Great British Energy Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Catherine Fookes and Stephen Flynn

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

Q Welcome, Mr Maier. It is great to meet you—thank you for coming before the Committee. In Monmouthshire, we have seen the benefit of a lot of community energy projects, such as solar power on the Bridges community centre in Monmouth. In Wales, we have also seen lots of hydro projects in community energy, such as Ynni Ogwen in Bangor. Can you share how you think the Bill’s provisions will support community energy projects in the whole of Britain and Wales?

Juergen Maier: Community energy is definitely a priority for Great British Energy. If you want to point specifically to the Bill, clause 3, “Objects”, refers in subsection (2)(a) to

“the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy”.

I see community energy as a core part of that. As Great British Energy, we definitely want to support the schemes that you have been talking about, whether those are in Wales, Scotland, England or Northern Ireland. We will definitely be doing that.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Q Thank you for joining us this morning, Mr Maier. May I go back to your answer to a previous question? I do not think you quite clarified how many jobs would be in Aberdeen. If I picked you up correctly, you said that you expected those jobs to be operational engineering jobs. Could you elaborate on that? Could you give a steer or a little clarity on what you expect GB Energy to do in practice? The Bill states that the Secretary of State will provide clarity subsequently, but there is a lot of discourse in the public domain about what GB Energy will actually do.

Juergen Maier: Indeed. You are right that I did not answer your first question directly. The reason, obviously, is that we have not been able to put a direct number on it yet. It will be in the hundreds; it may eventually be 1,000 or more in the HQ. You will now say, “That is not going to help manage the energy transition,” but the reason is that the large numbers of people we will be helping to employ will be in the supply chain. If we look at some of the numbers already, by the end of the decade 100,000 people will be employed in offshore wind. I hope that many more of those will be in floating offshore wind, and floating offshore wind will happen off the coast of Aberdeen and indeed the whole east coast of the United Kingdom.

The jobs will be the sort that work with supply chains and the private sector to determine how we will enable floating offshore wind. What is the technology? What are the innovation challenges? What about project-managing the schemes, helping them to get through planning permission and making sure that they get on the grid? There will be all those sorts of questions. I very much see the role of Great British Energy as that of an enabler to get such new technologies on to the grid, and as that of an investor and co-investor. It will take quite a team of people and skills to achieve that.

Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Catherine Fookes and Stephen Flynn

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

Q I welcome both witnesses to the Committee. Clause 5(5) states that the Secretary of State will consult Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland Ministers, so as a Welsh MP I am content—it sounds like you are, too—that our devolved Administrations will be consulted before things happen. I think it was Mr McGirr who said there were bound to be lots of projects in Scotland. I want to flag the fact that Wales is also extremely well placed to receive some of these projects in terms of hydro, tidal and wind energy. What in the Bill would help us to ensure that lots of the investment comes to Wales?

Alistair McGirr: I am very supportive of those projects coming to Wales. Obviously the Celtic sea auctions are another example of the upcoming opportunities in Wales. The reality is that GB Energy is not going to be the vehicle that drives that—that will be the wider policy framework in terms of what happens here in Westminster, and also in the regulatory frameworks that are in place and what happens in the devolved Administrations. My reference to Scotland is not to say that other parts of the country could not have the opportunities for investment. It is just that the sheer scale of the opportunities in Scotland for wind, hydro, some of the grid projects, CCS and hydrogen mean there is a significant opportunity in Scotland. That is one of the reasons why GB Energy has been located up in that area.

Tristan Zipfel: I can only concur. Wales is very important for us. We have onshore wind projects that we are actively promoting in Wales. I think GB Energy could play a role there. I want to emphasise, however, that I do not think GB Energy on its own will be the solution to unlocking the opportunities you describe. I think it is really important in Wales in particular that there is an effort on the policy side to provide more certainty and more visibility of the projects, as well as the question of the grid, which is a problem. But I concur that Wales is very important strategically from our standpoint as a renewable energy developer.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

Q Thank you for coming in, gents; it is always nice to hear positive things about Scotland.

