Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Charles Hendry and Joan Ruddock(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
14. What assessment he has made of the report by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering on shale gas extraction in the UK.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)
In response to calls for an independent and rigorous examination of the evidence on fracking, there could be no more authoritative or independent sources of advice than the UK’s science and engineering academies. Their report is therefore particularly welcome, and we will study it carefully in considering the future of fracking for shale gas in the UK. Its main message is that shale gas fracking could be allowed within strict environmental and safety constraints.
Dame Joan Ruddock
As the Minister will know, the report says that some issues merit further consideration, including climate risks. For the avoidance of doubt, will he carry out a comprehensive assessment of the emissions arising from the extraction of shale gas, and indeed its subsequent use?
Charles Hendry
The right hon. Lady brings tremendous expertise to this debate. We have already commissioned independent advice on some of the fracking issues, which is being subjected to wider analysis and peer review. One of the most thorough assessments has been requested by Sir John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientist. We will look at all the evidence. We believe that the technology has a potential that must be explored, but that will be done only with the most careful analysis of all the environmental and safety considerations.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Charles Hendry and Joan Ruddock
Charles Hendry
We have looked at that issue. It seems rather peculiar to set a minimum distance for a wind farm but not for a nuclear power station. We need sensible and sound national policy guidance that enables local councils to make the appropriate decisions, but we will continue to look at all the environmental issues relating to the applications.
Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Conservative manifesto said that 15% of energy should come from renewable sources such as wind. The Secretary of State said that the proportion should be 40%. Who won?
Charles Hendry
The right hon. Lady is very much aware that we have a legally binding requirement from the EU that renewable sources must supply 15% of our total energy needs by 2020. The former Labour Government set a target for achieving that, whereas we are working out how to deliver it—something that they signally failed to do—in order to make sure that we have a robust policy that stands the test of time.
Joan Ruddock
So the Tories won again. In our manifesto, we said that every council should have a local target to help meet the national target, which was indeed 15%. The Liberal Democrats agreed with that. Is that now the Government’s policy, or have the Tories won again? Will Liberal Democrat and Tory councils still be saying, “Not in my back yard”?
Charles Hendry
The right hon. Lady fails to understand how the coalition works. We have—[Interruption.] We have identified ways to work very constructively together. We are absolutely committed to the principle of localism, which means allowing local people, communities and councils to decide on the issues that affect them most. That lies at the heart of our approach, but we are working out how to deliver on our policies—something that she significantly failed to do in government. It is fine to have ambitious targets, but without the real road map for 2020—and way beyond, to 2050—that we are putting in place, there was no hope of delivering on her high ambitions.
Nuclear Energy
Debate between Charles Hendry and Joan Ruddock(13 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) on his success in securing the debate and on the way in which he made his case. He has always been a supporter of nuclear power and has worked hard to keep the issue before the House. Not all of us in the Labour party have shared his enthusiasm over the years. Indeed, my own position was not dissimilar to that of the Prime Minister, who said that nuclear energy was an energy of last resort. However, in any consideration of nuclear energy, we need to ask why so many people have changed their minds in favour of new nuclear, and what that means for those who have not.
As my hon. Friend said, the twin imperatives of tackling climate change and achieving energy security have focused and changed minds on new nuclear—but only some minds. Despite constantly challenging the Labour Government to do more on climate change, the Liberal Democrats in their manifesto explicitly rejected a new generation of new nuclear power stations, and we have heard contributions this morning that have entirely underlined that.
Perhaps the Minister could say whether he remains committed to a reduction in greenhouse gases of 34% by 2020, and at least 80% by 2050, as specified in Labour’s Climate Change Act 2008, given the Liberal Democrats’ brake on his nuclear ambitions. Does he recall the warning given by his newly acquired friend, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who stated:
“I assure any investors who may be watching our debate…that their investment will be at risk if we play a part in any future Government, because if we had the chance we would seek to slow down, and if possible to stop, the development of nuclear power.”—[Official Report, 30 April 2008; Vol. 475, c. 322.]?
That is in stark contrast to the Minister’s statement that clarity is essential if new investment is to happen.
What are business and industry to make of the coalition Government’s position? It is clear that there is no united Government position on nuclear energy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) said, there is not just one or even two but three positions. The coalition agreement states that the Government will introduce a national planning statement, so they are notionally in favour of nuclear. But a Liberal Democrat representative will speak against it, and the Liberal Democrat party will abstain in any vote. We always knew that being a Liberal Democrat in opposition meant not having to choose. It seems that old habits die hard and that Liberal Democrats do not accept the responsibilities of government, so perhaps the Minister will tell us whether his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is committed to nuclear power. Was not one of the very first actions of his Government to create the very risks to investment, and slow-down in the development of nuclear power that the hon. Member for Cheltenham threatened?
