National Policy Statements (Energy)

Dai Havard Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I have tabled three amendments to the national policy statements motions—amendment (e) to motion 1, amendment (b) to motion 2, and amendment (a) to motion 3. I have one minute in which to speak to each one, so I will try to get the end of my speech in first. I say to the Minister that, on the arguments about delay, and if he accepts any changes, I understand the need for clarity, which is partly what I am arguing for, and that the industry needs some sort of certainty on the plan. A supposed delay in the national policy statements would not mean that applications could not be made, proceed and be heard. I know that because an application is currently being heard for a huge incinerator in my constituency that would take 750,000 tonnes of non-recycled waste every year and generate 65 MW of electricity.

That perversity has come about by default, in the sense that the Minister, having decided that waste should be part of the IPC process, has set a minimum requirement of 50 MW, which has almost invited the industry to come forward with applications for huge developments. The industry has decided that it will have various sub-UK regional units, and has used this opportunity to do exactly that. Nothing has been said about the proximity principle.

Local people are trying to decide how best to deal with their own waste locally. Part of the solution might be smaller incineration, and I do not contest that. I contest the scale of the current proposals, which is why I have tabled the amendments. As an hon. Member said earlier, the argument for moving this material into the guidance on fossil fuel is about the fact that it produces a huge amount of carbon. I understand the argument about why methane is better than carbon because it can be captured and used. In fact, the incinerator proposed in my constituency, basically as part of a current open-cast mine, is next to a huge landfill site. So there is a triple alliance. They are capturing the methane from the landfill site and selling it, so to me that is something of a false analysis.

The question is whether such activities are green. In the context of the proximity principle, I fail to understand how it is green to drag waste from one end of the country to another without adding carbon into the calculation. I also fail to understand how it could be carbon-neutral to import waste, because my great fear is that the way this guidance is structured means that it will not be about waste policy, but about opportunities for people to speculate on energy generation, ignorant of a waste policy. The receiving stations for the waste will be at ports, to come by rail and road to be burned. The sustainability of these mechanisms is questionable. If we are to move to zero waste the amount of potential fuel supply will reduce—and rightly so—so how sustainable will they be over 25, 35 and 40 years? They might be sustainable if we were to burn the waste generated by the Camorra in Naples and import it into Newport to do that, but heaven forfend that such a thing should take place. Well, not now.

The waste hierarchy is not simply about local questions of determination. In the longer term it could go much further, so I invite the Minister to choose, of all the amendments I have tabled, to put this method into the IPC’s consideration process. If it is not possible to do it this way, will he please explain how it should be done, because at the moment we have a series of factors that it is apparently not to examine. It seems that the list of what not to examine, including connection and the grid, is more important than the list of things it is to examine. That means that it cannot determine any particular decision in the round, in its proper context—certainly not in relation to energy supply under the waste hierarchy.

I say to the Minister that there are security problems here. If we choose to have a smaller number of larger units, that is not secure. We should be looking for a more distributed process. That is what I thought the Assembly in Cardiff was trying to think about. This trumps anything that the Assembly would want to do. It is a policy that applies across England and Wales, yet it denies the Welsh Assembly Government the opportunity to make a real decision. That is why I proposed to take it out of the processes. That would not have stopped wind energy and all the other things, but it would have given them the opportunity to determine that, so I ask the Minister—with very little time now to speak to the amendments properly—to take account—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I call Martin Horwood.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Barker]

I want to press on. If I can give way a little later, I will, but there have been a lot of contributions and I want to try to respond to them.

The hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) were among those who raised their significant concerns about the potential for an expansion of incineration. I understand the gut instinct against energy from waste, but we must recognise that it has moved on significantly over the past decade and now involves a wide range of different technologies. The important thing to remember about any form of energy-from-waste technologies is that they sit at the very bottom of the waste hierarchy. Before we reach that point, we must first ensure that there is waste prevention and reduction, as well as reuse and recycling. We must prepare for recycling and recovery and, ultimately, if there is no other use for the waste, we can turn to the responsible creation of energy from waste.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough pointed out, however, we must take account of local opinion. This NPS is only a framework. Were there no framework for energy from waste in it, a free-for-all could be created. The NPS creates a framework in which these decisions can be made; it does not necessarily mean that there will be an automatic presumption in favour of energy from waste.

[Mr Havard]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gregory Barker]

I am going to take interventions towards the end of my speech if I have time.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) made some important points about fishing, and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) will be happy to meet him to discuss his concerns. The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of transmission charging. We recognise that a new structure will be required for a whole host of new generation technologies, which will be in different locations from before. In creating that structure, we will need new grid connections and a fair and progressive charging regime that will enable investment.

The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) raised his concern about wind farms. He made an important point, but I cannot comment on individual schemes. It is a requirement of the planning regime, however, that cumulative impacts such as we see in locations in the north-east are considered in total. We would expect the local planning authority to set out important local issues in its local impact report, just as we also want host communities for these installations to reap the benefits of taking these assets into their communities.

Let me deal now with the issue of nuclear. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has spoken with great passion on this subject over many years; I do not expect that I am going to sway him tonight, but I do greatly respect his sincerity on this issue. He gave a rousing speech and some of his concerns were echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley). I do not know whether he is a new convert, but I also recognise his sincerity and I share his passion for a more decentralised energy economy and for the need to push forward with renewables, which have so much to offer the UK.

[Mr Havard]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gregory Barker]

In just a moment. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion also spoke about nuclear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Havard]

Strategy and policy—wonderful stuff. The relationship between incineration, the planning process and energy generation is clearly a matter of debate within the Government. We need an understanding of their way of describing it. Will Ministers thus agree to meet a cross-party delegation of people who have concerns about, or information on, this policy area so that we could inform the discussion and debate as it happens?

[Gregory Barker]

Of course I will. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy will also be delighted to meet such a delegation. We recognise the strongly held opinions in this area and the fact that profound local impacts are at stake, so it is absolutely right to listen to a range of parliamentary opinion on the subject.

Returning to the nuclear issue, as the cheapest large-scale, low-carbon source of generation, nuclear should be part of the mix—so long as it is without public subsidy. The NPS deals only with direct planning issues; all the other issues—decommissioning, waste, insurance, safety—are outside the NPS framework. They fall to other frameworks, but I can give the assurance that robust regimes are in place for all those issues.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) was deeply sceptical about the whole renewables agenda. I respect his sincerity, but no one in this House—not even the most zealous climate change zealot!—would suggest that we could run the whole UK energy economy on wind power alone. Wind can be part only of a much bigger mix of renewables and other forms of generation, and there is no one single form of generation on which we want to be dependent. That includes nuclear. I remind my right hon. Friend that, last year, Sizewell B was out of operation for seven months, during which time wind powered about 500,000 homes. The important thing is to have a properly balanced energy sector and to get ourselves progressively off the oil and gas hook so that we do not see the constant ratcheting up of fuel bills, which we have seen recently with wholesale gas prices up 40% last year.

We heard an extremely thoughtful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)—a great champion not just for nuclear, but of the whole green coast.

We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) about his sustained campaign against offshore wind. I appreciate how strongly he feels on this issue, but I point out that the NPS framework is not responsible; the problem lies really with the Welsh Assembly, which has zoned areas for wind farm development—technical advice note 8 areas—focusing developers’ interests in areas such as Montgomeryshire. It is at the Welsh Assembly that my hon. Friend’s ire should be directed, but we of course listen clearly to the messages he sends.

The national policy statements are another example of the coalition gripping the modern energy agenda. They constitute a major step towards reversal of decades of neglect and delay.