Electricity Grid Upgrades

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I and many Conservatives hope and aspire for a clean energy future, but I wish to make three points that the Government and the House should consider when contemplating the upgrade of our electricity grid.

First, similar to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), are we basing our decisions on the expedient technology of today or on the ideal technology of the future? High voltage direct current is increasingly used around the world. It means only six cables instead of 18, and there are no heat issues, which means they can be closely spaced. Many other countries favour this approach over pylons and, here in the UK, National Grid itself has favoured it in Lincolnshire, concluding that it is cheaper, quicker and less risky than overhead lines. Relying on old-fashioned technology is increasingly a fool’s errand. We see it in defence, social policy and now in energy.

Secondly, can we allow for a moment the notion that preserving our national heritage is a fundamental part of meeting our net zero commitments? After all, we do that in other parts of policy. We demand—sorry, I have lost my place. Can I take a moment?

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I call Emma Foody.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Spencer]

May I put on the record my apologies for fluffing my speech a moment ago? One of the points I wanted to make is that we take into account our natural environment when we look at housing and planning policy. The reality is that when we want to build a development on the side of a village, put an extension on a house or expand our housing stock, planning authorities demand that we take into account the natural environment. That importantly includes the aesthetic, which we talk about a lot, as well as the preservation of our landscapes.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. This is an intervention, not another speech.

[Patrick Spencer]

If the Government choose to solve the housing crisis by taking into account our environment, why can we not do that with energy policy as well?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Sir John Hayes]

On that basis, Sir Christopher, I will not give way again, for as you have noted, I have been immensely generous. I will abbreviate my remarks without missing out any of the other four subjects that I promised to speak about. Let me deal with them very rapidly. Efficiency is critically important in delivering energy policy. As I have already said, if we want to get that policy pursued and delivered quickly, we need an approach that avoids the protracted debates and disputes I have described.

Let us speak more strategically about energy policy, on which the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) made a powerful point; we need to understand that bringing supply closer to demand is vital at a strategic level. Successive Governments have failed at this. A lot of people have made comments about the previous Government—the previous Government would have done a lot better if they had listened to me more often. I hope this one will; then they will not go wrong. It is important to reconsider the relationship between supply and demand. No Government have done that with sufficient vigour, and I hope this one will.

On economics, putting in the pylons will also have a displacement effect, because Lincolnshire is perhaps the most important county of all in respect of food production. I understand that about 30% of the fresh produce we consume goes through my constituency. South Lincolnshire produces 20% of the vegetables we consume, 20% of the sugar beet, and so on. The displacement effect of energy infrastructure, including pylons and solar, will have a devastating effect on food production and therefore food security. I simply say to the Minister that energy security must not be made the enemy of food security, and vice versa. That is why the economics are more complex than they perhaps first appear.

Finally, on the cognitive ergonomics of Government, it is really important that in winding up, the Minister assures this Chamber that the Departments across Government are working closely together. We have talked about land use studies, and that is a good thing, but given the commitments that the Planning Minister has made to beauty and the commitments that the Environment Secretary has made to food production and security, it is important that we do not simply pursue a policy that is invidious because it contradicts the other priorities of Government. In my long experience as a Minister in a variety of Departments, I have found that lateral thinking in Government is a rare and precious thing; I simply recommend to the Minister a more lateral approach in combining those critical priorities.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is right: we need to approach this in a bolder than partisan way, because we are speaking about fundamental decisions in the interest of our country. This is a matter of national interest, but it does not have to be a matter of national interest that compromises the common good.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

Our climate leadership is measurable and real. We have reduced emissions by more than any other major economy since 1990. We were the first to legislate for net zero. We have eliminated coal, which as late as 2012 produced nearly 40% of our electricity supply—the legacy of the Labour party—and we have lifted renewables from 7% to 48%. We have cut emissions by more than others, transforming our energy system, and we are leading on this issue internationally and domestically. That is exactly what the Government rely on in fulfilling their aspiration to climate leadership.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that one consequence of the Climate Change Committee report is to increase our country’s reliance on Chinese technology and raw materials?

