National Policy Statements

Debate between Charles Hendry and Dan Byles

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

I would give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, but he was the one who made me depart from my extremely consensual speech into this area of great contention. I am keen that we should get on to the issues of planning policy that are at the heart of our debate.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

To come back to the future of nuclear power in the UK and the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) about keeping the lights on, Germany is now considering extending the lives of its reactors by up to 12 years. I am a great supporter of the idea that we need to replace our nuclear reactors with new nuclear reactors, but is there any scope in the Department’s plan to extend the lives of our current reactors to try to bridge that gap?

[Charles Hendry]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. The situation in Germany is very different from the situation here. The plan in Germany had been to have an artificially early closure of the nuclear fleet, and Chancellor Merkel’s Government have allowed them to operate for their full lives. They have reversed a decision that would have brought about early closure. The approach that we have always taken in the United Kingdom is that plants should operate for their safe life. If there is an independent assessment that they can operate for longer than had been planned, that should be considered. The case here is based on safety and security issues and some recent life extensions have been given, which we welcome. At the end of the day the extensions are a bonus rather than a building block in energy policy, but my hon. Friend makes an important point.

I want to get back to some of the key areas of the debate. Our concern is that the existing market framework will not deliver the scale of investment needed in renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage, all of which have significant up-front costs. Our electricity market reform programme will examine the reforms necessary to restructure the electricity market to decarbonise the power sector by the 2030s while maintaining security of supply and affordable prices. We must move quickly to give investors certainty about our reforms because of the long lead-times in developing new generation capacity. Our reform of the planning system for major infrastructure, including for major energy infrastructure, also has an important role, as does the consultation on the revised draft energy national policy statements.

Reducing demand for electricity wherever possible is important in meeting our energy objectives. Our 2050 pathways analysis shows that total UK energy demand from all sources will need to fall significantly by 2050. As I have mentioned, the green deal will save energy in the home and non-domestic buildings. We will also roll out smart meters to help to reduce demand. However, those savings will be offset by increases in other areas, such as the increased use of electricity in industrial and domestic heating and in transport. Our 2050 pathways analysis suggests that demand for electricity may even double by 2050, as we plug into the grid to power our cars and heat our homes.

Decarbonising surface transport is essential to meet our target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, as we are required to do by law. We expect electrification to play a major role in achieving that. While electric vehicles can be powered up overnight by fluctuating electricity generation, trains, for example, will need more base load generation. We have already announced £900 million of investment in the electrification of train lines from London to Didcot, Newbury and Oxford, and for lines serving Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Blackpool. In the new year, we will consult on the next steps for building a national high-speed rail network, which will free up capacity to allow a shift of freight from road to rail and provide an attractive low-carbon option for travelling between our major cities.

Some 80% of journeys in the UK are currently made by car, and cars will continue to play an essential part in our national transport infrastructure. The Government announced in the spending review investment of more than £400 million in measures to promote the uptake of ultra-low-carbon vehicle technologies. That includes the plug-in car grant, which will be available from January 2011 and which will provide a grant of 25% of the vehicle price up to £5,000. We are also continuing the plugged-in places programme, which supports the development of electric vehicle recharging infrastructure in strategic locations. As part of the coalition agreement, we have also undertaken to mandate a national network of vehicle recharging facilities.

We want to see more decentralised and community energy systems, such as microgeneration, make a contribution to our targets on reducing carbon emissions and increasing energy security. However, we do not believe that decentralised and community energy systems are likely to lead to the significant replacement of large-scale energy infrastructure, which is why there is an urgent need for new major energy infrastructure.