfect in terms of English onshore wind. Onshore wind is banned across England—I think we agree that that is the case—except, now, for one place, which is the Isles of Scilly. They have an undersea cable of more than 50 km—in fact, they have a cable of 55 km to the agreed connection—more than 20 km of which is under the sea, and they are 23 miles off the coast of Cornwall. We will have inadvertently restored onshore wind to England this afternoon. Admittedly, I should not be taken as advocating in any shape or form the placing of wind farms on the Isles of Scilly, but that is what we appear in principle to be doing.

As the Minister can gather, I am one-third delighted by this move, one-third amused by the hoops and reverse somersaults that we have had to go through in order to achieve it, and one-third concerned that the much easier process—to bring onshore wind back in one way or another, with proper constraints, planning arrangements and care—has not been undertaken.

In that context, I ask the Minister one question on the whole process. I do not expect him to stand up and agree with my analysis of exactly why this has been done, but it is the case that state aid approval was applied for, I think, for this particular subset definition. I think it is also the case that the European Commission has informally told the UK that it would not object to this being put in as a sub-definition. I am not clear whether anything formal has yet come from the EU to the UK saying, “Not only will we not object, but we will stamp this as far as state aid approval is concerned.” I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether that is the case.

After all that, we will not seek to divide the Committee this afternoon. I merely place on the record the recommendation that the next step, should there be a further statutory instrument containing miscellaneous amendments, should be to bring onshore wind back properly, with proper community protections, to ensure that we get the benefits and savings from onshore wind that many of us in this Chamber want to see and find that we are prevented from enjoying.