[Graham Stuart]

China has even greater offshore wind capacity than ourselves—it has the largest wind and largest solar capacity in the world—and it has a significant level of production. We recognise that we will need technology from all over the world, including China, if we are to meet our net zero aspirations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

We have gone from 14% of our homes being insulated under the previous Government to nearly 50%—it will be 50% this year—and we have set up an energy taskforce to reduce the usage of energy and make it more efficient. However, the policy of the hon. Lady’s party, and that of the official Opposition, of importing all the oil and gas that we require and not providing new licences is simply insane. It means that every single family in Britain will be subject to the next tyrant like Putin, and that the carbon used will be double what is taken from the North sea. It is bonkers policy.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of increases in the population on the ability to meet net zero targets.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

Population growth is taken into account when setting our decarbonisation goals. Specifically, it is accounted for in our baseline emissions projections, which help determine the effort required to meet our carbon targets.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that in 2050, on present Government policies, we will have 25 million more people in this country than there were in 1990, the base date for carbon dioxide emissions? He obviously accepts that a higher population leads to higher global emissions, but can he also say that when it comes to climate change, it would be a good idea for this Government to concentrate on a net migration policy, rather than net zero?

[Graham Stuart]

As my hon. Friend knows, the Prime Minister is absolutely determined to bring net migration down to sustainable levels. I would also point out to him that the UK does not set decarbonisation targets per capita, because all countries need to reduce emissions in absolute terms. We are determined to play our part in doing that—to move to net zero, but in a pro-growth, pro-business manner.

Net Zero: 2050 Target

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will remember my three years as a Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. I was always a passionate advocate for nuclear, because one of the first things I was made aware of was that we need a balanced power generation system with lots of different technologies. In energy, there is no silver bullet, as I am sure my hon. Friend appreciates. We have to rely on a range of technologies in order to provide resilience to the system. Three metrics of any energy system are the “SAS” of security, affordability and sustainability. Those are the three watchwords I recall when I consider this important subject.

As far as I am concerned, and certainly as far as the Government are concerned, unless they have changed their policy in the past few months—this was the case when I was in government—nuclear has to be part of the answer. There is a debate to be had as to what sort of nuclear we need, be it small modular reactors or the large-scale approach. Our view until recently has been that we need a mix of both. I believe that is still the Government’s position, but the Minister can answer on that.

I wish to touch broadly on a couple of areas where, supportive as I am of the Government, they need to be wary and deliberate in their approach. Taxes have been increased, with the windfall taxes and the electricity generator levy, or whatever one wants to call them. I fully understand the political need for them, but we should not be discouraging investment in key technologies. The Government should examine the capital allowance regime and ensure there is more incentive to invest in decarbonisation technologies, not less.

One issue that has bedevilled our power generation system is the grid. I cannot see any colleagues from Norfolk and the east coast, but one issue that they have relates to the connectors, the landing stations and the substations for electricity generated by offshore wind in the North sea. We need to see how we can more intelligently and efficiently create an offshore network that can land this electricity in one point. I would like more Government engagement on that; it has been considerable but the point is important.

I realise that I am running out of time, because others wish to take part in the debate, but I wish to mention buildings, which were touched on by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton. This has been the most difficult nut to crack in the whole decarbonisation space, as we see when we look at various other sectors. I have mentioned the power generation sector, where we have decreased considerably our dependence on fossil fuels, gas burning and coal burning. In the transport sector, electric vehicles have really taken off in the UK. We need more take-up of them, but the transport sector is an area where there has been success. I saw my first EV in Israel 10 years ago, in 2013, at a time when we had zero EVs. As late as 2016 we had very few, and there has now been quite an impressive take-up. If we go down that route, we can imagine a world where we have decarbonised transport to a considerable extent. However, this area of domestic heating and how we decarbonise our housing stock has proved the most challenging.