Much has been said about Sheffield Forgemasters, and some of it bears repeating. Surely the Minister—I have the greatest regard for him and welcome him to his new position—must have shared my astonishment at the decision to cancel the loan to that company. I well remember him in opposition constantly banging on about energy security and investing in manufacturing, so what is his explanation? The deal took two years to negotiate, and would have put the UK at the forefront of an expanding market with great export opportunities. There must have been collusion between a Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary and a Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary who are determined to slow down the nuclear replacement programme that we were putting in place. Exactly what role did Liberal Democrat opposition to nuclear play in the Sheffield Forgemasters decision, and can we have a full explanation? How will that decision affect the timetable for new nuclear?
Without the new investment by Sheffield Forgemasters, the waiting list for pressure vessels is too long. Korean and other companies, including two in China, intend to enter the business of making large forgings, but the work necessary to ensure that steel is made to the right quality is bound to take several years. Any failure of the reactor core would be catastrophic, as the Minister knows, and customers will be wary about buying from a company without sufficient experience. Sheffield Forgemasters is one of a small number of businesses in the world that could increase the speed of roll-out of new nuclear. Forgemasters might have been the central company in a nuclear renaissance in the UK.
So what now? In government, we systematically developed the instruments and legal frameworks necessary for the transition to a low-carbon economy. We believed that the energy revolution was vital to our security and to tackling climate change. Planning was clearly an obstacle, so we created the Infrastructure Planning Commission. Despite the CBI saying that it is vital for strategic infrastructure, we understand that the coalition plans to scrap it. In response to that announcement by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Clare Spottiswoode, chair of Energy Solutions Europe, which helps to manage five nuclear sites in the UK, said:
“People are already nervous...the risk is they will just take their money elsewhere.”
Who will make the decisions on new nuclear plants under the coalition’s proposals? I believe that it will be none other than the Energy Secretary, who opposes nuclear power. Does his hon. Friend the Minister of State have any confidence that new nuclear plants will be built? Will the Secretary of State chair the Nuclear Development Forum, or will that also be scrapped? If he does not want to support British manufacturers of components for new nuclear, how does he plan to encourage industry? Is he aware that in the real world where private finance is hard to come by, support through soft loans, tax breaks and procurement policies is commonly provided by our competitors?
In the run-up to the election, both parts of the coalition talked about the need to make Britain less dependent on financial markets and property speculators as the engines of growth. They talked about green investment banks. They talked the talk, but clearly they have no intention of walking the walk. Frankly, cutting investment in a highly skilled and productive British manufacturing company is economically illiterate. Last week the Minister talked about skills, and praised the chief executive officer of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear, John Llewellyn.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)
Jean Llewellyn.
Joan Ruddock
I am grateful for the Minister’s advice. I shall call him Mr Llewellyn—I do not know him.
Joan Ruddock
I accept entirely that I have made an error, but I obtained the information from a good source, so I blame that source and not myself. I accept that the chief executive officer is a woman. I have never met her, but she praised the Northwest Regional Development Agency and said that the sector’s collaboration in skills training with the agency’s backing
“was an example envied by other countries”.
Will the Minister tell us his Government's intentions for that agency?
What is left? Is it correct that there will be no assistance with planning, no assistance with investment and no assistance with skills? I anticipate that the Minister's answer will be to create a floor price for carbon, something that we, of course, considered when in government. Unusually, I join the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) in asking what progress has been made. How effective does the Minister believe he can be in trying to set a floor for a single member state, at what level might it be set and what might be the effect on energy consumers? What talks have he or his officials had with other member states on the functioning of the EU’s emissions trading scheme and the carbon price? I can tell him that there is no easy solution.
The Labour Government transformed the UK's approach to energy security, and recognised the finite future of North sea oil and gas, the challenge of imports and the need dramatically to increase renewables in the face of climate change. We added to that mix the need for a new generation of nuclear power stations and the development of carbon capture and storage to enable us to burn clean coal. We put everything in place to achieve a low-carbon economy. This should be a time of great opportunity. Instead, it is a time of confusion, contradiction and lack of confidence. The Government have made a bad start.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West for giving us all the opportunity to make these issues clear to the coalition, and I congratulate him and all other Members who have contributed to this debate. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Charles Hendry
I am grateful for that intervention. Other issues have also been raised, on which I will certainly write to hon. Members. On Sheffield Forgemasters, the decision was not a reflection of the quality of its workmanship or the nature of the company. We simply had to look across the board at a vast number of projects to which significant sums of money had been committed at a time when the nation could not afford it. Essentially the Government were having to borrow money to lend money. If one went to a bank and said, “I need an overdraft because I want to give more money to charity,” the bank would question the wisdom of that approach.
Charles Hendry
It is not, but the similarity in the situation I outlined exists. I am not suggesting that the money was for charity but, however good the cause, it does not make it right to borrow money when one cannot afford to do so. As a Government, we clearly recognise that the previous Government committed us to borrowings that we cannot afford. Sheffield Forgemasters is not a charity; it is a very important business and a key part of the Sheffield community. We will work with Sheffield Forgemasters, which has indicated that it is looking for commercial routes to make its plans possible. We very much want to see that happen, but we do not believe that it is possible to provide Government funding to do so. We will obviously want to return to some of the other issues, and I will certainly write to hon. Members on them. Once again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving us the opportunity to discuss such a crucial subject.