Marine Renewables Industry

Claire Young Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate and on his efforts to keep this issue on the agenda in Parliament. I want to reinforce the point he made about the Crown Estate Commission. As Liberal Democrats, we believe in working with communities to deliver change. The Crown Estate may own the seabed, but that does not mean the commission should be allowed to ignore the needs of others who make their living from the sea, whether through fishing, tourism or any other means. That point was picked up by a number of Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), who spoke up powerfully for the fishing industry in Brixham. The commission should also not be exempt from the duty to protect nature that other public bodies have, recognising—as we do—that the nature and climate emergencies go hand in hand.

On the wider issue, marine renewables will help us to meet our commitment to tackle the climate crisis—the single biggest challenge facing our generation.

[Wera Hobhouse]

My hon. Friend and I are members of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, and yesterday we heard evidence from the Secretary of State. He said that the transition to net zero is the biggest opportunity for all of us, including those in the south-west, to create prosperity and the jobs we need for the future. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Claire Young]

Absolutely—it is almost as though my hon. Friend has read the next section of my speech. I was about to say that marine renewables will also boost jobs and businesses throughout the supply chain, and will be part of the solution to the energy crisis that has hit people hard in recent years.

Sadly, we are living in the shadow of the Conservatives’ failure to fully invest in renewable energy and to properly insulate our homes. The previous Conservative Government rowed back on their pledges to meet net zero and shamefully watered down policies aimed at reducing our carbon emissions. That means we need bold action now to put us back on the right course. Liberal Democrats want to see this Government step up to the plate and provide a comprehensive energy strategy designed to bring down bills, end fuel poverty, cut greenhouse gas emissions and deliver energy security.

A key part of that strategy must be marine renewable energy. I welcome the initial progress being made, with a 50% uplift in ringfenced funding support for tidal stream energy as part of the contracts for difference renewables auctions. With a significant stretch of the Severn estuary coastline in my constituency, I am keen to see the UK leading the world in tidal power. My hon. Friends the Members for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) and for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) highlighted the opportunities in the wider south-west. Given that it is his birthday, I will not argue with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington today about his plans to make Taunton the centre of that enterprise. The 50% uplift is a good first step and shows that we are beginning to take the sector seriously.

However, there is so much more potential out there, if only the Government would reach out and grasp it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned the parallels with the gas and oil industry, and I would like to look at wind power as an example of how these things can be done. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, he made it his key priority to back renewables and managed to push through a bold climate agenda that embraced new technologies. That quadrupled the UK’s level of renewable power and made us a world leader in offshore wind energy.

The Office for National Statistics has stated that employment estimates within the low-carbon and renewable energy economy are at record levels. Because of the willingness to back British renewables, the industry is now worth an estimated £69.4 billion to the UK economy and supports thousands of jobs. The economic benefits and the need to make sure they are kept in the UK have been highlighted by many Members, including the hon. Members for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert), for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon).

It is good to hear about the important partnerships with universities, including Herriot-Watt, mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland, and Queen’s University Belfast, mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

The Government talk a lot about their drive for economic growth, and I suggest that that goes hand in hand with investing in renewable power generation. Putting a just transition front and centre allows us to not only reskill those already working in the energy industry, but upskill people to give them new opportunities around our coast. Our coastal areas have long felt left behind and forgotten about, as I know from talking to people in places such as Severn Beach in my constituency. Those areas now have the potential to become booming hubs of activity, which is why Liberal Democrats want to see marine renewables used as part of a plan to invest in them, with a dedicated skills fund to provide green skills and jobs to communities.

I would like briefly to pick up the issue of grid connections, which I have mentioned in the House in reference to other renewables and which the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) raised today. A plan to deliver the supporting infrastructure must be part of any strategy.

Britain has long been defined by our connection with the sea that surrounds our island. We have a unique relationship with the waves, and we need to make the most of that, understanding what it looks like in the 21st century. Our marine environments are already under threat from sewage and plastic pollution. Having a dedicated marine industry strategy will allow us to carefully manage the development of our biodiverse areas out at sea. That is why we need to have new targets for marine protected areas and to mandate the Government to monitor those sites fully.

Addressing the climate crisis is about embracing opportunity and empowering communities to make the most of their surroundings. It is time that the UK stepped up as a world leader in this area, so I hope the Minister will agree to listen to our proposals, which will benefit the marine renewables sector greatly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Young Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I would be absolutely delighted to meet my hon. Friend; we can talk about data centres at the same time. Carbon capture is an incredibly important part of our future. We know that we have to have it in order to decarbonise some of our very hard-to-decarbonise industries, and I would be delighted to talk about the possible jobs that it could bring as well.

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

Local further education colleges are actively pursuing the formation of a skills partnership to meet the opportunity and challenge of potential small modular reactor development in Oldbury in my constituency. Does the Minister welcome their proactive approach, and will she join me in meeting them to better understand the support that the further education sector needs to deliver this vital work?

Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits

Claire Young Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacDonald]

Somebody whose opinion I respect greatly told me that undergrounding cables was no more expensive. I was very surprised at that, because I had understood from the transmission line companies in Scotland that it was a great deal more expensive to underground them. I will definitely look into that, because I know that it is a requirement to underground them in Norway. We should explore that issue further.

So we have boom time in renewables, generating trillions of pounds over many decades, and we have a rural population that really needs financial help and investment.

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

In the last decade, my constituency has seen a wide range of solar schemes with different community benefits, ranging from £20,000 a year for the 25 years of the project’s expected life, which is handed over automatically to parish councils, to just a £30,000 pot, which people have to bid into. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be equity of treatment, and that there are benefits to having an ongoing relationship, beyond the monetary value it brings?

[Mr MacDonald]

I think my hon. Friend will be thrilled with the next part of my speech, which will answer that question. We have a huge financial need, and we have the renewables revenue, which we will talk about in a second. Money and need—bingo, we have a match. Is that not exactly what we are here in Parliament to facilitate?

I am pleased to hear that the Great British Energy Bill is largely here, as it holds the prosperity of much of rural Britain in its hands. It can insist that communities have a stake in local renewables projects and that we legislate to require all renewables projects to pay a significant sum to impacted areas. Amazingly, it made no mention of community ownership of renewables projects or of community benefits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Young Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

Whether it is our ending of the onshore wind ban, the CCUS funding we announced last week, our plans for Great British Energy or our warm homes plan, we are hitting the ground running to deliver our clean power mission. The Conservatives spent 14 years dithering and delaying, leaving ordinary people to pay the price, but we will get on with the job of delivering energy security so that we can secure financial security for families, good jobs and climate action.

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

T6. To achieve net zero, we will need widespread micro-generation alongside large-scale projects. However, as a local farmer who wanted to install an anaerobic digester told me, grid connections are both costly and subject to long delays. What does the Secretary of State plan to do to address these issues, particularly in rural areas such as my Thornbury and Yate constituency?

[Ed Miliband]

The hon. Lady raises a question about the problems of grid connection that is familiar to many Members. We are building on work done by Nick Winser, the former electricity networks commissioner, and we want to go further to tackle the problem of grid connections once and for all.

Contracts for Difference

Claire Young Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

To be helpful to Members, I gently point out that it is important that they be here for the start of a statement if they wish to be called to ask a question. I will be very kind today. I call Claire Young.

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. The latest allocation round is good news and should be welcomed, especially after the fiasco of the last round. It is vital that Britain invests in our sustainable green energy production, so that we can guarantee our energy security and lead the world as a green powerhouse. However, the only way that we can achieve that is if we also push ahead with energy storage and ensure that we boost our capacity to retain the energy that is generated, so what steps is the Department taking to accelerate the roll-out of new storage solutions, including green hydrogen?

[Ed Miliband]

The hon. Lady, whom I welcome to her place, makes an important point. We often get questions about what to do in an intermittent system. We need different forms of both dispatchable power and energy storage. One project that my Department is working on—continuing some of the work of the previous Government—is long-duration energy storage and battery technology. Personally, I think that the system continues to underestimate the potential role of battery and long-duration storage, and we will say more about that in the months ahead.