There are two issues with our domestic housing stock. First, the buildings themselves are not very energy-efficient; we have the oldest housing stock in Europe. Secondly, as I have said, 90% of those houses are rely on the burning of fossil fuels. So there are two criteria on which we are not doing very well. First, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, we have to make sure that we can retrofit and improve the housing stock. Secondly, we have to be smart about how we heat those homes once they have been improved and what the power sources will be. As I have said, there is a big challenge there.

Given the huge reliance on natural gas in our system domestically, hydrogen has to be part of the answer, as we see when we look at where the Germans are. They have a huge dependence on natural gas for industrial purposes, and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine set the cat among the pigeons. German Ministers, including Energy Ministers, and other politicians are focused on how to substitute other forms of power for the gas they imported from Russia. They have ruled out nuclear power and focused on liquefied natural gas and, particularly, on hydrogen, which is a source of energy that the Government could look at again in order to accelerate its deployment.

Briefly, I want to mention what the United States is doing. Since I started at BEIS, one of the biggest changes has been the introduction of the US Inflation Reduction Act. Industrial players in the sector say there is a huge pull to the United States because of the subsidies and support it is giving to green technologies, in a naked and unembarrassed way. As energy Minister, Secretary of State for BEIS and, briefly, Chancellor, I was very keen that we had something to say on this, because it is not just a huge challenge to us but to the European industrial base. Having been in his position, I know that the Minister will not be able to talk about Treasury affairs, but I would be interested to hear the Department’s thinking on the US IRA development.

This is an introductory debate about a subject I am very passionate about, as are many Members here, but finally I want to thank the House and the many varied organisations that have sent me great notes and briefings, which show me that this is one of the most important issues any Government will face in the next 20 or 30 years. I have brought this debate, other MPs will secure further debates before the end of this Parliament, and I am convinced we will revisit the subject in the next Parliament. Many issues that we debate are of largely ephemeral interest, but this matter will affect our children and generations to come, so I am honoured to be able to introduce this short debate today. It is not the first, but one of the very many debates we will have, and should have, about this crucial issue.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Before I call Barry Gardiner, I remind hon. Members that we have the wind-up speeches at 5.10 pm at the latest, so each contribution should be a maximum of five minutes.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Sir Christopher, under your guidance, I will try to speak swiftly. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on introducing the debate; I welcome much that he said. We are debating the Government policy on reaching net zero by 2050, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to think about the Government’s barriers to reaching net zero by 2050, because the truth is that we are not on a path to net zero.

Not all is bad. Under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021, the UK created a strong legal framework for achieving net zero emissions by 2050. We, on both sides of the House, should be proud of that. However, legal promises alone cannot stand. They must be accompanied by consequential and transformational political action. The question is not what we have committed ourselves to, but how we are implementing the steps that are required to get there.

The Government know that. The 2021 net zero strategy clearly outlines the fact that achieving net zero

“will require the transformation of every sector of the global economy.”

In the 2023 environmental principles policy statement, the Government commit themselves to

“a system that places environmental considerations at the heart of policymaking across government.”

Again, I welcome the language, but the net zero growth plan does not follow that vision. Instead, it sets out a vision for a market led and technology driven net zero transition. A technology centred, market led approach is Government-speak for a voluntarist business-as-usual approach. This is too important to get wrong.

Rooting our net zero approach in technological developments blinkers us to the essential unity of the twin crises of climate and the environment and ignores the very nature-based solutions that the UK Government have rightly championed internationally. It shows a fundamental incoherence in the Government’s philosophical approach. We will neither achieve our environmental goals nor reap the benefits of the economic opportunities of the 21st century if we leave it to the market to lead. The Climate Change Committee has pointed out that while currently more than 31,000 people across the UK are employed in offshore wind alone, that is set to rise to 97,000 by 2030. This is a huge opportunity.