In relation to some of the objects that are detailed in clause 3, I think we are all excited about the potential for the state to take a proactive role in the production of energy, but the Bill is quite clear that it is about

“the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy…the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions…improvements in energy efficiency, and…measures for ensuring the security of the supply of energy.”

SSE is investing £40 billion in clean tech over the next 10 years, and EDF is investing £50 billion or so. How far do you think £1.6 billion can go, in real terms, given the breadth of the different things the Bill seeks to achieve?

Alistair McGirr: In reality, it is not going to be the sole investor that is going to deliver the clean energy transition. As you allude to, we have a significant investment programme that we would be keen to bring to fruition over the next 10 years or so. It is about how you best use the money that is available. Where can we accelerate the investment and crowd in the scale of investment that is going to be required? We may be talking about big numbers, and in EDF as well—not only here in the UK but elsewhere—but there will not be just one investor. If you look at the National Infrastructure Commission, for instance, they are projecting in the region of £25 billion to £30 billion of investment in energy infrastructure per year for the next decade. The scale of the investment is going to be much bigger than any single entity, be it GB Energy, SSE or EDF.

Tristan Zipfel: Choices will need to be made—you cannot do everything with that pot of money—and it is really about identifying the areas where they will have maximum impact and where they will be most complementary to the effort of the private sector. It is not about displacing the private sector; it is more about covering the gaps and providing a boost to more investment in the sector.

That is also the spirit of the agreement with the Crown Estate. Looking at offshore wind, what is currently the blocker for more investment? It is the timeframe that it takes to develop a project. The spirit of that agreement is to look at an early stage and make it easier for private investors to invest in projects that are more de-risked than they are at the moment. That is the right approach, in my view, and it could be expanded to the other technologies in the scope of GB Energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine Fookes]

Q I draw your attention to clause 5(5) on consulting Welsh Ministers on areas within the legislative competence of the Senedd. I am pleased that, under the Bill, the Welsh Government will be consulted. I wonder whether you have had any intergovernmental collaboration so far to inform the Bill.

Michael Shanks: That is an important question. We have done several different things already. I have had many conversations with my counterparts in the Welsh Government, in the Scottish Government and, to a different degree, in the Northern Ireland Executive. Energy is of course transferred in Northern Ireland, but we are keen that they are still part of the Bill, so that they can benefit from some of the GB Energy possibilities, although it will be a different relationship because they are part of a different grid.

All my conversations with the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government have been about how we collaborate, not just on the formal process of consulting on the statement of priorities, but on how they can be part of helping GB Energy to set its priorities on an ongoing basis. On Monday, I met the Cabinet Secretary in the Scottish Government. We talked about, for example, the Scottish Government having a role in a much wider sense in the company to help with some of the priorities in Scotland.

There are a variety of ways. What is critical is that the devolved Administrations should absolutely be consulted, and we want that to be an open process, but we have also reset the relationships with the devolved Administrations in a way that means that this is not now a combative process. Across the UK, we have broadly the same outcomes in mind for clean power, with slightly different targets here and there, but we are all on the same journey. That allows us to align a lot of our priorities and to deliver for people all across the UK. I want that to be an open and collaborative approach. Consultation is the formal part, but it is not the limit of what we think can happen.

[Stephen Flynn]

Q Thank you, Minister, for your candour so far. Clause 3(2)(c) refers to energy efficiency. Can you clarify to the Committee when GB Energy will reduce energy bills by £300?

Michael Shanks: In the election, we committed that bills would come down. That figure was from independent analysts. We never said that bills would come down overnight; this is a process that will take time. GB Energy is part of delivering that. Without GB Energy, it would be harder to reach our targets by 2030 and to bring down bills for everyone. The reality with bills is that we remain far too wedded to fossil fuels; whether they come from the North sea or not, they are traded on the international market and we are subject to all the spikes, so reducing our dependence on unabated gas is critical. That is why I hope that all Members will vote to support GB Energy as part of the solution, including you.