I welcome some of the investment that the Government have committed to achieving net zero, with £30 billion of public investment for a green industrial revolution, £36 billion of funding for improvements in energy efficiency, £20 billion for carbon capture and storage and a billion for low-carbon technologies. The Government appear to remain perfectly convinced that their approach will catalyse around—they say—£100 billion of private investment in developing those new industries and new carbon technologies, such as offshore wind and carbon capture and storage. That is a combined total of £187 billion.

By contrast, the Climate Change Committee has made it clear that we need between £300 billion and £430 billion of investment to achieve our goals. More importantly, it is clear that a strategic programme is required to reform the regulatory frameworks and to remove those barriers to the planning and construction of renewable energy infrastructure. It is not just about money; it is about the whole regulatory framework. The 2022 Climate Change Committee report points out that that has not been done; there is no adequate policy framework for catalysing the large-scale transformations necessary to achieve the established net zero targets by 2050. It is concerned that there does not seem to be any urgency on the part of the Government to do so.

I welcome the independent review conducted by the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). He recognised the barriers that remain in place. His review said that the Government should take immediate action, and it recommended 25 short-term policies that the Government should achieve by 2025. The review called those policies “25 by 2025”. The idea was both to remove barriers that prevented business and industries from supporting the net zero ambition and to provide an immediate signal of intent to the private sector that the Government were serious about delivering their net zero target.

We were disappointed on the Environmental Audit Committee when the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), responded to questions in our most recent hearing. When asked about wood pellet biomass at the Drax power station—a technology that emits 18% more carbon than coal, yet still remains a critical part of the Government’s net zero agenda—the Secretary of State said that he hoped he might be able to say more in a future session. Well, we all hope that, because we have been eagerly awaiting the Government’s biomass strategy, which was due to be published last year and has still not made it into the public domain. His response on hydrogen, supposedly a key part in the Government’s plan, was equally disappointing. The Secretary of State—

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. We have limited time and the hon. Gentleman has now gone over his time limit. I call Virginia Crosbie.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I admire the chutzpah of the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) in bringing forward the debate. Not only did he make questionable decisions as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy with regard to Scotland’s net zero ambitions, but he was then responsible—along with the previous Prime Minister—for crashing the economy and making net zero far more expensive for this Government, as well as everyone else, due to the soaring cost of borrowing for capital investment.

The right hon. Member spoke about nuclear energy; we really need to move away from the nuclear obsession. Hinkley will now cost £33 billion and it is years late. Sizewell C, which will invariably cost upwards of £40 billion, is located on a site subject to coastal erosion and climate change sea rises. SMRs are not the answer, either. There is no approved design, they have an estimated cost of £2 billion each and Rolls-Royce is hoping for an initial order of up to 15. That is £30 billion of commitment better spent on energy-efficiency measures, storage and the electrification of heating. Nuclear is also inflexible and not a good accompaniment for intermittent renewables. Yet further investment in storage is therefore required.

The right hon. Member described pumped-storage hydro as a Scottish technology. The First Minister recently wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to agree a cap and floor mechanism that will get Coire Glas, the Cruachan extension and other pumped-storage hydro schemes up and running. They cost a fraction of what nuclear does and need only the revenue mechanism to release private capital investment.

Contracts for difference have been a success in delivering the deployment of renewables. However, in the Tories’ typical penny-wise, pound-foolish attitude, their lowest cost obsession has seen a major failure to develop UK supply chains properly. It is Tory procurement processes that have prevented Scotland from properly becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind. It is crystal-clear that a coherent industrial strategy is required. That said, I am pretty sure that we had one, and we all know what happened to it lately. The failure to invest—[Interruption.]

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Does the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) seek to intervene?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I would be happy to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Many of the people who are in fuel poverty live in park homes. Perhaps the Minister would be interested in meeting me, in my capacity as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on park homes. At a meeting of the APPG yesterday, considerable concern was expressed about the fact that the alternative funding scheme was not delivering for many park home residents because of anomalies and inflexibilities. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has written to the Minister’s Department about this, but has not yet received a response.

[Amanda Solloway]

As I have said, I am always keen to meet stakeholders, and of course I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend.